Happy News!
My story, "Angel in the Whirlwind" (see below, in the Angel anthology group) has won second prize in the YA (young adult) division of the Smartwriters.com short-story contest.
All stories that placed as winners will be included in an anthology of short stories for YA readers published by Blooming Tree Press. The anthology will be published in 2007, and will be for sale at Smartwriters.com.
To which I say, finally.
Also, check out my new blog at http://rosefiend.blogspot.com.
Find out more here about my young adult books (two books are for midgrade, or younger, readers). None of them are published yet, but there are some editors in NY who have requested the complete MSS. It's going to happen someday -- sooner than later, I hope. Enjoy!
Oh, if you'd like to see the names of the articles and stories I've published in children's magazines, including Cricket, Cicada, and Highlights, click here and you'll go right to 'em.
The Symphonians is a young adult novel about Kathy, a shy high-schooler who dives into her novel she's writing about the Symphonians as she falls in love, deals with her grandpa's abuse of her grandma, and later gets into an abusive relationship of her own. It's over at FSG right now after having been requested. Please please please take it!
Read the synopsis here. And read the first chapter here.
Kathy's story is semi-autobiographical. Some of the stuff in the novel happened, some didn't, and some happened but not like that. I really did have the Symphonians when I was in high school, though, except that there were about nine of them. I pared their number to four so the reader wouldn't be awash in musicians. I had to take out Penelope's love interest, though, for the interests of the novel. I hated to do it, since she and Rizzo had been together for almost twenty years now! Maybe someday I could write a novel about them to make up for it.
Leavetaking
When loggers devastate the forest the raccoons call home, Thorn, the chieftain of the White Oak tribe of raccoons, must lead his tribe into a hostile world to seek their ancestral home. Here's the first chapter. This book's for midgrade readers.
I started Leavetaking in 1996, as a sequel to a raccoon novel that will never see publication (though I keep thinking I should go back and write down all the backstory and make it happen). I think Thorn's one of my favorite characters because he gets so exasperated all the time but he's still able to function, though it gives him headaches. I haven't sent it out lately because I've been rebuilding big chunks of the novel. It's a real mess, but these revisions are really going to make it a real edge-of-the-seat read.
Silverlady Descends
To save the tribes from starvation and war, Silverlady, the tribe's chieftain, must descend into the Underworld and cross into a parallel world to find the truth - and to fight the Outcast, the spirit of evil who takes the shape of a great, fiery hound. Here's the first two chapters.
I started the novel Silverlady Descends in winter 1998, when Madonna’s "Frozen" was released. At the time, I’d been contemplating a sequel to my first raccoon novel. The song unlocked the images I needed: a sere winter landscape, crows on the wind, a raccoon shivering in the deep snow. The novel’s about a raccoon tribal leader who’s hiding an obsession with death, though she doesn’t realize it until she must walk into the Underworld, where spirits of the dead are being held against their will, insofar as the dead may have wills. It’s more of a Dantean interiorscape that she must face.
Angel in the Silence is a collection of nine realistic short stories, written for young adults, about people who break free of their isolation any way they can. The complete MS was requested by Henry Holt, so keep your fingers crossed. I sure am.
Read the first story in the collection, "Angel in the Whirlwind." This is the one that won second place in the Smartwriters.com short-story contest. How do you like that!
I ended up collecting these after I noticed that half of my short stories have angels in them. But then I realized that almost all my stories are also about loneliness, which was a much more unified theme. I've always been fascinated by angels, and have experimented with writing stories from an angelic pov. But when I tried to write about beings who (according to Aquinas) don't have corporeal bodies, who don't see in the same way we do, who have a different set of senses than humans, and who communicate in images and feelings that convey more than words do, it turned my brain into bean dip. I figured I'd better learn how to write about humans first; they're tricky enough.
The rose has transfixed mankind for millenia. Here are some of the stories this immortal genus could tell.
I'm still working on the proposal on this one. I'm having quite a time separating the fiction from the truth in these accounts. I suspect there are lots of garden writers who are not checking their sources when discussing roses. Also, I need to learn more about history overall. After writing an article about Truman's part in recognizing the state of Israel in 1948, I've found out that a lot of scholarship is expected of historians to be sure to get it right, and truth be told, I am a wimp. But I think that once I find some reliable sources I'll be in better shape!
How To Grow Everything! a complete guide for young gardeners.
This book will give young gardeners easy ways to create and maintain vegetable or perennial gardens, and will act as a reference book about the commoner plants and vegetables they will run into. You can think of it as Damrosch’s The Garden Primer for young gardeners, with a careers twist.
The book will cover garden preparation and maintenance – choosing a site, using soil amendments, mulching, and weeding. I’ll describe all the shortcuts you can take to keep the garden under control – it is no fun pulling up tall weeds in 90 degree heat (which I’ve done). I’ll also provide ways to save labor if worst-case scenarios come to pass. (I’ve seen how kids handle shovels. I’ll make everything as easy for them as possible.)
Gardening is hard work. It’s messed up something in my lower back, and has given me carpal tunnel. That’s why I also want to include ways to hold a shovel, use a hoe, and dig with a trowel for the beginner. There are experts that specialize in ergonomic gardening who will help me with that chapter.
The book will also cover propagation for outdoor gardens, Vegetable Gardening 101, perennials and annuals, and bugs and diseases. As a bonus, the last chapter will describe a number of jobs in horticulture that the young reader can look into later on, and qualifications they need for each.
Tips on creative writing for children.
Do you want to write for children, whether it be the wee munchkins or for those jaded high schoolers that look through you as you walk by? Click here for a few ideas on craft for children's writing, and on working toward publication.
If you think the idea of writing for children is cute or precious, or you want to write for children because it's easy, please go away.
However, if you want to write for children because children are cool and zany and have such a neat way of looking at life and the world, while adults are kind of boring; and you are not afraid to take TEN YEARS to learn the craft (because that's generally how long a writing apprenticeship will last) and keep learning the craft for the rest of your life, because kids are worth it -- then click here.
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