Author Archives: Avi

If only I had known

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Sometimes, when you publish an historical novel, readers send in corrections (I had the wrong gear shift sequence in the Model T Ford, in The Secret School). Sometimes you get additional  information. Here is such a one for Sophia’s War. As I wrote my correspondent, “Oh! If only I had known about this particular soldier’s name and that the cannon still existed!!!!!” Maybe in the second edition.

Peterson markerThis hard-to-find marker, with a plaque that reads “The Grave of John J. Peterson, Revolutionary War, Westchester Militia (1746 – 1850)” is the grave of a little-known African American soldier, who played a small but crucial role in a pivotal event of the war. On September 21, 1780, Peterson, along with Moses Sherwood, brought a cannon from Fort Lafayette at Verplanck’s Point to Croton Point. There they fired on the British frigate Vulture which was waiting to pick up Major John André, who at the time was plotting with American General Benedict Arnold for the surrender of West Point. The Vulture abandoned its river position, forcing the spy André to move overland on horseback. He was captured in Tarrytown a few days later carrying plans of West Point. André was hanged in the tiny Rockland County hamlet of Tappan on October 2, 1780. Today, the cannon used by the patriots sits in front of the Peekskill Museum. Sherwood is buried in Ossining’s Sparta Cemetery 

A heap of manure

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Fossil fernYears and years ago, when I was in college—and already determined to be a writer—I had a number of vital mentors. ( If you are a young writer and you have a mentor who takes you seriously, you have a very great gift.)  In any case, one of my mentors was a singer by the name of Lee Hays, the baritone for the popular singing group The Weavers. He was also a writer. A family friend who lived in the neighborhood, he took an interest in me and my writing. One day I came back from college and (unabashedly) handed him a pile of my writing and asked him to critique it. He requested that I come back in a week. Which I did.

“Well, Lee,” I said, “what do you think?” 

“Well Avi,” he rumbled in his wonderful, deep Arkansas accent, “It takes a heap of manure to make a flower grow.”

I have never forgotten that remark, not just because it was wonderful, funny, and apt, but because it also has never ceased to be true. What the writer writes, for the most part, is bad. Poor. Inept.

Good writing is all about rewriting. The hardest part of writing for me, is not the act of creation, per se, it is that I know what I am writing is bad stuff. But you have to have the bad to get to the good. 

Stuck to my writing computer is a small fossil fern. I know it took millions and millions of years to create. That’s a lot of manure. But  . . .  it’s very beautiful now. It’s there because I am trying to write something that will be good. In time . . . 

At the National Book Festival

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National Book FestivalAs someone who was privileged to be part of this year’s National Book Festival, (Washington DC) it was wonderful to see huge numbers of people turn out to hear about and share their love of books. Writers talked to large crowds about poetry and picture books, history and horticulture, fiction and fishing. There were people of all ages, scampering kids galore, and older folks, some in wheel chairs, plus multitudes of young couples clutching hands and books—in double-handed affection. Glorious weather. For bookends, the dome of the Capital at one end of the Mall, the Washington Monument at the other. When I spoke, and the time for questions came, there were more kids lined up than adults. “How does it feel to be a writer?” asked one young reader. Right then and there, the answer was “Good!” (and very honored to be there).

The Sugarhouse

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Sophia’s War, just published, is a tale about the American Revolution. It takes places in New York City.

As readers of the book will learn, the British occupied New York for most of the war. I tried to describe the city as best as I could, based on rather extensive research. One of the key sites in the book is a building known as The Sugarhouse. This building was originally a place where Jamaican sugar was boiled down to become molasses. Since fire was involved, the building was made of stone. During the war the British converted it into a prison, and it became notorious for its squalor, deprivations, and cruelty—a place where many, many Americans died.

I recently went to New York City and wandered about the area where the story takes place.    Needless to say, though many of the narrow streets have their old names, almost nothing that existed then, exists today. Except one thing. When the old Sugarhouse was torn down, someone saved one of the barred windows. It was eventually installed in a wall near what is called Police Plaza. It took some searching and lots of asking, but I found it, a truly poignant memorial. And here it is. 

Sugar House

Setting the pins

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Bowling PinsWhen I was a kid I had a job as pin boy, which was in the basement of a local church. A pin boy, for those younger than I, was the kid who set up the bowling pins in a bowling alley. (This was long before the job was handed over to robots.) It was tricky and sometime dangerous work, because pins could and did fly in wild directions.  

One my tasks was to make sure the pins were spotted exactly right. If not, the bowler, looking down the alley, would shout, “Hey pin boy. Pin six. Get it right!” If I didn’t get it right, the bowler would have a harder time knocking down all the pins and thereby achieving a “strike!”

I thought about that today as I worked on my new book. Sometimes when I write, I have the plot more or less all worked out in my head. It’s never that simple of course but sometimes I know, sort of, where I am going. Other times, such as at this moment, I’m not at all sure. As I result I go back and forth, this way and that. Here I am, one hundred and fifty pages in, and I write a new chapter one. And then some. 

What I am doing, if you will, is setting up the plot pins. If I don’t get the plot right, line it up, space it just correctly, the reader won’t be able to knock them down. Dangerous work, setting down plots.

