Eric Luper's Random Musings

For those of you in the Tampa Bay area, I will be making my final 2 appearances this year, this Saturday, 12/05 to talk about Surf Mules and writing in general.

1) at 10:00 AM at the Barnes & Noble at Wiregrass 28152 Paseo Dr Suite 100 Wesley Chapel, FL 33543 813-907-7739.

2) And for any educators out there, I'll also be at the Carrolwood B&N on Dale Mabry at 6pm ! Hope to see you there.

If you haven’t read Lips Touch: Three Times, you should. It’s a wonderful book, playful, inventive, moving.

The Oregonian featured a great story about its author and illustrator, National Book Award finalist Laini Taylor and her husband Jim. It begins, “She writes, he draws. Her hair is pink, and her laugh is infectious. His hair is red, and he laughs a lot, too. They live and work together in a little yellow house in the Cully neighborhood of Northeast Portland with a new daughter named Clementine Pie.” Read the rest of the story about Laini and Jim here.

Remember - it's a month of reruns!

***

On Wednesday, the band teacher had "try-outs" for the Star Spangled Banner, to be played at the next 6th grade concert. Each student could decide if he/she wanted to try out or not. There really wasn't any pressure. But at the end of each performance, the teacher would tell the student - yes, you will play with the special group at the next concert for that song, or no, you will not.

My son, who at one time had counseling for anxiety issues, couldn't decide if he was going to try out or not. He practiced Monday and Tuesday nights. The high note didn't sound right to me. He said, it's right, Mom. Okay, I thought, maybe they haven't learned the really high note, so they're playing it this way? (how stupid, I now realize - the band teacher would never let the song be played that way). But at the time, I don't know, I just thought, okay, whatever.

I gave him lots of pep talks Tuesday and Wednesday. The good, motherly ones. You know it's okay if you try and get a no. At least you tried, which is more than a lot of kids will do. If you don't try, won't you wonder later what would have happened if you did?

Wednesday after school, he came home. I waited patiently for him to tell me. He didn't say anything. Finally, I asked.

Me: Well?????
Him: I had 3 mistakes. I played the high note 3 times and each time it was wrong. To get a yes, you can't have any note mistakes. You can squeak a little, that's okay, but no wrong notes.
Me: Oh, I'm so sorry.
Him: Mom, I was so nervous, my whole body was shaking. And I squeaked a lot. But I got all the notes right except that one I was playing wrong.
Me: Did the teacher show you the note it should be?
Him: Yes. And we can have a redo on Friday.
Me: You can??? A redo? Are you going to try again?
Him: I don't know. I was so nervous. It was terrible. I thought I was going to throw up. I don't know if I can do it again.

Last night, he asked his dad to say a prayer with him, about having courage to try again today. And to do well.

He played the song again today.

And he got a YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so proud of my boy.

"O'er the land of the free, and the home of the BRAVE!"

***
A good reminder that sometimes, we don't get it right the first time. But if we keep trying, anything can happen!

(originally posted on 2.10.06)

Today is a mish-mash of teaching-writing-bookish things.

• We're talking about setting in creative writing class this morning -- how descriptions of a character's surroundings can be not only a way to give a sense of place but also of the character's state of mind. A cold, brisk, rain-soaked day is going to be seen (and felt) differently by different characters, depending on where they are in their journeys. In class today, we'll be describing a setting from different points of reference. I'll take a photo or two of our activity and post the same writing challenge here later in the week for anyone who wants to try it out.
• School Library Journal's review of THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. is in the December issue -- and it's a happy, author-breathing-a-sigh-of-relief sort of review. My favorite line? "Messner's warm and humorous tone will capture even reluctant readers." You can read the full review here (just scroll down to the M authors!)
• Coincidentally, my technology feature on using Twitter with students also ended up scheduled for this edition of School Library Journal. It's called "Pleased to Tweet You: Making a Case for Twitter in the Classroom" and talks about how I use Twitter with my 7th graders, especially as a way to connect them with authors. There's also a how-to section for teachers who want to approach technology coordinators about trying something similar.
• I'll be signing THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. at Books of Wonder in New York this Sunday from 1-3PM with a whole group of debut authors of middle grade and YA novels.

