Conversation with Christine Taylor-Butler (Part II)

        This is Part II of a conversation with Christine Taylor-Butler, author of many many books for kids, including The Lost Tribes series.  (If you need to start at the beginning, you can find Part I here.)

Anne:  You mention giving characters to readers who don’t often find themselves in the pages of the books they read.  Tell me your thoughts on representation (in your fiction) and how to make it substantive instead of just tokenism.

Christine:  That's easy (I don't know why people make it so hard.) Writers should just let them be kids. Honestly. When I got an agent and we shopped the book around to editors who "swore" they loved diversity we often got "Why are they living in the suburbs?" "Why don't they sound like (fill in the ethnic minority background)," etc.

        Here's the deal: When you grow up in a family that practices its culture, then the way you speak or the way you respond to a situation might vary from another culture. That's why there are several on the cul-de-sac. So you can see the kids trying to get through the same set of challenges but the family reactions to their behavior are both similar and different. I set the family in Southern California, but they are upper middle class and the kids go to private school. There would be a different dynamic if they were in public school. Or in Ohio. Or Boston. Or the Midwest. They'd be different if they grew up in a rural area than if they lived in the middle of a city hours away. There is no one ubiquitous minority experience to write from. So let them be human first. Emotion is often as much about biology and surroundings as it is about culture.

        If people could just focus on how would a person who was --let's say 13-- react to this situation rather than think "how would a Black kid (or White kid, or ......) that is 13 react to this situation?" you get closer to the truth of the character. It's about nuance. It was something I objected to in a recent "popular" superhero movie. The story starts with the uncle living in Oakland in an impoverished inner-city neighborhood. Fair enough. That's the director's truth. But I grew up in an inner-city neighborhood that was nothing like that and my friends and I didn't spend our time thinking about how to steal things. We walked to the library and to summer plays and to the Art Museum. Still struggling financially but not emotionally. We were in close knit communities. But the movie depiction fit the narrative that most people believe is ubiquitous. A lot of authors learn that's an easy way to sell a story to gatekeepers - "minorities in ghettos," "Latinx as migrants," "Asians as the model minority," etc.

Anne: This is such a good point.  The example that sticks out for me is that I feel like every depiction of a suburban high school in every movie or TV show I ever see is the same, with the same cliques and the same bullies and the same “cool kids” – yet this scene bears very little resemblance to the suburban public school I attended or the school my children attend, or either of the schools at which I taught.  It’s just like you say: writers use stereotypes as shortcuts, and publishers want everything to fit into the narrative they believe that people expect, even if it is not the only truth.  But characters in books, just like people in real life, should be their own unique person before being a representative of some group.

Christine:  So I put my character's families in high power jobs and set them all on the same boring upper class cul-de-sac. They all attend the same private school but keep ties to their own cultural communities. Until you find out where those ties actually go and what their common bond really is. A lot of editors objected to the wealth and the lack of familiar stereotypes. Some wanted a main character they could "cuddle." Funny - the readers get what's going on right away - something is up with the parents, something is driving the uncle's pathology, and the kids are just like them - goofy, snarky and don't always get along but do best when they're sneaking around the parental rules.  

        I write for kids. The trick is getting the narratives past gatekeepers who think all Black people live in housing projects with no A/C. True story (is the statute of limitations up yet?) I went from a stable inner-city neighborhood to a highly selective boarding school in New England. Stereotypes there were the norm. One year I got tired of the English teacher telling me that the stories we were supposed to write based on our real lives weren't realistic and I shouldn't be "ashamed" of my background. One of the seniors clued me in on how to revise. So I wrote a story about a prostitute, living in the ghetto, and I think there was a pimp in the story. None of it was true but okay - I was playing to my audience. Got an "A" on that paper and a pat on the back for my willingness to go deep and let it all show in my work. Sigh. There are still publishers who cater to gatekeepers who think that diversity means the same functional silos they've been buying for years. I think - what century are we living in? Don't answer that. The question is facetious.

