Stephanie Burgis - Magical Books for Ages Ten to Fifteen

And a very happy announcement!

February 1, 2012, 12.55 pm

Hey! Remember back in December when I was soooo nervously working on a (long) short story for a really, really cool-sounding YA anthology, biting my nails every day over whether I could really finish the story on time, and whether the editor would like it and want to buy it after all?

Well, guess what? She did! She liked it AND bought it! And now I can finally announce: my story "The Unladylike Education of Agatha Tremain" will be published in the anthology Wilful Impropriety, a collection of short YA romances set in the Victorian Era and themed around breaking the rules.

It's edited by Ekaterina Sedia, and in the UK, it'll be published by Constable & Robinson on June 7th 2012*; I believe it'll be co-published in the US by Running Press, but I'm not sure yet of the publication date.

This is the first YA anthology I've ever been invited into, which is really exciting for me and feels like a wonderful milestone...but what's even more exciting for me is the list of other authors in the Table of Contents:

• Genevieve Valentine
• Leanne Renee Hieber
• Steve Berman
• Seth Cadin
• Tiffany Trent
• Karen Healey
• Sandra McDonald
• Marie Brennan
• M.K. Hobson
• Barbara Roden
• Mary Robinette Kowal
• Caroline Stevermer

(Did you see that last one? I am in an anthology with Caroline Stevermer!!!! My fan-girl heart just about EXPLODED when I found that out!)

I am so happy about this. And I'm so happy I can finally share the news! I'm dancing over here. :)

___

*And because I would feel too guilty if I gave only an Amazon link, here are the other UK pre-order links that I know of: Foyles, Waterstones,  Amazon.co.uk, and the Book Depository. Whew! :)

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Crossed Fingers and a Request for Help

January 30, 2012, 3.27 pm

OK, all fingers and toes are crossed as I type this, because I'm so scared of jinxing myself, but...

...I really think life might be just about back to normal! MrD is happy and healthy and went to school today. I had my first full writing session in a week and a half this morning, and (oh, please let this be true!) tentatively expect to have another one tomorrow morning, just like a normal week. In the last twenty-four hours, I've written about 2100 words of my WIP (hooray!), and we've all actually started to get some sleep.

I might not stop holding my breath for a while yet, but oh, I feel so much better today than I did last week!

And now that I'm finally starting to catch up on everything that came up during my limbo week...I need help!

I've been asked to write an article for a very cool academic journal about spec-fic writers who've been influenced by Jane Austen. Here are the first names that occurred to me (other than, yes, okay, myself, but I am PRETTY SURE that it would be considered weird and tacky to focus on myself in this article! ;p ), along with a few more already suggested on Twitter:

• Mary Robinette Kowal
• Caroline Stevermer
• Patricia Wrede
• Susanna Clarke
• Madeleine Robins
• Merrie Haskell
• Sarah Prineas
• Karen Joy Fowler
• Marissa Doyle
• Galen Beckett

I am certain that the real list should be a whole lot longer, though. Can you guys help? Who else should I be thinking of for this article?

(Also, another favor request for anyone in the UK: is there any chance I could borrow a copy of Madeleine Robins's latest alternate-Regency mystery novel? [I have her first one already.] I would promise to treat it gently and return it ASAP. The problem is, I am SO BROKE right now that I've actually been forced to institute a book-buying moratorium [wahhh!], and the magazine is cooler than it is wealthy, so there won't be any payments to cover book purchases. However, it is a very cool magazine, and the editor is also a friend, so all in all, I do want to do this if at all possible!)

Any help would be hugely appreciated!

And thank goodness for Netgalley, which is allowing me to read some wonderful new novels ahead of publication. This weekend I read Jesse Andrews's Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, an upper-YA novel which turned out - somewhat shockingly, based on the premise of the book! - to be one of the funniest books I've read in a long time, as well as having an awful lot of heart. You can read my full review here.

What about you guys? What have you been reading lately?

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Limbo Week

January 27, 2012, 12.17 pm

This has been a week spent in limbo as I've waited for different things. Most importantly and urgently, I'm waiting for MrD to get better. In the past 8 days, he's only been to school once, and that one time turned out to be a mistake. So, life for both me and Patrick is very much focused on looking after our sick little boy right now, with everything else put on temporary hold.

I'm also waiting to hear back on a freelance writing audition, so that I'll know more about my writing schedule for the next couple of months.

And although, last week, I finally made the scary (as a parent) decision to schedule a mini-writing-retreat for my own WIP, I'm waiting to actually make any solid plans for that until MrD is all better. (Yes, because I'm a mom, and because I'm exhausted, I do find myself having to fight back paranoid worries that I somehow jinxed his health just by making that decision to leave for a retreat...but honestly, I do know that isn't possible. I'm just really tired right now!)