December 6th Sunday 1:00 - 3pm

2009 Debut Author Event MICHELLE ZINK - Prophecy of the Sisters JON SKOVRON - Struts and Frets MEGAN CREWE - Give Up the Ghost SARAH CROSS - Dull Boy SHANI PETROFF - Daddy’s Little Angle: Bedeviled #1 KATE MESSNER - The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z NEESHA MEMINGER - Shine Coconut Moon DEVA FAGAN - Fortune’s Folly

We're giving short readings and having a whole bunch of giveaways, and we'd love to meet you (and your students!) if you live in the area!

Two years ago I met with a mother-daughter book group here in Greenwich that read my first book, CONFESSIONS OF A CLOSET CATHOLIC. A few days later, I received a lovely e-mail from one of the moms in the group thanking me for meeting with them and saying how normal I was (clearly, she hadn't gotten to know me well yet). She told me that her daughter had become interested in writing after losing her father on 9/11 and asked if I'd ever considered writing a book on the topic, because there wasn't anything out there for kids.

I was touched and flattered that she thought I had the capability to handle such a sensitive subject. About about a year earlier, I'd written a synopsis and sample chapters on a novel about a girl from South America who moved to the United States and eventually befriended a girl who lost her father on 9/11, but I hadn't connected with the characters and ended up sticking it in a drawer and writing PURGE.

When Claudette wrote to me, I took out the synopsis and sent it to her. She told me I should write the book. Subsequently I spoke to my editors at Scholastic and they agreed, although they said it should be YA rather than middle grade. Meeting Claudette and hearing her story gave me a new connection to the characters. That book became LIFE, AFTER, and it's dedicated to Claudette Greene. Today I had lunch with Claudette and gave her an ARC of the book that she encouraged me to take out out of the drawer and write.

This afternoon it was back to the Writing Lair for more revisions, revisions, revisions on WANT TO GO PRIVATE? but this evening I escaped for the Holiday Festivities of the Lesser Fairfield County Blog n Grog Appreciation Society. It was fun to see Kevin of Always Home and Uncool, Joey K of Joey K's place, Elizabeth McCarthy of Aetheria Relaxation Spa, Irene Hahn of Stamford History,Malerie Yolen-Cohen of Stamford on the Cheap", Anne Flounders and others!

We met at Monster B's in Stamford, known for its monster selection of beers. I had to have one of the beers simply because of its name - Criminally Bad Elf.




Fortunately, the beer was actually pretty good too! But wouldn't Criminally Bad Elf make a great name for a band?

 
    "Ciao Time" by Bob Staake (artcafe2008).


Any time you and your munchkins are in the mood to eat out, no need to call ahead, dress up, or risk the ho-hum food often found on children's menus. 

Just skip over to your local library and grab a few of these tasty picture books for meals that will excite, inspire, and feed the imagination. I've been doing my own literary restaurant tour the past few weeks, and am happy to report there are mucho picture books featuring chefs and restaurants. Most of them seem to favor cafés and diners, with lots of animal characters and cumulative tales ramping up the action with every bite.
( Read More )( Read More )

• 10:29 registration for the 18th Annual SCBWI Eastern PA Pocono Mountain Retreat is open! Woohoo! scbwieasternpa.onefireplace.org #

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November 2009: 44 books read

Picture Books
Wag by Patrick McDonnell
Hello My Name is Bob by Linas Alsenas

Juvenile Fiction
Girls Acting Catty by Leslie Margolis (sequel to Boys Are Dogs)
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
The Rule of Three by Megan McDonald (sequel to The Sisters Club)
Cinderella Cleaners #1: Change of a Dress by Maya Gold (coming out in April 2010)
After Ever After by Jordan Sonnenblick (coming out in February 2010; companion to Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie)

Teen Fiction
Riding The Universe by Gaby Triana
Hold Still by Nina LaCour
Reality Check by Jen Calonita (coming out in June 2010)
Sphinx's Princess by Esther Friesner
Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern
Peace, Love & Baby Ducks by Lauren Myracle
The Unwritten Rule by Elizabeth Scott (coming out in April 2010)
In a Heartbeat by Loretta Ellsworth (coming out in February 2010)

