Scholarships for Mayan village and book news

In Guatemala--some people involved in the Xucaneb Fund, including some scholarship recipients

Hello! I'm feeling happy, back from my NIA (dance) class. Just turned in copyedits for The Ruby Notebook *big sigh of relief*, and am now switching gears to revise The Queen of Water (the true story of my friend's girlhood in Ecuador).

This means that my poor brain has to shift from French mode back to Spanish mode... I was at the library a few days ago, talking to the lovely Guatemalan children's librarian there in Spanish, but French kept trying to slip out. Frustrating...

Speaking of Guatemala, I've been meaning to post something about the non-profit where I donated 5% of my royalties this year. It's called the Xucaneb Fund, part of the Village Earth, and it helps educate young people from the Q'eqchi' Maya village of San Pablo Xucaneb in Guatemala.

Hector, Osvaldo, Maria Cristina, Aurora, Aurelia-- scholarship recipients

Here's some info about it, cut and pasted from the Village Earth website:

"These five young people are continuing their studies as a result of the scholarships we have offered to the children of the Association. Young people study in the village school until they finish 6th grade. Then if they want to go to middle school, 7th - 9th grades, they have to leave the village which is too expensive for many of them. Before this project most of the kids couldn't dream of going past 6th grade, but now 10 students per year are able to continue their education with the assistance of Q.120 per month, about $15. So for $150 a year a student can continue going to school and hope for some options in life besides farming. Some want to continue the farming life, which they certainly should be able to do, but some are interested in pursuing other fields."

The Xucaneb Women's association, formed with help from Village Earth funds

This education situation is common in rural Oaxaca (where my first two books are partially set), as well, as you might remember from Red Glass. I spent time in villages where many teens left to spend the week in the nearest town (usually several hours away) to attend la prepa (high school), and came back to their villages for the weekends. The teens whose families didn't have money or relatives in town had to stop school around age 14 (if not sooner).

I would love to visit Xucaneb sometime, and meet these students. Yet another reason to return to Guatemala. (Our lil dude, almost three years old now (!), spent the first nine months of his life there until we adopted him.)


Okay, on to a few random things I wanted to mention here. First, big congrats to the winners of the Newbery, Printz, Sibert, and the other medals awarded by ALA this week! (These awards are like the Oscars of children's literature!) I'm especially happy for Liz Garton Scanlon for her Newbery honor for ALL THE WORLD, which is one of my all-time favorite picture books. Lil Dude loves it, too-- we read it every night before bed now. If you have any young child in your life, I highly recommend giving this book to them.

I'm also extra-happy for Chris Barton's Sibert Honor for Day-Glo Brothers. I haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet, but soon I will!



Liz and Chris and I have the same agent-- Erin Murphy-- so we're all part of the "Gang of Erin." We're so lucky to have this nice bond with all the other gang members-- all the authors (I think there are over 50 of us!) are super-supportive of each other. Twenty-five of us will be meeting in Chicago this spring for our fourth annual retreat-- can't wait!

The Indigo Notebook didn't walk away from the ALA honors empty-handed, you'll be glad to know! It was selected as an ALA Amazing Audiobook for Young Adults. (Of course, most of the congrats should go to Justine Eyre, who did a truly amazing job reading it aloud!)


I also wanted to write about one of my new favorite older kids' books-- When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, which, not surprisingly, won the Newbery this year. I'll write more about it later because I want to do it justice... and I want to write a bit about A Wrinkle in Time, too. And about space and time and existence and all that... but I'll save it for another day...

xoxo
Laura

TV interview, Ruby update, caravan news...

Hello all!

So, remember I mentioned in an earlier post that I was about to do a TV interview on the show BookEnds? Well, I did it, and thankfully, nothing disastrous happened-- in fact, it was pretty fun! Click here to watch it if you have a half hour to whittle away, or something to procrastinate... ;) This was my favorite interview so far, mainly because two teens from our local Interesting Readers' Society were interviewing me. It was fun to banter with them before and after the show... and of course it's always refreshing to be asked who my favorite Disney princess is during an interview!


So, what have I been doing lately? For one, listening to lots of French music as I go over copy-edits for The Ruby Notebook (set in Aix-en-Provence). Now I'm listening to Vincent DeLerm. Here's the song that's playing now, actually. Hee hee-- I just looked at the video to give you a link, and it's really silly-- made me laugh.


Going over copy-edits is rather tedious work. Still, it's exciting in that I know this is *really* it, and it will *really, truly* be a book soon-- and I know I'd better focus, because it's my next-to-last chance to make any changes.... but it's a bit boring. If my scanner weren't buried under heaps of papers, I'd scan a page for you so you could see what itty-bitty details I'm dealing with. Instead, I'll show you this (which, actually, does relate to Ruby, which has bohemian-troubadour-gypsy-ish characters)....