Anne: It’s so frustrating because I think you’re right that kids are more than ready to accept a full range of people; it’s the adults who can’t get past their expectations.  In many cases I think they have the best of intentions, but it’s not helping the situation.

        You said, "Books that resonate operate on multiple levels so that each reader can find something of themselves in the pages.”  It has certainly been my experience as a child reading that many of my favorite books do not feature a protagonist who looks like me, therefore clearly kids can find resonances for themselves in aspects of character other than just their physical race or gender.  At the same time, I have also experienced that feeling of getting really sick and tired of “all” the protagonists being male, for example, and I know it feels really good to find someone in a book who does reflect some aspect of yourself (whether that’s sex, appearance, culture, gender identity, or whatever) that usually feels too invisible.  So how do you strive to balance those things?   What do you think goes into making a book that will resonate on those multiple levels?

Christine: That's hard. Like I said, there's this almost demented need by gatekeepers to fawn over guys and guy characters. In Tribes, the main protagonist is Ben. He just showed up that way. You can't change what will not be changed. But the book features an ensemble cast and after the "team" is assembled there are three girls and two boys. When my family was reading Harry Potter (my kids and my husband were addicted to the series) I heard my husband say the book should be called "Hermione Granger and that other guy" since she's always giving him the answers.  I laughed and thought my favorite character wasn't Harry, it was Ron Weasley. The Harry Potter series works because there are so many socially awkward kids that you don't have to love Harry to enjoy the series. You can find that person who resonates and there's enough story line for you to follow their own sub plots. Also, Hermione is a dead ringer for one of my best friends in college. 

        So in the second book of the Tribes series, Safe Harbor, I switched to multiple points of view so you could see the story unfold through multiple eyes. It also works because, in the first book, the kids work together but all of it is through Ben's eyes. In Safe Harbor, they are dealing with their new reality and how they grow as people is directly related to things happening to them off-stage. Rather than see everything through a single point of view, I wanted people who have a favorite character to get to see what happens to them and with them when the others aren't around. I think the growth of Carlos and Grace surprised me the most because their trajectory grew organically and wasn't part of the original outline. If people are watching carefully - each child has a fear or phobia that is the opposite of their parent's strengths. Carlos, for instance, will not hurt anything - not even a spider when they're on the run - despite being raised by parents who enjoy the thrill of battle and high tech weapons. So what happens when he meets the "team" and doesn't measure up? Grace is scared of the dark and scary things, but comes from a race of people who do scary things. Those were my absolute favorite plot points in Safe Harbor - when Carlos takes a stand against a brutal regime and sticks up for Ben. And when Grace is the first to go on missions but can't tell her friends that she's doing it. And the reader doesn't know what she's doing until the climax of the second book. Serise is the smartest person on the team because she's eidetic and can hack a computer better than any adult on the team. So she's assigned to mission control even though she's 13. And April, Ben's kid sister. She has a mouth on her. She's a badass you don't mess with even though she's much younger. She'll even stand up to their uncle. So she's the humor that de-escalates and says what other people are scared to say. I write smart, socially awkward girls and boys and give them equal weight in the series.

Anne: That’s one of the really cool choices we get to make as writers: whose point of view will tell the story best?  Sometimes I especially enjoy the contrast between how a particular character views the world and how that character is then viewed by others.

        Do you try to depict a world in which prejudice and discrimination exist, while still showing that not every “minority” kid has to have a life centered in or defined by that?  And if so, how do you find that balance?  Or do you tilt in one direction or the other, for example, showing a world in which the kids don’t really encounter discrimination (or at least, not based on race)?

