A-HA! The Eureka Moment

As the story goes, for Archimedes, it was the moment he sank into his tub.  For Newton, it was that falling apple.  Eureka!  Aha! In a flash, the answers (displacement and gravity) became clear.  To Archimedes and Newton, anyway.  For them, that lightning bolt of understanding was accompanied by joy and amazement.  Other people, half as brilliant or educated, might have simply thought, “Oy, I hope the water doesn’t overflow” or “Ouch, that’s what I get for sitting under a fruit tree.”

I’ve been mulling over Eureka moments lately.  Products of pioneering thinkers like Archimedes’ and Newton’s may corner the market, but epiphanies come in all shapes and sizes.  It doesn’t always have to be and original discovery that leads to Eureka.  A gifted explanation can go a long way to create an aha moment for others.  

An example was when physicist Richard Feynman appeared before the Senate Committee hearing convened to figure out what caused the Challenger Disaster.  If you remember, the

space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff in 1986, killing all aboard.  The question was why and everyone dithered about it for months.  During his testimony, Feynman revealed the problem in moments.  He used a C-clamp to bend the type of rubber O-ring used to seal joints in the rocket, then plunked it into his glass of ice water.  He pulled it out, unscrewed the clamp and showed how the now 32-degree rubber was too cold to bend for valuable seconds.  It had been 32 degrees on launch day.  No effective seal, leaking gas, fire, death.  

Was this an epiphany for Feynman?  I have no idea; it might have just been a satisfying, logical conclusion.  But for the people who wanted to know what happened and couldn’t assemble, sort and understand all the factors, it was a mind blower. QED, game over.

As nonfiction writers, and especially as nonfiction writers for kids, wouldn’t it be great to be able to create aha moments for our readers and open up new parts of the world to them? Sorry, I wish I could simply print the recipe at the bottom of the page.  

The best I do is guess about the necessary ingredients.  Here are a few I’ve been thinking about:

1.  Curiosity—not just coming up with facts, but also a compulsion to flip them over in your mind and study them from every angle.  

2. Wonder—wondering about situation and having a sense of wonder about it so you might be able to get some poetry into the mix when you try to get the idea across.  

3. Expansion—somehow leaving enough room for a reader to get invested and involved and find his or her discovery amidst your own.

Anybody have a few more suggestions?  I’d love to hear (and use!) them.

Getting At The Truth

I've been thinking a lot about truth. I've been thinking (often at 4 a.m.) about how to get at the real truth of a person, or an event. I've been obsessing about it because of my work-in-progress, but the search for truth has been in the news a lot lately, too.

Election season always brings out the question of truth. But these days so do extreme weather events (yes, folks, global warming is real, and yes we will be having more and more of these heartbreaking disasters like the typhoon in the Philippines unless we deal with it!).

And the past few weeks our country has been looking again at John F. Kennedy, and his truths. This Friday is, unbelievably, the 50th anniversary of his assassination. As a country we are still fascinated with the man, and obsessed, some say, with his death. I think the reasons are obvious and reasonable, though one journalist argues that our obsession with him is just our obsession with ourselves--if we are baby boomers. But there are new sources (see below, On the Media), and new insights. And so new books keep coming out, textbooks are revisited, revisions made, appraisals rewritten.

You talk to some people of a certain age and they do not budge from how they felt about J.F.K. the moment they heard the horrible news on November 22, 1963. (See below, me.) You talk to others of that age, or a younger age, and you get an emotionless appraisal of a man who was President for a very short time. For a really good summary of  how we are looking at J.F.K. right now, including some newly-released tapes, listen to this week's "On the Media." That's one of my favorite N.P.R. shows, by the way, because they are always in search of truth and how truth is reported (or not reported).  I highly recommend it.

Those of us who write know that it is darn hard to get at the truth. I mean not only the facts, but the core truth, the deep essence of a person or an event or a subject. Sometimes it takes a lot of creativity to keep it nonfiction. And sometimes, writing it as fiction is the best way to go (see below, Monica Edinger's new book).

First, of course, you have to make sure your facts are correct. This sounds like stating the obvious, but I can't tell you how many experts I know who say that whenever they read a newspaper or magazine article in their field, they scream, "they never get it right!" We who write books have more time to make sure our facts are correct, though mistakes do creep in (oy!) but, thankfully,  are corrected in future printings. (Thanksgiving is on the fourth Thursday of the month, not the last Thursday, because sometimes there are 5 Thursdays in the month,  ahem, Deborah.)