Several items have been chasing one another around in my brain of late. The first is the story of Kentucky teacher Risha Mullins. I had the chance to meet her at NCTE and she attended our Standing Committee Against Censorship meeting there as well. She had a few books challenged by some vocal parents (1 or 2). Said books by some of our LJ friends including Jo Knowles and Laurie Halse Anderson. Said books were subjected to the process already in place for reconsideration. Committee decision was to retain the books. Decision was ultimately overruled by the superintendent. Censorship? You bet. Despite all sorts of letters and blogs and news articles, the decision of the superintendent is final. What this entire thing has devolved into, though, is some nasty name calling. Folks siding with the superintendent are using words like "pornography" to desribe books they have not read. And, of course, ALA and NCAC and other organizations that work to keep books alive and well and in the hands of students are being labeled as purveyors of porn and worse. Fearmongering at its worst is what this has become. Now the books are being labeled as not worthy of study in an AP English class. Huh? When I read the books being challenged (and I have actually read them all, every last word on every page), I seem to recall plots, characters, settings, themes, and the like. The censors are attacking the low readability levels (Huck Finn is 4th grade just so you have a reference point for the readability for the "classics"). It's like they are throwing everything out there so there is never time to fashion a coherent answer to their accusations. Where have I seen that before? Maybe during political races???

BTW, for something interesting to add to this discussion of which books are "worthy" of study, check out the top ten books college kids are reading:

1. The Lost Symbol
by Dan Brown
________________________________________
2. Where the Wild Things Are
by Maurice Sendak
________________________________________
3. The Time Traveler's Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger
________________________________________
4. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
________________________________________
5. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
________________________________________
6. The Wild Things
by Dave Eggers
________________________________________
7. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters
________________________________________
8. The Last Song
by Nicholas Sparks
________________________________________
9. Push
by Sapphire
________________________________________
10. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
by Max Brooks



Now, there is a brouhaha over the SLJ cover from last month featuring some of the prominent bloggers in the YA world. They were photographed in a NYC bar holding (fake) drinks. Apparently, they did not wear sensible shoes and hair twisted into a bun. Letters to the editor at SLJ are decrying the poor role models on the cover. I would have killed to have been among them. Censorship? Not quite. Narrow thinking? You bet.

It's rather depressing, this narrowness. I think that is what connects these two stories for me. If we could just broaden our view (and I am including me here not using the royal we), maybe we could expend more energy creating readers and welcoming new technologies and ways of talking about boos and reading. Instead. some seem hell-bent on wearing blinders.

Nyaah-nyaah-nyah-nyah-nyaaaaa!!

Oh . . . not that kind of teasing?

OK, then, how about a bit of novel.

( Song From the Heart )

I wonder . . . if an editor is on LinkedIn, and you have access to the e-mail service there and could e-mail that editor because you're linked one link away, would it be outrageous to send her a query via that e-mail (because Penguin doesn't allow unagented queries and doesn't publish their e-mail addresses)? Yeah, it probably would. I need to go through an agent. And of course agents don't like SONG FROM THE HEART or music from any other orifice (which is strange--some fruits are quite musical! And I don't mean only beans.) There aren't any zombies. And nothing blows up in the first scene. What am I *thinking*?

I saw REAR WINDOW (the Hitchcock film starring James Stewart--you know, the one that's acknowledged as a masterpiece?) last night once again, and this time I noted that today's audiences would scream because of the long setup. You could start the flick about thirty minutes in, the second visit from the nurse when they see suspicious stuff done by Raymond Burr, and probably the audience could catch on to the stuff about the Park Avenue girlfriend who wants to get married and all that jazz. But I also acknowledged that the setup doesn't bother me; I'm always anticipating what these events may mean in the later minutes of the flick, not saying, "Boring! Boring! Show me explosions NOW!" Does this mean I shouldn't watch old movies for fear of becoming even WORSE about this? Well . . . tough.