I've been decorating my writing studio-trailer on breaks from Ruby. I've always envisioned it ultimately looking like a gypsy caravan, but it's taking me a while to get there. I came across a book about roulottes (caravans) featured in Cote du Sur-- a French magazine I discovered in the apartment I rented in Provence while researching Ruby.

gorgeous, n'est-ce pas?!?!

I fell in love with the caravans (designed by Jeanne Bayol), but didn't have enough time to visit her roulottes studio (is that what you'd call it?) in another town in Provence.


Then, when I went to order her roulotte book for myself in the U.S., I saw it cost over a hundred bucks! Gulp! I didn't order it.... but luckily, I found these pictures on flickr!


Okay, so my trailer looks nowhere near as sumptuous as the caravans in these pics... but they inspire me. I want to get my sewing machine fixed so I can do a bit of sewing and trimming before I post pics of my own trailer... but soon, SOON I'll give you a virtual tour.

Speaking of my trailer, a package just arrived for me. It contains a hand-made birdhouse-trailer, similar to this one, complete with glow-in-the-dark windows! This was one of my splurges with leftover Christmas gift money...


TIME LAPSE-- I just spent two hours on the phone with my friend Megan, who's visiting the States from her home in France. We went over all the French in The Ruby Notebook, including the pronunciation guide. Ack! The pronunciation guide! Trying to find a simple, clear way to show French vowel sounds in English (for young readers with no knowledge of French) ... it's like one of those classic impossible tasks in a fairytale-- like spinning gold from straw. Crazy-making! Megan was a trooper, though... here's a pic of us last year in Aix-en-Provence, at a fountain which is mentioned in Ruby.


Back to work!

Gros bisous (big, fat kisses),
Laura

An abracadabrant new year!

northern California coast

Hello dear readers!

I thought I'd spice up this new year's post with some monsterful words from The Word Museum: the Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten. (See the glossary at the end of this post if you're feeling cabobbled or blutterbunged.)

After a bit of deepmusing on this past year, I made a list of things I'm grateful for (the list ended up way to long to list here...) Here are some highlights:

I'm grateful to my friends, family, and readers... and honored that even antipodes are reading my novels.


I'm grateful for my husband and son, who provide me with babies-in-the-eyes every day and night... not to mention plently of croodling.

I'm grateful for finishing The Ruby Notebook (released next fall), which was not easy for me-- it involved many hours in my trailer with clumpst hands on my keyboard, while out the window was a great deal of falling-weather and snow-blossoms. Sometimes I felt utterly ramfeezled, like a total maulifuff, all mawmsey, and by planets in a twee-- those were the tough days. But there were lots of good, fruitful days, where I was frooncing and delighting in the story prorumping from my fingertips.

I'm grateful for the many book events and conferences and school visits and blog interviews I got to do this year, and the librarians, teachers, students, bloggers, writers, and book sellers I met.


I'm grateful for my first trip to Random House-- it was absolutely monsterful meeting everyone at Delacorte. Then, I had a retreat full of gramarye in Portland with my abracadabrant agent and the authors she works with.

The Indigo Notebook was released, and in celebration, we had a party that was a complete glee-dream for me... my friend and co-author of The Queen of Water, Maria Virginia, was in town to dance and partake in the merriment. (And I"m grateful that this year we signed a contract for our book, which will come out in Spring 2011)!

I'm grateful for the trips I took-- some writing-related, and some just for fun and gratulating and weather-spying-- Mazunte (beach town in Oaxaca), Tulum, Steamboat Springs (CO), nothern California, Portland, southern Maryland, suburban Maryland, Michigan, NYC...


Ratherist, I'm grateful for simple joys, like watching dust motes and insect wings in sunlight, moon-gazing with Toddler, star-gazing with Ian, walking along the river near my house, gazing at light on snow and water and petals and all the other pleasures of the soul and soul-case.


Here's my resolution for this year, which is already off to a monsterful start: Have a playful, joyful, frooncing attitude toward writing. Fill my head with happy love-teeth and bellitude.


Have you done some deepmusing yourself? What are you grateful for? What's your resolution for this year? I offer you welwilly wishes for a sloven's year in 2010!!!