Where was I?

Getting the facts right is just one part of telling the truth.  For one thing, when you write for kids, you have to tell the truth, but sometimes, depending on the age, not the whole truth. But getting at the truth is more complicated and complex than that no matter who your audience is. To get at the truth you have to sift through your own preconceived notions, your own bias, other peoples' bias, untruths perpetuated throughout the years, lack of facts, etc. And at bottom is the challenge of understanding what facts you have well enough to convey the truthful essence of a person or an event.

Over ten years ago, an editor asked me to write a book about John F. Kennedy. I said no. I didn't want to learn more about him. I was only five when he was killed, and I knew that if I wrote a book about him, I'd discover painful truths that would ruin the kindergarten perception I struggled to maintain. The editor, apparently desperate for the book,  and fast (so it would be published at the 40th anniversary) raised the advance she was offering (I didn't mean to be bargaining!), begged a little, made a strong case, and finally I said yes. I am not sorry I did.

Writing High Hopes was a great lesson in how to find the truth--or a truth--about a historical person who was iconic in my childhood.  As far as I know there are no mistakes in that book, although one review criticized it for being too awestruck. I was too awestruck by the man--when I started. If that reviewer only knew how much of my awe was struck down by research! And still, if I wrote that book today, with ten more years of distance from the trauma and ten more years of jaded experience or, er, wisdom, I would probably write a different book. Slightly different. More emphasis on his foibles maybe?  And since it is a different world today, I might have included a reference to his dalliances. Maybe. (I decided the fact that he hid his illnesses was a truth I should tell; the affairs ended up on the cutting room floor, for, I felt then, good reason.) But does that make my take on JFK in High Hopes less true? No, I don't think so. But that does not mean it was the only way to tell the story, or that my book shows the only truths about J.F.K. for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. Yet ten years later, I am still proud of it, and grateful for the experience of writing it. And I still believe that I captured a true J.F.K.

[A brief pause to tell you two other reason why I'm so glad I wrote this book: In order to get permission to use the lyrics for High Hopes, I had to sing the song on the phone with the widow of the songwriter, Sammy Cahn. I also got a telemarketer who interrupted me while I was crashing out the book on a tight deadline to sing me her rendition of Marilyn Monroe's Happy Birthday, Mr. President.]

Sometimes you can't, as someone once said, let the facts get in the way of a good story. Or possibly in the way of truth. For what about getting at a truth when you don't know all the facts? Sometimes, I have learned, and seen, you have to turn from nonfiction to fiction. As I wrote a long time ago here, I had to jettison a story because the facts were just too elusive and mushy. I hope to turn that story into fiction one day, telling truths, still, but not relying only on facts.

As much as we are all about nonfiction on this blog, I'd like to put in a good word for great historical fiction. Sometimes the best way at a truth is through fiction. It just happens. Take a look at Monica Edinger's story about her road from nonfiction to fiction. And then take a look at her beautiful--and truthful--new book, Africa Is My Home. In it she shows us the real story of a real person, Sarah Margru Kinson, one of four children who forced to come to this country on the infamous slave ship, The Amistad.  I think this book should be taught alongside nonfiction about slavery and the Amistad. It gets at the truth the way Laurie Halse Anderson's brilliant Chains and Forge do. Sometimes the way to tell a truth is through meticulously researched historical fiction, as both Anderson and Edinger show. 

Now speaking of the truth and getting at it--I'm taking a break from I.N.K. blog posts to focus on getting my W.I.P. down on paper in the best and most truthful way that I can. I hope to be back by late winter or early spring. I'll keep reading I.N.K., of course, as I hope will all of you. 

Line Edits

This week, I survived my first line edits. [Insert applause.] Since I’ve been a little preoccupied for the last three weeks, a few words about line edits are about the only thing my brain can rustle up for this month’s INK post. So, please indulge me, while I throw out a few words and ponder, share, and whine a little about the process.

Editors.
I have to say, editors are amazing and I’ve been telling this to whoever will listen this past three weeks. All my words are now working together. There’s a pattern, consistency, and a story to be told.

