Bookstore appearances with pals, and an awesome writing trick

I just did two really fun appearances with friends. On Sunday Marissa Moss and Thacher Hurd and I were at A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland. We had an age range from preschoolers to local librarians/educators. DId I remember to take pictures? No! Not during the event... but afterward I caught a couple nice shots. Above is Thacher talking with my husband Tom. And here's the owner, Kathleen Caldwell. You can see by the piles of books and cards around the cash register that this is a friendly, crammed, delicious bookstore. Right outside was the Farmer's Market, full of people enjoying the sun after three cold, rainy weeks.


The next night Marissa and I appeared at Book Passage and spoke to a group of writers and pre-published writers, all working hard on their writing and on understanding the confusing world of children's book publishing. Really thoughtful Q and A.

Before the event, I had dinner with two great friends, Barbara Young and Linda Allison. Allison has been doing nonfiction for kids for ages. She had a brainwave for getting the creative work done before the stuff of life that is a hassle but has to be done. She divides her To Do list into two columns: Creative and Maintenance. I just love the word Maintenance. It puts that stuff right in its place. Sure you have to do it, but that's what it is. Just plain Life Maintenance. She also says "Writing deserves the best of you. That's why you need to do it first." Not new advice, but well said.

This last photo is Lissa Rovetch, Marissa, and me.

Today is the launch day for my middle-grade novel, Dogtag Summer. It's a wonderful moment, when the characters who've lived in my head get to step out into the real world.

Many, many people helped me with the research -- I had to know about the Vietnam War, about the pacifists at home and those who fought in Vietnam, and the villagers who just tried to survive. I really wanted to know what it was like years later for those who'd been caught in the fighting, or loved people who'd been in the war.

One person I interviewed was Donna Tauscher, who shared memories of her ex-husband's Vietnam was service, how it changed him, their marriage, and the fabric of her life.

I recently did a bookstore appearance and Donna showed up. In her quiet way, she handed me a gift: this small Li Xi, a red lucky money envelope with a 100 đồng note in it. Her husband had brought it back from Vietnam when he returned from the fighting. "I've had it a long time," was all she said as she slipped it into my hand.

What stories this beautiful old 100 đồng note could tell of being passed from hand to hand before it reached mine. And what a tender, cherished gift.

Animotos and learning, International Reading Association

I had a fantastic week with two great groups: teachers in Burlingame, and teenagers in Petaluma. Polished off the morning with a Skype visit with librarian Marjie Podzielinski's students at Coulson Tough school in Texas. The students are making Animoto's about the Sixties for our IRA session this spring. They're reading Marching for Freedom and Dogtag Summer, researching websites, checking their sources, and putting together photos, videos and music.

I'm so excited about this. I love combining history with 2.0 web skills. It's a fantastic form of narrative nonfiction. I'm eager to see what they come up with.

Reviews roll in, I roll out on appearances in the Bay Area with writing buddies

A couple posts ago I mentioned that scary pause where an authors finishes a book... moves on to the next project, but some part of our attention is in suspended animation, just waiting for the reviews.

Will the reviewers love my new book? Will they hate it? And worst of all, will they ignore it?

I've finally let out my breath. Two more reviews have come in on my new novel, Dogtag Summer, from Booklist and School Library Journal.

"Creative and winsome... poignant coming-of-age story that resonates with pain and a hard-fought resolution.” —Booklist

"Partridge also succeeds in incorporating solid historical research into a moving story, using the dogtag, symbol of a most unpopular war, as an instrument of catharsis.” —School Library Journal

Let the festivities begin!

Here's one of the wonderful aspects of being a writer: becoming friends with so many incredible people who also write. I've got some great appearances coming up with friends. These will be a blast, hope you can join us for one if you are in the Bay Area.

Monday February 28th: National Book Award winner Judy Blundell is here in California on a book tour with her new novel, Strings Attached. We'll be at Books Inc. Burlingame at 6:00 pm for a special wine and cheese mingler. Books Inc. is giving 25% discount on all books purchased at the event. 1375 Burlingame Ave, Burlingame, 94010 (650) 685-4911.

Tuesday March 1st: Judy and I will do a joint school visit in Santa Rosa, then a Dark Days of Winter Tea at Copperfields in Petaluma. For teens, refreshments served!

Mrach 27th at 1 pm: Great good Place for Books with Thacher Hurd and Marissa Moss. Marissa is dark-side funny, Thacher is hold-your-sides funny. Together they are funny squared. This will be rocking!

March 28th: Kid Lit Salon at Book Passages Corte Madera with Marissa Moss and Joanne Rocklin.

This is how a novel starts

I have a once-a-day feed from Google that picks up my name on the web. Usually it's just that a library somewhere has bought my book, or one of my books is for sale on eBay, or that I'll be appearing somewhere (which I already know). Pretty standard stuff.

But today I got a terrific Google Alert via Convict Records. In September 1846, Elizabeth Partridge was one of 169 convicts transported on the Elizabeth and Henry to Australia! Now usually, that side of my family rests very peacefully in small village graveyards. They were crofters -- small farmers -- and small time merchants. I had no idea I had scurvy ancestors.

