Vermont College

I've just returned home from Vermont College of Fine Arts where I teach in the Writing for Children and Young Adults. We had a fantastic residency. It's so intense, it's like a writing boot camp. We go from early morning until way after dinner with lectures and readings and group workshops and individual meetings between students and advisers.

 This time I did yoga (classes almost every day) and I managed to get there (7 am!) six or seven times, so I felt like I had a yoga retreat as well. But sleep? Not so much.

Kathi Appelt and I did back to back lectures. I led off with writing picture book biographies, discussing the brilliant craft moves in four of my favorite picture book bios. I couldn't resist talking about the dance between images and text, and how to save "scrap" for the upcoming illustrator while researching. I unplugged my PowerPoint and Kathi plugged in, rolling with her lecture on autobiography and memoir, and how facts and feelings play into them. It was a great saturation in the whole genre with both of us coming at it from different angles. Kathi is pure inspiration.

Residency is a time of taking in more than you ever thought you could, a bittersweet time of letting go of old teacher-student relationships and starting new ones. It's a time of risk-taking, and falling or leaping off cliffs and flying, as the graduating class of Wingbuilders can attest.

Here are the last couple students making it to a reading, just at that moment when it is getting dark but you can still take a photograph. And yeah, I was the very last one there, or I couldn't have taken this shot!

The Supreme Court Rulings: Day of Sorrow, Day of Joy

I'm thrilled with the supreme court ruling against DOMA. This is a tide that can't be stopped.

Last fall my son, living in Minnesota, applied for a job at a university in the south. They were a little worried about how someone from the north would do in the south. At a round table with all the faculty, one young prof. asked him what he liked about Atlanta. "Well," my son said, "you have some good gay rights going here."

"Is that the kind of thing you're into?" said the young prof.

The head of the committee's hand shot out. "You can't ask that!" Because, of course, its strictly against the law to ask about sexual orientation.

My son was hired, and took the job. He moves to Atlanta in a few months, with his wife and new baby.

But. My joy is tempered by the striking down of the heart of the Voting Rights Act. This is such a huge, huge loss for our country.

We had a movement, a wonderful, committed leader, a group of (mostly) young people willing to put their liberty, even their lives at risk.  We had a Congress willing to work together. The reverberations of this will run through our politics for so long. Five to four. So close.

Here's congressman John Lewis, who was tear-gassed and clubbed at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama while fighting for the right to vote in 1965:


And President Johnson, 1965. Imagine the courage it took for this Southern politician to push this legislation through.

In love with Pantone 8005

More digital proofs arrived in the mail this week. First came all of the pages, every beautiful image. There's something breathtaking about seeing them full-size done by the printer. We're still adjusting density, tonal range, and contrast on a couple of the images, and catching places that need to be spotted. Sometimes there is a speck of dust on the negative, or a scratch, and when you blow up the photo, it suddenly is very apparent.

And then the cover. Incredible. This is where the Pantone 8005 comes in: Besides the black and gray, the designer added in the 8005. It's gold. Beautiful, shimmering gold. The magic that makes the whole cover just ring. I hope you can see it in the photo here. The big patch of 8005 on the right: the endpapers. Incredibly rich and beautiful.

Yolanda said it best:"Jacket, case and endsheet proofs are here and they look oh so beautiful, strong and sweet."

Here's the corner of my writing room right now.

Working with the publisher to get the images just right

Dorothea Lange is in the final prepress stages. Caitlin Kirkpatrick at Chronicle Books sent me one huge page of what the printer is coming up with, using the paper and ink we'll have for the book. A few of the images were too dark, so the next day I went in to Chronicle -- the joy of having a publisher a short BART ride away!

Sheet of pages for color correction

I worked with the production coordinator, Yolanda Cazares, and the editorial assistant, Caitlin Kirkpatrick, on  figuring out the best way to show Dorothea's photos. We were going to do duotone, but there were just not enough mid-tones, so Chronicle is doing tritone! Do you know how gorgeous this will be? 