After a wildly turbulent flight from LA to Houston, I have decided that I definitely do not want to die watching a Vince Vaughn movie. The flight attendant must have noticed my stricken face and gave me a glass of wine, no charge. Surprisingly, the ride on the smaller plane from Houston to Birmingham was much smoother, and I listened to THIS AMERICAN LIFE on podcast. It was then I decided that if I 'had' to die in a plane crash (morbid, irrational, I know) I'd rather die listening to Ira Glass tell me stories from THIS AMERICAN LIFE than watch Vince Vaughn in a cheesy Christmas movie. And naturally, the guy next to me slept the whole way on the first flight - never once considering his own mortality!

Okay, but I digress...I have great news! My biography, Up Close Harper Lee was selected as one of the Kirkus Best Young Adult Books of 2009 list! A big congratulations other live-journal friends who are on the list too: melissawyatt , halseanderson , thunderchikin , sarazarr , and marypearson
I also have to say it never ever would have happened with an editor like Catherine Frank at Viking, who made me revise the gloop and glop of it again and again and yet again. I'm very grateful to her sharp eye when I was in the snow-globe of Monreoville, Alabama.

UAB LITERARY NEWS
My fiction and creative nonfiction students are giving a reading tomorrow night at Spencer Honors House, and my children's writing workshop will be visiting Epic School this week near UAB to read to different classes the stories they've written this fall. So if you're on the UAB campus, the Wednesday reading is open to the public. Here is the program...





And one of my favorite pictures with Norah...one week until I'm home with my family for a whole month!

Holy Cannoli! The Class of 2K10 (aka classof2k10 ) is having an awesome book giveaway. Follow the link below to enter by reading about these fabulous books & then leave a comment! WooT

http://community.livejournal.com/classof2k10/1843.html

No, it ain't what you're thinking....I guarantee it. :-D

I've taken up archery!

(See, I told you it wasn't what you were thinking.)

I took the six-week beginners' class in Sept and Oct. The last night of class, a bloke was at the (indoor) range with a kit for sale that was exactly right for me: left-handed, right weight and all, even the arrows were only an inch too long, which is totally not a problem. So I bought the kit from him....and then (as you know) first had a visit from my dad and then got sick.

Finally, this past weekend I had enough of my voice back to go shopping for the remaining bits and bobs that I needed, and tonight was my first session.

Yeah, I sucked, but I expected to, so that's okay. The novices and juniors shoot together on Tuesday nights, and it was great fun chatting with the kids and getting help from them. I really do enjoy teenagers.

I have a long way to go, and I don't know whether I'll ever compete formally, but the people in the club are terrific, and in another year or so, I hope to start shooting longbow. (For now, I'm using a wood recurve bow. With very pretty purple aluminum arrows fletched in purple and white....and no, I'm not kidding, those were the arrows the bloke sold me with the bow; I didn't choose them myself. If I'd chosen them myself, they'd be fletched with purple and pink. :-D)

Goddess knows I need to get out more, and this is a step in that direction. Plus, yanno...fantasy writer, archer...they go together like ducks and water, like chocolate and peanut butter, like green eggs and ham.

Hi all-

In honor of World AIDS Day, I wanted to share one of the humanitarian projects my husband is involved in.
It's called OneChild Africa and was started in the same vein of their Indonesia Tsunami project--two doctors wanting to reach beyond their immediate circle and help. They have since created a program that involves student volunteers among many others. The website is up now. I'm so impressed with their amazing work! Find out what you can do to help.

http://travellingau.com/

Also, if you're in Cambridge, consider checking out this NextAid fundraising event. One of the organizers went to fine-arts camp with me when we were teenagers. :) I feel so fortunate to know people who are doing so much good for our world.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=184151053299&ref=mf


Remember to Tweet #red all day long to raise awareness
Follow me at: http://twitter.com/HeidiRKling

I have a YouTube account for collecting* WL Casting videos & Radiant Shadows trailers. (http://www.youtube.com/user/MelissaMarrAuthor)

There are 4 SHADOWS trailers so far that I can share. They, of course, do reveal plot clues bc the video makers have read** the Prologue and first 6 chapters of the novel. (Those chapters are posted on the Rath-- wickedlovely.com). As a reminder, the Rath contest is open to people from ANYWHERE in the world, not just the US & Canada.




