I admit to having mixed feelings about being on the panel for The Future’s So Dark: Why Readers Can’t Get Enough of Dystopian Fiction, to be held Sunday, April 21 at 2 PM at the IRA conference in San Antonio.

Mostly, of course, my feelings are positive. I’m thrilled to be a part of the IRA conference, if for no other reason than to impress my friend Cynthia, a retired reading teacher (she doesn’t impress easily). And I’ve always had a great time in Texas, San Antonio in particular.

Also, while it’s true I don’t particularly care for the sound of my voice, I do love the words that come out of my mouth. Pfeffers are an argumentative bunch, and we have a strong belief in the wisdom of our proclamations. We’re not fussy either. We’re as likely to proclaim, “That mango isn’t ripe,” as we are, “The world is round.” I don’t think there’s a topic a Pfeffer is unwilling to proclaim about.

But there’s always a risk on a panel that the other panelists, even if they’re not Pfeffers, like to proclaim also. Proclaiming, in my opinion, should not be a competitive event. One proclaimer per panel is more than sufficient, as long as that one is me.

There’s another, equally serious, problem (Pfeffers love to proclaim about their problems). I suffer from what I call The Hostess Syndrome.

This little-known syndrome afflicts those of us who feel we’re the hostess at any event we happen to take part of. It makes sense to feel like a hostess if you are a hostess (or a host for that matter). You want your guests to relax, enjoy themselves, eat those pricey little fruit tarts you bought way too many of.

But I feel like a hostess even if I’m not hosting. Let’s say I go to the movies with friends. Not only do I want them to have unimpeded views of the screen and to enjoy the movie, I feel like it’s my obligation to make sure they do, and my personal failure if they don’t. I scout for those rows with no one ahead of us, and if the movie stinks, I come up brilliant witticisms to proclaim once the credits cease rolling. Sometimes I even take notes, so I won’t forget those brilliant witticisms, which will magically transform a mediocre movie going experience into a long cherished memory.

I am very ambitious in my hostessing.

When you’re on a panel, you shouldn’t be worrying if the other panelists are having a good time. You should be focusing on your proclamations, and maybe, if you’re in an unusually generous mood, on what the other panelists happen to be proclaiming. It’s not your responsibility to make sure they have enough ice water in their glasses, or that someone in the third row is given a cough drop if she happens to clear her throat loudly enough for you to notice.

And yet I feel as though it is my responsibility. I check the ice water levels. I carry boxes of cough drops with me. I’d supply everyone those pricey little fruit tarts if they weren’t such a nuisance to get through airport security. Even when I’m just one small part of a panel, I feel like the hostess.

The solution to all these problems is obvious. I’ll pick the panelists for this and any other panel I might ever grace with proclamations and hostessing needs in mind.

My first choice is Thomas Chatterton.

It’s a good idea to have a teenager on the panel, since they’re the people I write for. And Thomas doesn’t look like he needs much tending to.

Next on the panel is Emily Brontë. That’s her sister Anne standing next to her, but she’s not invited. There’s only so much room on a panel.

Emily was notoriously reclusive, which makes her pretty darn beau ideal for my panel. Reclusive people take care of their own ice water, and don’t tend to proclaim to excess. Sitting between them is Sigmund Freud.

Ordinarily, bearded psychoanalysts with Viennese accents intimidate me. But what with Thomas already on the couch, and Emily so enchantingly repressed, Dr. Freud will be far too busy to look for the hidden meaning of my unripe mangos.

Now all I need is a moderator and it’s clear sailing. I want one willing to check the ice water levels in the drinking glasses and to toss a cough drop or two to audience members as needed.

So for the moderator, I select Virgil.

Virgil has plenty of hosting experience, since he guided Dante through both Hell and Purgatory in THE DIVINE COMEDY. And it’s about time I got some use out of those four years of high school Latin. Just wait until I proclaim, “Arma virumque cano,” in his vicinity.

Oh dear. I just got a phone call from the TSA. It turns out my chosen panel consists of dead people (well, I knew that) and dead people are even harder to get through airport security than those pricey little fruit tarts.

