Author

“A Magical Location”

Any English teacher will tell you the importance of a story’s setting. Although I’d read books that took place in wonderful places, I never understood how a magical location could inspire a tale until I moved to a high country station in the North Island of New Zealand.

In my back yard is the Southern Hemisphere’s largest cavern, dramatic limestone cliffs and mist that floats up the valley and snags on the trees. There are far more sheep than people. There are no lights on our horizon at night and no traffic noise. The land soars in huge hills and then plummets down to seven streams that crisscross the valley in front of our house. After rain we are surrounded by the sound of water trickling down to meet the river.

30 million years ago the whole area was under the ocean. Limestone outcrops jutting from the land reveal ancient scallop shells and oyster fossils. Huge caves have been carved out over time, and there are deep sinkholes. On frosty mornings the air is warmer underground, and mist rises from the caves. It looks like these are the lairs of sleeping dragons.

Living in such a dynamic landscape is a gift to the imagination. Inhabited by people for only a hundred years, I often wonder if the trees and rocks are looking at us sideways, wondering what we’re doing in their territory. It is wild country, where new holes in the earth can open up overnight, requiring sheep rescues when the poor animals discover them before the farmer.

New Zealand’s official history states that people arrived about 1350AD in waka, canoes, from the Pacific Islands. But there are many stories that don’t fit with the official version. Some of them are fantastical. Some of them might be true. One of the most intriguing involves Arabian sailors travelling beyond their established trading routes in the ninth century down into the cold Southern Ocean.

The story of Sinbad the Sailor features a tale about valleys ringed by mountains, patrolled by giant birds. New Zealand was home to the largest bird ever to have lived, the Haast Eagle. It could lift small animals and children up and carry them away. Another Sinbad story tells of him sailing through a jewel-laden cave. Down the hill from our farm is the world famous Waitomo Glowworm Caves, where visitors float under thousands of sparkling glowworms.

My imagination set to work with these rich ingredients. Just one question was needed to gel everything together – what if Sinbad had left behind treasure? From there, the next steps were obvious – what if it had been hidden? Who would find it?

I dove straight into the rabbit hole and came up with a story that could be described as Famous Five meets Treasure Island, a mystical adventure set in an incredible landscape. I am grateful to the hills and the high winds, the isolation and the rugged charm of this farm, for it was the start of my story.

 

About the Book: 

Nat Sheppard is devastated when her father announces on the first day of the school holidays that the family farm is going on the market. Nat’s little sister Kathleen climbs onto the roof to see the view one last time and falls into the attic. Nat and her brother Jack race up the stairs to find her but she has disappeared…

Book Excerpt:

“Jack poked his head in the door. ‘Is she okay?’

‘I think she’s trapped in some kind of secret room.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. Can you pace out the length of the house from the kitchen to the back porch, and then compare it to up here?’

‘All right.’ Jack disappeared, and soon Nat heard even steps and counting. Then he reappeared. ‘Twenty. And upstairs it’s – hold on.’

‘Hurry up!’ yelled Kathleen.

‘Just a second,’ called Nat.

Jack reversed to the edge of the landing and then paced again, scrambling up into the attic and continuing to the wall where Nat waited. ‘Eighteen.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then we have to find a way in.’

‘Dad’s going to love that.’

Nat examined the walls again. There was no sign of an entrance. Jack banged on the plaster in a couple of places.

‘This stuff is really solid,’ he said. ‘Maybe I should get a hammer.’

‘Find something up here,’ said Nat. ‘Kathleen – can you see any way to get out? Is there a door?’

‘No!’ called Kathleen. They could hear the tremor in her voice.

Nat looked at Jack. ‘We have to figure this out. She’s starting to get scared.’

‘I’ve found some tools,’ said Jack. He brandished a hammer and a splitter axe.

‘You tap the wall over here, top to bottom, left to right,’ said Nat. She grabbed the hammer. ‘I’ll do this part. There has to be a way in somehow. What’s the axe for?’