and



and


and




___
* I got the acct a while ago for this purpose, but had nothing there, so hadn't announced it.

** To read the chapters, you must have 50 posts there. There is no time limit for reading.

Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Winner Announced

The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is pleased and proud to announce the winner of the inaugural Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award for Young Adult Fiction. Established in 2008 to honor the wishes of young adult author, Amelia Elizabeth Walden, the award allows for the sum of $5,000 to be presented annually to the author of a young adult title selected by the ALAN Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Committee as demonstrating a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit.
The winner of the 2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award is:
My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park
by Steve Kluger (Dial)

2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award finalists are:
After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson (Putnam)
Graceling by Kristin Cashore (Harcourt)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)
Me, The Missing, and the Dead by Jenny Valentine (HarperCollins)

All Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award titles will be identified by an award sticker—gold for the winner and silver for the four finalists.
This year’s winning title was announced at an open reception and reading on Monday, November 23 during the 2009 ALAN Workshop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Finalists Steve Kluger (My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park) and Jacqueline Woodson (After Tupac and D Foster) were present to read from and sign their nominated titles. Members of the 2009 committee, Jennifer Buehler, Erica Berg, and Mary Arnold, read from the remaining nominated titles.

The 2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee would like to thank: NCTE and the ALAN Board of Directors; all of the publishers who nominated books for consideration; Scottie Bowditch and Kimberly Lauber from Penguin Group for making arrangements for their authors to attend the reception and for supplying books for the signing; Daniel Gill for designing the beautiful award seal; Gerard Mendoza, event planner for the Philadelphia Downtown Marriot, for his assistance in planning the reception; and Don Gallo for photographing the reception.

The 2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee was comprised of ten members representing the university, K-12 school, and library communities who considered 232 young adult titles over the duration of the process:

Dr. Wendy Glenn, Chair
Associate Professor, University of Connecticut, Storrs
Willington, CT

Mary Arnold
Teen Services Manager, Cuyahoga County Public Library
Cleveland, OH

Erica Berg
Classroom Teacher, Rockville High School
Vernon, CT

Dr. Jean Boreen
Professor, Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ

C.J. Bott
Retired Classroom Teacher and Educational Consultant
Solon, OH

Dr. Jennifer Buehler
Assistant Professor, Saint Louis University
Saint Louis, MO

Bonnie Kunzel
Youth Services and Adolescent Literacy Consultant
Germantown, TN

Dr. Teri Lesesne
Professor, Sam Houston State University
Huntsville, TX

Daria Plumb
Classroom Teacher, Dundee Alternative High School
Dundee, MI

Dr. Barbara Ward
Assistant Professor, Washington State University, Tri-Cities
Richland, WA

For more information on the award, please visit ALAN Online: The Official Site of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents http://www.alan-ya.org/ .

http://www.unshelved.com/archive.aspx?strip=20091201

So, last week I ended up having to put aside the Theo Four manuscript and instead pick up my Theodosia Four journal. For the week prior to that, I had been pushing the characters around on the page and it felt just like a four year old pushing peas around the mound of mashed potatoes on his plate. Nothing pretty was happening.

I have to say, I so admire people who can fly into the mist and just write. Not knowing much about their characters or their stories, they simply begin, knowing they will discover these things on the page.

I don’t seem to be able to do that. Instead, I had to regroup and spend the last week journaling all my characters’ histories. I need to know who they are and what life events have shaped them before they will come alive for me on the page. And since so much of that is backstory, it doesn’t seem to emerge in the actual writing of the book. Nor do I seem to be able to make them do anything on the page except walk woodenly across the stage until I know them better.

But all that journaling? I inevitably get frustrated along the way and feel like I’m spinning my wheels or procrastinating or being overindulgent of my process.

Except, as I journal these people, they begin to come alive for me. At first inception, they are mere stick drawings, a few bare lines in black and white, little more than placeholders. Sometimes I know so little about them that I can’t even define what they want within the story, or what their goals might be.

