Recently Read

I got into a great e-mail conversation with Tyler's cousin, Mathias, who is deep in his studies at Brooklyn College and will receive an MFA in Creative Writing at the end of this year.

Mathias always talks with great passion about books and language. And he is so incredibly well-read, I often leave our conversations feeling as if I should shed all of my responsibilities, sneak into the library, hide in the stacks, and stay overnight for the next year to catch up.

Our discussion was about lyrical writing. Fiction that feels like poetry. Sentences that hold together with the most perfectly chosen words.

He asked a simple question: Have you read any books recently that do this well?

I've read all kinds of books recently. I've even (you'll be surprised to know after seeing my list) read a lot of adult fiction recently. And I realize a few of these books have not been written recently. But I read them recently. And that was the question.

I also realize that what Melissa read recently isn't exactly a perfect sample to make grand, sweeping judgements about the state of literature. So, just to clarify, that is not what I'm doing here.

I'm just talking about the question. And the list I thought to share:

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

You Are My Only by Beth Kephart

First Light by Rebecca Stead

The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

I've got to tell you. I was so very thrilled after I shared my list. This makes me happier than I can say. How amazing it? How incredibly lucky are all of these young readers? They have such wonderful books written for them. They are reading, in my very humble opinion, some of the most beautiful words.

It made my day.

What have you read recently that made you fall in love with the writing and language?

'Firing Off Rat-a-tat-tat-tat'

I spent a lot of time at the library when I was a teenager. When I look at the crazy schedule I had back then (tennis, track, Lit Mag, French club...the list goes on...I was a classic overachiever) I do wonder when I found the time to read the amount of books I read. And I especially wonder how I found time to read 812.

When I say 812, I am referring to the dewey decimal system. 812 is American Drama. And for some reason, my teenage self found it necessary to read 812 in it's entirety.

Some clarification: We're not talking the Library of Congress here. We're talking the Hicksville Public Library. 812 consisted of about four shelves of loosely packed, hard-cover plays (I only mention that because paperback would be much thinner and take up less room, allowing for more plays in the section) and it was my goal to read every one of them.

I did.

Add that to semesters of playwriting and screenwriting classes. Tack on a few months transcribing documentaries and several years writing scripts for children. And you have a person who is obsessed with dialogue. Who is in an ever-constant investigation of the spoken word as it is written on the page. Who struggles every day to write dialogue that rings true, voices that rise and fall a certain way, conversations that one, two, one, two back and forth at just the right moment for the time, the place, the mood. Like I said, it is my writing obsession. When I write, when I read, I pay careful attention to dialogue. And maybe I'll get it right someday in my own work. For now, all I can do is study and try.

(insert transition here)

Enter 'One Crazy Summer' by Rita Williams-Garcia. Here's a book that I admired for it's many dead-right, spot-on qualities but one I especially admired for it's beautiful dialogue. So if you're struggling, if you're investigating, as I am, this book is, in my opinion, a resource.

Just a sampling from the book of this trio of sisters: Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern. Who speak in poetry (And their rhythm of speech is dissected here. I told you. Like a resource. A guide.) It is wonderful.

When my sisters and I speak, one right after the other, it's like a song we sing, a game we play. We never need to pass signals. We just fire off rat-a-tat-tat-tat. Delphine. Vonetta. Fern.

I said, "What if all the people could recite all of your poems?"
Vonetta: "And they said them on the radio."
Fern: "And you became famous."
Me: "You couldn't hide then."
Fern: "Surely couldn't."

Rita Williams-Garcia

Last night, I had the great fortune to meet Rita Williams-Garcia whose book One Crazy Summer has been named a Coretta Scott King Award Winner and a Newbery Honor Book. The book also won the Scott O’Dell Prize for Historical Fiction and it was a National Book Award Finalist...so many accolades that you can barely see the title of the book because these awards are plastered all over the cover.

I really enjoyed Ms. Williams-Garcia's talk. We all sat in Dylan's Candy bar, with it's cotton-candy drinks, it's red-and white striped chairs, easter-egg pastel tables that look like carousels, and even admist all of this color, she stood out like a bright star. She shared stories about her childhood, how, at just 12 years old, she sent out stories and received rejections that made her happy as a clam. Doesn't she know she's been rejected? her family would wonder, but all she could think was, Wow! Someone read my story and wrote me a letter! (Perhaps we can all take lessons from 12 year old Rita...)

She's been writing for 25 years without an agent, working with the very same editor she sold her first book to and, until just recently, worked a full-time job. She originally began writing for young people because in college she worked with the kinds of kids she called: women-girls. These young adults who had more adult experiences than she had.

She talked about pitching hard books like middle grade books that tackle subjects like genital mutilation and about making difficult choices that limit your market and your readership. In the end, she always has to ask herself, what is the big thing I want to get across? What can I sacrifice, if anything at all?

Her excitement was infectious, the rhythm of her speech frenetic and thoughtful at the same time. When I told her that she seemed so bright and full of energy, she just said, It took me 40 years to get here. I am happy.

She reminded me that there is joy in writing and in sharing your work with others. That we can push ourselves to take on hard topics and bring them to children who read these kind of books, breathe a sigh of relief, and say: I am not the only one.