Line edits.
Let’s do the math; my word document manuscript has 229 pages. With 23 lines per page, that makes 5,267 lines.  Then, add in a few “make this intro more interesting”, “needs a closing paragraph”, and “chapter three needs more sidebars”. I figure that there were about 8,000 edits. Depending on the edit, I approximate that each edit took an hour.  So, 8,000 hours of edits leads me to my next word.

Dust bunnies.
The dust bunnies were throwing one heck of a party at my house. I got a little concerned when they threw a hat on the cat and carried him down the hall, but they were keeping themselves occupied. 

Sitting is the new smoking.
If sitting is the new smoking, then I inhaled a couple cartons. Husband used that excuse to why I should maybe make dinner. Supposedly, I had to get up and walk around a little. We had several take-out dinners, also.

Facts.
Last month, I wrote Just the Facts about hunting down the correct version of a fact. In rewriting a more interesting intro to one chapter, I found from a number of sources where the first woman architect made her formal announcement of her design practice at a major women’s conference. Great visual story telling, right? In checking, there is no evidence of that actually happening. I looked through all the literature and attendance records of the 1881 Women’s Conference. I would have loved to use that visual to start the chapter, but it just didn’t feel right. Sometimes you have to go with what your intuition tells you.

Learning.
While pounding out the manuscript, I learned a lot about writing. What an education. I didn’t expect to learn even more while I was working on the line edits. The main thing I gleaned was a better understanding and appreciation for organization. While the information that was gathered on all 22 biographies and general information on three major professions had a system to it, I came away after going through the editing process with a knowledge of how to work better the next time. And, one friend who I occasionally ranted with, said that it will get easier. So, that’s a good thing to know. Which reminds me about my next word.

Friends.
Priceless.

Books.
In doing my research, the one thing that I feel helped was that I purchased some of the books that I was using. Using Interlibrary Loan to get my hands on some research books was amazing, but I was stacking up some fines. Finding the books on Amazon for next to nothing and then having them here to check things as I was editing was a good thing. Of course, I couldn’t buy one book that was over $1,000 on Amazon.

Deadlines.
Yes, I turned in the manuscript at 11:58pm with 2 whole minutes to spare. Hey, it was still Monday. 

Post-editing.
On Tuesday, I went to Pilates to stretch out my back, took two naps, and finished a book, that I had been reading for fun and put away three weeks before. The dust bunnies are recovering from their partying ways. Ready for them to stage a rebellion, I'm going to go grab the vacuum and broom.

Office.
Notice dog and 2 tennis balls under the table.

Artistic License and Telling Details

The newest crop of award-winning films from Hollywood, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, and Argo, are all based on true stories.  The key word here is “based.” It seems that film-makers have no trouble inventing scenes, creating dialog, and inserting information that is completely made up if, in their opinion, it makes a better story.  The rationale?  Movie-goers “expect” an exciting chase scene in Argo or a  Navy Seal raid on Osama Bin Laden’s home to be noisy even if it never happened.  Historians are worried because so many people are learning history from the movies.  Will the story from the movie’s point of view become the myth that supplants the careful scholarship and meticulous digging that drives the best historians to get it right?  The good news is that these transgressions are being noticed.  But we authors who contribute to this blog, who craft nonfiction for children, may be held to the highest standards around.  We’re not allowed to make anything up.  Period.  Maybe we’re the last group on the planet to be held to such high standards.  Anna’s recent post on Just the Facts shows how hard we work to make sure we’re accurate.

The erosion of the truth seems to be touching journalism as well. One previously absolutely inviolate journalistic standard was that every fact must be verified by at least three independent sources.   It’s hard for a reader to check on the accuracy of many stories because journalists can keep some of their sources secret.  So one outcome is that people wind up reading and tuning in to the media they agree with. The biased medium becomes the arbiter of what it wants its audience to believe, cherry-picking from the many conflicting “facts” being touted in public that support different sides of critical issues.  It’s no wonder that the “echo chamber” of Fox News [Un]fair and [Un]balanced skewed version of the news kept them in a bubble oblivious to the possibility that Obama would be elected, even after the election results were called by other news services.  Many pundits dissected why Fox News got it wrong but the consensus seems to be that they had problems believing the inconvenient truth of independent polls so their own slanted views became their own truth.  I googled  the words “journalism erosion of standards” and up came a slew of posts with many different  examples about the extent of misinformation foisted on the public.  There was so much disagreement between these posts that I’m now confused about the truth on a variety of issues.  But all the articles seem to agree that many news organizations play fast and loose with the truth in the interest of ratings, readership, political and social bias, and the bottom line. Propaganda is alive and well in the good old USA.

