People who read novels know that fiction can sometimes get closer to the truth than facts ever can. For young readers, this is less of a revelation than an expectation.

Leaving Yesler is Seattle author and Evergreen College professor Peter Bacho’s new novel set in 1968 Vietnam-era Seattle about the truths 18-year old Bobby Vicente discovers about his past. What Bobby learns about his past weaves and merges fluidly with his present reality to ultimately shape his future—a forward-looking recipe young readers will take to heart.Bacho is a child of Seattle’s Central District himself, and the majority of his books deal with the Filipino experience in the United States. But Leaving Yesler, due out in late March from Pleasure Boat Studio, is his first foray into writing for young adult readers. The author describes the book as “a Filipino American novel without a Filipino protagonist.”

Leaving Yesler tells the story of Bobby Vincente, a “one drop of black blood Pinoy” looking for a way out of the Yesler Terrace housing project, the only home he’s ever known. Bobby is not the first in his family to want out of Yesler Terrace. It’s the dream as well of his aging father, Antonio, a former prizefighter who settled in Seattle as part of the first wave of Filipino immigration to the city in the late 20s—part of a generation who “hope for the best but get ready for the worst.”

Bobby’s baby steps include passing the GED and making it into community college (also his way of avoiding the draft). What he hasn’t figured into his plan is falling in love with sophisticated, worldly Deena. Nor has he planned on the stirring inside him of the familial allure of boxing, nor his nightly conversations with his dead brother Paulie, killed in Vietnam.

Bobby’s day-to-day world is strictly bounded by the International District—though he admires the Olympic Mountains in the distance, he’s never been there—yet his ordinary life is endowed with a kind of grace. Food and cooking make a lovely appearance as symbols of love for both his father and Deena. Gradually, and with a trust that sometimes comes from strong family ties, Bobby gives himself up to the pull of destiny and comes to perceive a greater, more extraordinary life existing right at his fingertips where “the erasure of the line between life and death becomes as normal as Seattle’s December rain.”

There’s considerable debate these days over what makes a novel fit the Young Adult (YA) genre. At some point, the argument becomes moot. Kids pick up books that interest them regardless of where marketing professionals have placed them in the bookstore. A book’s primary appeal might very well depend simply on the voice—too much filtering through an adult retrospective lens will sink it. Bobby Vicente’s voice—Bacho’s voice—is right on target.

YA novels are steppingstones, not destinations. YA readers study them not to see who they already are, but to discover what kind of adults they may become. InLeaving Yesler, they may discover a way to look back at the same time they look forward, and like Bobby, they may find “lives that, under the circumstances, had been pretty well-lived.”

Peter Bacho is a prolific author and native Seattlelite who currently teaches at Evergreen State College. Two of his books, Cebu (University of Washington Press, 1991) the story of a Filipino American priest who arrives in the Philippines to bury his mother in her homeland, and A Dark Blue Suit (University of Washington Press, 1997) won him American Book Awards. A Dark Blue Suit, a collection of short stories that trace the struggles of the Filipino community of Seattle from its beginnings in the 1920s through to the present, also received the Washington Governor’s Writers Award. His YA novel, Leaving Yesler will be published by Pleasure Boat Studio the end of March, 2010.

So, what makes it perfect?

Good chapters should have dramatization, usually with characters, usually happening in one place. They should have one action, its reaction, reflection and a choice that developed out of that action—essentially its own little mini story arc.

Calpurnia Tate is the story of an eleven-year old girl Callie, a budding naturalist, living in turn-of the century Texas, interested in things girls just aren’t supposed to be interested in. The book is finely constructed, with its story arc firmly in place, with each chapter beginning and building on a particular epigraph from Darwin’s Origin of the Species.

In “The Possum Wars,” Kelly starts out relating a scene of a cat stalking a possum—the action is metaphorically related to the main story line as well as setting up a parallel to a real-life action that will be reflected at the chapter’s end. The protagonist Callie, is working with her grandfather in his library/lab, and she asks him a question: how did he become interested in science?

Now, you may have heard or been told that you can’t do certain things when writing for children: you can’t have a character ask a direct question just because you want to tell the answer; you can’t have action recounted by an adult to serve the narrative; you can’t use flashbacks. Kelly does all of these in Chapter 3, and it works. It works so well in fact, that the reading experience is seamless. The story moves easily from present day to past telling, and on its journey it sets out the frailty and preciousness of human life, seen through the eyes of an old man and freshly experienced by an eleven-year old.

Towards the end, Granddaddy says, “I shouldn’t be telling you this. You’re too young to hear it,” referring to the Civil War story he’s recounting. Yet Callie is perfectly ready to hear it, and by chapter’s end she’s learned a new, if painful truth—the perfect reflection. The beauty of this chapter is that you breeze through the tight structure, and experience only the final deliberate effect. Not every chapter in Calpurnia Tate is perfect, but this one is.