Christine: I don't believe in the kumbaya scenario. So I tried to turn prejudice on its ear. The story starts out on an idyllic suburban cul-de-sac with parents of various cultural backgrounds who are all high achieving and are best friends. It's their kids who don't get along even though they live next door to each other and attend the same school. But in a reversal, over the parent's objections, Ben's uncle gives him a challenge and a deadline. Ben can't solve it so he has to cajole the other kids into working with him so he can finish in time. As they do - they notice all the parents are blocking their efforts. So the kids work in secret to see where the challenge leads. That leads to an unexpected alliance and a growing friendship. Later, towards the end of the first book, you meet the organization the parents work for. Those adults are all working in functional silos based on race even though they report to the same mission leader. Turns out the kid's parents were the only members of the team who work across cultural boundaries. That's why they were "marooned" on a beige cul-de-sac. It's kind of a punishment for breaking mission protocols. The third book, Trials, reiterates the continued dysfunction at headquarters (known as Safe Harbor) which is why the mission is going so slow. In one scene, Ben asks one of his mentors about the vitriol between the teams and she replies, "We are superior, that does not mean we are perfect." So through most of the series, the only group working well as a team and solving clues are the kids, even as the new mentors in their lives try to keep them separated from each other. In book three, the characters continue their habit of circumventing the rules and finally point out that if people actually looked at their similarities instead of their differences, the mission might go faster. 

Anne: I believe this whole issue of what worlds we show children through our writing, and where they can find themselves in those worlds, is vitally important for helping to give those children power and vision in their own real worlds.  This is part of my whole belief that speculative fiction can make the world a better place!  It has a unique ability to entice readers to rethink their own assumptions and to hold up other possibilities in a way that they are willing to consider.  If you called it “realistic” people would say, “oh that’s impossible,” but if you call it “fantasy” they don’t immediately dismiss it, and in the end may find themselves thinking, “Well, maybe that really could be possible.”  Do you feel that SFF has a role in changing the world, or in changing people’s hearts and minds about how they see the world and live in it?  If so, how does that appear in your work?

Christine: I agree. Speculative fiction is often just an exploration about what it means to be sentient. Stories that allow us to connect with a character sometimes force us to test our belief systems as well. Using a fictional setting that is familiar and yet unfamiliar allows us to hold the reader in suspense and gives them time to know and root for the character arc. Spec fiction is also about resilience when faced with impossible choices. Maybe the net result is speculative fiction can increase empathy and equip readers with additional tools to navigate their own reality. 

        Speculative fiction can transport readers out of their own reality while the characters actually grapple with real life emotions even if the setting is fantastical. There are joys and set-backs. Feuds and reconciliations. Certainly I take risks and allow the characters to make mistakes because too many books are about finding the right answer. Tribes is about finding the right answer too, but also how to take it on the chin when things don't work. I took a risk in the second book. I allowed for a major error in judgment that results in a devastating setback for the mission. And yet - there is resilience and a path forward. So my pet peeve is when books are about perfect kids who make tiny errors but always come out with the sun shining at the end. What life is like that?

        One of the best quotes I've heard was a NASA educational specialist who said, "At NASA, failure is not an option. It is mandatory." I tell people that all the time. I don't want to read about perfect characters that all the other characters fawn over. I want to write about people who make mistakes, misinterpret clues, and course correct. 

Anne: I confess that I like to read about good people – people better than me!  I get very quickly frustrated by protagonists with consistently bad judgement, or who make mistakes so avoidable that I think they made that choice only because the author needed to get them into danger or conflict!  However, I do agree that I don’t want characters who are “always perfect” and fawned over.  What I really enjoy seeing is how basically-good people deal with bad situations, which includes resiliency and persistence and creativity in dealing with their own mistakes as well as external forces.

Christine: For years I was an MIT interviewer. In the last decade I saw more more and more students trying to show they know the "right answer." My husband was a grad school interviewer for University of Missouri and saw similarly high achieving students who didn't know how to color outside of the lines.  So we would share experiences and he told me to ask them, "If you were a superhero, which one would you be and why?" I could tell who would be most successful at MIT by how they approached the answer. At least half would melt down and complain that their counselors (or parents or tutors) didn't prep them on questions like that and I was being unfair. I pointed out that life - and research - is not about the right answer. It's about getting the wrong answer and figuring out why it didn't work. Those students had never faced adversity and therefore never learned anything about resilience. So maybe that's the point of my book. Looking at what my characters want then turning those desires on their ear and subverting expectations so they experience growth.  I've met kids who aren't encouraged to dream outside of their current boundaries. So perhaps, our books create a broader landscape to play in and introduces the idea - yes - you could be these people or do these things too.