GLOSSARY (These are all *real words* that used to be in the English language! Let's put them back in use again...)

abracadabrant -- marvelous
monsterful -- wonderful
blutterbunged -- confounded
cabobbled-- mystified
deepmusing-- contemplative (and comtemplating?)
antipodes-- people who live on the other side of the earth
babies-in-the-eyes-- the miniature reflection of himself which a person sees in the pupil of another's eye on looking closely into it. (Absolutely adorable, no?)
croodling-- snuggling
clumpst-- hands stiff with cold
falling-weather-- rain or snow
snow-blossoms-- snowflakes
ramfeezled--exhausted from work
maulifuff-- a woman without energy; one who makes much fuss and does little or nothing.
mawmsey-- sleepy, stupid, as from want of rest
by planets-- irregularly, capriciously
in a twee-- overcome with fear or vexation
frooncing-- to go about in an active or bustling manner
prorumping-- bursting forth
gramarye -- magic
glee-dream-- merriment caused by music
gratulating-- rejoicing
weather-spying -- stargazing
ratherest-- most of all
soul-case-- the body
love-teeth in the head-- inclinations to love
bellitude-- beauty, elegance, loveliness
wel-willy-- benevolent
sloven's year-- a wonderfully prosperous season

Thanks for indulging me!

xoxo,
Laura

Jade Waters...

Happy, happy holidays, everyone! Hope you're feeling excited about the new year, and dreaming of new creative adventures...

In celebration of finishing The Ruby Notebook, and getting over what is hopefully the last in a string of colds, Ian and I took our first romantic vacation since Lil Dude came into our lives two Decembers ago.


Not only was it a heavenly (and *much-needed*) trip, but it also rekindled my passion for writing The Jade Notebook, which is set in a Mexican beach town (although a different town from the one we visited -- we were near Tulum on the Yucatan, and Jade is set in Mazunte in Oaxaca).

There's nothing better than opening your eyes in the morning and seeing this.


Stepping outside into this . . .


There was no electricity in our palapa, so we used candles at night. One night we lay on the beach and watched a stunning meteor shower... dozens of shooting stars leaving trails across the sky. And each time a star zipped across the sky, I gasped in delight.


Inside view of our palapa's roof. We want to make one of these in our back yard...

We ate meals outside on the sand in the jungly foliage... resulting in a ring of bug bites around our ankles-- which still itch-- but it was definitely worth it to be surrounded by transluscent green as we ate papaya and sopa de lima and sweet flan . . .


The first time I snorkeled, years ago, I felt I'd discovered a different world. I wanted to spend hours, days, weeks, months underwater with flashing silvery fish and wavy sea creatures. I still love it, and if I were brave enough, I'd attempt scuba diving... maybe one day.


We also swam in cenotes-- freshwater underground rivers in caves, which, if you've read my books, you can guess is right up my alley. I love the magical shades of deep blue in the shadows... And I love how, when you least expect it, you swim around a corner and you're met with glimmery columns of sunlight that take your breath away.

Pelicans and sea gulls and the sound of the ocean rushing and the wind through palm fronds...


A tiny tiled pool overlooked the ocean, just in front of our palapa.


After our outings to the cenotes or open sea, these funny elephant creatures greeted us on our bed inside the mosquito net.


One evening we made a sculpture with debris from a spot down the beach... his hair is made of seaweed, and he's wearing a jaunty plastic purple bowl hat.


This little guy enjoyed the sea view, too.

I'm so, so grateful to you for reading my books and this blog, and encouraging me in all kinds of wonderful ways! Here's to an extraordinary new year!

xoxo,
Laura

Winner of THE INDIGO NOTEBOOK contest!

My dad and me at my reading at Pooh's Corner, in Grand Rapids, Michigan-- what a fun night!

Happy solstice, everyone!

Huge congrats to Charlotte of Victoria, B.C., Canada, age 12! She's the winner of The Indigo Notebook Fall Contest, and she'll get a signed copy sent as soon as I get to the post office! I loved the true story she submitted-- a wonderful snippet of a bus journey she took in Nicaragua with her family. Here it is:

Getting There is Half the Fun

“Riva, Riva, Riva, Rivas” the conductor yells, leaning slightly precariously, out of the door of the bus as it pulls put of the sprawling market. That is when my parents, my brother and I clamber into another world: the bus. The bus is packed and we attract quite a lot of attention as we are the only gringos on it. An elderly woman and a young schoolgirl squish over to give me a seat. “Muchas gracias,” I say quietly and hesitantly. They then try to start a conversation with me but “hola” and “gracias” is about the extent of my Spanish.
The bus used to be a school bus in Virginia but when it was deemed too old to use there, they shipped it off to Nicaragua. You can still see the sign at the front listing the school bus rules like “keep all body parts inside the bus at all times”. That rule is slightly ironic as whenever anyone has any garbage they chuck it out the window. We stop at the side of the road wherever anyone is and often a vendor will come on as well shouting “agua, gaseosas, jugos” or “pollo frito” or “ensaladas”.
The bus is also the main way of transporting goods and we get loaded up with bags of potatoes and other vegetables headed for market. The conductor is coming around to collect everyone’s fare. When my parents ask the conductor how much the fare is, they attract some curious looks saying “how can you not know how much it costs”. We speed past trees, houses, fields full of various crops and huts made from whatever types of materials are around. We arrive in the market in Rivas, more chaotic than the one that we left from in Granada and we board another bus and another world.