It’s a good thing the panel for The Future Is So Dark: Why Readers Can’t Get Enough of Dystopian Fiction will have Mary Cotillo as moderator and Marie Lu and Rick Yancey as panelists. Their proclamations will be well worth listening to, and rumor has it they’re willing to share their cough drops!

Come see Susan Beth Pfeffer on the author panel The Future’s So Dark: Why Readers Can’t Get Enough of Dystopian Fiction, at IRA’s 58th Annual Convention, from 2PM to 3PM on Sunday, April 21, 2013. She will be joined by fellow authors Marie Lu and Rick Yancey.

Until Susan Beth Pfeffer's New York Times bestselling novel LIFE AS WE KNEW IT was nominated for the Andre Norton Award, she had no idea it was science fiction. Even with three other books in the series—THE DEAD AND THE GONE, THIS WORLD WE LIVE IN, and the upcoming THE SHADE OF THE MOON—she is still uncertain how to pronounce "dystopian."



Beyond the Notebook: Writing a la Poe

IRA 58th Annual Convention in San Antonio, TX

THE WATER CASTLE is a novel about an overly-ambitious young man on a road trip, trying to escape a bad breakup, who stumbles upon a quirky small town—and a quirky girl—and figures out what really matters to him in life.

THE WATER CASTLE is a novel about three teenaged siblings who return to their ancestral home and discover that two of them have secret, magical powers. The middle child remains unchanged—or does he?

THE WATER CASTLE is a novel about three siblings who return to their ancestral home and meet a strange man who seems to know everything about them, and hints at a secret legacy in the home: the Fountain of Youth.

THE WATER CASTLE is none of these. In fact, it is a novel about a boy, Ephraim, whose father has a stroke. The family, including his two siblings, moves to the ancestral home in the small town of Crystal Springs, Maine, so their father can recuperate. Strange sounds, flashing lights, and a legend about the old water bottling business lead Ephraim to the story that the Fountain of Youth is located in his town. He enlists the help of Mallory Green and Will Wylie—descendants of families who have been tied up with his own for generations—to try to find it and save his father.

But, at one point in time, the novel was each of these.

The problem—or maybe the gift, depending on how you look at it—was that I had a setting, but no story. In my head I could perfectly picture Mallory Green’s house: chock-full of books, a garage and old gas station outside, tiny animal figurines dotting the lawn. I could place that house in the town that would become Crystal Springs: pretty as a postcard, but something not quite right. A boy arrives—self-involved, grieving a bad relationship, trying to find an experience to round out his college application and then…nothing. The tale would not come. I started and stopped, started and stopped.

With the next draft, I unearthed another setting: the Water Castle itself. An old house, but not a museum, not one restored to its glory days, but one that was still in use. The idea of layers and layers of time, one on top of another, appealed to me. This draft, too, is where I got my characters: Ephraim, fearful of not measuring up, his more talented siblings, Price and Brynn. Mallory, too, the inhabitant of that house from the first draft, morphed from being an object of teenage boy’s desire, to a more prickly, independent girl.

I guess I got caught up in the paranormal wave because “strange things afoot” turned into these children having their natural gifts heightened. Price, an athlete, becomes stronger, faster: superhumanly so. Intelligent Brynn becomes gifted to the point of telepathy. Yet perhaps I am not cut out for this kind of writing because no matter what dire situation I put these characters into, they could get out of them—they were superheroes after all.

So my characters languished in their lovely setting, waiting for a plot.

I took a step back. What interested me about this place? These characters? I realized that I was not interested in magic, per se, but the possibility of magic. I wanted to explore the line where magic and science crossed. Another setting began to influence my writing: a real one. At the time I was living in Poland, Maine, home of Poland Springs water. I had visited the campus, which includes a museum and perfectly maintained old bottling plant and the “original source.” Here, again, was this line between magic and science: in the early days of marketing, the purveyors used both to claim that the water could cure a wide array of ailments. This is how the Fountain of Youth entered my story.