Anne: I am saddened and disturbed by these trends toward people with a stunted ability to think and act for themselves, take creative risks, and choose what superhero to be!  It’s my hope that spec fic is one of the antidotes to that: encouraging us all to ask “What if...?”

        Let’s end with your best advice for children (or adults) who are working on writing.

Christine: The most important parts of writing as an art:
        1. Allow the story to go in a direction that you didn’t plan. Give up control to allow the characters and the landscape room to breathe. The book isn’t about the author or the author’s life. It’s about the character’s journey and their connection with the reader.
        2. What you write won’t look the same as it does in your head. But that’s okay. It’s not supposed to be perfect. You can clean it up later or recycle bits into another book. No author or artist creates a perfect draft on the first - or second - (or third) go round.
        3. Look at the world around you. Imagine what would happen if one thing (or more than one thing changed). What would that be? And how would your character’s lives be different from your own because of it?

Anne: Thanks so much for joining me, Christine.  I hope to see you again when in-person conventions are possible once again, and in the meantime, Congratulations on Lost Tribes: Trials coming out quite soon now.

You can find info about Christine Taylor-Butler and her books HERE (and me and my books HERE).  Plus, here’s some additional reading alluded to during the conversation...

More thoughts from Christine

My post on How Juvenile Fantasy Will Save the Earth

My post on Boy Books vs Girl Books

My post on Heroic Heroes

[Pictures: Christine Taylor-Butler, picture from Christine;

Ben, from video trailer for The Lost Tribes;

Covers of The Lost Tribes: Safe Haven and The Lost Tribes: Trials.]

Conversation with Christine Taylor-Butler (Part I)

        I met author Christine Taylor-Butler a couple of years ago when we participated together in a reading of middle grade sci fi and fantasy books.  When I set about recruiting a few authors to join me in a conversation about working on SFF (Sci Fi/Fantasy) for kids, Christine was one of the first people I thought of.  She has written more than 80 books including lots of science and history titles for kids, as well as the first two books in The Lost Tribes series.  (Once again, I’ve broken this up into two posts because of length.)

Anne: You write such a broad variety of books on such a wide array of subjects that I’m especially curious about your inspirations.  Let’s start with your process for non-fiction...  

Christine: I have relationships with a number of publishers who call and ask if I'd be interested in writing about "x" and suggest a fee. The industry name for that is "work for hire." Sometimes I'll get a subject and think, "I am not even remotely interested in that." But the wonderful thing about researching subjects I'm not familiar with is that I have to immerse in the subject until something about it clicks with me. That way I can distill the information down to make it interesting to a reader. For example, I remembered American History as being the most dull academic subject to get through as a child. I cringed when asked to write a series. But I like a challenge. So it became fascinating to learn how dysfunctional our founding fathers were and the lengths it took to come up with a coherent Constitution (there was an early one that didn't work), and a national government that functioned. The publisher gave me wide latitude to build the narrative which included a sidebar on how constantly paying ransoms to pirates played a role in getting Congress to act on building a navy. A well-known reviewer said I found a way to present the Bill of Rights, for example, as a living, breathing document.

Anne: I, too, love researching and discovering the little tid-bits that grab my imagination.  When I talk to kids about writing, I tell them that it’s the things that make them curious that are likely to make a reader curious, too.

        Where does your sci fi/fantasy fall in this?  Of all genres, what is it about science fiction that makes you choose to work with it?

Christine: I focused on science fiction because it’s my wheelhouse. I’m fascinated by stories of untapped potential and how science can enhance or override our innate abilities (or common sense). I grew up looking at stars in the night sky and imagining that a truly infinite universe might hold an infinite number of species living millions of light years away. Science fiction dreams of what isn’t a reality yet, but could be in the future.

Anne: Did you have to push to add SFF to the non-fiction line-up, or did the publisher ask you if it was something you were interested in, or what was the dynamic there?