What did this Elizabeth Partridge do that got her ten years in jail, swapped off for being sent to Australia? What was it like for her once she got there?

What if....

and a seed is planted. I don't know that I would ever take this any further, but it is exhilarating to have my mind tumble in a new direction.

What kind of random things have been making you think "What if....?"

The supreme vulnerablity of writing a novel

About six months ago, I finished a middle grade novel, Dogtag Summer. The idea had been brewing in the back of my mind, morphing and growing, for a long, long time. It started by my overhearing a conversation between my husband and an electrician, Jim, after they'd been working together all day. My husband asked Jim what it had been like for him to serve in Vietnam. Lots of words and feelings tumbled out of Jim. Several parts stuck with me for years. Like how he always walked point, because he'd been raised in the country, did a lot of hunting, and he didn't ever trust anyone else to walk point.

The what-ifs started for me right away. What if he had let someone else walk point, just once? What if an Amerasian child from Vietnam was pulled out of the country in the last desperate days of 1975 before the Communists took over? And what if, just what if, she were adopted by a vet with his own powder-keg of unresolved feelings?

I did a ton of research and interviews. I went to Vietnam to smell the river and the heavy rains, to listen to the cadence of people speaking to one another in the marketplace. I wrote, and rewrote and rewrote. I turned it in, (wrote and rewrote with my amazing editor's suggestions) and then wondered: how've I done, writing fiction?

Here's what Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus have to say:

Dogtag Summer

Elizabeth Partridge, Bloomsbury, $16.99 (240p) ISBN 978-1-59990-183-1

This gripping yet tender coming-of-age story reveals multiple nuanced perspectives of the Vietnam War and its aftermath in the summer of 1980. A backfiring school bus triggers a series of flashbacks for sixth-grader Tracy. Partridge (Marching for Freedom) smoothly interlaces memories of Tracy's childhood as a "con lai" (half-blood) in wartime Vietnam, where her American heritage endangered her Vietnamese family, and her present-day life as the adopted daughter of a Vietnam veteran who is dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. When Tracy and her best friend, Stargazer--the child of hippie, war-protesting parents--discover a dogtag in her father's ammo box, the event sets off an unexpected chain of events in both families, leading to excruciating memories, painful misunderstandings, and compassionate insights. Partridge delicately portrays Tracy's struggle to reconcile her last, harrowing memory of her biological mother and her relationship with her loving, adoptive mother, who tries to understand the ghostly memories haunting her daughter and husband. Appendixes include interviews in which Partridge addresses historical questions, as well as a teacher's guide for using this book in a curriculum about Vietnam. Powerful historical fiction. Ages 8–12. (Mar.)

DOGTAG SUMMER
“A child of conflict struggles to understand her past and her present in this impressive historical novel. Partridge proves her keen understanding of young people and her ability to write engrossing fiction grounded in the history she usually illuminates in nonfiction. This is a dual narrative of Tracy’s story, alternating between her experiences as a con lai, or half-Vietnamese/half-American child, in that country in 1975 and her time as an adopted only child enmeshed in her now-ordinary life on the coast of California five years later. The trauma that she suffered in the past emerges from deeply buried memories at the beginning of summer when she and best friend Stargazer, a child of hippies, build a Viking ship of war. Tracy’s father, a Vietnam vet, has hidden an old ammo box with a set of dogtags inside, and their discovery sets into motion Tracy’s process of remembering her past and connecting it with the present. Only 11, Tracy is realistically inarticulate, yet the depth of her emotion and suffering comes through. Never reverting to stereotypes, Partridge uses Tracy and Stargazer's fast friendship to help capture the ambivalence of the culture toward the war, as well as the struggle of the vets to personally cope with their experiences. A strong yet gentle read.” – Kirkus

Vermont College winter residency

We're coming close to finishing up our ten days together at Vermont College. It's been an incredible experience. Great faculty, fantastic students, learning, learning, learning. A few things I've learned that weren't on the schedule:

Snow is very fun. Beautiful. Cold.
You must always zip up your jacket before going out the door.
Cold doesn't actually hurt until it is about ten degrees outside. Then its pretty critical to keep moving. Even with your jacket zipped up.

I don't think there is any part of craft that we left undiscussed while we were here. And part of the appeal of being on the faculty is that I've learned so much myself. My ever-supportive husband has been behind me all the way in taking on this job, but.... he did just send an email saying our dog is missing me. He's sure. The dog has called a truce with the cat, and they are sleeping curled up together on the bed. Kinda lonely.

We had a great lunch time drop-in visit by Elizabeth Bluemle, who runs the Flying Pig Bookstore, and writes the Shelftalker blog (along with Josie Leavitt). Elizabeth has a lovely post today on "The Dream, Then and Now." Meanwhile, out in the real world at Monica Edinger's blog, Educating Alice, she posted a really cool way she and her students used Marching for Freedom in an assembly. I wish I had seen this performance!