 What happens when misinformation is embedded in a compellingly told story that has a lot of truth to it? What should our response be when it is uncovered?  Here’s a thorny problem from the film Lincoln:  It seems there were two invented Connecticut “nays” against the 13^th amendment in the voting scene in the movie thus casting the Nutmeg State incorrectly on the wrong side of history.  My initial reaction was:  where were the fact checkers?  This is the kind of error that is so easy to correct. Were the film-makers being lazy or sloppy?  The Connecticut congressman, Joe Courtney, called out the error in an open letter to director Steven Spielberg.  In response, Tony Kushner, the screenwriter admitted that it was no accident.  He had made the changes deliberately.   Kushner argues that the facts were changed to serve the larger story: “These alterations were made to clarify to the audience the historical reality that the Thirteenth Amendment passed by a very narrow margin that wasn't determined until the end of the vote. The closeness of that vote and the means by which it came about was the story we wanted to tell. In making changes to the voting sequence, we adhered to time-honored and completely legitimate standards for the creation of historical drama, which is what Lincoln is.” In other words, he used artistic license to shorten the voting scene in the film from the actual historical voting time in the interest of a dramatic effect.  You can read the arguments  here.  So it wasn't laziness or sloppiness. I think he has a point. 

Dramas like Lincoln and Argo create tremendous interest in history. When kids encounter a compelling story or an amazing fact they want to know if it is true. The proper answer is “Mostly.”  But a curious kid now wants to know what’s true and what isn't.  Aha!  A teachable moment!  What an opportunity!  Telling details (small things that catch one’s attention) can add to the credibility of a work if true or, if incorrect, indicate that the work was not vetted for accuracy and perhaps shouldn't be trusted.   If only the interested person knew for sure which were which!

Maybe this is an opportunity for us.  Perhaps it takes authors who write history for children to create white papers on these films.  They could explain what is true and where truth has been manipulated.  They could ask questions like, can you think of another way to meet the requirements of an historical drama without changing the facts? Are there any fabrications that are unacceptable in a work that portrays real events?  If so, what are they and why should they not be included?  What does a careless error of fact tell you about the creators of the work?  Whose responsibility is it for those errors? 

Searching for truth drives us in creating our books.  Perhaps we need to add our voices into the larger conversation engendered by the popular media.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, Redux

Yesterday morning there was an article in the NY Times that touched on my former subject, Mary Sullivan. Although the article in case the link doesn't work it's called

100 Years After a Murder, Questions About a Police Officer’s Guilt 

 doesn't mention Mary, she had a minor roll in the case, though not in solving it (one of the many reasons I, sob, dropped the book). Seeing it there in the paper, I had a pang and so I decided to re-post this blog from early last year. If we weren't posting old blogs, I probably would have written an entire blog about my newly adopted dog, Ketzie. I guess I'm lucky because I am such a doting new parent I would have embarrassed myself by writing thousands of words about her and showing you a picture. OK. Since you asked. I'll show you a picture.

and one more just so you can see what she really looks like:

Now on to the "real" blog post, the repeat:

If it were up to me, you'd listen to this song while reading this post.

So. It's been a very, very long time since I broke up with a sweetheart, given that I've been married for almost 30 years. (In  my culture, you get married at 11.) And I don't intend to ever break up with him. But there comes a time in every writer's life when she has to break up with a topic. Actually, many times. Usually the break-up comes early on in the project. At least for me. I work on something for a short time and realize that there's just no there there, or that it's not for me. Or someone or something else pulls at me, grabs my attention. ("Oh you over there, come hither...")

But sometimes, it seems, you go out with someone for a very long time before you realize he or she was not your bashert. This has just happened to me. It was a long relationship, but it was going nowhere. It just took me a very long time to realize that because I thought... I was sure...though I had niggling doubts...that I was in love.

But breaking up really IS hard to do.

(By the way, I also like this version of the song. My friend Judy Blundell votes for the slow version, which I also like. Ok, maybe I'm spending too much time listening to Neil Sedaka.)

