Izumi Shikibu poem, what authors put up over their desks for inspiration

I don't remember where I found this poem, but I have it taped on my wall over my writing desk. When I'm thinking and staring out into space, sometimes I catch sight of it and it always fills me up.

In this world
love has no color --
but how deeply
my body
is stained by yours.

Izumi Shikibu

Susan Campbell Bartoletti's new book, The Boy Who Dared, writers' dreams and tips

I've pulled forward a comment Sue made in response to a recent post of mine. It's so interesting I wanted to make sure everyone saw it. Authors and dreams.... how do your dreams swim into your writing?

I got to read The Boy Who Dared in galleys. It's an incredible, brave book. One of those books you put down and your world seems somehow altered.

Here's Sue:

Betsy,

What a great question! I just finished a novel that will be out next month: The Boy Who Dared (Scholastic). I encountered the main character's story when I was researching and writing Hitler Youth.

It's a story that kept me awake long after I had finished writing Hitler Youth. That's how I knew I wasn't finished with Helmuth Hübener yet, and in order to understand his courage and strength, I had to write a novel.

Now I'm in the throes of researching and writing -- and nearing the deadline of -- another nonfiction book that's keeping me up. The material gives me nightmares!

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. I've grown to accept the nightmares as an understanding that my subconscious is processing the material in a deep and meaningful way -- or at least that's what I tell myself.

But the dreams must be working because I"m seeing the whole picture now, the thematic threads that must be tugged through the narrative.

I'm curious, Betsy: do you have any thoughts on the value of dreams and the creative process? What does the dream spirit say about dreams -- good and bad -- and creativity?

Susan, who has never blogged before and needs to figure out how to use html tags AND get her full name to show up and so for now will add:
Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Librarians, writers, and readers take heart!

I was just in my niece Jessica Sprague's fifth grade class helping the kids figure out how to write non-fiction. Jessica is using Lucy Calkins' amazing books. Really interesting way of helping students sort through a bunch of ideas about their lives and focus on one to write about.

I wasn't there entirely altruistically -- in the novel I'm working on, my main character has just finished fifth grade, but seems to be slipping into a younger age, so I thought I better hang with some fifth graders.

Brainstorming with one of the girls, I asked her what she liked to do after school. What really made her eyes light up: playing librarian with her friend and "dealing with all the cranky customers."

So, hang on! We're got budding librarians-to-be in the works, and they know what they are getting into!

Who says childrens' librarians are stick-in-the-muds?

All the American Library Association awards have been announced, the recipients toasted and feted and fussed over. Everyone has decamped from ALA, and the aisles have been swept. Roger Sutton, a member of the Caldecott committee this year, has put up his wonderful home-made podcast of the early, early morning as the committee gathered together in high spirits to phone the award winners. My favorite bit: committee member Eileen Abramson, head of Children’s Services at the LA public library on how she felt: “I haven't made anyone that happy in the morning since my honeymoon,” she said.

Check out the rest on Roger Sutton’s podcast. He does so love being a bad boy.

Pete Seeger's favorite song. What's making YOUR socks roll up and down?

A few posts ago I said the favorite of my books is the one I'm working on. Here's how Pete Seeger answered the question when asked what his favorite song is: "the one I'm singing." He did go on to say... "But I find myself as an old man singing "Turn, Turn, Turn" more often than I ever did because it does have so many meanings for me." (Full Beliefnet interview)

Getting a theme going here. Photograph, book, song, whatever you feel passionate about right this moment can be absolutely, totally your favorite. Till the next one.

What art or photos or books or craft-y projects are you making that are filling you up with joy and exuberance and middle-of-the-night panic at the challenge?

I'm working on: "Fit Pete Seeger's amazing and interesting and controversial life into 32 to 40 pages, and don't forget to leave room for the pictures."

Waiting for winter ALA awards, video of National Book Award to Sherman Alexie

American Library Association meets January 11-16 in Philadelphia. Major children and young adult awards are announced by the ALA: the Newbery (children), the Caldecott (illustration), the Sibert (informational), and the Printz (young adult).

I'm especially excited this year about hearing the awards announced as I served on the National Book Award for Young People this year. We read over 250 books -- mostly young adult and middle grade -- to chose five finalists. It was exhilarating, mind-numbing, challenging, and one of the most exciting experiences of my life. I fell passionately in love with the other people on my committee. They were all strong hearted, hardworking, eloquent writers.

There were about twenty-five extraordinary books that I could have happily seen getting the Young People's award for the year, but we had to winnow down to five finalists and finally chose... just... one. I'm betting some of the books I adored will get a shout-out at ALA.

Marc Aronson's SLJ Blog and Pete Seeger Proposal

I'm trying something really cool with Marc Aronson on his School Library Journal blog, Nonfiction Matters. He's invited me to share my process of putting together a picture book bio. on Pete Seeger on his blog. Check out what we've done so far on Marc's blog -- we're hoping people will comment and ask questions about the process as we go along.

Basically, we think non-fiction is really fantastic and doesn't get the kind of shout-outs it deserves and we want to roar out a few good stories about what we do in the hopes of exciting people.

I'm writing the book with my editor, Jill Davis. Once we decided on the project, I had to give her a proposal so she could sell her publisher at Bloomsbury on the idea. My job was to make the book sound so enticing, the publisher would be drooling to get it. Here's the proposal I sent Jill, hoping it would help her with her pitch.

Horn Book reviews of my books and my secret favorite book

Horn Book Magazine has compiled a list of reviews of my books I cited in the article I just wrote for them, Fueling the Dream Spirit, in the Jan/Feb 2008 Horn Book. Very cool!

Photographer Imogen Cunningham, when asked which of her photos was her favorite, used to say, "the one I'm about to take." I feel the same way, and I think lots of authors do. My favorite book is always the one I am working on, the one I'm caught up in, the dream that is not quite yet bound by earthly considerations of length, and word choices and a set title and cover.

Sometimes I'm so caught up in dreaming I forget where I've been, and what I've written. It's lovely to be reminded of the books I've done, the ones that were once the dream, and are now my babes out in the world with lives of their own, lives I'm very, very pleased with.

Thank you to Martha Parravano and Roger Sutton at Horn Book.

Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, and Sukey-jumps

Some days I get captivated by the beauty of a word. For the last few days I’ve been in love with “sukey-jump.” I’m doing the research and roughing out an outline for a picture book biography on folk singer Pete Seeger. One of his big influences was Lead Belly, whom he met in NYC in 1938. Born in Louisiana, Lead Belly played the 12 string guitar, and was a genius at composing and adapting songs like Irene Goodnight, Cornbread Rough, and Midnight Special. Sukey-jumps were boisterous house parties with a guitar player, fast dancing breakdowns, drinking, and eating things like parched peanuts, fried rabbit and chitterlings. Lead Belly got paid fifty cents a night to play at local sukey-jumps.

So now: Will I be able to squeeze this wonderful word from a by-gone time in the South in a picture book biography on a reserved New England song singer?