Christine: It was nearly impossible to sell children's science fiction as a woman when I first started. There was a lot of preference in the industry for male authors, early on. Women could write fantasy as long as they were not an ethnic minority. I don't say that to be racist. It was just a reality. If you tried, the editors wouldn't understand the rhythms or the nuances. So ultimately the books would die a short death on the shelf and the industry would say "see, told you that stuff doesn't have an audience."  I considered self-publishing but that's a long story for another time. In an industry dominated by female editors and librarians, the gushing always seemed to be over mostly males. I wrote an essay on it during Women's month two years ago that got a lot of attention. [You can read Christine’s essay here.]  I did a statistical analysis of two American Library Awards and the skew towards men (in some cases the same men winning the same awards over and over again) was stunning.

Anne: As someone who did go the self-publishing route and therefore doesn’t have much experience with the mainstream publishing industry, I’m fascinated (and depressed!) to hear about this aspect of things.  I do hope things are shifting.

Christine: I also ran across the problem of publishers wanting me to stay in my "lane."  One of my favorite editors who made sure I had a steady diet of fun science topics to write, also knew I was working on a speculative series. After she started her own publishing house, she called and asked if she could publish Tribes. I think that was fate. Move Books is a small indie publisher but the founder has a long history in commercial children's publishing (and once worked in the music industry) so she has a great eye and her staff are sticklers for finding amazing illustrators and printers. They were also really sensitive to maintaining my voice and vision throughout the process.

Anne: That sounds like a happily-ever-after for the Lost Tribes!  Can you tell me about the inspiration for Tribes?  There’s the over-all plot idea, there are all the different characters, and there are the individual puzzles and mysteries along the way… Can you point to particular inspirations for any of those?  Or broader influences in the sort of story or the sort of world you wanted to create?

Christine: You know, I initially wanted to write picture books. I read a lot of novels, but writing picture books seemed less intimidating. I wrote a story about siblings who suspected their mother had a secret and set out to test their hypothesis. Of course their plan didn't work, and the mother had a logical explanation for everything she did. But on the last page it is revealed that their suspicions were correct - something I revealed only to the reader. The siblings remained oblivious.  I sent it to a large publisher and the editor thought the story was too scary for little children. I was perplexed since the story was written with humor. He suggested I turn it into a novel. That took some thinking. One day I was playing with a hieroglyphic font and thinking about one of my uncles who never thought anything I did was good enough. And suddenly the first puzzle and the first plot point of an uncle who never approved of the protagonist came into being. After that I couldn't stop thinking of the dynamics of that relationship, parents who are desperately trying to hide a family secret, and friends on the block who help the protagonist work through a challenge all the while circumventing their own distaste for each other. That is probably the only time I had a story that wouldn't let go. But I also wanted to showcase readers who don't often find themselves in the pages or who are the "side kick" friend with no speaking parts except to tell the hero how great he is. Since my hero isn't that great, I have smart snarky characters who take pleasure in reminding him and it becomes the basis for something fun.

Anne: I love your illustration of how so many elements in our lives come together into a story idea: our own lives and backgrounds, our false starts, and our serendipities.  This also touches on the question of what’s special about working for children?  Why do you choose to write stories for children as opposed to adults?

Christine: My family consumes a steady diet of books because we were raised that way. But when I was a college interviewer, many high school seniors reported not having the time, or the patience to read for pleasure. They were focused on content required to pass an academic or admissions test. But those students who did read for pleasure seemed almost embarrassed to admit it. It was science fiction and fantasy that had captured their imaginations.  I wanted to write stories that helped children become voluntary lifelong readers and to fuel the needs of those older “closet” readers. And honestly - a lot of adults are also readers of our work. So perhaps there’s something about writing for children that feels accessible and hopeful.

Anne: I think it’s also the case that the ever-present instant gratification of all our phones and computers makes reading seem like too much work sometimes -- there’s always going to be a path of less resistance.  This really upsets me!  But I agree that I want to write books that will tap that love of reading that I know is still there and/or could be there for so many.  For myself, I enjoy reading the books written for kids because I find that at its best juvenile SFF really wrestles with the deep questions without feeling the need to throw in gratuitous sex and violence to keep our attention!