I mean, look at her. An early NYC policewoman. A detective.  And we had spent so many, many months together.

The more time, energy, money, time, time, time, you invest in a topic, the more reluctant you are to let it go. I bought and read very many books.

I spent many hours looking for people who knew the person I had fallen in love with. After much detective work, I found her descendants. That was a great day! And then her great granddaughter became an enthusiastic helper, inviting me to come to her house, where I combed through boxes of clippings, notes, photos, memorabilia, and even recordings, hoping for the big break in the case. 

I dug deep into the web, into online newspapers, books, footnotes of journal articles. I reached out to authors, researchers, professors, librarians... But I just couldn't get enough primary source information. There was no great case, no story arc, and much of the information was that kind of early 20th century, questionable, surfacey--maybe even fictionalized--storytelling that made this researcher queasy. I could write a great novel about her, sure. And I always wanted to try writing historical fiction, but I was determined to write about her as nonfiction. She was such a character, such an important person, I was convinced that I wanted to write about her for real. If you find a great real person, a trailblazer, you want to write about her as nonfiction. At least that is my predilection. I spent hours in archives, looking at microfilm and microfiche, begging archivists for help. (I even wrote about my research problems in an article in The Horn Book, vowing to bribe the gatekeepers with chocolate. I almost resorted to that.) I told everyone I knew in NYC what I was working on. I told strangers at dinner parties. I buttonholed the state archivist and begged her for help. She gave me a great lead to another archivist. Who tried to help.... I pleaded my case to a group of librarians in PA, and that plea led to another great lead--which ended up going nowhere. I had so many leads that went nowhere I felt like a dog-walker walking invisible dogs. But I kept going. And going. And going. I revised and finished a novel during this time. I wrote a picture book. But I kept coming back to my sweetheart. 

Probably the moment I should have known that it was not meant to be was way back in February of 2010. I finally heard back from a man I'd written to months before. I'd asked for his help in getting into Harlem jail records from the 1920's.  He wrote back a very lovely email: 

I  have an interesting angle you might use in connection with the lack of Harlem Jail records. There's a secret room in the jail holding records from the era that includes MS's undercover work there. It was accessible only by pigeons or by persons who climb a ladder from a room below. The ladder is not a permanent fixture but must be moved into position and held in place by one person while another climbs up, pushes open a panel in the ceiling and climbs into the secret store. It is secret in the sense that unless you knew the room was there, you wouldn't encounter it touring the building on your own.  The story goes a caretaker for the abandoned city jail discovered it one day by accident when cleaning the ceiling of the room below. Of course, the pigeons discovered the secret room long before that, flying in through a broken window, and making use of the place as their private toilet. Thus the bundled up records are covered with their dried droppings. The city uses the health hazards presented as the reason for not retrieving the records. In other words, much of Harlem Jail history is held being held hostage by pigeons.

See http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycdoc/harlemjail/html/550harlemprison21a.html

and

 http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycdoc/harlemjail/html/300harlemprison21.html

But no, this did not stop me. I would not be daunted or deterred by pigeon poop! My husband and I joked about buying Hazmat suits. A friend said she's go with me, too. I actually considered it.

I reached out to more and more people, which eventually led to: having dinner with a roomful of retired policewomen; interviewing a 92-year-old policewoman as she lay on her sofa recovering from back surgery (she argued with her friend who brought me there that, no, she would NOT take the clips out of her guns); and, finally, hanging out with a really bright and interesting drug-enforcement officer who, after a dinner in a strange restaurant a few months ago, left me alone in a deserted parking garage late at night while I waited for her to make a phone call inside an unmarked building. When she got back into the car I calmly explained to her how a writer's mind worked, and how she owed me big for the 20 minutes of scenarios that ran through my head during the time she was gone...(all the while texting my husband, saying, "I dont know where I am...!").... It turned out the detective's call was about a fish. A tropical fish. A pufferfish, to be exact. 

It seemed after almost two years the relationship had no future. There was no there there. But I so very much wanted there to be! I felt a strong duty to my subject, to her family, to the policewomen I talked to--but mostly, to myself. I had spent so much time on this project. It was to be my long narrative nonfiction book after Charles and Emma (which is out in paperback next week!)  and I just hated to admit it wasn't working. During this whole time I talked to both my agent and my editor about my progress (or lack of it), and they were encouraging, sweet, supportive, and knew, I'm sure, long before I did, that it was time to say goodbye. I asked the great granddaughter to put in a Freedom Of Information Act request, which she did, willingly. We waited. And waited. We are still waiting. (So it's not truly over yet.) 