Aren't her descriptions fabulous? Don't you feel like you're right there with her on the bus?! Thanks, Charlotte, for writing this and sharing it with us!

Congrats, also, to Kinsey of Wisconsin, who won the Ultimate YA Group contest! Her signed copy of The Indigo Notebook is also in the mail...

Tidbits of news:

Minnie of Athena's YA blog chose The Indigo Notebook as one of her favorites this year for her Twelve Days of Christmas recommendations. Thanks, Minnie!

Lorie Ann Grover chose Red Glass as one of her top three What a Girl Wants: Book Recommends. Thanks, Lorie Ann!

I just found out that Red Glass is on the 2009-2010 Eliot Rosewater reading list. This is a shortlist for the Indiana High School Book Award. Thank you, librarians and teens of Indiana!

A few new reviews:

From BCCB (Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books)-- "[Zeeta's] own questioning of what she really wants also facilitates readerly connections; holding the exciting plot, evocative setting, and unusual experiences up to the rhythms of a more ordinary life enables readers to share Zeeta's ultimate epiphany that she is, in fact, living the life others only dream of.... readers looking for inspiration and impetus to get out and see the world will find this a satisfying outing."

From the Fort Collins Coloradoan, in an article entitled "Resau's detailed Imagery perfect for Young Adults, Older Readers" -- Nancy Hansford writes: "Somehow [Resau] manages to write young adult novels that enthrall adult readers as well."

Now that I've turned in my Ruby Notebook manuscript, I've been able to indulge in reading piles of books. Here are some good ones I've read recently:

• Catching Fire (amazing sequel to The Hunger Games)
• The Miles Between (Mary Pearson also wrote The Adoration of Jenna Fox, which I loved, too.)
• The Magician's Elephant (Kate Dicamillo has such a great story-telling voice)
• Marcelo in the Real World (fascinating and satisfying)
• Impossible by Nancy Werlin (loved how Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme were woven into the story.)
  
• Vibes (really funny and written by a writing buddy of mine-- Amy Kathleen Ryan)
• I've also been listening to the audiobook of The Indigo Notebook. It's an interesting experience to hear someone else reading your work-- especially a professional actress. I love the way she does the little girls' voices... your heart just melts!)

One more tidbit of news: I'm happy to report that my wonderful agent, Erin Murphy, has just created a website for the Erin Murphy Literary Agency! You can read about all the amazing authors she works with here.

Thanks for reading! Happy holidays! (And check back soon to see my Mexico trip pics-- I'll be posting them in a few days!)

Laura

where would I be...

. . . without my beloved writing group?

Sarah Ryan, Molly Reid, Kimberly Srock Fields donning paper crowns that flew out of our exploding golden rocket tubes--
apparently an English tradition (see remnants in lower right corner)

One thing I've discovered in life-- and it's something that I sometimes forget and need to re-discover-- is this: Gratitude and celebration are keys to happiness. Tonight I reveled in both with the brilliant, beautiful women of Old Town Writers Group.

Carrie Visintainer and Leslie Patterson

Look at this scrumptious spread! Leslie outdid herself (and this is just a little fraction of all the food.) We feasted and updated each other about our writing life and did critiques, as we do every two weeks. This special end-of-the-year meeting involved toasting each other's successes... and there were many. The thing we celebrated most of all was the joy and camaraderie of being together in our group.

Leslie is a master mixer of delicious and unusual drinks. I don't even remember what was
in this one, but it was festive and had fresh cranberries and lemon in it. Yum.

Being in a writers' group is a really intimate bonding experience. By sharing your writing-- your innermost thoughts and feelings-- you reveal vulnerable parts of yourself that even your close family and friends might not know about.

Look at these lovely gifts Leslie gave us... a wee journal made of handmade paper, Divine dark chocolate, and my new favorite French liquor (made from elderflowers! I *love* food and drink made from flowers. There's something magical about it.) And best of all, it comes in a teeny tiny bottle which will make a perfect vase for a single wildflower this spring.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Carrie, Sarah, Leslie, Kimberly, and Molly!

If you'd like more details about exactly what we do in our group, click here and scroll down to the question "What exactly do you do in your writers' group?"

On a different note, I have lots more to write about... winners of recent Indigo contests, some lovely Indigo reviews, pics and recap of my Mexico trip, recent good books I've read, good news about Red Glass, some random stuff about The Ruby Notebook... but that will have to wait. I've finished my decaf tea with honey and milk, and I'm ready for bed.

Hope you're having a magical winter... and forgive me if I still haven't responded to your email. I'm slowly making my way through the emails that accumulated as I was wrapped up in the sea and sand and salty breezes last week...

Thanks for reading!

xoxo,
Laura