        I assume your science background must influence the sorts of stories you’re interested in telling.  How does your background inform your stories?  And do you think it also affects the way you imagine and build a story?

Christine: I think it does. I can't detach the science background from the writing. I'm always trying to figure something out. Life is kind of a puzzle so it stands to reason I would include them. I grew up without a lot of money but I could afford to spend my allowance on puzzle magazines at the drugstore. So that was my entertainment - cryptograms, crossword puzzles, word searches, etc. And I have really nerdy friends. One is an investigative reporter who is always sending me odd facts she digs up in her own research that she thinks might be interesting. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with bog bodies, for instance.  Although I love pure fantasy, there are such weird unsolved mysteries on Earth, as well as quirky facts, I thought - why not use them and increase a reader's working vocabulary of life outside of their city or state? So I research and discover more than I bargained for. For instance, discovering that Islas Ballestas, an island off the coast of Peru, is filled with Humboldt penguins, massive sea lions, and birds. It was once a principle source of bird droppings which was then sold as fertilizer. So I thought, "I have to get the characters there!" It was just so gross but an awesome scene with them having to find a clean place to step while searching for an artifact and trying not to antagonize the massive sea lions. Another place I explore is the Devils Triangle off the coast of Japan. It has similar unexplained phenomena as the Bermuda Triangle. And compasses do weird things in that region. So I hid a secret base there. My editor indulges me because I send her fun facts to digest when the books go in for editing. Really - the whole book is about problem solving when you have little to go on for clues. Life, a mission, a friendship going sour. Those are the puzzles that get unpacked in the series.

Anne: I actually know a lot about bog bodies, but your other examples are new to me!

        We’ll stop here for now, but tune in next time (on Sunday) as we dig more deeply into questions of representation, making the world a better place, and Christine’s writing advice!

[Pictures: Christine Taylor-Butler, picture from Christine;

Cover for The Lost Tribes.]

Conversation with Sarah Jean Horwitz (Part II)

... And we’re back with Sarah Jean Horwitz, fellow author of MG fantasies.  If you’re tuning in for the first time, check back to the last post for the first half of this conversation.  And without further ado:

Anne:  Have you ever run into snobbery about writing for children being less prestigious than adult literature?

Sarah:  I’ve only ever received a handful of disparaging comments about writing for children, and the “prestige” factor has never bothered me much. I know kidlit is great, and so do most people whose opinions I’d value, anyway. ;) The only thing that bothers me lately is when people assume that I write for young adults. I get called a “young adult author” all the time, which frustrates me, because I have never written a young adult book in my life! It would be like if I had a friend who was exclusively an elementary school teacher, and I knew this, but I kept introducing her to people as a high school teacher anyway. Sometimes people forget that there is a whole world of children’s literature between “picture books” and “young adult.”

Anne: That’s interesting.  Any idea why people seem to make that assumption?  And you sound like you have no interest in ever writing YA - is that the case, and if so, why?  (What did 17-year-old Sarah like to read?)

Sarah:  I really don't know why people make that assumption. I think that YA is such a part of the cultural consciousness now, with all the big movie and TV adaptations and bestsellers making the headlines, that maybe people jump to YA now as their first point of reference for any children's literature that's not a "classic" or very obviously for the youngest readers. The fact that I write older middle grade probably doesn't help my case much, either. 

  I won't say I'll never write YA - in fact, I just got an idea for a YA story this past week! - but it's highly unlikely. Honestly, I sometimes find the "teenaged voice" and teenaged characters annoying! Ha. Oh, that's going to come back to haunt me, I know. But I do have a bit of a grouchy "get off my lawn" attitude when it comes to teenaged characters, and the voice has never come as naturally to me as a writer. And that's pretty weird, because I LOVED YA in middle school, high school and even a little past college. I read mostly YA and was very passionate about it. As I got older, though, the bloom went off the rose, and I discovered a lot more joy in middle grade books. 