Yolanda Cazares and Caitlin Kirkpatrick in the worlds best-ever, walk-in light box

Yolanda is using two blacks and a third color to add the tonal range they want. In her words, "not sepia, but a touch of gold." See how hard it is to talk about color using words? After the printer lays down the ink, the whole thing gets a very light coating of varnish, which adds to the warmth of the image.


This is the next best thing to holding an actual, archival print in your hands.

Courage, kids, and Selma

I'm fascinated by courageous people -- probably because I do not have a courageous bone in my body. I'm a total chicken. I especially don't like to get hurt, so people who are willing to put themselves on the line for something they believe in have my heartfelt admiration. When I've asked people how they found the bravery to do something -- especially if it went on for awhile -- they don't consider themselves courageous. As Lynda Lowery said of being a jailed and beaten young teen during the protests and march for the vote in 1965: "I was not brave. I was not courageous. I was determined. That's how I got to Montgomery."

I was just in Selma for the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee, along with Vice-President Joe Biden, Representative John Lewis, and some of the determined, courageous people who changed our national voting laws.Which was a crucial part of changing the whole discourse on civil rights in our country.

48 years ago, an amazing group of children and teens showed unbelievable courage. And here they are today, still speaking up. My heros.

Selma Freedom Fighters and Jubilee to Commemorate Voting Rights Act bravery

I've spent an amazing weekend in Selma, Alabama at the Jubilee. 48 years ago,kids and young adults joined the adults in Selma to fight for the right to vote. Lead by Martin Luther King, they pledged to be non-violent. They marched, were jailed, and some were beaten. They stuck to the principles of non-violence. Four years ago for my book I interviewed several of these now-grown Freedom Fighters. I came back this weekend to speak at the National Park Service Interpretive Center and to join in the commemorative march across the Pettus Bridge.

My favorite photo of the weekend: with four who marched as kids: Charles Mauldin, Lynda Lowry, Chief Henry Allen, and Joanne Bland. Honored to be with them!

At the National Park Service Interpretive Center.

The next morning I arrived early at the center, just before a huge swarm of law enforcement officers needed to make sure the area was safe for the Vice President. We were locked into our building, as we were right across the street from the bridge. It was fascinating to watch them. My favorite was the dogs and their trainers. They are the cream of the crop. Most dogs can smell three kinds of explosives: these dogs are trained (and constantly retrained) to sniff out fifteen. They checked and rechecked the area, doing a last sniffing job across every speck of the bridge.

Once the area was cleaned, we were allowed out to stand quietly in front of the building. But before the Vice President and Representative John Lewis came roaring over the bridge towards us in a cavalcade of vehicles with flashing blue and red lights to give their talks, we had to go back inside.
The secret service man (yep, he was wearing a trench coat) let us go upstairs to watch. He had to radio for permission first, and I suppose also to let the snipers on the roof across from us know that the faces suddenly appearing in the deserted upstairs were okay.

Wonderful but too short speeches by Attorney General Eric Holder, Ryan Haygood, John Lewis and Joe Biden. They started up the bridge, and the rest of us were soon allowed to go surging after them.

A moment of prayer on the bridge.

Best shot I couldn't take: we were asked at the prayer to remember those who had fought for justice, now passed away. An impeccably dressed, older man took off his hat and held it to his chest, tears sliding down his cheeks. He was all shades of brown: deep brown hat, mahogany face, tweedy brown suit, and behind him the sun was bursting through the clouds. Such a beautiful moment, but it was his, not mine.

Thanks to Theresa Lorraine Hall, ranger at the National Park Service.

My heartfelt thanks to all who marched to make this country live up to our ideals.

Extraordinary School

 I just had the most amazing school visit at Hamlin School in San Francisco. It's an all girls' school, begun by Sara Dix Hamlin in 1896. The school is in an old mansion full of amazing rooms. That built-in cabinet in the upper left corner of my collage is part of the school secretary's room! Full-on fake bamboo ceiling, too. And the horse? A huge student mural, hanging right in the main hall.