After a bit of a false start in which a quirky caretaker offers to lead the children through their own family history I realized, of course, that the children should be leading themselves. I had a question for my characters: is the Fountain of Youth really here? Can we find it? It was a mystery, an adventure, and—finally, finally—my plot.

All of this makes it sound like one draft flowed nicely to the next. This was not the case. There were tears, self-doubt, self-flagellation, and occasionally the strong desire to not only give up this story, but also the whole writing endeavor. It was work. Hard work.

The whole process—from those first scribblings to the story of three friends on a quest to discover the Fountain of Youth and save a father—took five years. On school visits I have asked kids how old they were five years ago and to think of the amount of time that has passed since then. This is a bit unfair since for them five years is nearly half of their lives while for me, it is a significantly smaller proportion.

I also show them a screenshot of my files. The “Castle” folder on my computer has 177 items. These are different drafts, pulled out chapters, revision notes, editorial letters, research files, and more: all the pieces that go together to create a novel.

I tell the students this not to scare them away from the world of writing, but rather in the hopes of inspiring some self-reflection. What, I ask them, would you be willing to dedicate five years of your life to—or even one year? Because for me, even with all the tears and the days I felt that this book—this reflection of me—would never amount to anything, it was worth it. Every day, every file, every tear built this book that I am immensely proud of. These pages and drafts were not wasted: they were the process that led me to the final product. Indeed it is this process that keeps me going as a writer. Not every book I write brings me to tears, and that is a good thing, but if writing were not work, it would quickly lose its appeal.

Megan Frazer Blakemore is the author of SECRETS OF TRUTH & BEAUTY, a novel for young adults, which received a starred review in PUBLISHERS WEEKLY and was on the ALA Rainbow list. She works as a middle-school librarian in Maine, where she lives with her family. Visit her online at www.meganfrazerblakemore.com.

Looking for more resources? Click here for a teacher's guide to Megan Frazer Blakemore's WATER CASTLE.

It Was Written by Somebody

In Writing, Nothing is Wasted

I embraced online sites and social networks years ago. However, when it came to my classes in children’s and YA literature, I resisted the move from face-to-face (FTF) to online courses. Instead, I used a hybrid approach with some FTF meetings and others done with online courseware. As the hours spent in FTF meetings dwindled from 45 to 30 to 15 to 8 and finally to 4, I was determined to build a reading community online that would mimic what I could do in a traditional classroom. The basis for my crafting an online community was to consider what elements any community of readers shared. The key aspects of community for me were three:

1. I had to create a CORE list of books we would all read and discuss;
2. I had to CONNECT my students with one another despite our separation; and
3. I had to initiate meaningful CONVERSATION about books.

The first step was simple enough. I used the social networks to ask for recommendations of books that teachers and librarians who work with school aged students should know. I certainly had some criteria: diversity in genre and formats and forms and protagonists, older titles as well as newer ones, and literary as well as appealing.

Lists are, even with input from others, idiosyncratic: they do reflect me; I am keenly aware that they may not all appeal to the members of the class. Therefore, I do an activity my colleague Chris Crowe does with his students. At the end of the semester, I have the students rank the books from their most favorite all the way down to their least favorite. After I collect all of these rankings, I tally them. The books with the highest numbers are the least favorites from the class. Conversely, the books with the lowest totals are the favorites. Amazingly, there is not much that separates the top choices from the bottom rankings. I share this with the students so that they might realize that their LEAST favorite book was someone’s MOST favorite book and vice versa. This activity has never resulted in a book being replaced on the core list.

That is not to say the core is static, as every semester I replace two to three titles. New books migrate to the list because they represent some significant change in literature. For instance, when AMERICAN BORN CHINESE became the first graphic novel to win a Printz Honor Medal, it was added to the list. Other GNs have joined the list as this format continues to evolve.

The second step is a bit trickier. How can we connect with one another even though miles separate us? How can we get to know one another in an online forum? One assignment seems to connect us all as readers (and since this is a graduate level class, most students do come into the class as readers). It was an assignment I did more than 20 years ago when I took YA literature from Dick Abrahamson. In turn, it was an assignment he, too, had completed for YA literature: the reading autobiography. I invite students to tell me about their road to lifelong reading (and, for the most part, no one enters this program without a passion for reading being in place). What are their earliest memories of reading? What was reading like in elementary school? How did they learn to read? What did they read in adolescence? In college? As an adult? Students have the option of writing a traditional narrative or constructing some sort of visual (prezis, reading timelines, infographics).