  Part of what I like about writing middle grade characters is that, in general, they're less jaded and a bit more open to new experiences. I like the inherent hopeful quality in lots of middle grade that I feel like is missing from a lot of YA (not all! but a lot). 

Anne: I tend to agree.  Sometimes I feel like YA books are “checking off all the boxes” and it feels manipulative or artificial.  Or perhaps a better way to put it is that our culture seems to have a very narrow view of what it means to be a teenager or what the teenage experience is like, and YA books seem to adhere to that narrow view all too faithfully (not all! but a lot).  Given that one of the things I like most about fantasy is that it allows you to imagine infinite scenarios instead of merely the usual “realistic” ones, I find it a little tiresome to be railroaded into checking those same old boxes all the time.  I agree that MG books often feel a little freer, more hopeful, more willing to simply imagine “what if?”  That said, I have a YA work in progress at the moment (with faeries, too), so we’ll see how that goes!

  Did you have any particular inspirations or anecdotes about The Dark Lord Clementine?

Sarah:  As strange as it sounds, I have two babies to thank for the idea for The Dark Lord Clementine. The first is my friend Brooke’s niece, whom she nicknamed “the Dark Lord.” Ha! I’m sure little Fallyn will appreciate that when she’s older. The second is my old high school English teacher’s daughter, whose name is...Clementine! Yup. A few years ago, I was playing with baby Clementine with some friends, and we were trying to get her to make the sounds of her toy farm animals. We’d say, “What sound does the pig make, Clem? Does the pig go ‘oink oink’? Does the cow go ‘moo’?” But Clementine just sat there stony-faced, not humoring us at all, which I thought was so funny. And so I put on this scary voice and said something like, “The animals say nothing. All of the animals are silent. They are always silent.” And everyone cracked up laughing, and then I remembered Brooke’s nickname for her niece, and it occurred to me that The Dark Lord Clementine and Her Silent Farm would be such a fun title for a book. So it started this sort of running joke with my friends, but then I started thinking...what if it really was a book? And the whole idea spiralled from there.

Anne:  This is a great story, and such a great illustration of how ideas connect and pop.  One of my books (not quite MG, though) started with the title “Kate and Sam and the Cheesemonster,” which I had thrown out to a bunch of 4th graders as a minor joke in passing, and to my surprise they LOVED it and clamored to get the story.  So, are there any fun background stories for your other books?

Sarah:  Kate and Sam and the Cheesemonster is a GREAT title. It is not surprising to me that the kids loved it. ;) 

  I don't really have fun origin stories for my other books - mostly the ideas just kind of show up in my brain - but I do have a fun research story. For the second CARMER AND GRIT book, I was doing some research on steam cars, and I needed to know the quickest way to sabotage a steam car's engine to make it explode. (Yes, my Google search history is very colorful indeed.) I managed to get in contact with a British steam car society, and I explained the information 

I needed, and they were utterly offended. They sent me an email scolding me for even entertaining such a question, because steam cars were incredibly safe, and any suggestion that their engines could explode amounted to spreading misinformation! I could unnecessarily damage the reputation of steam cars everywhere! So I got a real telling-to on that front. ;) (In the end, I mostly exploded the car with magic. Because why not? It's magic!) 

Anne: That seems legit.  You can blow up anything with magic, so no one can say it’s the steam car’s fault.  =)

  Yeah, writers’ search histories can be all over the place.  Sometimes I get some very odd ads, and I always want to tell the computer, “Just because I’m looking up Victorian tree-hanging cradles doesn’t mean I need to buy Pampers.”

  Anyway, I really enjoyed your books, and I appreciate your taking the time to have this conversation.  Best of luck on the current work-in-progress, and I look forward to seeing you next year, (always hoping that next year will be back to in-person events, of course).

        You can find info about Sarah Jean Horwitz and her books HERE, and me and my books HERE.

[Pictures: Sarah Jean Horwitz, photo from Sarah;

covers for The Dark Lord Clementine and Carmer and Grit: The Crooked Castle, from Sarah;

cover for Kate and Sam and the Cheesemonster, from AEGN.]