 The Head, Wanda Holland Greene, is incredible. When she was six years old, her father and mother decided she should be one of several children to integrate a school in the New York. Everyday she climbed on a bus and went to an all-white, Jewish neighborhood from her home in Brooklyn. She's energetic, direct, and determined to pass on to the girls the values of being an engaged citizen.

Ms. Greene wanted me to especially talk about Marching for Freedom. Here's what the girls were studying when I came: sixth graders were discussing freedom and personal rights, and the challenges of migrant farm worker families. Seventh grade: social class and identity, and will soon discuss Jim Crow era. Eighth graders: about to do a long unit on race and identity, and look at Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

These students will have such a rich understanding of history and social justice.

Love Me Do celebrates its 50th birthday!

Okay my friends. Don't worry about your email, feeding the cat, getting to work on time. Take two minutes out for this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEEC-yhr_Ks













50 years ago, on October 5, 1962,  the Beatles released Love Me Do.

Thanks to Lionel Bender for making my day.

Dorothea Lange, National Hispanic Heritage Month

National Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15 - Oct. 15) comes on us so fast at the beginning of the school year that sometimes it doesn't get much attention. I just found some incredible photographs by Dorothea Lange in the California fields of the migratory Mexican farm workers.

Mexican picking melons in the Imperial Valley, California

 Children of migratory Mexican field workers. The older one helps tie carrots in the field. Coachella Valley, California. Feb. 1937

Migratory Mexican field worker's home on the edge of a frozen pea field. Imperial Valley, California

(If you look closely, you can see a girl peeking out of the doorway.)

Migratory Mexican field worker's home, March, 1937. Dorothea Lange

Lange also photographed workers arriving as part of the Braceros Program. We called them "guest workers," they called themselves enganchados, the "hooked ones." Here's more about the controversial Bracero Program.

First Braceros, 1942. Dorothea Lange

Want to teach your students about what it was like to be a child working alongside your parents in the California fields? Here's a great lesson plan, Children in the Fields:, by Theresa Chaides at Marquez Charter Elementary School.

Your Vote is Precious

I was about twelve when I asked my mother about this mysterious voting thing she did a couple times a year... getting dressed in one of her nice dresses, then walking with my father up to our local grammar school to vote. She told me all about voting, concluding with, "it's both your privilege and your obligation to vote."

Her words came back to me as I worked my book Marching for Freedom, about the Selma to Montgomery march for the vote. I discovered the incredible courage and conviction of the people of Selma who stood up for their right -- and every American's right -- to vote. Below: John Lewis after crossing the Selma bridge.

Both he and Amelia Boynton were at the Democratic Convention. Here's a video of John Lewis's inspiring, impassioned speech.

Amelia Boynton, 101 years old, was in the audience. She was an amazing, unstoppable force for the vote in Selma.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/amelia-boynton-robinson-dnc_n_1863273.html
 
And an earlier blog post of mine on crossing the bridge with Amelia Boynton and many others on the night of Obama's election. A true hero of mine.

Woody Guthrie centennial and All Things Considered

Several weeks ago I was asked if I'd like to be interviewed for Woody Guthrie's centennial on All Things Considered on National Public Radio. I am a huge ATC fan, so of course I jumped at the chance. I took BART over to San Francisco and was shepherded into an audio booth at KQED, our local public television and radio station. I watch and listen to a huge range of programs on KQED, so I shouldn't have been surprised, but the studio is big and busy. Lots of people going in and out.

Bradley Klein interviewed me for a half an hour. He was in NYC and I was in SF, and with a techie and a lot of equipment it sounded like he was right next to me. It was fascinating to see what Brad was interested in pursuing. I'm eager to hear the segment and see how he wove together his POV and all the other interviewees.

Check your listings for All Things Considered, July 11, 2012.

Happy centennial Woody. We need your music as much now as we did when you were rambling from California to the New York Island.

Tribute to Maurice Sendak

Sendak was a querulous, opinionated genius. He was grumpy, but he was our grump. We revered him, and feared him, all in the same moment. We loved how he wrote and illustrated dark, savage, powerful, and hopeful picture books. Books where kids triumphed.

