The MFA Student Community at Whidbey Writers’ Workshop

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
HarperTeen 2008
2009 winner of the Michael L. Printz Award
(see article below for details on this prestigious award)

Review by Cynthia Waldman

Seventeen-year-old Taylor Markham has a war to run and it would help if she knew where her mother was and why she’d abandoned Taylor on Jellicoe Road six years earlier. In this coming of age novel set in a state-run boarding school deep in the Australian Bush, writer Melina Marchetta lays out clues to Taylor’s traumatic past like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. As Taylor and the reader fit the clues together, the mysteries are gradually solved making JELLICOE ROAD a compelling novel that’s every bit worthy of the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.

In what may be confusing to some readers, JELLICOE ROAD is told in both past and present time, weaving together seemingly unrelated tales. The past is presented via a manuscript that begins with a horrific car accident that unites the young survivors in a bond born of tragedy. The present day story concerns Taylor’s struggles to find her mother and her own identity. These past and present tales are interwoven like the thistle placemats that a man known only as the “Hermit” was teaching Taylor to make. “Take care of my little girl,” the Hermit whispers to Taylor just before he lifts a gun to his head and shoots himself. The reason for the Hermit’s suicide and the identity of his little girl are just two of the many mysteries Taylor must solve in order to complete the puzzle of her life.

As head of her House and the student in charge of territory wars fought against rivals of Jellicoe School – Townies and Cadets – Taylor must negotiate the booby traps and captured trails of her school life while trying to decipher the mysteries of her past. On her own (her guardian has disappeared), and fighting off depression and debilitating asthma attacks, Taylor must deal with her responsibilities as head of Lachlan House, and run the territory wars as well. A game that is taken very seriously, the territory wars bring the community together. New friendships forged in battle allow Taylor to discover yet more pieces of the puzzle of her past.

Told in the first person, Taylor’s voice is strong, intelligent, and understandably angry. Each of Taylor’s friends is equally well drawn, and an integral part of the story. These characters, along with the mysterious manuscript that turns out to be all too real, aid Taylor in her quest for the truth.

The manuscript, which is presented a few pages at a time throughout the novel, turns out to be a big piece of the puzzle. Characters from the manuscript exist in the present under different names, while elements of their lives mirror Taylor’s. The enigmatic cadet Jonah Griggs, for example, is in many ways the mirror image of Jude, the cadet in the manuscript. The territory wars? They were first created by those tragic teens from the manuscript as a way to alleviate the boredom of the bush. And the Hermit and his little girl? You’ll have to read the book to find out. All these complications and convolutions of time, name, and story make for a challenging yet satisfying read.

A complex literary achievement, Marchetta’s novel can be confusing at times, but with a protagonist most teen girls would find compelling, and a mystery that keeps the reader guessing, it’s well worth the ride down JELLICOE ROAD.

Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature

Janet Buttenwieser is a first-year student at the Northwest Institute for Literary Arts, and served on the Young Adult Library Association’s Michael L. Printz Committee from 2006-2007, and the Popular Paperbacks Committee from 2004-2006. Cynthia Waldman interviewed Janet regarding her experience on the Committee.

What is the Michael L. Printz Award?
The Printz award is an award given to the best Young Adult book (fiction, non-fiction, poetry or anthology) published in the year preceding the award announcement. “Young Adult” is defined as being published for 12-18 Year-olds. “Best” is defined in the committee’s charge as “solely in terms of literary merit.”

What are the criteria used to select the winner?
For the criteria, I refer you to the Printz Policies and Procedures.

Could you describe the process by which books are nominated and judged?
First, a brief explanation of the committee itself. Each of the nine committee members are members of YALSA, (Young Adult Library Services Association), which is the YA division of the American Library Association (ALA). ALA committees also choose several other book awards each year, including the Newbery and the Caldecott.

Publishers mail the Committee copies of their young adult titles for the year, and committee members are required to read hundreds of titles during the year.

Nominations are accepted throughout the year, until Dec 1 of the given year. Publishers, authors, or editors may not nominate their own titles. Otherwise, nominations from the field must be seconded by a committee member. Nominators fill out an online form on the Printz Award website. Typically, there are 40-50 nominations in a given year.

Nominations are discussed by the committee over email throughout the year, and at two in-person committee meetings in June of the year preceding the award and the January that the award is announced (the ALA Annual Meeting and ALA Mid-Winter meeting, respectively). Committee members read each nomination several times, and come to the meetings armed with notes ready to defend their choices. There is a lengthy and lively discussion about each of the nominated titles. Voting for the winner (and honor books, if applicable) happens at the January meeting. The committee contacts the authors and then the award-winners are announced on the final morning of the January conference. The following June, the winners give speeches at a reception in their honor.

