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Interview and Giveaway with Ruth McNally Barshaw

By on May 25, 2011   /   Author Interviews, Giveaways  

I’m thrilled to welcome Ruth McNally Barshaw, the author and illustrator of the popular Ellie McDoodle series, back to the Mixed-Up Files.  This has been a wonderful week for Ruth.  Her birthday was on Monday–happy belated birthday, Ruth!  And yesterday, Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen, Will Travel was released as a reissued paperback.  Huge congrats!  The new cover looks fantastic.  Can you tell our readers a bit about your Ellie McDoodle series and why two of your books are being reissued?

Thanks so much, Mindy. 🙂 Ellie McDoodle is a highly-illustrated, middle grade novel series about an 11-year-old girl who records her daily observations and art in a sketch journal. It has humor, games and crafts (complete with instructions), pranks, nature, and a lot of heart.

Bloomsbury, my publisher, tells me that Ellie McDoodle is doing well, selling overseas and in Canada and the United States. It’s on many school summer reading lists, state reading lists, and Battle of the Books lists and is gaining fans. With the third paperback coming out this summer and the fourth book coming out next spring, this is a good time to see what more can be done to appeal to Ellie McDoodle fans.

The reissue of book 2’s paperback, Ellie McDoodle: New Kid in School, and book 3’s paperback, Ellie McDoodle: Best Friends Fur-Ever, both come out July 5, 2011.  All of the paperbacks have sketch lessons and other goodies in the back pages (that’s my terrific editor’s idea: Melanie Cecka of Bloomsbury).

Click on the covers to read their descriptions on Indiebound.

 

 

 

 

To celebrate, Ruth is giving away two autographed and personalized paperbacks of the newly reissued Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen, Will Travel.  As an extra-special bonus, Ruth will also draw a sketch of each winner!  (See below for details.)

 

Thank you again for the fabulous writing and illustrating exercise you gave us in the last interview.  Everyone loved it.  Do you have another exercise to share with us?

First, a little background. This comes from a poster I created when I ran a little advertising agency about 25 years ago. The poster said, “Before you settle on one, draw 50.” It had 50 thumbnails – small drawings – only in this case they were silly little drawings and sculptures illustrated on the nails of thumbs.   The idea was to not settle on the first idea that comes to you, but to push yourself to think of more. Sometimes the best idea is the ninth one you think of. Or the twenty-ninth.   So in that spirit, the exercise:

Draw or write or imagine 50 scenes with your character. This helps solidify the character’s personality, even if you never use the scenes in your story.

To get to 50, start with two scenes relating to the letter A. For example, your character goes apple picking. What is he wearing? Is he a hard worker? Does he stand on the ground and shake the tree? Climb to the very top? Eat whatever he picks?   Another A scene: What’s his favorite animal? How does he relate to it?

Next, the letter B: How does your character feel about bees? Has he ever been stung?   B can be for baking: What does your character cook up? Does he make a mess? Does he clean it up, himself?  Who is he baking the dessert for?

Continue through the alphabet. I think by the time you get to the letter G you probably have a very good idea of exactly who your character is. And maybe you have a few ideas for scenes as well.

 

I love the humor in your Ellie series.  Can you share some tips for writing funny books?

If you laugh while writing it, that’s a very good sign. Study humor. Read funny stuff. Know your audience and surprise them. Push it – try hard – never give up. Don’t worry if you’ve experienced some serious tragedy in your life. The funniest people I know have lived through awful times.

 

It’s easy to see that you and Ellie both love to sketch.  How are the two of you different?

I think Ellie is a lot more brave and confident than I ever was. She’s part me as a tween, part me today, part each of my kids, and part her own self, a girl I’d have liked to have known, growing up.   And maybe I don’t know everything there is to know about her, yet. While writing the manuscript for book 2 a few years ago I put in a subplot about a prank with flowers. It was a little bit mean-spirited, inspired by a bully. My editor struck it out saying Ellie would never do what I had her doing.  I thought, hmm, my editor has said that I myself am Ellie. The flowerbed subplot really happened to me when I was a kid. Therefore it isn’t out of character for Ellie, right? Wrong. It was then that I learned that Ellie and I are two distinct entities.

I’d love to learn more about you, and what led you to become an author-illustrator.

I’m going to be frank, because I don’t think it serves kids to think that all writers and illustrators are perfect, born into gloriously happy lives, growing up comfortable and well-nurtured. I’ve had my share of personal failings.

