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Visiting Authors 2019-2020
Authors 2018-19 Authors 2017-2018 Authors 2016-2017 Authors 2015-2016 Authors 2014-2015
Authors 2013-2014 Authors 2011-2012 Authors 2010-2011 Authors Pre-2011
Authors 2013-2014 Authors 2011-2012 Authors 2010-2011 Authors Pre-2011
Lisa McMann, Zoom
May 6, 2020
We were given the opportunity to visit with Lisa McMann via Zoom while schools were closed. It certainly wasn't ideal as students had to be motivated to log on, but for those who attended, it was a real treat. McMann began by giving a very short synopsis of her series, The Unwanteds. She explained how the next series, The Unwanted Quests, begins ten years later. Though many characters can be found in both series, the second series focuses on the girl twins (Fifer and Thisbe) who were only about a year old when the first series ends. She began the second series in a manner that allows the reader to start there if they choose. She gives some background to the magical world of Artime, but spends just the right amount of time rehashing old material from The Unwanteds so that new readers can catch up, but old readers won't feel like they are not getting enough new story. The fifth book in the Quests series was just published with two more to come. McMann always wanted to write, but after getting rejection letter after rejection letter she stopped writing for a long time. She even worked in a bookstore for 10 years before becoming an author. It wasn't until after she had children and moved to a town where she knew no one that she began to write again. It took her writing short stories to get her back into the rhythm of writing, and she wrote two novels before getting the third one published. Students were very interested in hearing how she got into writing and how an author needs an agent to get their books published. Thank you to Octavia Books and Simon and Schuster for helping to make this happen.
Joy McCullough, virtual visit
December 9, 2019
This was a joint event with Bookmarked the high school book group and Girl Up members attending to hear about Blood Water Paint which tells the story of 17th century painter Artemisia Gentileschi. This was McCullough's first book to be published though she had been writing for a long time. This story began as a play which was produced but not attended by many young people. McCullough wanted to share Artemisia's story with teens and with the help of her literary agent began the process of turning the play into a book for young adults. She does not consider herself a poet but wrote the book as a novel in verse because she felt that it allowed the reader to feel the full emotional impact of the events in the story without a full description. To turn the play into a book, she had to continue her research and learned all about the painting process of the times and also what Rome was like in Artemisia's day. In the play, Artemisia never left her studio, but in the book, it was important that she spent time outside of her home. McCullough explained to the audience that Judith and Susanna as subjects of Artemisia's paintings was very common for many artists of her time. Though Artemisia's renditions of these biblical stories did not match what male artists were painting. This book was acquired by the publisher before the #MeToo movement as McCullough felt this story of sexual assault needed to be told. Hearing so many stories of assault in the news now tells us that the journey for victims has not changed as much as it should have over the last few hundred years. If you want to see some of her artwork, you can find it here.
Nikki Loftin, virtual visit
December 4, 2019
BRiMS members had a chance to read either Loftin's Nightingale's Nest or The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy before our virtual visit. It is true that students judge a book by its cover as most members wanted to read about the Splendid Academy whose colorful cover contained an overflowing pot of green ghastliness. This book was the first one that Loftin got published but was not the first book that she wrote. Those earlier books were not very good she told us, so there was a reason why she had not gotten anything published up to that point. The book that would become Splendid Academy was very gruesome with many children's deaths. That is the type of book that she wanted to write, and she had to do some convincing to get a publisher to agree to a book that dark. As a retelling of Hansel and Gretel, the scary forest became a scary school. She based the nasty teacher in the book on a teacher that she had in school who often sent her out of the classroom. That actually worked in her favor because she was sent to the library where the librarian let her read anything that she wanted. Loftin explained that authors must be ready to accept many edits to their work from the publisher, and with this book, she had to cut the scene where the main characters held hands at the end of the story. As a work for middle grade readers, she was told that no hint of romance is allowed. She wrote Nightingale's Nest as a retelling of a Hans Christian Anderson story, but her book, Wish Girl, is actually based on a student that she had when she was teaching and so based on her life. Though it took her awhile to become a published writer, she fell in love with books and words early in her life and getting published seemed to be her destiny.