As we share our journeys, two things become clear: there are certain experiences that seem to connect those who loved reading early on, and not everyone’s journey has been an easy one. The experiences that connect those of us who are lifelong readers mirror those in Carlsen and Sherrill’s (NCTE, 1988) VOICES OF READERS: HOW WE COME TO LOVE BOOKS. They include experience such as the following:

• Having someone read aloud
• Having access to books in the home
• Being able to select books to read (choice)
• Talking with someone else who has read the book

It becomes readily apparent that, while many of us read different books along the path to lifelong reading, there were some shared titles—especially a love for reading serially. The series students loved varied depending on the age of the student, but series and reading serially was commonplace.

As for the students whose journeys were more arduous, there were still commonalities. Many of my graduate students are second language learners; they struggled to learn how to read in English when they were in school (and think of what they bring to those students who are also struggling with the same task). Books were not readily accessible in their homes; libraries were not always welcoming places or were not close enough to the neighborhoods where they could be accessed. Poverty played a significant role. Seeing these similarities and differences engages students in some meaningful conversations about how their experiences will be brought to bear within the school library. Connections are being made.

Promulgating meaningful discussion of books could be dicey. I did not want this discussion to devolve into dissection, but I do want the discussion to go beyond the surface. Having students interact in online forums is much like group work in a traditional classroom: it is possible for one person to dominate and for someone to sort of fade into the background. I opted to eschew the Discussion Board portion of the course software. Instead, I am using some new apps for book reading and discussion.

p: ctkmcmillan via photopin cc

One of these is SUBTEXT, an app for the iPad (I am using this with students who have these devices already). Subtext allows a group to read a book and annotate it as they read. They can pose questions, make comments and predictions, and even share URLs and other information they link to the text. Edmodo, another app, permits interaction as well.

While it might be due in part to the Hawthorne Effect, I am seeing much more active participation and much less echoing of the comments of other students. Some of the conversation about book centers on being able to identify those salient qualities that separate a book from a piece of literature, good books from great books. Therefore, students apply criteria and evaluate books in whatever approach works best (charts, PowerPoints, Animoto, etc.). They also create bibliographies such as “If you loved ______, then you might like these books.” In other words, they are creating real world documents, the types of documents they will use as school librarians.

This conversation is critical. Even more crucial is that the conversation extends beyond our class. So, students join in #titletalk, a monthly Twitter chat where books and ideas are exchanged in a fast-paced hour of talk using only 140 characters. Here my students are able to connect with teachers and librarians and authors and publishers from all over the United States.

I will be presenting a session on building community in an online environment as part of a panel including Donalyn Miller and Terry Thompson, classroom teachers. The session, “Scaffolding Students’ Independence and Teachers’ Professional Development through Authentic Reading Communities,” is scheduled for Saturday, April 20, from 11:00AM–1:45PM. Communities increase the reading done by students, help them make connections with other readers, and challenge readers to branch out.

Teri is also moderating the author panel, “‘And Then What Happens?’ The Enduring Appeal of Series Fiction,” at IRA’s 58th Annual Convention, April 19-22, 2013, in San Antonio, Texas. The panel features Tom Angleberger (Origami Yoda series), Laurie Friedman (Mallory McDonald series), Annie Barrows (Ivy + Bean series), and Ellis Weiner (Templeton Twins series). Want more? Come see Teri when she presents the IRA Special Interest Group (SIG) session, “Celebrating Books and Reading: How Teachers Make a Difference.”

Teri Lesesne (last name rhymes with insane) is a professor at Sam Houston State University where she teaches classes in children's and YA literature. She is the author of three professional books and numerous columns, articles, and reviews. Currently, she is Executive Director of ALAN and serving on the BFYA Committee of YALSA.



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