I was a very anxious and insecure kid. I was smart but had ADD, OCD and a touch of dyslexia. I was socially inept. I blushed easily and was told often that I was too sensitive. I was an extremely critical perfectionist and found it impossible to live up to my own high expectations. Most of my art I threw away.

One drawing that survived I did at about age 13, of my big family when I was 7 (I’m the one in the top row, middle).

My dad died suddenly and tragically when I was 12. My mom married a person who was not a good match for our family, but life works out: she and my then-stepfather had two more kids whom we all adore.

As a teen I felt worthless and unlovable; I thought very few people saw the good in me. I was embarrassed by my terrible acne. I was competitive and territorial: if a relative had a particular hobby or career, then mine had to be different. This was tough – I had a zillion relatives! I planned my funeral often, but I also dreamed of growing up and having a good family. My first sketchjournal that I nurtured and kept came from my art teacher, when I was 15 and obviously troubled. I’ve kept one ever since, and today hundreds crowd my shelves.

I escaped to college, and strongly feel everyone should. I attended for 9 years and didn’t earn a degree, but I learned a lot about life and love and art and beauty, justice, independence and peace. For years I told everyone I was going to be famous someday. Now I see what that means and I don’t wish for fame anymore (I wish for wisdom).

I worked in advertising, which I mostly loved. I got my first taste of the author life while writing, illustrating and printing up a little story that was distributed with our Christmas cards in 1995. Still, it would be seven years before I got serious about kids’ books and gave it my best, educated effort, and three more years before my first book sold.

I’m lucky to have 4 awesome, creative, sensitive, brilliant kids, and three seriously cute grandkids. I’ve been married for 30 years to a writer, Charlie, who is a future famous kids’ book author. His writing is beautiful, powerful, poetic; I’m in awe of his grasp of language. We settled in the city next to the university where we met. I love it there, and I love that our children’s families have settled nearby. Charlie and I have lived on both ends of the wealth spectrum (trumpeted psychological studies to the contrary, having money was loads more fun). My first book, Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen, Will Travel, came out in 2007. The first paycheck rescued our house from foreclosure.

I’ve survived tragedy – recent, even. My life is not golden. I’m just working hard trying to get better at what I do best: chronicle life around me with a pen and paper.

And if I can do this, find what I am pretty good at and persist through obstacles and push beyond worthlessness and find lasting happiness, then maybe all those other insecure teens can, also. It’s worth trying.

This is a page from my sketchjournal, drawn on the way out of a meeting with my publisher in 2006.

 

 

What were some of the middle-grade books that inspired you to become an author-illustrator?

They weren’t all middle grade books, but they’re all appropriate for middle grade audiences. These were books I read over and over as a child, or books that made me aware that authors are real people, or books I discovered as an adult and inspired me deeply.  I love every single thing by Beverly Cleary, especially Ramona.  And here are some other wonderful books that inspired me (click on each cover for more information). 


Here are the titles of other wonderful books that influenced me to become an author-illustrator:  Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, The Three Pigs by David Wiesner, The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop, Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola, Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein, Peanuts by Charles Schulz, Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson, The Archie comics, The Portmanteau Book by Thomas Rockwell, Emily San by Barbara Leonard Reynolds, Little Colonel series by Annie Fellows Johnston.

Thank you so much for visiting us again and for sharing another wonderful writing and illustrating exercise, Ruth.  I can’t wait to try it!

Two lucky winners will receive an autographed and personalized paperback of the newly reissued Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen, Will Travel, and they can send Ruth a photo to use when she sketches each of them with Ellie.  She’ll also format the sketch so it can be used as an online avatar (like the drawing of Ruth at the top of this interview).

Leave a comment below and our random generator will choose two winners on Thursday, May 26th.  You’ll get extra entries for sharing a link on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, or if you click the ‘Follow this blog’ button in Networked Blogs on the lower right side of our site.

*Please mention each link in a new comment so the generator will add your extra entries.

**If winners live outside the US or Canada, they’ll still receive the sketch.  Instead of the autographed book, Ruth will give them a peek at a few digital pages from the next Ellie book, Ellie McDoodle: Most Valuable Player, a work in progress that will be published in Spring, 2012.

Don’t forget to visit Ruth’s website to find more info about her fun, sketch-filled books, freebies, school visits, library visits, and teaching guides.

Mindy Alyse Weiss writes humorous middle-grade novels and is constantly inspired by her ten and thirteen year-old daughters, adventurous sock and underwear munching puppy, and two stinky but adorable ferrets. Visit her blog to read more about her writing life, conference experiences, and writing tips.