Conversation with Sarah Jean Horwitz (Part I)

I met Sarah Jean Horwitz, author of the two Carmer and Grit books and The Dark Lord Clementine, on a panel in which we were both doing readings from our middle grade fantasy books.  I loved her books and what she had to say about them, so I invited her to join me in a conversation about writing fantasy for kids.  Read on for her special insights on fairies, Infants of Darkness, and the best way to blow up a steam car.

        (This turned out long enough that it will be posted in two parts.  Here’s Part I.  It seemed like the better part to begin with.)

Anne:  What’s special about fantasy that led you to choose this genre?

Sarah:  I love the magic and escapism of fantasy, but I also love how it can enable us to explore bigger issues, either through metaphor or with the safe bit of distance that comes with setting your story in another world. You can explore all the juicy themes and characters you like, plus with added cool sparkly bits. Who wouldn’t want more sparkly bits? 

Anne:  Me, too.  The combination of deep moral questions with fabulous cool stuff is, well, magic!  Are there any particular juicy themes you especially want to explore in your writing?  Or any sparkly bits that are particular favorites? 

Sarah:  While I don't usually make up my mind ahead of time and think, "In this work I want to explore X theme," I do notice I tend to gravitate to some of the same ideas. I love exploring deep friendships, chosen families, and letting your freak flag fly. ;)  In terms of sparkly bits, I really love fairies, and find myself returning to fairies and fairy magic in a lot of my work. There's something so tempting about the wildness and beauty of fairyland - something so alluring about these beautiful beings who don't operate with the same moral code as humans do. I'm not one of those people who yearns for any lawless/idealized wild west sort of past, but I do like to dip my toe into the waters of a stranger world for a little while. 

Anne:  My Kate and Sam books feature fairies simply because my then-six-year-old daughter asked me to put fairies in them.  And that segues into the question of What’s special about writing for children?  Why write for children, or more specifically middle grade?

Sarah:  To tell you the truth, I sort of started writing for children by accident. Before I was a children’s author, I studied screenwriting, and most of my projects were written with adults or young adults in mind. But it just so happened that the first idea I had for a book included a thirteen year-old boy protagonist and a heaping dose of fairy magic, so writing it for kids seemed like the best option! Fortunately, that voice came naturally to me, and I’ve never looked back.

Anne:  I assume the screen-writing background must have an influence on the way you envision stories and lay them out, both in the large scale and scene-by-scene.  Are there any particular tricks or hold-overs from screenwriting that influence your book writing?

Sarah:  Screenwriting is very structured and, at least for lots of mainstream stories, very plot-driven, and I definitely think my screenwriting education helped me get a handle on writing for children specifically, because that also tends to be more plot-driven. Kid readers aren't going to stick around while you wax poetic about the landscape or don't have your characters actually do anything until fifty pages in! I use a three act structure-based outline that I learned in my feature film screenwriting class in college to outline many of my projects to this day. I also had a writing mentor in college who always encouraged me to make my writing as "sexy" as possible. Ha! He didn't mean sexy sexy, but he did mean dynamic and rich and exciting. Pump up the visual imagery, the stakes, or whatever you can, in every scene. That's definitely stayed with me, especially when it comes to writing fantasy. 

Anne:  In other words, crank up the sparkle!

Sarah:  I tend to write books with my past younger self in mind. I ask myself what kinds of stories and characters twelve year-old Sarah would have wanted to read about (and what twenty-eight year-old Sarah wants to read about now!) and then I try to write them.

Anne:  I also definitely write largely for myself, although as you imply, I’m not sure there’s always too much difference between child me and adult me.  We both like adventure, and magic, and trying to do the best you can in the world, and wonder, and curiosity and...  

        Here endeth Part I.  Tune in next time (on Friday) for the rest of the conversation.  (You can find more info about Sarah and her books HERE.)

[Pictures: Sarah as Clementine, photo from Sarah Jean Horwitz, 2019;
Cover of Carmer and Grit: The Wingsnatchers.]