If you read Tanya Lee Stone’s INK blog in
February, you know about The Next Big Thing. If you didn’t or if you forgot,
it’s is an author blog tour. Each week a different author answers specific
questions about his or her upcoming book. The answers are posted on authors’
blogs. Then we get to tag another author. On and on it goes.
I was tagged by Nina Kidd, member of my local critique group.
She was tagged by Julie Williams. My tags are at the end.
And just in time because…. I’ve got a new book!
What is the title
of your book?
The Wind at Work: An
Activity Guide to Windmills –Second
Edition Revised and Expanded – published by Chicago Review Press. For more on how I wrote the second edition
click on one of my previous INK blog posts.
Where did the idea come
from for the book?
Way
back in the mid-nineties, just when I started writing for children, I wanted to
explore renewable energy. Can’t
remember why, but I chose wind energy and found a fascinating history of
windmills that included not just the machines themselves, but the intriguing
cultures of windmillers. They had their own idioms, jokes, folk tales, “signal
codes,” and more.
What genre does your book
fall under?
Nonfiction:
part historical, part contemporary environmental, from middle grade to YA. Each
chapter includes activities that can be performed at a younger or more advanced
level.
Which actors would you
choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
And
Ed Begley, Jr., Mr. Green himself, could be a wind turbine!
What is the one-sentence
synopsis of your book?
1000
years of windmills: how they created a country, powered an industrial
revolution, watered the American west, and offer a bright energy future.
Is your book represented by an agency?
I
found Chicago Review Press on my own. They published the first edition back in
1997 and it has been in print for fifteen years! I can’t praise them
enough. They have reprinted the book over and over, and were keen to do an
updated edition. As well as the paper edition, they are publishing the new
edition in three ebook formats: Kindle, epub, and pdf.
How long did it take you to
write the first draft of your manuscript?
I
had published short stories in Cricket
and Spider, but The Wind at Work was my first book. These days a book can take me
years to write, but as a naïve newbie I plowed through it in about three
months, as I recall. The activities, all the appendices, and photo research
took a few more months.
What other books would you
compare this story to within your genre?
Chicago Review Press has published dozens of
history/activity books similar to The
Wind at Work. Friends
of the Earth: A History of American Environmentalism
by Pat McCarthy is a nice complement to my book. I’d also like to recommend The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan
Mealer. This is the amazing story
of a young African boy who built himself a wind turbine. It’s out in a YA/adult version and a picture book. Both tell a terrific story in very different
ways.
Who or what inspired you to
write this book?
My
interest in renewable energy got me going on the first edition. After the 2011
Fukushima nuclear disaster I contacted Cynthia Sherry, Chicago Review Press
publisher, thinking that we’d have renewed interest in renewables. Cynthia
reported that they were near to selling out the latest reprinting, and so I
went to work. The difference between 1997 and today? This time I did all
the text and photo research online!
What else about your book
might pique the reader’s interest?
Check
out the activities. I had so much fun with them. They range from science
experiments to cooking, singing, writing, drawing, collage-ing, saving energy
at home, researching local environmental issues, finding out how your
politicians vote, and becoming a local activist. You can also plan a Global Wind
Day celebration (June 15). There’s something for everyone here.
Now for the lucky taggee: Susan Kuklin.
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