He started, decades ago, illustrating other authors' books. Here's my favorite, much beloved book when I was a child:

Years ago, Sendak came out to Berkeley and autographed books at Cody's. I stood in a long, long line, inching my way forward. We were told to hold our books out, open to the page to autograph. Sendak didn't look up, just scribbled his name, reached for the next book. I held out my book, Charlotte and the White Horse by Ruth Krauss. He looked up, startled. "I haven't seen this book for a long time," he said. "Tell me your name, and I'll put your name in."

And he did.

I read Charlotte's White Horse over and over, carefully penciled in my initials under my godmother's signature. Later I realized my initials weren't supposed to be there, so I just as carefully erased them.

 I loved this book because it was a book about a girl and a white colt. Her father tells her he's going to sell it to save money to send her little brother to college one day. She begs her father to let her keep the colt, and he agrees. "And ever after, every morning, she groomed him and they went for a gallop and in the evening she tucked him in and said goodnight."

A book where a father understood, and a girl triumphed.

So how did the Dorothea Lange shoot go?

 Months ago my friend Dyanna Taylor asked if she could shoot interviews with her scholars at my dad's house. On her sixth application --- sixth! -- to NEH she finally got funding for her American Masters film on her grandmother, Dorothea Lange. The crew arrived with an unbelievable amount of stuff, and took over the living room, dining room, kitchen, even my bedroom. Cameras, monitors, sound equipment, black out shades and sheets, huge backdrops.

For days I watched Dyanna interview the scholars. Amazing people like Clair Brown, Sally Stein, Linda Gordon, and Anne Whiston Spirn. Even though my dad's house is huge, once all that equipment was in place, we had a fairly small hidey-hole to do the interviews. Here's Dyanna interviewing, a camera lens over her left shoulder.

Then it was my turn. First, make-up.

 Get wired for sound. 

 Look over notes one last time while Dyanna adjusts the lights.

Keep pencil in hand for whole interview to be able to think clearly. Be serious said Dyanna, and so I was.

Now Dyanna has to go home, head for her next hidey-hole, an editing room. She has to take the interviews, the footage she's shot, the archival photos and interviews and footage she's collected, and make it into an hour and twenty minute documentary.

I'm telling you my writer friends, we have it easy. One little hidey-hole... our writing room... with our papers and books and flights of imagination. Easy street.

Thanks to Paul Marbury and Allyson Feeney for the photos.

Battle of the Books coming....

It's time to rumble.... Battle of the Books time! School Library Journal sponsors this every year. I'm a big fan. It's a great way to see what some of the smartest, hippest writers think of the best books of the year. This year's contest kicks off March 13 with Matt Phelan choosing between two amazing books: Amelia Lost (just won the Golden Kite) vs. Anya's Ghost.

Run out and buy these books or check them out from your library and see what you think. It's a lively, kick-butt contest. Best part? Right at the end everyone can go online and vote one book as "undead," and it has to be put back in the contest!

April and a few things I love about spring

Our pullets are laying their first small brown eggs.
The yolks are deep golden and delicious.


The wild plums in the hills have burst into blossom.


And girls go walking in the lightest of rains.

Teaching at Vermont College, one year in.

I've been teaching at Vermont College of Fine Arts for a year now. I began teaching wondering what it would be like to share some of what I've learned over my years as a writer. I was eager to be involved in an academic community. I mean, let's face it. To be a writer is to be a shut-in. Long hours alone, which I cherish, but sometimes I want to be out there, connecting with other writers.

I've learned to be a better teacher, and better editor of students' work. No big surprise there. Do anything intensely and you get better at it. What I didn't expect is how much I've learned about my own writing process. There are incredible lectures by smart, well-prepared writers, visiting authors who add their amazing lectures, and late nights in the faculty room, which veer between industry gossip, swapping of writing and teaching tips, and a heady, exhausted exhilaration as we make it through the intensity of the ten day residency.

