India's Children's Book Trust

Seated with me is Ira Saxena, Secretary of the Associaition of Writiers and Illustrators for Children in New Delhi. She is also a volunteer for India's Children's Book Trust, an organization that publishes books for children in hundreds of local dialects and sponsors literacy programs along with IBBY through out India.

Manorama Jafa, the Vice President of AWIC invited me via email before coming to India to participate in their monthly meeting in which twenty or more writers attended. On this particular day, they celebrated their first Hindi dictionary for children, a book the Trust had published many years ago, but had been bought by a major publisher. Royalty checks were distributed to several of the authors who were present.

On a second visit to the Children's Book Trust, Ira Sazxena interviewed me for an article she will write for Indian IBBY Journal. Our discussion roamed from the craft of writing to the underlying theme of Sufism in my novel Anahita's Woven Riddle and our favorite translations of Persian poetry, which Ira grew up reading. Her mother translated the Sufi poetry of Omar Khayyam into Hindi. Ira, a child psychologist and children's book author is presently at work on a novel set in 1800's India with an environmental theme. "Did you know the world's first tree hugger was in India?" she said. I had never given much thought to the origins of this kind of activism and assumed it may have been in the California redwoods. I look forward to reading this novel. For more details about the Children's Book Trust, its volunteers, and my trip to India, please check out the Central Asian pages on my website www.meghannuttallsayres.com

Making it Work

I am secretly (maybe not so secretly) addicted to Project Runway. Sometimes, watching the show, I've thought, what if there was such a contest for writers? Would I get to the writers' equivalent of fashion week if required to produce a well constructed, cleverly plotted tale in a genre outside my comfort zone?

Last weekend, I attended Weekend on the Water, a three day writing retreat hosted by the Western Washington SCBWI region. During the course of "Going Deeper" into plot, character, setting and voice, we attendees did a lot of writing exercises. In one, we wrote a description of a gothic cemetery, then were asked to re-write that description, adding a teenage girl who had just been asked on her dream date.

It was as if Ruta Rimas morphed into Heidi Klum, asking me to make a red-carpet ballgown from plastic grocery sacks.

But the point of that exercise, and everything else presented by Ruta, assistant editor with Balzar+Bray/HarperCollins, and Cheryl Klein, senior editor at Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic, was to explore our writing more deeply. How well do we know our characters? How does setting affect their behavior? Does the voice we've chosen bring the reader close enough to the story?

The two extraordinary editors presented for a total of five and a half hours each during the weekend, as well as providing first page intensives for everyone. And retreat organizers Joni Sensel, Laurie Thompson and Jolie Stekly did an outstanding job keeping us on time and comfortable. I left with a new feeling of energy for revising my novel, and deeper insights into the creative process.

--cross-posted from Under the Covers

Wake up

Have you noticed hardly anyone pays attention anymore?

So many conversations resemble narcissists passing in the park, each chatting so busily about themselves they don’t notice the other isn’t listening. And the dialogues that consist of periodically posting links on Facebook to “Check out my latest blog".

It's the writer’s job to pay attention. But today anybody can be a writer. Anybody with a computer, internet hook-up and some tech knowledge can post a blog. Anyone with the gumption and money can self-publish a book. With the explosion of information on the web, we don’t even have to think for ourselves. We can cut and paste other people’s arguments and opinions into e-mails and send them to all our friends and relatives. None of this requires paying attention.

Good writing requires not only paying attention, but the time and facility to step back from what we see and hear to get a bigger picture. We need the patience to wait for corollaries to appear and the courage to also pay attention with the inner eye. For it is the synthesis of the world without and the world within that gives our words the weight of truth.

We can be blinded by busyness, deafened by the minutia of a day’s distractions. If we keep moving fast enough we can outrun the demons. If we have enough difficulties to worry about, we needn’t pay attention to the simple, the beautiful, or that which we know to be real and true, but can approximate only through story.

It’s a noble journey to pay attention, a great trust to name oneself a writer.

Readers Humble Writer

A writer is often humbled. An honest critique from a writing group bites, but helps improve craft. A rejection by an editor hurts, but offers a chance to decide: Have faith and stand by one's story? Or re-think and revise?

Then one day, without warning, a book you have sent out into the world goes somewhere unexpected and drops a pebble in a pond radiating ripples far beyond your expectations. This humbles in an entirely different way. It takes all the humility out of humble and replaces it with gratitude.

My middle-grade historical novel Fire in the Hole! found a home with some very unique college students. At Gonzaga University, better known for its Zags basketball team, a thriving English as a Second Language program caters to students from all corners of the globe. The department chose my novel for reading comprehension class. Instructors like the book because it has an accessible reading level for students learning English, but introduces new and varied vocabulary and a compelling story.

The novel details events in Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Silver Mining District, where labor war exploded in the 1890’s. Students from China, Ukraine, Iran, Columbia, and Korea learned American history as well as English words like dynamite, ciders, foothill, canyon, mineshaft, pincushion, seize and surrender.

Invited to the class, I expected their curiosity about time and place. I was surprised by their many questions about my characters, and how much they cared about them. One student wrote a song, with verses to cover the plot from beginning to end. While the class sang, small groups of students acted out the scenes.

I joined their fun and laughter, while wiping tears from my eyes. Listen to the chorus.

Books, Music, Sun!

Greetings from Galway, Ireland! I am here to participate in Children's Books Ireland's Book Festival. I will read at the Westside Library at 10am and the Ballybane Library at 11:30 on Thursday Oct 15th. I am looking forward to these events and excited to meet local readers.

Meanwhile, I am at work on a new novel. But given the stellar weather, I am a little distracted and want to share the moment with you in this video. The music is by Luka Bloom. He gave a fantastic performance in the Town Hall last week. Look for his new cd Eleven Songs....

---Meghan Nuttall Sayres

Children's Lit in Ireland and India

In October I will be visiting Ireland and particiapting in their Children's Books Ireland Book Festival 2009. Please check back here for more details. I am also off to India in November where I will be meeting with children's book authors connected with IBBY India. I look forward to introducing you to them on my blog in the near future!

---Meghan Nuttall Sayres

Weaver's Perspective on Iran

Friends of the Moscow Library invited me to speak on Iran this August about my recent experience weaving on Iran's First World Peace Carpet and my novel set in Iran Anahita's Woven Riddle. To learn more about the Peace Carpet, a project sponsored by UNESCO, please check out the Iran or Weaving pages on my website.

Modeling this Iranian Qashqa'i nomadic headpiece is Homa Assefi, who attended my talk. Many thanks to Homa! This three-pieced covering evolved over many generations. The blue beanie has been worn for centuries along with the black sequined veil. In the 1960's teenagers added the tie-dye like scarves.

---Meghan Nuttall Sayres