He shrugged. ‘To hit Kathleen over the head when she gets out.’

Nat glared at him. ‘Can’t you be nice?’

‘She’s learnt what to expect from me. It’d be rude to change now.’

Methodically, Nat tapped the plaster, but the returning sound was dense, not hollow. She worked her way down to ground level – nothing. Jack finished his section with the same result. They moved along.

‘I could barge it,’ said Jack. With the most energy Nat had ever seen him use, he threw his shoulder against the wall. He bounced back so hard he flew against a hat rack and landed in a tangle on the dusty floor. ‘Or not,’ he muttered.

‘What was that?’ yelled Kathleen.

‘Nothing,’ said Nat. ‘Hold on.’

She tapped the wall while she flicked through different solutions in her head. If Jack couldn’t force it, they were in trouble. Tap-tap-tap. The hammer flaked off pieces of plaster. Tap-tap-tap. She bent down and tested the last stretch, just above the floor. Tap-tap-donk. The hammer fell through something new – a thin board. Nat wiggled the hammer back and forth and it fell out easily.

‘Jack – I’ve found it.’

With the splitter and the hammer they cleared out all the board until the space was big enough for one person to wiggle through on their belly. Nat slithered in. It was a close fit.

Inside, Kathleen was covered in dust, sitting in a nest of rafters and torn hessian.

‘I’m okay,’ she said, wriggling her legs.

Nat inspected the hole in the roof. Thankfully, it wasn’t very big, and the rotten material had broken Kathleen’s fall.

Jack wormed his beanpole frame into the room. ‘What is this place?’ he said.

Every wall in the secret room had been reinforced with planks of solid wood.

‘This is rimu,’ said Nat. ‘No wonder you bounced off.’

Jack rubbed his shoulder. ‘Whoever built this didn’t want anyone to find it.’

‘They obviously had something valuable to protect,’ said Nat.

‘Then what are we missing?’ asked Jack. ‘If they went to this much trouble to keep people out… Hold on.’ He helped Kathleen up and pushed the debris against the far wall. They scanned the floor. Nothing.

‘What about up?’ said Kathleen.

‘Up?’ repeated Nat. Her gaze flashed over the walls.

‘Holy,’ whispered Jack.

At the peak of the roof, just in front of the gaping hole, sat a single shelf. On it rested a small wooden box. Jack lowered it to the floor. It was covered with cobwebs, and fastened with a padlock.

‘The key could be anywhere,’ said Nat.

Jack grinned. ‘Don’t worry about that.’ He lifted the hammer and bought it down on the padlock. It smashed instantly. Jack offered the box to Nat. ‘Would you care to do the honours?’

Nat opened the lid. Inside was a yellowed envelope with a name on it:

‘Natalia.’”

Author Contact:

Contact Brydie: brydiewalkerbain at gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/brydiewalkerbain

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8314662.Brydie_Walker_Bain

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24379115-the-secret-of-sinbad-s-cave

Thank you to Byrdie for sharing this magical setting with us!

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“Taking the Fear out of Shakespeare”

When I started writing The Taming of the Drew, I had a very specific audience in mind. If I’m being perfectly honest with myself, I was writing it for me at sixteen.

The Taming of the Drew is a reverse-gendered retelling of The Taming of the Shrew set at an outdoor summer Shakespeare theatre in Vermont, where the backstage hijinks begin to mirror the plot playing out onstage. All of the characters have recently graduated from high school and are one hundred percent bonkers obsessed with theatre, just like I was. I was a passionate reader as a teen, but I never read any books about teens who were really into acting, and believe me, I would have loved one. So I set out to write The Taming of the Drew for past me, and, hopefully, any high school drama dorks who are currently caking on the foundation before the curtain goes up on their production of Much Ado About Nothing.

I’m not just a writer; I also work at a high school on the west side of Chicago. When my students asked me what my book was about, I found out that none of them had heard of The Taming of the Shrew – most of them, in fact, only had a vague idea of who Shakespeare was, and the ones who did know Shakespeare were most decidedly not fans of his. But the more I talked about my book, the more I realized I’d actually been writing for a different audience.