Could I just put it out there to the universe, that...well, right now would be a really good time to get some good news? Any bit of random good news would do, really.

Here are some things that have been helping me through this week, though:

1. Sitting in my favorite café for a stolen hour away from home, drinking a latte and reading an absolutely fascinating research book for my WIP (Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move in the Great Depression, by Errol Lincoln Uys - so absorbing and compelling, and disturbingly full of parallels to current issues, too!)

2. Reading this beautiful blog entry by Naomi Kinsman, The Courage of Firsts, all about the terror of trying your absolute hardest (in writing OR life). Here's a quick snippet:

When you put all your creative cards on the table and honestly push yourself to do the very best work you can, there's a bittersweet quality to the experience. You find out exactly how much you can do, today. And often, the critic inside you throws a fit. "Not good enough!" she shouts. No. Maybe the work I can do today isn't the most brilliant work I will ever do. Still, the choice remains. Do I have the courage to at least work, regardless of the quality? Regardless of what people think of me? Regardless of the outcome?

This blog entry spoke so strongly to me, especially because my WIP has absolutely terrified me ever since the heroine first whispered her first lines into my ear. The whole novel is so personal to me, it's such a stretch for me as a writer, it's such a big challenge for so many reasons...

I ran away from it for over a year and a half after my heroine first started whispering in my ear. Instead, I threw myself into projects that felt safer and easier. This spring, I finally wrote the first two chapters of it, but then I buried them for several months because I was so scared of trying and failing that I didn't dare try at all. It seemed so much safer to write something less personal, less me, less vulnerable and scary and hard.

Well. You guys all know that I finally went back to it this August, and I'm working on it now whenever I can. I'm trying to keep in touch with it every single day even during this limbo period, whether it's by reading research books, watching documentaries, or just listening to my playlist and letting my thoughts daydream through the story. As scary as it is, I've finally let down my defenses and thrown my whole heart into it.

And I really loved that blog entry.

3. I also read a perfect escape book for fans of adult romance, which I reviewed over at my romance book-blog, Eating Chocolate, Reading Romance. (BTW, I'm not going to post any links to my romance book-blog from my @stephanieburgis twitter account anymore, but if you want to get those updates via tweet, you can follow my brand-new second twitter account, @eatchocreadrom. I'm slightly uncertain about whether it's okay to keep linking to those blog posts from this blog, either - I read a very smart blog entry by a children's publishing professional yesterday that made me feel nervous about the whole thing! - but I think I will keep on posting those links here...at least for now. It's really hard to balance professional/personal life stuff on the web, especially as a children's writer! If any of you guys have an opinion one way or the other, I'd genuinely love to hear it, because I'm working hard to figure out a path here, and I could use some help.)

What about you guys? What have you done this week that's felt good? And are you waiting on anything right now?

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Sick Days and Reading Distractions

January 24, 2012, 11.14 am

Oof. Poor MrD has been sick again ever since Thursday, getting worse in the last couple of days, so we're all pretty tired over here. I had two big freelance deadlines last week, so I'd been planning to spend this week happily re-immersed in my WIP, but...well, sick children change the game plan, to say the least.

Honestly, I do sometimes feel frustrated about that when MrD's only a little bit sick, but when he's really sick, as he has been in the last couple of days, my priorities re-align themselves as naturally as compass needles. As frustrated as I can feel about not getting to work on my novel, that is nothing as compared to seeing him in pain.

It's been a hard few days. :(

Anyway! I'm really grateful for good children's audiobooks (my current favorite to listen to along with MrD is Arnold Lobel's Owl at Home), good iPad apps for kids (Elmo <3 ABCs is the most-played-with here), and also the fact that this is a week without work deadlines, so at least I'm not having to panic over those at the same time!

Also, I'm massively grateful to good friends. Erin Blakemore sent me the perfect comfort read and distraction for this weekend - an all-new-to-me Georgette Heyer novel! I read every Heyer novel in my local library and bought every single one of them that I could find (and afford) in a Michigan or Ontario bookstore twenty years ago, but I never managed to find a copy of Sprig Muslin back then.

As someone who's re-read all my favorite Heyer novels (and even several that aren't my favorites) countless times over the last 20 years, it was such a wonderful, rare pleasure to read one that was actually completely new to me!

I wouldn't put it in the absolute first-rank of Heyer novels (a very elite shelf, for me!), but there were parts of the climax that were so funny they actually made me laugh out loud because the natural personality clashes were so fabulous. Also, Lady Hester, the vague, myopic, no-longer-pretty, and completely unexpected heroine, is now one of my favorite romance heroines ever.