SPOGG (I kid you not) sponsors National Grammar Day (March 4), and the Grammar Girl website, which I’ve actually used in the past, and their blog is a hoot. Rooting around some of the lesser links brought up some lovely examples from church bulletins. Thank God for those church ladies with typewriters!  Read and enjoy.

• The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been cancelled due to a conflict.
• Don’t let worry kill you off – let the Church help.
  
• Remember in prayer the many that are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say ‘Hell’ to someone who doesn’t care much about you.
• Miss Charlene Mason sang ‘I will not pass this way again,’ giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
• For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
• Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
• Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
• The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: ‘Break Forth Into Joy.’
• Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
• A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.
• At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be ‘What Is Hell?’ Come early and listen to our choir practice.
• Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
• Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
• Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.
• The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.
• Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM – prayer and medication to follow.
• The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
• This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
• Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. is done.
• The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
• Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
• The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
• Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
• The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new tithing campaign slogan: Last Sunday: “I Upped My Pledge – Up Yours”

Last night at Secret Garden Bookshop in Seattle, Patrick Jennings one of my favorite kids’ authors gave a reading from his newest book Guinea Dog. Guinea Dog is a middle grade book for 8-12 year olds and it’s my kind of book. It’s the story of a boy who desperately wants a dog. But his dad says oh,no. Dogs bark and whine. They gnaw. They bark. They scratch, beg, and drool. So his mom offers a “think-outside-the-box suggestion” and brings home a guinea pig. But this guinea pig thinks she’s a dog. She barks. She bites. You see where I’m going with this…..

I first heard Patrick speak at a SCBWI conference a few years ago, and he seriously challenged his audience that day by asking some uncomfortable questions, including whether we as would-be writers were writing stories that kids today desperately need to hear. I liked him so much I recommended him to come to one of our residencies at the Whidbey Writers Workshop, and he was a big hit, even given that he needed to please poets, non-fiction writers and others who write for grown-ups.

Here’s what he told us: Kids don’t have a lot of control. From the moment they first can talk, they’re ordered to listen. They live in a dangerous world. So if we’ve been blessed with the ability and desire to write for them, let’s write them stories that they can relate to and empower them at the same time. How might we do that? Stop worrying about selling your books. Stop trying to figure out what is selling so that you can write that kind of book. And listen to them. They’re pleading with us to listen.

With a kid audience, Patrick is a natural storyteller. He can get them involved within one minute of talking to them, even before he’s given them any clue of what his story is about. He tells them that a lot of the stories he writes are about beasts (werewolves, snakes, guinea pigs) and then he screams at them LIKE YOU! and they howl. 

Read Guinea Dog and tell me what you think. Or if you’re looking for something for slightly older readers, read The Wolving Time, a book set in France during a time of witch-hunts. It’s a brilliantly constructed story of a 13-year old boy from a sheep-herding family who can turn themselves into wolves at will. So, role-reversal, guess what the 13-year wants to do?

I’m beginning a final revise on my YA manuscript Chasing at the Surface in preparation for making it submission-ready for my agent. This is a story I began writing in 2007 and I’ve kept print-outs of each set that I thought was “finished.” Pulling the latest version out this weekend got me thinking about how often and how extensively we revise our work.

Or more pointedly, how do we learn to “look” at the stories we’ve written and what do we see when we do?Re-reading one’s early drafts can be instructive. I have five complete draft versions of Chasing, but I’m sure there were many more partial revisions that never made it to a print-out. A quick comparison of the first page of each showed pretty dramatic changes, which I expected, but other revisions surprised me. I found some sections where I’d written a passage one way in draft 1, changed it in draft 2, then changed it back to its original form in draft 3, almost to a word exactly. I had no clue I’d done this. I also found edits that almost seemed pointless: changing “she thought again…” to “again, she thought…”

What’s going on here? Surely, looked at individually, these tiny changes may seem insignificant. But incrementally, each time you revise, writers tend to “look again” at different layers of a story: voice, phrasing, diction, not to mention structure, character and plot. Some writers do this consciously, basically “reading” their drafts through with one revision goal only in mind. They may be looking at character development perhaps, or story arc, or consistent voice—and ignoring other areas that clearly need revising until later drafts.

When we look at revision as a building block to making a story rather than a necessary evil, everything changes. Fear and impatience fade. The method becomes more akin to the craft of a visual artist—an oil painter for example, who lays down one layer of paint, then needs to wait for it to dry before she can evaluate whether another layer needs to or can be added—a forced delay that offers perspective and benefits the finished whole in the end.