That’s when I begin to root around in their past, digging through their history in an attempt to understand them. For example, I have an elderly gentleman in this book, and I ended up printing out a timeline of British history from 1830 to 1900 so I could see what skirmishes and battles and experiences would have shaped him. After all, the events going on around us shape who we are as people, whether we live through a Great Depression, survive 70’s disco music, or enter the job market at one of the worst times in history—all these things shape our outlook on life. If I’m writing a novel that takes place in a different time, then it makes sense that I need to understand which historical events shaped my characters.

This is where I actually ‘draw’ my characters, only using words instead of lines. The form and shape and texture begins to show up. Once I have all this stuff, the character’s context and worldview, I can then go in and do the detail work, the stuff that will show up on the page. What are this character’s emotional wounds? His motivations? His goals? Why does he want that? What personal events and circumstances have combined with the broad strokes of history to shape him?

When I know that, I know how he will react to the people and events around him. How he will respond to Theodosia, the magic swirling around them, how he holds his head or looks down his nose, or whether he responds with disdain or respect.

And then a really cool thing happens, a bit of magic akin to when the wooden Pinocchio became a real boy. The character begins to take on attributes that I haven’t designed for him. He begins to become a real person in his own right until finally, he becomes so real and fully dimensional that he gets up off the page and walks into the book, finally a real person.

Which is a long way of sheepishly confessing that I guess all that journaling time isn’t wasted after all.

How do your characters become real to you? What tricks do you use to b ring them to life, both for yourself and your readers?

This lady seems the right fit for folks who read this blog because they write YA or because they write mysteries or both. [Full disclosure: the rest of you are out of luck.]

Publishers Lunch reports: "Susan Hawk has joined The Bent Agency, focusing on authors of young adult and middle grade fiction, but also representing fantasy, science-fiction, historical fiction and mystery. For the past 15 years, she worked in children's book marketing, most recently as the marketing director at Holt Children's."

About the book
In Perfect Shot (Simon Romantic Comedies), high school athlete London Abrams is more likely to spike a volleyball than wear spike heels. Yet in one crush-tastic moment, she signs up for a modeling contest as an excuse to meet the photo intern Brent St. John. But instead of getting a call back from Brent, London gets a call back from contest judges! Now she’s in a fierce modeling competition feeling out way of her league, and Brent’s camera is zoomed in to document everything. Suddenly, London’s not feeling so ready for her close up.

About the author
Debbie Rigaud began her writing career covering news and entertainment for magazines—including Seventeen, Twist and CosmoGIRL!. She’s interviewed celebs, politicians and other social figures, but enjoyed interviewing “real” girls the most. A total Jersey girl at heart, Debbie lives in Bermuda with her husband.

I asked, Debbie answered
A. What's the scariest thing that's ever happened to you?  Bonus question:  have you used it, in any way,in a book?
D. I’m a vivid dreamer and have had crazy nightmares. Plus, when I’m in between dream and awake state, I could swear I see the strangest things. I don’t own any pets, but in the middle of one night I woke up and saw a German shepherd curled up close against me. Turns out, my sheets were bunched up in a shape of what looked like a dog. I woke up in a panic, frantically shaking the image out of the sheets. No, I haven’t used this in a book yet.

A. Mystery writers often give their characters an unreasoning  fear - and then make them face it.  Do you have any phobias, like fear of spiders or enclosed spaces?
D. I’m terrified of rodents? I have like a damn near clinical fear of them. Gurrrrrl, I won’t even subject myself to looking at a cartoon rodent! There’s a reason I didn’t go see Ratatouille. And because of this fear, I don’t even mess with squirrels. If one won’t get out of my way, I will cross the street in a heartbeat.

A. Do you have a favorite mystery book, author, or movie?
D. No, I don’t have a favorite today, but in middle school I was a huge Nancy Drew fan. (I still remember the retro book cover art!) And as old-fashioned as it sounds, I loved watching Murder, She Wrote. Also, for a bit, I got into Veronica Mars.

A. At its heart, every story is a mystery.  It asks why someone acts the way they did - or maybe what will happen next.  What question does your book ask?
D. What happens when a character so set in her ways steps outside of her box?

A. Is there a mystery in life that you are still trying to figure out?
Of course. Life itself - as well as after life - is a baffling mystery to me. But lately, I’ve been trying to crack the hidden messages sometimes found in dreams.