The Illustrated Novel

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Denslow Oz

I’ve always loved the illustrated novel. While the heyday of the illustrated novel was the nineteenth century, it exists today, if it exists at all, almost exclusively in novels for young people. I think it adds enormously to the reader’s pleasure. Consider the original Tenniel illustrations of Alice in Wonderland, Denslow’s Wizard of Oz, Shepard’s Wind in the Willows, or Wyeth’s Treasure Island. I read these books as a kid and cannot think of the texts without thinking of those illustrations. Good text and good art, together, make great books.

City of Light, City of DarkI often ask that my novels be illustrated, but only rarely get my wish. The great exceptions are the Poppy novels, so splendidly illustrated by Brian Floca. I may have written those books, but when I imagine the characters I think of his art. Floca  has become a major illustrator in his own right (and write) but I’m proud that his first work was in our graphic novel City of Light City of Dark.

Paul O. Zelinsky’s first illustrated novel was my Emily Upham’s Revenge.

Traitors’ Gate was illustrated like a Victorian novel, with more than sixty illustrations by Karina Raude.

The most beautiful edition of Crispin is a South Korean edition.

Publishers will tell you the illustrated novel is expensive to create and difficult to produce. No doubt. They also say young readers don’t want them, a claim I do doubt very much. I so wish the illustrated novel would come back into favor—and into the hands of young readers. What’s your favorite illustrated novel?

The Pause Key

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Pause ButtonOne of the questions I am most often asked when visiting a school is, “Have you ever had writer’s block?”

How young people even know the term “writer’s block “ is a mystery to me. Over the years, however, I think I’ve come to understand what they are really asking. 

First, however, writer’s block is, as I understand it, a serious form of depression. And depression is the occupational disease of writers. But this is something more specific.   From what I understand, writer’s block is a fear of writing, a psychological state in which the writer becomes fearful of revealing—going public, if you will—of something (consciously or unconsciously) that is embedded in his or her writing. As a result they stop writing. I am hardly an expert on this, and in any case, I have never really been subject to such a condition.

What I’ve learned, however, is that what young people actually mean by the question “have you ever had writer’s block?”  is, “Have you ever been stuck, unable to think out the next word, sentence, paragraph, etc.?“ The answer is, of course! All the time! One hundred times a day! Writing requires a huge amount of thinking, planning, deciding, and so forth.  Pausing. No one writes in one long endless flow. No one. This is important, because when young people get stuck—which always happens to all writers—when they don’t know how to proceed, they think it means they can’t write. But writing takes time. Pausing. Sometimes for a long time. Any teaching of writing that does not allow time for thought gives a very wrong message to the young writer. Being stuck is very much part of the process, as is thinking out how not to be stuck. 

Books by their covers

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I was recently talking to a highly successful editor, and she was telling me about the recent aesthetic evolution of book cover design. The essence is this: With the increase in sales of books on the internet, it has become important to design a book cover so that it can be read. Previously, one saw the book in a book store—and there it was—with carefully (one hopes) designed graphic art. Yes the title and author’s name were there, but they were embedded in the art. Now, online, we see very small images of the cover. The need to present author’s name and book title becomes more important. As a result more attention is being paid to cover size, font, and design of the type. I suspect that this will be less a factor in books for young people—surely picture books, and middle grade novels. But there it is, the latest word. But I suspect it will influence the title itself—for that will tend to attract (or not) the reader even more. It will also favor known writers over new or lessor known.

When I get the first copy of a new book …

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Sophia's WarFrom the time I first contemplated the story that would become Sophia’s War, and the moment when the published volume came into my hands, it has been more than three years. By contract, I get some copies of the book, which usually arrive about one month prior to the official publication date. 

What do I do when I get the first copy in my hands? I look at it. This is to say I get a sense of the physical book, the binding, the paper, the cover, the printing. (There is good printing and bad printing.) Does the book open flat enough? Is the gutter wide enough? How is the font? What does the book look like under the dust jacket? In this case I looked at the maps, because I had not seen them in place before.

(Once I discovered a huge printing mistake in my first copies of The Man Who was Poe, so bad the whole print run had to be called back, and redone!)

Then, what I always do is take that first copy of the book, sign the title page, add the date I received it. It then it goes on shelves of similarly signed books—and it just sits there.

Charlotte Doyle signed 90In all probability—unless there is a particular reason to do so—I won’t read the whole book again. I have, after all, read it a few thousands of times. Yes, I may be called upon to read excerpts at various occasions—as I just did in NYC—and I enjoy that. But now, the book belongs to readers.

Besides, I’m working on something new.

The anatomy of mediocrity

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Great ExpectationsOn a recent trip I took along two books. One was Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, the second a nameless contemporary mystery by another British writer. Airplane reading.   I had read Great Expectations a few times. It is one of my very favorite novels, and is, in my opinion, one of the greatest novels ever written. As I read it this time I marveled again and again at its brilliance. Many a time, while reading, I said to myself, “How can you call yourself a writer when you read such wonderful stuff?”

In any case I finished the book, deeply impressed, and in considerable awe.

My flight home was very much delayed so I was glad I had that second book. I did read it and found it was very poor stuff indeed. Again and again I said to myself, “I can do better than this!” Or, “I write better than this!”

It may seem odd to say, but sometimes, when reading great writing, such as Dickens at his best, it’s impossible to learn anything. It is simply too good. But read something very much down the scale and you can learn a lot, because one can learn more from the anatomy of mediocrity than from the flawless body of genius.