I was a Shakespeare nut from an early age – a freakishly early age – but I was first exposed to Shakespeare not from reading his plays, but from Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare. I loved the stories I read about exiled sorcerers and tragic kings. They were like fairy tales, and I devoured them. Thanks to those books, I loved Shakespeare before I’d heard a single line of his or watched any of his plays. By the time 10 Things I Hate About You came out in 1999, I was twelve and already a pretty advanced Shakespeare snob, but I loved that movie. Still do. I remember feeling a sense of supreme vindication when it came out. “See?!” I practically shouted at my friends. “Shakespeare is cool! I told you so!”

If students are first introduced to Shakespeare as seniors in a high school English class, it can be kind of a shock. The language is weird. It seems like too much effort to try and understand what anyone is saying.   Frankly, the whole thing is intimidating. Shakespeare is so scary there’s even a whole series of books called No Fear Shakespeare! But I was never afraid of Shakespeare because I didn’t know I was supposed to be.

Several summers ago I taught the five to eight year old age group at the summer camp at MaineStage Shakespeare, an outdoor summer Shakespeare theatre in Kennebunk, Maine. Many people are surprised that five year olds attended a Shakespeare camp, but they made magnificent fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We wrote silly plays and learned fairy dances, but they also declaimed lines from Richard III in their vocal classes and offered lots of opinions on the nuances of Titania and Oberon’s relationship. They didn’t know Shakespeare was supposed to be hard. They knew he wrote funny stories about guys with donkey heads.

I wish we could some how introduce all five year olds to Shakespeare before they know he’s “supposed” to be scary. I realize, of course, that’s insanely unrealistic – but rest assured, if I ever become the benevolent dictator of this country, that will certainly be part of the program – but I also know there are ways to show that Shakespeare isn’t scary. That’s why I’m such a huge fan of retellings. Retellings are a great way to introduce reluctant readers who might otherwise balk at Shakespeare to the world of his plays. I know there isn’t a guarantee that everyone who reads Saving Juliet by Suzanne Selfors or The Fool’s Girl by Celia Rees or Ophelia by Lisa M. Klein will immediately search out the original source material, but I think it’s definitely a step in the right direction. The more the stigma of “scary” gets taken out of the conversation, the better students will fare when they’re inevitably staring down a Macbeth monologue in English class.

I had thought I was writing The Taming of the Drew for students like I had been, who have the entirety of Juliet memorized “just in case.” And if those students find the book, I really hope they like it. But I realized later on that this book is just as much, if not more so, for readers who have only the vaguest idea of who Shakespeare is, or who actively dislike him and his frequent usage of the word “forsooth.” I hope this book becomes somebody’s 10 Things I Hate About You: a pop culture gateway drug into classical theater.

“This sounds funny, Ms. Strohm,” one of my students said after I explained the plot of The Taming of the Shrew. “I can’t believe he ripped up her clothes like that. He’s crazy.”

“You think that’s crazy?” I asked. “Let me tell you about a guy named Titus Andronicus.”

And so I did.

The Taming of the Drew

About the Book: Cass McKay has been called stubborn, temperamental, difficult, and that word that rhymes with “witch” more times than she cares to count. But that’s all about to pay off. She has finally landed the role she was born to play—Kate, in The Taming of the Shrew—in the summer apprentice program of a renowned Shakespeare theater company in the forests of Vermont.

But Cass can barely lace up her corset before her troubles begin. Her leading man, Drew, is a complete troll, and he’s going to ruin Cass’s summer. Even worse, Cass’s bunkmate Amy has somehow fallen head over heels for Drew. Cass can’t let Amy throw herself at a total jerk, so she comes up with a genius plan to give Drew the personality makeover he so desperately needs: they’ll tame Drew just as Petruchio tames Kate! But as Shakespeare’s classic plays out offstage, Cass finds it harder and harder to resist falling for Drew herself.

