06/16/2010

Attention: WritersNewsWeekly is preparing a series on the impact childhood books have on their young readers. If you’re an author interested in being interviewed, or if you think you have a unique perspective on the topic, contact us at submissions@writersnewsweekly.com.

I've Been Tommy-Ed
About ten years ago, I won a Tommy Award for my book Desperation.

I remember how it made me feel to win the award because I had worked very hard on that book, had re-written it a hundred times, and truly believed in its cause.

I also remember being quite proud because I knew the namesake for the award, my friend through the years, uh…Tom, of course.

Now, I'm not going to say too much about Tom because he is a dignified man with a good sense of humor, and he isn’t very comfortable accepting too many accolades…but just know that if you were to win such an award, it would certainly be an honor.

Read More

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

By Carlotta G. Holton

The Help is a literary treat. It exemplifies regional writing at its finest. In setting her novel in the midst of the racial struggles of the 1960s civil rights movement, Stockett combines the craft of good storytelling with the message of human rights and dignity.

Variously told by several black maids from Jackson, Mississippi and Eugenia Skeeter Phelan, a young white college graduate and would-be writer, the tale shines light on the plight of blacks and their hopes for equality in a tumultuous time in American history. To protect their positions in society, the women decide to anonymously publish a book with a major New York publishing house.

Read More

Turn the light off and go to bed!

In our house, my father was the bedtime storyteller. My mother would make sure I had clean teeth and a scrubbed face, but it was my father who tucked me in and read me stories. When I was a very little girl, we read Bear and the Big Ripe Strawberry, Goodnight Moon, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and many other classic children’s books. When I got a little older, we moved on to the poetry of Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutzky and read and reread so many of the poems that I soon knew many by heart. These poetry books were hard to put down—there was no “The End” to signal it was time for bed, just pages of fun, humorous reading. Each night, my father would tuck me in and sit beside me, reading me countless poems.

Read More

By Christopher Stokum & Sarah Schiavoni
Writers Rules 2-5 were taken from Kurt Vonnegut's Creative Writing 101

By Cliff Fazzolari

About ten years ago, I won a Tommy Award for my book Desperation.

I remember how it made me feel to win the award because I had worked very hard on that book, had re-written it a hundred times, and truly believed in its cause.

I also remember being quite proud because I knew the namesake for the award, my friend through the years, uh…Tom, of course.

Now, I'm not going to say too much about Tom because he is a dignified man with a good sense of humor, and he isn’t very comfortable accepting too many accolades…but just know that if you were to win such an award, it would certainly be an honor.

Another reason why you should feel gratified about being considered for a Tommy Award is because the award goes out of its way to select well-written works that serve some sort of purpose. There hasn’t been any selling-out with the Tommy Awards. The works must be of high-quality, and they are judged by a pack of wolves that make sure you understand the craft and know the right order in which to place the words. No formulaic books designed to send millions to an unsuspecting public-- it’s quality or nothing.

When I saw that the contest was being revived, I went back through the paperwork and pulled out my copy of my Tommy Award. I remember how good it made me feel and how much it spurred me on to write my next piece.

I’m wondering if I have something out there that qualifies me for consideration again. Or maybe like Paul McCartney, a lifetime achievement of sorts.

Good luck, and get those submissions in!
Make Tommy proud.

Cliff Fazzolari is a professional writer and prolific author. He is on the Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo PICU Parent Advisory Council. He currently resides in Blasdell, New York.

By Carlotta G. Holton

Drood is a tour de force that speculates as to the inspiration behind Charles Dickens’ unfinished novel, Edwin Drood. When Dickens survives the Staplehurst train wreck of 1865 with his mistress and her mother, he encounters a ghoulish man named Drood. This meeting sets the wheels in motion for a macabre ride that affects not only Dickens, but the reader as well.

For fans of Dickens, the unfinished “Mystery of Edwin Drood,” is ripe for conjecture. Having seen a Broadway production in the late 80’s which offered the audience the opportunity to cast the deciding votes as to the solution of the mystery, I admit a fascination with the motives behind the work. Simmons is a master of atmosphere and plot and I was hooked right from the start.