Finally, one day last month, I moved the books from my desk to the shelves you see above.  I took down the timeline from my bulletin board. I filed my notes, clippings, print-outs. I archived my interviews. I talked to my agent and my editor again.They both said, Move On. They both said, you might come back to it. As fiction, or maybe someday even as nonfiction. But it is time to move on. You can still be friends, but.... 

It was very painful, folks. It took me weeks to get over it. Really, it felt like a break-up. I walked around dazed, confused, humiliated, disappointed, angry... but mostly sad.

But finally I knew it was time. To find someone new. I might come back. I hope to come back, but for now... I'm moving on. 

Fortunately, fortunately, while I was travelling last summer, I met someone else. He stood in the corner waiting while I realized my relationship was over. He was respectful. He didn't pounce. He whispered, "Come hither, come hither..." 

And now, friends, I have committed. And I am in love. And this one is going to work. This one is Mr. Right. 

Telling Truths

I was on a short writing retreat last week--a time and place away from news and social networking and daily obligations. Yes, heaven. But two news items snuck into the idyll: the death of Maurice Sendak and President Obama's announcement coming out in favor of gay marriage. I cried and sighed and smiled;  both of these events revolve around children and telling truths.


Maurice Sendak, though he wrote fiction, was a master truth-teller. I would like to take out that "though" because of course we tell truth when we write fiction as well as non-fiction, but sometimes the "outside" world forgets that. But when I say he was a master Truth-Teller, I mean Truth with a capital T. And Teller with a capital T.  He was not afraid to hit the tough subjects when he was writing and drawing for kids--death, AIDS, fear, anger, homosexuality, the Holocaust, love. Because he knew that kids want and crave and need the truth. About everything.


On this little retreat one night as we cooked dinner, the talk turned to sex (education), as it often does when five mothers are together, especially mothers whose kids span the ages--twenties to teens to twos. When did you tell, how did you tell, what should I say? And the overwhelming answer was: tell the truth. And also, get Robie Harris to help you.


People who write for children are devotees of telling the truth, and we learned from people like Robie and Maurice Sendak. I was so sad that Sendak died, but so happy that he lived. And wrote and drew. And told the truth. His books made a huge impression on our sons and lines from all of them are part of our family lexicon. "I don't care."  "Let the wild rumpus begin!" And for some reason, especially, "Milk for the morning cake." (Why don't we have cake for breakfast, though?!)  If you haven't read the obituary in the New York Times, treat yourself to it. Margalit Fox wrote one of the most wonderful obituaries I've ever read. I think Sendak would be pleased. I understand his NPR interview is great, too.  I haven't listened to it yet. I hear one needs a lot of tissues.


When I read that President Obama finally came out in favor of gay marriage, I sighed, "Oh good." My friend in the room below me said, "I know." (Thin walls.) That was all we said at that moment (we were writing) but she knew what I was talking about and I knew what her reaction was.   


President Obama finally came out in favor of gay marriage, it is said, not because of his Veep's declaration or because of the North Carolina embarrassment, but because of his daughters. Apparently they told him that love between two people is love between two people. They should be able to get married. Who knows? Maybe they had been telling him that for a long time. Maybe he had been telling them that. (We can only hope.) But it's the truth and it seems they told him it was time to Tell the Truth. It so often takes children to lead the way to the truth. Because they just seem to be unafraid of it.  Up to a certain age they don't have the defenses and the filters and the biases that adults have. We who write for and teach children know this.


In 1969, E.B. White told George Plimpton and Frank H. Crowther in a  Paris Review interview, "Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth. They accept, almost without question, anything you present them with, as long as it is presented honestly, fearlessly, and clearly."


He goes on to say that "Some writers for children deliberately avoid using words they think a child doesn't know. This emasculates the prose and, I suspect, bores the reader. Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words, and they backhand them over the net. They love words that give them a hard time, provided they are in a context that absorbs their attention."