I used to think that the one common element in my stories were that they started from some kind of kernel of truth. I’d latch onto it and go from there. For a long time, I thought this was all there was to it. But I’ve been rethinking that. Now I believe these nuggets of fact or truth or inspiration merely acted as the catalyst to jump start one idea and push it ahead of the pack. Those themes remain as the story develops but the rest of the narrative serves a greater purpose—one that I’m beginning to think is far more subconscious and satisfies a deeper need. I can’t always define in words what that need is or put my finger on the ultimate purpose it serves me as the writer, but I don’t think I’d be choosing these stories and themes otherwise. 

Right now, I’ve got stories going that involve whales, runaway mothers, integration, a boy who doesn’t quite fit the cookie-cutter mold of what a boy is, a young photographer whose father has just announced he’s gay….

There are common elements interwoven in these stories, but perhaps only I can see them. When I really look I can start to see where they intermingle and mix and, ultimately, why I’ve chosen to write them. No, let me state that in stronger language….

….why these are the stories I was meant to write. 

Does that make sense to anyone else out there? Why do you choose to write one story over another? Why invest months or years of your life telling that particular tale?

We like to say its for our readers—and in many way it is—but I’m guessing a lot of it is for ourselves.

A follow-up session to Mitali Perkins presentation on race was Seattle author Sundee Frazier’s talk “Creating Believable Boys.” Sundee’s session was attended by a good number of men as well as women. On a side note, this year there was a significant increase in men at this year’s conference. With children’s/young adult books being a strong part of the publishing market, could it be that they want a piece of the action? Sundee told us how her protagonist Brendan in her book Brendan Buckey’s Universe and Everything in It started out as Brenda. She had pulled many of the themes of her book from her own mixed race childhood, but had run into a wall when writing. When she switched the gender and Brenda became Brendan, her character came to life.

When her manuscript drew the criticism that Brendan was “too emotionally articulate for a 10-year old boy” her challenge became writing Brendan as a believable boy.

Sundee then gave us a handout with a title: Anthropological Observations Regarding How Boys Tend to Express Their Emotions (only partially useful, and potentially harmful, to writers of boy characters).

While that caveat clearly designed to ward off criticism of generalizing right at the outset, here are some of the finding of her (heavily annotated) research:

Boys deal with emotion through action, not by talking about their feelings. Boys’ smaller corpus collosum (the nerve fibers that connect the two sides of the brain) added to our cultural taboos leave boys feeling shameful that they even have certain emotions, esp. sadness (crying).

When boys share their feelings, it is more likely to be in a safe environment, often after an event or activity (which allows for processing time), and usually side-by-side (in a car, while washing dishes) vs face-to-face.

Boys are more shame-sensitive. We can more successfully draw out our boy characters if we respond to their actions non-judgmentally.

Boys are capable of tremendous empathy and love; they just express it differently. The common denominator is action. Boys tend to show love more through action than words, which is consistent with how they express their emotions generally.

When revising Brendan, through trial and error, she worked through the process and defined the following guidelines that she uses to write any characters now, boys or girls.

• Write from the inside out. Journey into your emotional self. Let that emotion find expression in your character. Then observe real boys to add richness to your character’s actions.
• Access your memories and re-experience your character’s emotion yourself, whether it’s fear, shame, hope, etc. Connect to the emotion and think about the universality and person-ness of the emotion.
• Listen to music that embodies the emotion of what you are writing that day.

Some of Sundee’s recommended reading:

What Jamie Saw by Carolyn Colman (releasing emotion through action)

Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis (empathy expressed in safe ways usually considered more “feminine”)

The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo (empathy as mentioned above and an example of a female author drawing out a boy with a secret by responding to him non-judgmentally)

Kit’s Wilderness by David Almond (example of a sensitive caring boy who helps rescue another boy in need)

Craft and/or Psychology/Sociology

Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by Davis Bayles and Ted Orland

Story by Robert McKee

The Wonder of Boys: What Parents, Mentors and Educators Can Do to Shape Boys into Exceptional Men by Michael Gurian

Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood by William Pollack

Mitali Perkins, a Bengali-born author whose family came to the United States when she was seven years old, presented a session entitled “Straight Talk on Writing Race.”

I attended this session with particular interest since the middle grade novel, Breathe to Both Sides, which I completed last August for my MFA thesis at the Whidbey Writing Workshop, is the story of a twelve-year old black girl who discovers a whites-only swimming pool that residents of her small Mississippi town buried in the 70s rather than face the prospect of integrated swimming.

As I was writing this story, it raised many questions amongst my colleagues and friends. I came to this story through my association with USA Swimming (two-thirds of black and Hispanic children in the US cannot swim) but as a white woman, was I justified in telling it? I’m pretty sure it’s something I’ll need to address further as I try to sell the manuscript.