We have a lovely graduation each residency. Here I am beeing the "hooder" for the ceremony, as Mandy Robbins gets her diploma. Thanks to Shelby Hogan for the photo.

Marla Frazee and Libba Bray were our visiting authors this last residency. Both of them were spectacular. Libba whipped up an awesome blog post about her time with us. Here's Libba post, On Gratitude.

We've also got a faculty blog going, Write at Your Own Risk. Here's my most recent post, Tough Love From an Old Poet, on Mary Oliver.

Procrastination, fear and celebration of poetry

It's amazing how easy it is to rationalize procrastinating. I just popped into the market to buy some milk, and met Mrs. Ellis. She got me to throw trash into the barrel and reset the top, all the while telling me about how she was from Russia, and practiced medicine in Germany during WWII. She finished up by commanding me to go inside and get a broom and sweep up all the fallen flower petals, as the staff clearly wasn't taking care of the place.

1) What a character.
2) When I'm old, I want to be as annoying and charming and opinionated and independent as she is. Forget just wearing purple. I'm going for the full Monte.

We've started a blog with the Vermont College faculty. Here's my first post on fear (and inspiration) of poetry. I know if Lee Bennett Hopkins sees this post I'm going to catch hell, but he's busy with his own wicked facebook postings.....

Vermont College

My first few days home from Vermont were catch-up days. Lots of sleeping, letting things I learned percolate, walks in the hills with my beloved husband and dog, and long, leisurely meals with family and friends. Finally unpacked my suitcase, washed my clothes, and put everything away. Now I'm back to work on my own projects, feeling the press of deadlines, the excitement of using what I learned from other faculty.

We had a terrific ten days at Vermont College. Nonstop learning and laughing. Very little sleep. Somehow Coe Booth talked us into doing a flash mob rendition of Michael Jackson's thriller at the 80's party. I kept my sanity with walks every evening through the neighborhoods. Here's a photo of the old brick armory at dusk. I think someone lives there now.

And a few of my favorite remarks (somewhat paraphrased) from various speakers.

Walter Dean Myers: "We're building America, one child at a time."

Martine Leavitt: "I hope we'll be able to read in heaven, but just in case, make sure you read Cormac McCarthy's The Road before you die." And: "Take your main character's emotional desire and make it plotty."

Marc Aronson: "Illustration is its own story."

Franny Billingsley: "Abstract things are telling. Concrete things are showing."

Until next time, Montpelier, when the snow falls and the trudging outdoors is treacherous and beautiful.

Why people moved to the city

I'm a city dweller, with all the amenities of modern life. We also have a cabin deep in the California redwoods, a mile up a dirt road. Quiet. Peaceful. No city services. So on several of the hottest days of July, we were out gathering firewood for next winter, loading up for the wood burning stove. Even with Tom on a modern, gas powered splitter (and Felix with a sledgehammer and a maul), it took all three generations of us. Sasha and my 93 year old dad pitched wood from the loose pile to the stack, Felix and I made a tidy, geometric pile to over-winter. Penny supervised. Think that looks hard? Here's my father's father, 90 years old, on the woodpile he just split and stacked on his farm in Graton, about 50 miles from our cabin.

Summertime, interview with Author Turf

I am loving summer. In a week I take off for Vermont College where I'm teaching. It's incredibly fun. Challenging, exhausting, rewarding... all rolled up into ten days. Not only do I get to be with terrific students who are working their hearts out to get better at writing, but I also get to listen to inspiring lectures from the other faculty.

Before I leave I had to make it out to the Pacific Ocean with my friend Andrea to hold me through the Vermont heat.


Why does the ocean look like it should pour through the gap? I've never understood this optical illusion.

We watched a pre-teen girl and her dad play in the waves, and then brush off the sand and get their shoes and socks back on and head out with their backpacks. On the return walk we spotted them again....


See them? Curled up in the high grass, reading?

Summertime and the living is easy.

And here's an interview with me that Brittney Breakey posted on her fantastic blog, Author Turf.