Master Truth Tellers deserve all the respect, adulation and thanks we can give them. Most of the great ones, like White and Sendak, were actually humble. Maurice Sendak knew that children often ate his work. He loved that. They read it, they loved it, they ate it. Fine with him. But those who write for children are also proud of it. Sendak did not love when people disrespected him or the genre. And yet he didn't think he was changing the world (I disagree). He told Vanity Fair in an interview last August,  “A woman came up to me the other day and said, ‘You’re the kiddie-book man!’ I wanted to kill her.”


E.B. White said in that same Paris Review interview,  back in 1969, "A writer must reflect and interpret his society, his world. He must also provide inspiration and guidance and challenge." 


I would say that goes double and triple for those of us who write for kids. Because kids demand and deserve the truth. Give it to them and they will lead the way. 

Jan Interviews Bravo's Andy Cohen

Andy Cohen is Bravo TV’s executive vice-president of programming and development and the mastermind of such hits as Top Chef and the Real Housewives franchise. He also hosts a fast-moving, outspoken talk show Watch What Happens. What is wonderful about Andy is that, despite his success and friendships with “stars,” he is still the same funny, friendly kid who hung out at our house in St. Louis with our daughter Jackie, loves his family (especially his Mom), and keeps up with all of us. Andy grew up knowing he was gay and keeping it a secret until his senior year at college. His new memoir Most Talkative: Stories from the front lines of pop culture tells that story, but also chronicles his meteoric rise in the world of T.V.

As a student at Boston University, Andy began to follow his dream to be a journalist. A hilarious chapter describes a hard won interview for the school newspaper with his all time idol Susan Lucci. Most Talkative gives a candid, inside view of life in television, as well as a poignant and often funny account of his life as a teenager in the Midwest. Several of us, including Sue Macy, Karen Romano Young, Cheryl Harness, Susan E. Goodman, and Gretchen Woelfle, have written posts about the need for nonfiction books for kids about growing up gay in America. I hope Andy Cohen’s memoir will fill this gap.

Jan: The text reads just the way you talk- funny, honest, anecdotal and fast-moving. Most Talkative is an apt title. How did you come to it?

Andy: I WAS VOTED MOST TALKATIVE IN HIGH SCHOOL AND IT SEEMED SUCH AN APT TITLE WHEN I LOOKED BACK AT MY LIFE AND HOW MY MOUTH HAS NOT ONLY GOTTEN ME IN A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF TROUBLE OVER THE YEARS, BUT HAS ALSO HELPED ME ACHIEVE MY PROFESSIONAL DREAMS.

Jan: Your descriptions of growing up in St. Louis were so vivid and immediate. Did you keep a journal all those years?

Andy: I KEPT JOURNALS FROM 1987 THROUGH '98, SO THIS WAS AFTER I'D GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL BUT CERTAINLY DURING THE PERIOD WHEN I WAS WRESTLING WITH COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET AND THEN THE AFTERMATH OF THAT DECISION. THE JOURNALS WERE PAINFUL TO READ - AS THEY ALL CAN BE - BUT PROVIDED ME WITH SOME VERY SPECIFIC DETAILS ABOUT MY FEARS ABOUT COMING OUT, AS WELL AS SOME HILARIOUS COLOR COMMENTARY DURING MY TIME AT CBS NEWS.
Jan: You are a people person. You are known as a TV talk show host and you appear as a guest on other interview shows. As a writer myself, I know how much alone time it takes to write a book. Was writing the memoir difficult for you to do in terms of time, concentration, or the writing process?

