A Fun Day at SCBWI-WI NE

Our "Saturday in May" workshop has become an annual event. This year we had TWO workshops on Saturday, May 4. Picture book writer Linda Skeers spoke in the morning about how to incorporate humor into a manuscript. That's a question we all want to know the answer to, as humor can be tricky! I had the privilege of presenting my Idea Explosion Workshop again, in an expanded version, during the afternoon session.

 
We had 23 attendees, a fantastic welcome from the Muehl Public Library in Seymour, WI, a perfect-sized meeting room, a scrumptious snack table, and wonderful planning by our NE WI Area Rep, Miranda Paul.

Yes, I did actually use the Power Point. Just not quite yet. :)

It was a great day to connect with friends new and old, and I'm happy to say that both workshops received rave reviews. A good time was had by all!

Have you attended a conference or workshop lately? Gotten together with other writers? Come away with any tips?

The Quilt Walk, by Sandra Dallas

Emmy Blue Hatchett, age ten, lives with her parents and a close aunt and uncle in Illinois in 1863. Little does she know that everything is about to change when her father and uncle announce that they're all setting out for Golden, Colorado. The men want their families to live in the clean mountain air; even more, they want to build a business block that will include stores, hotels, and restaurants to serve the population that has begun to boom following the gold rush.

 

On the face of it, The Quilt Walk is a good adventure story: friends, enemies, turn-backs, rattlesnakes, and death in a Conestoga wagon train. But as I read I was most keenly aware that the book is a study of male/female relationships, primarily in marriage, despite the fact that we are always in the child Emmy's POV. In many ways Ma is a typical feminine woman of her day: she quilts, as she does all needlework, with only the tiniest, straightest stitches; and if anyone dares question her husband she responds with a firm "Thomas knows best." Still, she voices to Thomas plainly, if calmly, that he did not consult her before making this decision, and that leaving her extended family, her sewing circle, and the graves of their deceased children will be a struggle for her that he does not appreciate. And when there is just not room in the wagon for everything they would like to bring, to the point where Thomas says they can't bring extra clothes, Ma and Emmy solve the problem by wearing every dress they own, and not taking them off until Thomas, later in the journey, is the one to back down. Aunt Catherine, by contrast, so hates the idea of going to Colorado that she almost refuses to leave home, but after a few days on the trail she accepts it, seems to purposely change her attitude, and becomes a helpful and even positive person, free of resentment. That there's a line not to be crossed in submission to a husband, and that the husband, for his part, is required to be a good man, is portrayed by another couple in the train, a new young bride whom the adult women, and eventually Emmy, realize is being physically abused, and her lazy, boorish husband, who hasn't the respect of a single man in the party. Yet another picture of what marriage meant for a woman in those days comes through a happy, vivacious lady and the wonderful husband who adores her -- until a single gunshot makes her the widowed mother of orphaned children, alone with a few oxen and a covered wagon.

 

Where Emmy's own feminity seems different from the typical is in her hatred of needlework. But walking alongside a covered wagon day after day can be incredibly boring, and tough going, and even Emmy is eventually encouraged to turn to the gift her grandmother gave her when they left: quilt squares from which to stitch her own quilt -- even while walking, as so many of the women did. And though I'm going to refrain from spoilers here, I will say that the progress of the various women's lives continues, showing the range of likely experiences for that day -- with a few surprises, and, in every case, hope.  

 

This novel is based on a true story, and one of the quilts that the family brought to Colorado is now in the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden.

 

Great for lovers of historical fiction and strong girl stories.

Crit Group Celebrations, and a Talk by Editor Wendy McClure

Our critique group met the other day, at Mary's house, and Mary had a birthday. So we had to celebrate. Left to right, we are Susan, Marcia, Mary, and Connie.

Then, Susan had a book out! Route 2, Box 12 is the third collection of her weekly "life on Sunnybook Farm" columns that have appeared in several regional newspapers since the early 1980s. So we had to celebrate again. This time, we are Mary, Marcia, Susan, and Connie.

And yes, we did actually do some critiquing after all this. :)

This past Saturday, April 20, Wendy McClure, Senior Editor at Albert Whitman, spoke at the SCBWI-WI Spring Luncheon. She gave an entertaining program on her favorite MG childhood series, the Little House books. The most interesting part of the program for me was the excerpts from Laura Ingalls Wilder's early drafts; the long, single-spaced editorial letters sent to her by her own daughter, Rose Wilder Lane; and rejection/acceptance letters, the former from RWL's own literary agent and the latter from Knopf; which we got to see onscreen through Power Point.

I was really struck by this: Laura's early attempts were (1) all telling, and (2) from a distant observer's POV. Rose told her she had to be inside Laura, and Rose was right on. While listening, I thought about the need to allow first drafts to be poor if that's the only way they will come out, about how we sometimes can't put the emotional content into our stories until we can first bring ourselves to record them at all, about how steep and difficult the climb to publishable-prose level is for all of us, and how the newbiest of writers can go on to produce something special, even timeless.

And I thought of the kinks, rocks, and boulders in the road to publication even after you succeed. Because it wasn't Knopf who published Little House in the Big Woods, even though they accepted it. The year was 1931, and Knopf closed their children's book imprint because of the Depression. The book had to go back on the market and sell again, this time to Harper, who did publish it.

All of the biggest successes we can think of were achieved by people who, when they first set out, couldn't be sure they'd accomplish a thing. And this is why I believe, on every level, that life is a faith walk.