Mitali’s session heartened me. “All fiction crosses borders,” she said. “Otherwise, you’re writing memoir.” Be bold, she said. Take risks. Bring it “above the waterline.” And yes, some people won’t like it.  She then showed a short video entitled “A Girl Like Me” by Kiri Davis, a teen filmaker that demonstrated how attitudes about race and racism is something that is picked up very early in children—as early as they can perceive “differences.”

Before fourth grade, kids hearts are wide open and middle grade stories are a rich time to write race.

But, Mitali, told us, today, “race is the new sex.” It’s something that today’s kids and teens are much more comfortable talking about and mixing up than their parents. This makes it an exciting time to be writing about race. Teens and tweens are thinking about this. Demographics and attitudes are changing rapidly and young people need and want to know who they are.

Because who are you writing for, after all? If you’re too scared to take the risk, then who’s going to do it?

Mitali’s Checklist for Writing Race:

• Why did I define race? Why didn’t I? White is no longer the default.
• How did I define race? Your audience is noticing. Don’t be lazy (labels). Try instead, using hints, foods, humor, voice and non-verbal clues.
• Are my non-verbals race-specific? Am I in charge or is my subconscious taking the lead?
• Who are the change agents in my story? Is it always the white hero and the minority “magical Negro?”
• Are the characters of other races more than just a foil for a white protagonist? Create 3-D characters. Make them real.
• Is the narrative voice too generic in describing foreign places or people? Do you say you’re character is “from Africa?” Be specific…Africa is a big and very diverse place.
• Did I characterize my characters with jargon, diction, or accent?
• Does the cover art and illustration match my story? After fifth grade, it’s really hard for a kid to walk around with a book that has cover art of somebody who looks different than they do. If you have any input, consider requesting no face son your cover. Australian and UK books almost never do.
• How did I define beauty in my story?
• Could my characters be imagined as different ethnicities? We have power as storytellers. Can you release your story and put that power in the hands of your reader so that each can cast the story fully for themselves?

Two examples that Mitali gave us that show creative and subtle ways of writing race were Lauri Halse Anderson’s Chains and Rebecca Stead’s depiction of Julia in When You Reach Me.

Bainbridge Island resident Suzanne Selfors is the best selling author of the YA novels To Catch a Mermaid, Saving Juliet, The Coffeehouse Angel, and most recently the first book in a middle grade series, Smells Like Dog.

Suzanne is personable, lively and approachable and at last weekend’s SCWBI Western Washington conference she presented a session focusing on how to develop a healthy author-agent relationship. If you take a look backward at her career trajectory, you might assume she wrote, revised, got an agent and things took off from there. Wrong.

Her reality was more like: write, revise, get an agent, revise, write a sequel to first book before agent sells it, wait while first book doesn’t sell, wait trying to get agent to answer emails and phone calls, rip hair out waiting for agent to call, throw away first book and sequel, fire old agent, get new agent.

Many writers starting out labor under the illusion that once they land an agent, their worries are over. For some authors that may be true. They may find that their author-agent relationship clicks. But for others, it doesn’t. When you think about it, most people don’t marry the first person they date, do they?

To build a healthy author-agent relationship, the Number One Rule to remember is: this is a business partnership. Your agent is not nor should they necessarily be your friend. They are your advocate. The primary factor that will make it work or kill it is communication. If you feel you’ve given it a good shot and there’s no communication, IT’S OKAY TO CHANGE AGENTS. This is your career we’re talking about.

Rule number two which is related to Rule Number One: agents are in charge of your money. Never sign with an agent if they ask for money up front, and never work with an agent without a simple two-to-three page contract that spells out, among other things, how either of you can end the relationship with thirty days notice. (Some agents include an upfront period of six months to a year before the thirty day clause kicks in just because it takes so long to actually start working with a new author.)

Suzanne’s tips on expectations:

REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS:

• You always want a contract, preferably with a thirty-day opt out clause
• You should be able to ask where your agent is submitting your manuscripts, and ideally they should have
  a two-tiered plan
• If your manuscript doesn’t sell, you should be able to look toy our agent for career agent, asking,
  “What’s our next step?”
• Your agent is your advocate. They should be willing to look at your career and work as long-term project
• If you’re not getting feedback from your agent, if they don’t answer your emails or calls, then you’re not communicating and you should leave that agent
• If your agent is not interested in reading your other work, then that agent is not doing their job

UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

• You are NOT the center of your agent’s universe
• Once you land an agent, things will happen right away. They won’t.
  The publishing business is extraordinarily slow.
• Your agent is your friend. They are not—at least not in the real sense of friendship. If they are, it may stop you from possibly leaving them if the business relationship is not working.