The character of Drood is unlike any other in Dickens extensive portfolio. Regardless of whether the character is real, a phantom, or the personification of death and evil, he is ominous and frightening. Dressed in a black opera cape and top hat, he is an eerie sight amidst the wreckage and victims along the tracks. He is missing fingers and eyelids and Collins notes, “there is a brittleness fringe of hair. He glided rather than walked.” And there is a sibilant hiss of his speech. Is he, as Detective Fields maintains, the murderer of more than 300 people?

The novel, narrated by Dickens’ contemporary, Wilkie Collins, is saturated in Victorian London. Dickens treks through the bleak streets of the East End. We feel the sluggishness of hidden opium dens and sense the damp mold of underground crypts. On his investigation for the truth about Drood, Dickens makes a River Styx-like journey into Undertown, the subterranean home to less fortunate and often shady characters. We shudder at the corpses of stillborn babies hung out on clotheslines. It is a picture of grim sanitary conditions. “The air this steaming July night was almost green with the heated effusions of 3 million human beings, excrement and the effluvia of the urban and industrial slaughter that was the hallmark of our era,”says Collins.

Throughout the venture we are wondering, could Dickens’ meeting with Drood have resurrected his fascination – perhaps even obsession – with the dark side? Was this urge hiding in wait for such a trigger to release it? Is Drood a metaphor for the writer’s subconscious? I found this line of thinking so contrary to the image of Dickens, that I was compelled to read on.

Drood is couched in the mystique of a darkly-written detective story. History, morality, jealousy, insanity and the occult all play key roles in the drama that unfolds. Through many twists and turns in the plot a strange psychological profile of the Dickens no one ever knew emerges as our hero encounters Egyptian rites, mesmerism, the walking dead and brain-eating beetles.

There are echoes of a Salieri/Mozart type rivalry here as well. Artistic contemporaries often covertly disguise their jealousy of one another. Collins, however, makes no bones about his jealousy of Dickens’ literary talents. It shapes his action – including blackmail – with his friend. The reader wonders with such pent-up emotion, how accurate is the tale he is narrating?

Collins refers to Dickens as “inimitable.” Yet he continually refers to his stealing some of his characters and ideas. He cites the characters of Sidney Carton (modeled after a character In the Deep) and Miss Havisham (taken from his Woman in White). His criticism is sharp: “Dickens invariably gave his audiences credit for too much, and through his self-indulgent flights of impenetrable fantasy and unnecessary subtlety, left far too many ordinary readers lost in the thick forest of Dickensian prose.”

There is nothing subtle about his critique. “I was … almost certainly always shall be … ten times the architect of plot than Charles Dickens ever was.”

Drood is a departure from Dan Simmons’ earlier works, several of which I have read and enjoyed. It is a thrillingly, masterful and imaginative tale. It is an enthralling supposition as to what really motivates a writer. Though some might find the 775 pages daunting, I savored every single page.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact, Touching The Dead and Vampire Resurrection, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

By: Sarah Schiavoni

In our house, my father was the bedtime storyteller. My mother would make sure I had clean teeth and a scrubbed face, but it was my father who tucked me in and read me stories. When I was a very little girl, we read Bear and the Big Ripe Strawberry, Goodnight Moon, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and many other classic children’s books. When I got a little older, we moved on to the poetry of Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutzky and read and reread so many of the poems that I soon knew many by heart. These poetry books were hard to put down—there was no “The End” to signal it was time for bed, just pages of fun, humorous reading. Each night, my father would tuck me in and sit beside me, reading me countless poems. After a little while, I’d hear my mother say, “Story time is over. Time for bed,” and I’d call back, “Just a few more poems, please!” I could picture her rolling her eyes as she loudly sighed, “alright,” and glanced at the clock to see how late it had gotten. A few minutes later, a few more poems read, and again we’d hear, “Lights out!” I’d beg and plead for just a few more minutes of reading, and she’d acquiesce. A couple more minutes would pass, and I’d hear her yell “It’s time for bed! Turn the light off right now!” My father would grin sheepishly before slipping the book cover flap between the pages on which we left off, saying goodnight, and turning my light off.

As I got older and was able to read for myself, I found I would encounter the same struggle over when to turn off the light and go to bed as I had when I was little. I’d try to read by flashlight, shut my door to help block light from leaving my room, or even turn the lamp back on and continue reading once I knew my parents were in bed and asleep. Huddled in a mass of bedcovers, oftentimes with a cat curled up by my side, I’d read late into the night, constantly telling myself, “I’ll close the book and get some sleep when I finish this chapter,” but finding myself ignoring this promise and continuing to read. If I was close to the end of a book, there was no way I’d be able to put it down before I was finished, and the same was true if I had gotten to an exciting part in the book.

