Making History, the Fictional Kind

If you've never "done" a Highlights Foundation workshop, put this on your Wish List.
An amazing experience, and I don't just mean the food or the people. Your own cabin in the woods. Surrounded by writers. Your complete manuscript critiqued by professionals.

Check out the book I found on the shelf in the Lodge, where the faculty stays.
There are all sorts of old and odd books here!

Yesterday's sunset!

A walk to the end of the road and we discovered an office with all sorts of artifacts.
Including an original Highlights Magazine.

In anticipation of this week, I did a little Historical Fiction reading.

Thanks to Bobbi Miller, my brain is now thinking about what Avi had to say.
(Yes, I totally get the costume drama thing.)

Avi, an award-winning master of the genre, offers that some historical fiction stays close to the known facts, while others are little more than costume drama. “Ultimately, what is most important is the story, and the characters.” Facts, according to Avi, do not make a story. “Believable people do…Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction makes truth less a stranger.”

Check out Bobbi's article, Why is Historical Fiction Important, HERE.

Lots more quotes from authors you'll know and love. And links to other things historical!
Here's one example, re: Teaching with Historical Fiction.

And these writing tips, from Mary Sharratt, via Publisher's Weekly:
"The most innovative historical fiction, to my mind, draws obscure characters from the margins of history and sets them center stage."

And if you're interested, there's this, my previous thoughts on Historical Fiction:
http://ascattergood.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-heck-is-historical-about-it-anyway.html 


Stay tuned.  I hope to post a few quotes from our fabulous writers of Historical Fiction here this week at Highlights. Soon!






 

Word After Word After Word

What a fine title!

Click here for a great interview with Patricia MacLachlan. I'm a big fan of a lot of her books. They are well loved by kids and the adults who share them. The 3rd graders at the school where I last worked read Baby, the 4th graders Sarah, Plain and Tall. We had some memorable discussions about those books. I'm looking forward to reading this new one.

When Publishers Weekly interviewed her about the novel being published just this month, Word After Word After Word, they asked how it happens she writes so sparely and can squeeze so much into her shorter works. I love her answer, maybe because having grown up in the South, I tend to use way more words than I need! Revision/ reduction is key. But wouldn't it be nice if I could start off knowing just the right words to use...

Here's her answer to the question about writing sparely. Be sure to read the entire interview. Good stuff.

I think what happens is you write how you grew up. And I was born on the prairie and so everything is kind of spare on the prairie. And so I’m just used to writing in that way. Sarah, Plain and Tall was that way. And most of my fiction is. I like writing small pieces. Somehow it just suits me. My writer’s group laughs that I start to faint when I get to 200 pages—so that’s kind of a standing joke.

Thoughts on My TV, Today

Just saw this on the new YA Book Club blog on the PW Site.

"So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install, A lovely bookshelf on the wall."—
Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Easy for me to say. And Roald Dahl. Neither of us has/ had young children in today's TV World, with so many temptations. And not all of them necessarily bad...

Maybe don't throw away the TV, just put up a big bookcase filled with great books next to it?