The whole book is more a comedy of manners than a romance, really, but oh, it was stylish and funny and just exactly what I needed. Thanks so much, Erin!

What about you guys? Have you found any good distractions lately?

(And a quick PS: I need to apologize to everybody to whom I owe email. I really, really hope to catch up on my inbox again as soon as MrD is healthy, and within the next week or so at the latest. It isn't happening yet, though. I'm sorry!)

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Finding Heroines

January 19, 2012, 11.55 am

There are nonfiction books that I read and enjoy, then set aside. There are nonfiction books that I find helpful in research. And then there are the books that I come back to again and again, the ones that feel genuinely life-saving to me.

A couple of years ago, I beta-read Erin Blakemore's draft manuscript of The Heroine's Bookshelf: Life Lessons, from Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls Wilder. Erin talks about 12 of her favorite classic novels by women, their heroines, and their authors' lives, focusing on the ways we can draw strength from their (often imperfect but brave) examples. She doesn't shy away from the negative issues in some of the novels (the racism in Gone With the Wind and Laura Ingalls Wilder's novels, for example), or the problematic issues in the authors' own lives, but she delves into every book and every author's life with compassion and enthusiasm, and the result is a really inspiring collection.

The books and their authors are Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen), Their Eyes are Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston), Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery), The Color Purple (Alice Walker), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith), Claudine at School (Colette), Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell), To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee), The Long Winter (Laura Ingalls Wilder), Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë), Little Women (Louisa May Alcott), and The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett). A lot of those are books I've read and loved at various points in my life, so I expected to enjoy the book. What actually happened was that I LOVED it, and in the years since I read the draft manuscript, I've thought again and again about those authors' lives, the struggles they faced and the strength it took them to write through those hard times.

Yesterday, I got a package in the mail from Erin with my own copy of the beautiful new paperback edition. It came with perfect timing, as I was having a hard, tired, stressed-out day. I sank into it with so much happiness, and was nearly finished re-reading it by the end of the evening, feeling like I'd been given an ideal combination of hot bubblebath, hot chocolate and a bracing hug, all in one.

Since it just came out in paperback, and it has meant so much to me over the last couple of years, I asked Erin to talk a little bit about the book with me here.

Steph: Over the past year, since I first read THB, I've often thought back in difficult times of my own to the writers whose struggles you described in your book, and I've been so grateful for that source of strength and inspiration. Are there any particular writers in that group whose struggles or actions have especially inspired you in your own life?

Erin: I found that I really took a lot of inspiration from Louisa May Alcott. She was a stubborn person faced by some horrible luck in life, and writing was her redemption and her way of expressing herself in a world that was actively hostile to talented women. I feel so lucky to not live in that world, but I take a lot of comfort from the way she really leaned into her work and pressed through her life's obstacles.

Are there any writers in that group whose lives particularly surprised you as you researched them?

Every writer presented me with a moment of surprise, but I was most surprised by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I had no idea how much she had suffered from changes in the publishing world (sound familiar?) or that she supported her husband through grad school. Her story is surprisingly modern.

How did you choose the writers you highlighted in the book?

A few rounds of "he loves me, he loves me not" and a couple of daisies and I was set! Actually, I thought long and hard about the writers who were so personally significant to me that they couldn't be omitted. I couldn't go too obscure or nobody but me would enjoy the book, but if I went too obvious, the book wouldn't feel like my own. I put forth a short list in my book proposal and then worked with my editor to hone it down. I tried to balance both the lives of the writers and the tones of their books. I'll say this: it was not the most fun part of writing the book, since it's never easy to turn your back on a favorite!

How did your research, as you wrote the book, end up affecting your experience as a reader of those writers' books? Are there any books you feel differently about now that you know what was going on in their writers' lives?

I'd say I read all of "my" authors' books differently now. Having a perspective on the author's life makes the experience of reading their books quite complicated and fascinating. I think it's a bit too easy to assume that a writer's book is autobiographical, but in the case of writers like Lucy Maud Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott and Charlotte Bronte you can see their true personalities shining through. You'd think that knowing things like "Charlotte Bronte suffered greatly while writing this book" or "Louisa May Alcott wrote this for money" would ruin the reading experience, but it's really quite the opposite.

If you could have coffee with just one of the writers you wrote about, which one would it be? And what do you think you would talk about?

Aaah! How to choose? I think I'd go with Margaret Mitchell. We'd drink coffee laced with some kind of booze and gossip about anything and everything. I have a feeling I could learn from her publishing war stories.

You can find out more about Erin and her book here.

And now, since I had a good writing session this morning, I'm going to reward myself by finishing my own re-read with a cup of Earl Grey. Mmmm.

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