This secret mission to stay up late and read is a story I’ve heard other book-lovers tell. But why did we do this? Why did we ignore our parents’ pleas to go to bed and continue to read by lamplight until we saw spots in front of our eyes and the sun peeking through the window blinds? Why, now grown, do we still huddle under the covers and feverishly read late into the night?

There is something magical about being the only one awake in a dark and quiet house. There is something about reading by dim lamplight, wrapped in the warmth of blankets while the whole house sleeps that is wonderful. While days are ruled by hours, minutes, and seconds, nights seem timeless. Nighttime is dark, quiet, and the perfect time to escape into a book. When I get drawn into a book, surrounded by warm covers, dark shadows, and the soft glow of lamp light, everything is perfect. No distractions, no ticking clock, no schedule—just me and the book.

For those of us who consider reading an experience to be treasured, the lost hours of sleep, disgruntled parents, and book-influenced dreams are all worth it. Those childhood stealth missions to stay up late and read are reminiscent of our attempts to stay up to see Santa Claus or watch the ball drop on New Year’s—they filled us with excitement and wonder, and for those of us who still stay up late, reading by lamplight and hearing the echoes of our parents telling us to turn off the light, the experience is still meaningful.

By Carlotta G. Holton

The Help is a literary treat. It exemplifies regional writing at its finest. In setting her novel in the midst of the racial struggles of the 1960s civil rights movement, Stockett combines the craft of good storytelling with the message of human rights and dignity.

Variously told by several black maids from Jackson, Mississippi and Eugenia Skeeter Phelan, a young white college graduate and would-be writer, the tale shines light on the plight of blacks and their hopes for equality in a tumultuous time in American history. To protect their positions in society, the women decide to anonymously publish a book with a major New York publishing house.

Stockett's characters are to be savored. They are rich with life and emotions, and the reader is affected by their joys and sorrows. Aibilene, the eldest of the maids, takes pride in her 17 charges – the white children she has raised. Since the death of her own son, she has put her heart and soul into taking care of little Mae Mobely, though she knows her position is tenuous. Her effort to help the child learn that all colors are equal is undermined by the cruel reality that the family has created a toilet in the garage for her to use because “blacks carry disease.” There is a bitter sweetness to these touching stories of how maids were allowed to help with personal crises, yet denied access to public toilets and the library.

Another maid, Minny, whose husband regularly beats her except when she is pregnant, can't hold her tongue on the job but fears her spouse. Though her efforts to teach her employer the art of cooking fail, both women learn to rely on each other when faced with an assault. Sometimes stories told from more than one point of view can be confusing. Not the case here. Each voice contributes to the overall tone of the book.

Stockett reminds readers of the dilemma blacks faced in a community characterized by the misguided charitable efforts of white women. She describes “a room full of cake-eating, Tab-drinking, cigarette-smoking women” who plan a fundraiser for the “poor starving children of Africa,” while ignoring the struggling blacks in their own community.

Liker her conspirators on this writing project, Skeeter understands being an outsider. From the onset we learn that she has a different status than her Junior League married friends. Single and very tall, with hair problems of her own, she has empathy for the black women who work for the wealthy only to return nightly to their impoverished homes.

As a fan of regional settings, I found Stockett's South lush and volatile. It is present in the sultry heat that makes it hard to breathe. It is evident also in the seething and mostly covert anger behind closed curtains on the black side of town when local Medgard Evans in murdered.

Despite their adversities, the characters in The Help all transform in one way or another, and bonds develop between them that foster thoughts of racial equality. Aibilen draws her own conclusions about the long-held prejudices: “I used to believe in em. I don't anymore. They in our heads. People like Miss Hilly is always trying to make us believe they there. But they ain't. Some folks just made those up, long time ago and that go for the white trash and the so-ciety ladies too.”

In the vein of Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird – incidentally read by on of the maids – Stockton's book captures with real sensitivity the pulse of the Deep South in a decade of cruelty and change. A highly enjoyable read, this touching debut boldly announces Stockton as a noteworthy young author.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact, Touching The Dead and Vampire Resurrection, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.