Andy: WRITING THIS BOOK WAS SUCH A CHALLENGING AND ENERGIZING EXPERIENCE. I HAVE NEVER FELT MORE ACCOMPLISHED ABOUT ANYTHING I'VE DONE IN MY LIFE THAN I DO ABOUT THE BOOK. I AM VERY DEADLINE ORIENTED, AND I HAD A TIGHT, ESSENTIALLY FOUR MONTH DEADLINE FOR THIS ENTIRE BOOK TO BE WRITTEN AND EDITED. (I STARTED IN LATE AUGUST AND IT WAS DUE JAN 1.) PLUS I HAVE TWO JOBS (EVP OF DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTION AT BRAVO AS WELL AS HOSTING 'WWHL'). I CAN'T BELIEVE I DID IT BUT I SPENT EVERY MINUTE THAT I WASN'T WORKING - AND MOST ESPECIALLY EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND NONSTOP - WRITING NEW PAGES AND EMAILING CHAPTERS IN VARIOUS STAGES OF EDIT BACK AND FORTH TO MY PHENOMINAL EDITOR AT HOLT, GILLIAN BLAKE. I ALSO SPENT 30-60 MINUTES DAILY ON THE PHONE WITH GILLIAN, USUALLY FIRST THING IN THE MORNING, TALKING ABOUT EVERYTHING RELATED TO THE BOOK - NEW IDEAS, THEMES THAT WE WERE SEEING ABOUT MY LIFE, DIFFERENT WAYS TO TELL MY STORY, HOW TO CONNECT THE PUZZLE PIECES OF MY LIFE IN A WAY THAT WAS FUN FOR THE READER. THE TWO THINGS IN MY FAVOR WERE THAT I KNEW EXACTLY WHAT STORIES I WANTED TO TELL, AND I FEEL CONFIDENT WITH MY VOICE AS A WRITER, AND I'M NOT AFRAID TO WRITE. I JUST KNEW I HAD TO GET IT DONE, THAT I HAD TO BE HAPPY WITH IT, AND THAT I WOULD SUCCEED. AND I DID!

Jan: The reason I wanted to interview you for I.N.K. about Most Talkative is that I think this is a crossover book. It will appeal to adults but junior high and high school kids will find it interesting, amusing and moving, as well. What is the most significant message you might hope kids will get from reading your book?

Andy: I THINK THE BIGGEST MESSAGE, WHETHER IT'S SAID DIRECTLY OR JUST INFERRED, IS TO BE YOURSELF AND FOLLOW YOUR PASSION. I HAVE BEEN LUCKY ENOUGH TO KNOW FROM A YOUNG AGE THAT I WANTED TO WORK IN TV, AND THIS IS ON ONE HAND A HOW-TO OF HOW I DID THAT, BUT ALSO A ROAD MAP OF MISTAKES I MADE ALONG THE WAY. I WAS ALWAYS A BIT FEARLESS, FOR BETTER OR WORSE, AND THAT SEEMS TO HAVE WORKED FOR ME. I HOPE PEOPLE FIND IT FUN AND FUNNY, AND ALSO REALIZE IT TAKES A LOT OF HARD WORK AND CONFIDENCE TO GET WHERE YOU WANT TO BE.

Jan: Writing a memoir can be a tricky business. I don’t mean the kind of exaggeration and outright lying that sometimes occurs in so-called memoirs. I’m talking about the challenge to make the work authentic, as well as compelling. Reading Andy’s memoir, I couldn’t help noting that even when the writer tries to give an honest account of events in his/her life, memory can be an unreliable witness. Several of the incidents he describes I am familiar with, but, from my point of view, they happened quite differently. To read about myself from Andy’s perspective was difficult. I wanted to shout, ”Hey wait a minute. It didn’t happen this way.” That said, Most Talkative is engaging and heartfelt, a fun read that offers many insights, not only for Andy’s many fans but also for young readers.

Evolution, Shmevolution?

I had all kinds of ideas about what I was going to write about for today. Science and art. A term called The Beholder's Share. I was going to tell you about a great trip I had in Maine, where I spoke to librarians about writing non-fiction. I was going to show you a cool NPR story about the wind at sea looking like a Van Gogh sky. But then I opened up the New York Times Monday morning and saw this:

Pseudoscience and Tennessee’s Classrooms

Please read it. I'll wait. I can't say it any better than that because all I want to do is scream. Loudly.

But I will say this, once again, as I've said many times and I think as I showed in CHARLES AND EMMA: Science and faith can co-exist. It does not have to be either or. But science is science and religion is religion. Evolution really happens. Smart theologians, religious people, clerics, rabbis, priests, ministers have NO PROBLEM WITH EVOLUTION. (I guess I am screaming.)

Our children deserve to be taught the truth in school. Period, the end.

Global warming really is happening. Smart politicians know that. Teaching our children the truth about global warming leaves open the possibility of saving our earth. Not teaching them the truth closes that possibility.

I hate conflict and controversy. I got very little of it, thank goodness, when  Charles And Emma came out. I think because their relationship shows how science and religion can co-exist in peace and harmony with understanding. That's beautiful.

What's happening in Tennessee and elsewhere is not beautiful. It's UGLY. And stupid. I'm going to let Spencer Tracy say it for me: Inherit The Wind