The best kind of entertainment, The Taming of the Drew is smart, funny, fresh, and original. You’re going to love this badass heroine and her friends. You might even end up liking Drew, too.

 

Author Stephanie Strohm photographed for her “Pilgrams don’t wear Pink” book. Copyright Melissa Lynn 2011

About the Author: Stephanie Kate Strohm is the author of Pilgrims Don’t Wear Pink and Confederates Don’t Wear Couture. She graduated with a dual degree in theater and history and has acted her way around the United States, performing in more than twenty-five states. She currently lives in Chicago with her fiancé and a dog named Lorelei Lee.

 

Thank you to Stephanie for this honest post. 

Thank you to Cheryl at Skyhorse Publishing for connecting us with Stephanie!

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“When Characters Come Alive”

“Do Lucy and Alice know each other?”

A young reader asked me this recently when I met with their class to talk about writing and reading. The students had read Pack of Dorks as a classroom read-aloud and several of them went on to read A Blind Guide to Stinkville on their own.

The grin on my face had to look ridiculous as I tried to figure out how to answer this question. Did Lucy, my snarky and loyal protagonist in Pack of Dorks, know quiet and brave Alice from A Blind Guide to Stinkville?

Luckily another student piped in. “There is no way they’d like each other, if they have met. Alice is way too mature for Lucy.”

“But Alice and Sam would get along,” replied the first student, mentioning Lucy’s best friend.

“Actually,” I said, and there really is no word to describe the thrill pulsating through me at that moment. “Sam and Alice are cousins.”

“What?” they said together, minds blown.

I nodded. “Look for clues in Camp Dork.”

As an author, that was the best conversation ever, one that’s making me grin like a scary clown as I write about it now. These readers weren’t asking if Alice and Lucy would meet in further books. They wanted to know if they knew each other now, in the land fictional characters live when we close our books. To them, Lucy and Alice aren’t personas I created. They’re real.

I see the same thing in my son when he talks about his current literary obsession—Harry Potter. “I wish he’d be a little more careful with his Invisibility Cloak,” he mused as I put him to bed. “It makes me nervous that he just leaves it lying around.”

Ask my son anything about Harry Potter, and he can immediately give you the answer. What’s in his pocket? “A golden snitch.” What’s on his bedroom floor? “Chocolate Frog wrappers.” What’s his biggest fear? “Dementors.”

This ability to talk about characters with the same conviction and intimate understanding we would use to describe as our friends happens because of one thing: Voice.

When a character has a distinctive and authentic voice, not only do the stories become alive, so do the characters.

Finding that voice is the hardest aspect of writing for me. Even writing the dreaded synopsis is easier than this essential step.

It’s tricky because it feels like I’m not working. It feels—and looks like—a lot of staring into space, eating candy and drinking coffee. But really, I’m thinking of my characters, trying to unravel what makes them meaningful, how they view the world, what makes them unique.

Assigning them quirks is easy. Making those quirks meaningful and capable of moving forward characters’ stories is tough.

A Blind Guide to Normal (releasing in October) tells the story of Ryder Raymond, a fourteen-year-old boy who always has a pun or a joke at the ready. The reason for this is pretty obvious: He wants to make you laugh before you can laugh at him.

But sometimes, as an author, I’m the only one who understands a character’s quirks. Take for example Sheldon in the Pack of Dorks series. He is completely obsessed with dinosaurs. He wears shirts with iron-on dinosaurs and shoelaces with dino prints. Every conversation with Sheldon will eventually go back to dinosaurs. I haven’t yet shared in the series why Sheldon is obsessed—how when he was a toddler, he and his dad used to go for walks looking for tracks and spend hours playing with toy dinosaurs. I haven’t mentioned that Sheldon’s dad isn’t part of his life any more, but the dinosaurs still are. But I know that, and it helps me move Sheldon through the series.