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In Honor of Mother’s Day: Mother-Daughter Relationship Booklist.

By on May 4, 2011   /   Book Lists  

I’d like to discuss mother-daughter relationships and middle grade books. And I couldn’t think of a better person to do it than Barbara Dee, the author or numerous praised novels that often explore mother-daughter relationships. Barbara has written on the subject of mother-daughter relationships in middle grade fiction and why it’s so crucial to have those characters in books.

Hi, Barbara, and welcome to From the Mixed-Up Files of Middle Grade Authors. And also congratulations on the release of your newest book, Trauma Queen, which specifically deals with a complex relationship between 13 year-old Marigold who must deal with life in middle school when her flamboyant mother signs up to be the new drama teacher.

Why did you choose to write make a mother-daughter relationship the central conflict in your book?

Ask any eleven or twelve year old girl who’s the most influential woman in her life. She’ll probably say her mom—even though some days her mom drives her crazy!

In the past, you’ve blogged about the lack of mother-daughter relationships. What do you mean by this?

I’ve been thinking about how in so many of the great MG novels, parents in general—and moms in particular—are either missing (Pippi Longstocking, The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, Harriet the Spy, all the Nancy Drews, Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events) or tangential (A Wrinkle in Time, The Black Stallion). Of course, there are notable exceptions—for example, the mom of Beezus and Ramona plays a really important role in that series.

Why do you think it’s important to have strong, complex mom characters in middle grade fiction?

Tween readers—and now I’m talking about the older end of the MG spectrum—often start to have complicated feelings about their moms, even when they love their moms very deeply. I think it’s a great thing when readers can relate to a character who’s experiencing the same messy jumble of emotions—love, frustration, admiration and embarrassment. You don’t have to write a heavy book about this topic—I think you can explore these feelings in a way that’s fun and funny.

Can you discuss the mothers in some middle grade books that you admire? Why do those moms stand out?

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead: Miranda’s mom is smart, ambitious and witty, a tiny powerhouse. To earn money for law school, she preps diligently for an appearance on a TV game show. In the meantime she needles her boyfriend and teases her daughter, a sensitive latchkey kid (“Mom hates that expression. She says it reminds her of dungeons. And must have been invented by someone strict and awful with an unlimited childcare budget.”) This is a mom who nags, sometimes has a temper, doesn’t get everything that’s happening to her daughter– but manages to stay close to her, anyway. One of my favorite moms in recent MG fiction.

The Casson family series (beginning with Saffy’s Angel) by Hilary McKay: Eve Casson is a hoot. She’s clearly a very talented painter, more talented than her pompous, narcissistic husband, Bill.  But she can’t quite cope with her household. Even though this former hippie loves her four children deeply, she uses her painting “shed” as an escape from maternal duties. Somehow you never resent her spaciness, though, maybe because (like the rest of her family) she’s so charming and benevolent.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith: One of my all-time favorite book-moms! Katie Nolan is a tough cookie, sort of a turn-of-the century Tiger Mom. On the one had she’s cranky, strict, prim, and undemonstrative; on the other hand, she’s loyal, loving, and ambitious for her children. When a vagrant attacks her daughter Francie in a dark staircase, Katie shoots the guy dead. You never like Katie, exactly, but you definitely admire her tenacity and her bravery.

And lastly, what did you learn most from your mom? And you write such vivid portrayals of mothers and daughters.  How much do you pull from your own mothering experiences?

From my own mom, I learned that parents aren’t perfect, all-knowing wizards–but when they love you and care about you, you’ll grow up just fine. This was a great lesson for me as I raise my own three children—I’m certainly capable of making mistakes, but I think they know I’m doing my best. And incidentally, if you don’t expect perfection of yourself, if you accept your own quirks and failures as a parent, I think it helps your writing!  You’re more comfortable analyzing character, and you’re not squeamish about warts and freckles. To me those flaws are what’s fascinating–I’m not interested in writing about superheroes.

Though I must say, I’m convinced every mom is a superhero in her own right!

Thanks so much for speaking with us in honor of Mother’s Day, Barbara!

Barbara Dee’s newest title for tweens, TRAUMA QUEEN (Aladdin MIX/Simon & Schuster, April 19, 2011), been called “a laugh-out-loud look at family and friendship” (Discovery Girls magazine) and “totally funny, refreshingly realistic” (Girls Life magazine). She is also the author of THIS IS ME FROM NOW ON, SOLVING ZOE (2010 Bank Street Best Children’s Books of the Year) and JUST ANOTHER DAY IN MY INSANELY REAL LIFE (starred review, Publishers Weekly). She lives with her family in Westchester County, NY. You can visit her on the web at www.BarbaraDeeBooks.com.