In addition to being an MFA student, Janet Buttenwieser has two children, Caleb, age two, and Helen, age 3 months. She writes between diaper changes at her home in Seattle, Washington.

Running for My Life
Ann Gonzalez
WestSide Books, Ages 14+
Hardcover: 238 pp;  $16.95
Spring, 2009

Running for My Life  available at Amazon.

An Interview with Ann Gonzalez by Grier Jewell

 

If anyone deserves to be an overnight success, it’s Ann Gonzalez. With her debut novel, Running for My Life (WestSide Books), to be released later this month, Gonzalez works hard to make the impossible look effortless. She wrote her book in thirty days, polished and sold it within a matter of months, began working on her second thirty-day novel, and is now gearing up for the next emotional twist in a writer’s life: marketing. So, has it been as easy as she makes it appear? Gonzalez would be the first to say, absolutely not. While she may have written a novel in less than a month, it took her forty years to pick up a pen.  

Considering the prohibitions against writing and speaking Gonzalez experienced early in life, her reluctance is not surprising. Raised by a mother whose dreams of being a writer were shattered by schizophrenia, Gonzalez grew up being told she would ruin the English language if she ever tried to write.  

“As nonsensical as it sounds,” she says, “I believed my mother when she told me things like that. As a child, I didn’t understand that I could know better than Mom.” 

At age forty, when she entered therapy, Gonzalez finally found the courage to write through the pain of childhood trauma, eventually enrolling in the Whidbey Writers’ Workshop MFA Program to hone her craft. It was during her time at Whidbey that she wrote Running for My Life, which tells the story of a fourteen-year-old girl dealing with the devastating effects of being raised by a mother with schizophrenia. Although it’s something Gonzalez knows from personal experience, the story is not autobiographical.  

“This is a work of fiction,” she says. “It’s informed by my background, but it’s not my story. I wanted to reach out to teens struggling with the same sort of pain. I truly hope the book will help teenagers, particularly ones who have experienced trouble or trauma in their lives. I want them to know they’re not alone.” 

Gonzalez points out that this is an unfortunate, yet comforting truth. “When I was growing up, I had no idea there were other teenagers that had similar experiences. I want kids today to know there are supports out there in the community.” 

Inspired by Stephanie Stuve Bodeen (The Compound), Gonzalez accepted the challenge to write 50,000 words in thirty days during National Novel Writing Month, known to most as Nanowrimo. Running for My Life was the result of that effort. 

“I’m a Nano novelist,” she laughs, coining a new term. “The experience was really amazing. While writing, I had no idea where the story was going. I had the experience of being an interested and surprised reader of the story as it unfolded.” 

Typical of Gonzalez, she does nothing half-heartedly. A passionate advocate of Nanowrimo, she encourages all writers to shed that harping internal editor. “There’s something about writing a novel in thirty days that keeps the energy going and keeps the characters alive. When I enter the life of a character, I don’t want to leave until she tells her story. If I take a year and a half or two years to write a novel, which I did after I wrote Running for My Life, I lose that energy.” 

Gonzalez credits the Whidbey Writer’s Workshop for being able to write the book. “You need those other writers if you’re going to survive. Writing is really hard work, and this program has some of the most supportive writers I’ve ever met.”  

At Whidbey, Gonzalez met and studied under Kirby Larson (Hattie Big Sky), at that time a faculty member of MFA program. Larson helped Gonzalez mine her past and polish Running for My Life for publication. “I am enormously indebted to Kirby, not only for inspiring me through her writing and teaching, but for her good heart and support of writers.” 

After a few fits and starts and delays in publishing, Gonzalez proudly displayed her Advance Readers Copy (ARC) to an audience of current Whidbey students during thier January residency, where she read from a chapter of her novel. 

“It gave me chills to hear that,” one of the students said. “I can’t wait to read the whole book.” 

Gonzalez can’t wait either. “It’s been an interesting process. You’re getting such incredibly good news, but there’s nothing real until you’re holding that book.” Despite her well-deserved success, she knows there’s still more work to be done to put her novel into the hands of readers. “The challenges a writer faces never go away,” she sighs. “They just evolve.”  

With characteristic humor and humility, Gonzalez attributes her accomplishments to “luck and grace.” True enough. Teen readers everywhere are incredibly lucky she had the grace to pick up that pen.

Ann Gonzalez currently teaches at North Seattle Community College and offers her own online creative writing class in writing for teens. To learn more, visit www.anngonzalez.com  

 

 

Running for My Life
by Ann Gonzalez
WestSide Books, Ages 14+
Hardcover: 238 pp;  $16.95
Spring, 2009

Running for My Life  available at Amazon.

Review by Sharon Mentyka

All parents know the primal urge to protect their children, and endure an equal amount of suffering when seeing them suffer. But what happens when the cause of the suffering is the parent themselves?