When I’m to the point where I can talk about my characters the way those students did Lucy and Alice—putting them in new situations and seeing how they’d respond—only then am I able to write their stories.

And it’s only when I see that these characters have blossomed to life for readers, too, that I know all that space-staring potato-chip-eating coffee-drinking was time well spent.

Young writers who are just beginning to tap into their own ability to story tell might benefit from continuing the stories of characters they already know and love.

I remember doing this myself when I was in middle school.  Winnie Foster went on to have many more adventures in my mind after finishing Tuck Everlasting. I told myself stories about her growing older, times when she would run to the stream and debate drinking from it. Times that she was so glad she never had.

Another classroom I visited offered up another pinch-me moment as an author. The students told me they loved to play Pack of Dorks at recess, taking turns being Lucy, Sam and the rest of the gang. The character most coveted was Lucy’s baby sister Molly.

The teacher told me she encourages them to put these new adventures on paper during classroom free writing time. What an incredible idea!

Young writers given the freedom to continue their favorite characters’ stories will no doubt give them the confidence to tap into their own storytelling, find their own voice.

“I still think Lucy and Alice should meet,” the student told me as our classroom discussion ended. “It’d be a good story.”

“I think so, too,” I told her. “And you should write it.”

Camp Dork

About the Book: 

Lucy and her pack are back, in this sequel to Beth Vrabel’s heartwarming and humorous debut, Pack of Dorks. Sheldon convinces Lucy, Sam, April, and Amanda to join him at a weeklong sleep-away summer camp—Camp Paleo: Live Like a Caveman. Like cavemen, they’re going to have to make do without air conditioning or a heated pool. They’ll learn archery and dig for fossils. And Grandma’s coming too; she’s taking a job as lunch lady for the camp next door.

At the last minute, Sam backs out to go to a gymnastics training camp instead. Lucy wonders why she misses him so much—it’s not like he’s her boyfriend or anything. Why does the word “boyfriend” make her blush, even when she’s only thinking it? She needs a distraction. Enter Mr. Bosserman, the grouchy camp leader who won’t budge on the caveman aspect of the camp. The old man needs some softening up, and Lucy knows just the person for the job: Grandma.

One successful match made, Lucy starts to see potential lovebirds everywhere. And setting up couples keeps her from facing the question tickling the back of her mind: Is she in love with Sam? But when the wrong campers fall for each other, the pack falls apart, all under the watchful eye of a super secret blogger who’s been writing about the camp’s activities Gossip Girl–style. Even worse? A thief is targeting everyone but Lucy, setting her up to look guilty. Soon Lucy again finds herself alone, left to fix the messes she’s made and face her own feelings. If she fails, the pack may be splintered for good.

For readers aged 8 to 12, this is a funny but poignant book about bullying, crushes, the harmful nature of rumors, and the importance of friendship and telling the truth. A great book to read aloud in the classroom for discussions or to simply read on a summer trip.

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25898670-pack-of-dorks

Giveaway!:

 

About the Author: Beth Vrabel grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania. She won a short-story contest in fourth grade and promptly decided writing was what she was going to do with her life. Although her other plans–becoming a Yellowstone National Park ranger, and a professional roller skater–didn’t come to fruition, she stuck with the writing. Beth’s backround is journalism and was editor of two regional magazines and a lifestyle columnist. Beth now writes full time.

Her books include Pack of Dorks series and A Blind Guide to Stinkville (Sky Pony Press). Her latest release, Camp Dork, hit bookstores in May.

A Blind Guide to Normal releases in October.

Author Links:

Website: www.bethvrabel.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBethVrabel/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/beth_vrabel

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7710163.Beth_Vrabel

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorbethvrabel/

Thank you to Beth for this post. We hope our readers enjoyed her conversation with these students as much as we did! We’ve been fortunate to feature Beth on the blog before. Please check out her other guest post, “My Son’s Teacher’s Approach to Reading.“

Thank you to Lisa at Tasty Book PR for connecting us with Beth!

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