 

 

EXCITING BREAKING NEWS: This season’s winners of the From the Mixed Up Files Skype Tour giveaway will be announced tomorrow, May 5th. Stay tuned, everyone!!!!!

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Successful School Visits—what an author can do to prepare

By on April 20, 2011   /   Book Lists  


My favorite part of being an author besides the actual writing of the books is meeting and teaching students at schools. I do about a dozen of them a year, some as short as a few hours and some stretching over a week. Each time I’ve found that the more I did to prepare, the better my visit went. Here are nine things I’ve learned about preparing for a school visit.

 

1. Remember you are there to serve the students not to sell books.

Because of recent budget cuts to schools and lean times for families, you might consider not asking a school to sell your book as a part of the visit.  Sometimes a local bookstore will give the school library credit based on the number of books students buy, which is a win for everyone. But that’s often not possible.  Best to keep the focus on what you can do to enrich the curriculum at the school you’re serving.

2. Think about what you have to offer and where your talents are best used.

In an earlier post, I talked about the many different options available for school visits. Pick one that plays to your strengths. If teenagers intimidate you, don’t offer to speak to kids older than 6th grade. If you’ve never structured a lesson and don’t have happy memories of writing in school, teaching a writer’s workshop is probably not for you.  On the other hand, if the idea of addressing several hundred students at once gives you hives, don’t offer a large group presentation. Kids get squirrelly when you are uncomfortable and teachers know good teaching—make sure you are confident in what you have to offer.

3. Learn something about the school you are going to attend.

Ask the teacher or librarian what they are hoping to gain from the visit. Do they hope to inspire students to stick with revision? Is there a state writing test coming up? Do they want students to feel confident that they have something in their life worth writing about? Are they looking for specific skills in plotting or characterization?

4. Be clear about what you are willing to do and make an agreement.

Spell out the schedule for the day in advance. Make sure it includes the length of each presentation, number of students at each one, technology available to support you, and the amount the school is going to pay you. Even if you are doing a pro-bono visit, please let the school know what you would ordinarily charge for the service. It helps support all the other authors who must ask for pay to come to a school.

There is a sample author visit contract I use in the educators section of the website. Feel free to use it and adapt is as needed.

5. Come early, with back up to your technology.

Try to arrive a half hour before speaking. If you’re using a power point, bring the slides on a thumb drive but also keep your computer on hand with an extra connector. Sometimes it takes several tries to get the technology piece to work. And ALWAYS have a back up plan in case no technology is available on that particular day.

6. Change your presentation based on the age of your listeners.

Make sure your presentations are right for the age you are addressing. No matter how good you are, kindergarteners will not sit still longer than about 20 minutes or be able to write you a paragraph about their favorite story character. You can ask the teacher at the very start if the group is chatty and likely to have many questions, or if they are a hands-on group that will want a project and not just passive listening. As a rule of thumb: K-2nd graders do well for 20-30 minutes, 3rd -5th are fine with 30-45 minutes, 6th and up can manage 60-75 minute presentations.

7. Remember that you are disrupting the schedule. Be flexible.

School thrives on routine. It’s not that people aren’t delighted to have you, but you are probably changing the normal routine, which is extra work for everyone involved. The more flexible and understanding you can be, the better.

8. Give them something to take home.

Think about the dinner tables your students are going home to that night. What do you want them to say about your presentation? For me, I want kids to know that they don’t have to be the “smart” or “bookish” one to have a great story to tell. If they are taking a writing workshop from me, I want them to have the start of a story they feel proud of.

9. Listen and learn.

The most valuable part of the visit by far is the chance to meet my readers and learn a little about what they love in the books they read. Whenever I talk to kids they carry on enthusiastically about some author who is much more famous than me. And when I swallow my pride and ask them to explain what they love about a particular book, I always learn something valuable that I can use in my work in progress. It’s a humbling thing to work in schools but one of the reasons I stick with it, is the insight I get into the lives of my readers.

Do you have a tip to share with readers? How do you prepare for a school visit?

Author Kimberley Griffiths Little brought fun prizes to this school visit.

There were lots of smiles during a visit with author Sydney Salter.

 

 

Rosanne Parry is the author of Second Fiddle, a story about an avid violin player who finds friendship and adventure in some unexpected places as she travels with her friends from Berlin to Paris.

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