In her debut novel, Running for My Life, Ann Gonzalez presents a story of coping and eventual understanding within a family in crisis. The book is sure to resonate with teens that will identify with the book’s engaging protagonist and her friends, but the issues explored are important enough to matter to many more readers.

The story is narrated by Andrea McKane, a fourteen-year-old guilty of nothing more than being scared and bewildered when facing the reality of her mother’s recurring mental illness. How Andrea copes—or doesn’t—offers a glimpse into a world that is both moving and disturbing.

In our society, it is still unfortunately true that it’s okay to be sick in some ways but not in others. At least that’s what a lot of kids think. Andrea wants to love her mom—does love her—but is tired of carrying around the burden of her mother’s illness. She just wants life to be normal. To imagine her mother in her future becomes almost more than she can bear.

Gonzalez captures these intense emotions and feelings honestly. The unfolding of Andrea’s story—as she reveals her fear that she, too, will someday be “sick” like her mother—emerges slowly, through sessions with her therapist Samantha, frank talks with Margie, and a budding connection to her first crush, Sean.

Goaled by Margie into joining the track team on the pretext of impressing Sean, Andrea is surprised to find she loves to run, although the potential solace it offers is cut short when a bad fall results in her breaking her leg. Gonzalez’s use of running as both a literal and figurative metaphor to bracket Andrea’s stop-and-go journey as she confronts the reality of her mother’s illness and navigates her own healing, is brilliant. In an subtle way, the book offers a great model for teens of a way to alleviate stress by embracing the euphoric high that physical activity offers as an alternative to less positive ways of coping.

There is much to admire about Running for My Life, including the sensitive way Gonzalez presents the relationships between Andrea and her father— who remains supportive of his wife while being fully present for his daughter—and down-to-earth Margie, the kind of friend any parent would wish for their kid.

Within this support system, Andrea learns that life goes on, sometimes good, sometimes not so good, but it does go forward. As Andrea slowly defeats one demon after another, she learns that with each victory come consequences that affect not only herself but also everyone around her, giving her struggle an urgency that propels the reader forward.

In some of the book’s best passages, we experience along with Andrea—in real-time—her terror, as she navigates the physical symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“Tell me.”

Burying my face in the crook of my arm, on top of my knee, I feel squeezed into a tight dark spot. I don’t ever want to lift my head.

         “She’s going to kill me,” I talk to the blackness.

         “Is that what she said?”

         Maybe they’re wrong about my leg. Maybe it’s okay, and if I take off this stupid boot, I’ll be able to walk, and run and run and run, without any problem.

         “Andrea? Where are you?” Lifting my head I see Samantha’s face, my mother’s face, the face of a monster.

 

Considering the truthfulness of the subject matter, it could have easily fallen into the dark and depressing. Yet, Gonzalez, writing in the first person point of view, completely eludes a sense of hopelessness, while still grasping a young girl’s reality head on, and bringing the often untouchable subject matter of mental illness out in the open.

Weaving a story around a serious and important trauma takes courage. Gonzalez manages to make Andrea’s story speak to situations many teens are undoubtedly facing, and presents it in a way that is not only illuminating but entertaining—not something that is always easy to do when tackling tough topics. The arguments and information in Running for My Life are what make the book important, but it’s the story that will keep you reading.

 

Meet the Watsons: A Visit with Author-Illustrator Richard Jesse Watson

by Stephanie Lile

There are UFOs in Richard Jesse Watson’s studio. For most, Unidentified Flying Objects are the highest of high-tech wonders sported across the universe by aliens of unusual smarts. But in Watson’s world, they are three-dimensional collages made from old pot lids, light fixtures, cast-off utensils, beads, balls, and bulbs. Hovering above and resting upon a drawing-table landing pad, the literal flying objects are a mere taste of Watson’s creative energy and questing mind—both of which he’s passed on to his children and grand children. His children, Jesse, Ben, and Faith, are all artists and writers as well.

With the winter snow flurries having subsided enough to make the trek from Tacoma to Port Townsend, Washington—where the Watson’s have lived for 16 years—we settled into tapestry-draped chairs near a crackling fire. Watson and his illustrator son Jesse took some time to chat as Susi, Richard’s wife and business partner, and their twin granddaughters made snow people out of construction paper and cotton balls at the dining room table. Above the twins, Santa’s turbo-powered white sleigh paused on the kitchen counter. Christened The Polaris*, the sleigh is a model fashioned by Watson from mailing tubes, a lamp shade, an auto filter, and a cheese container as inspiration for his beautifully illustrated book, The Night Before Christmas. On the kitchen wall hung a painting of the sleigh in action, the original version of what I’d only ever seen fantastically reproduced on a book page.

Writing and illustration is in Watson’s blood, in the very air he breathes. “It’s total emersion for me,” he explains.  “Each project is this lovely little world I live in.” And sometimes his real and make-believe worlds merge.

In fact, two furry models, Sniffy and Chewy, from his picture book The Magic Rabbit, became part of the family and are living in a cozy hutch out back. Even the model for one of Watson’s most noted book covers, Nancy Willard’s The High Rise Glorious Skittle Skat Roarious Sky Pie Angel Food Cake was sitting in a chair next to me. “Jesse was the model for that painting, back in his younger, blonder phase,” Watson says with a smile.

The painting Watson is referring to hangs at the base of the stairway and is literally a glorious roarious rendition of an angel boy in a streaming patchwork coat peering into a light-filled oven. The model, Jesse, has traded bleach blond spikes for ropey dreads and has grown into a noted illustrator in his own right. His latest book, Chess Rumble, a verse novel written by Greg Neri, is hot among tweens. Jesse’s other credits include some thirteen book covers, most of which are for Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver’s Hank Zipzer series.

So where does all this creative energy come from? “My mother was a great storyteller,” says Watson. “Dad was a physicist, a scientist, so there were always interesting gadgets around.” Watson’s dad encouraged his curiosity; his mom “encouraged my drawing.” What she didn’t anticipate was Watson’s early vision of drying sheets as beckoning canvases and the spinning wheel of a sewing machine as a prime venue for the creation of psychedelic “squirt-n-spin” paintings, the likes of which were immensely popular on the California boardwalks of the 1960s. Watson also grew up playing with desert critters near the China Lake petroglyphs in California. “I loved the horny toads, little lizards that bleed out of their eyes, and the land tortoises.” Watson learned at a young age that all the world—and beyond—is an inspiration.

And what line of inspiration are father and son following now? “Greg and I are presenting at the Hip Hop Chess Federation conference in February,” says Jesse. “Then we’re headed to New York and Chicago.” For Jesse, it’s all about getting guys to read, and as a teacher, to really “get kids thinking.” Chess, and art, and language can do that.

As for Watson, he’s recently signed on with Zondervan to illustrate a version of The Lord’s Prayer. Somewhat hesitant to be pigeon-holed as a religious artist, Watson will nevertheless find himself in good company as the book is part of the publisher’s Master Illustrator series that features other well-known children’s book illustrators such as Barry Moser and Gennady Spirin.

When asked about their dream projects, father and son both smirk. Watson presses his fingertips together and seems to gaze into his wire-rimmed spectacles as if they were his personal reflecting pool. “The perfect book speaks to people of many ages. I’d like to write and illustrate one that allows me to explore some of the childhood fantasies and ideas I’ve played with over the last 57 years.” On a more practical level, he adds that it’s all about trying “to find your unique voice and pay the bills.”

Jesse nods in agreement, then leans forward, elbows on knees as if he can’t stand not to share his secret. “I have it. I’m working on it now. But I can’t tell you what it is.” His eyes dance with all the things he loves—surfing, soccer, chess, hip hop, to name just a few. “Let’s just say it’s an international story about not needing language to get along in the world.”

Being open to unexpected avenues for sharing their work, both father and son are in discussions with the Washington State History Museum about the exhibition of Chess Rumble art and an illustration feature in COLUMBIAKids, the museum’s new online magazine for children. Ultimately, however, both are in “it” for the love of art and personal growth. “I would love to do a book and never have a regret—not a pen stroke out of place,” says Jesse. “I guess that dream is a good sign that I’m still pursuing growth.”

This time Watson nods, proud of this thing he shares with his eldest son. “Art reflects something of the mysteries of the universe,” he says. “I once dreamed that I opened a mailbox, and instead of finding mail, I discovered it was filled with all sorts of little sculptures.”

Playfulness and sincerity merge in Watson’s life and work. With dinosaurs now stalking the UFOs in his studio and an imagination that crosses dimensions and media, Watson is in constant pursuit of a deeper vision. “My goal as an artist is to get beyond the words— to stir people’s longing for oneness with the universe.”

And if takes building a space ship to lead the way, Watson’s our man.

To see more of Richard Jesse Watson’s work, go to: www.richardjessewatson.com.  To see more of Jesse Watson’s work check out:http://jessewatson.com/

 

* The Polaris is a State-of-the-Art Flying Object—with technical details delivered straight from St. Nick himself. You can read the full interview in the back matter of The Night Before Christmas, but here’s a key excerpt:

ST. NICK: Ah, yes. The Polaris is composed of high- and low-tech materials, such as foam titanium and comet dust.  This baby is tricked out with electron injection and a little old gamma ray booster I picked up at JPL Surplus in Pasadena.  By tucking in the wishes and hopes of children everywhere, the sleigh is able to expand the moment between “tick” and “tock” on Christmas Eve.  Oh, it’s also equipped with pontoons in case of water landing.

WATSON: Wow.

 

 

 

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