Gennifer Choldenko Loves Wisconsin

That's what she said, anyway, after speaking for an hour at our local library yesterday. :)

Gennifer's visit kicked off our week-long Fox Cities Book Festival. More than 50 folks, young and old, joined her in the large conference room of the Neenah Library yesterday at 2 p.m. The April day was gorgeous--high 60s and sunny, so she immediately thanked us for giving up the beautiful outside to join her inside. Inside was warm and cheerful in its own way: pink plastic cups of lemonade and spring-colored cookies decorated a large table in the corner; bright red copies of Al Capone Does my Shirts were for sale in the children's section. Gennifer herself was in black and grey, but her green eye shadow and turquoise reading glasses were adorably festive--signs of her eternal whimsy, I think, amidst the prosaic task of a powerpoint presentation.

Her presentation began with pictures of a tidal wave and a lightening bolt. Gennifer acknowledged that many people may think that great ideas for stories come like gorgeous ocean crashes or flashes of lightening. Instead--switch to a fly--she said her best ideas were those that buzz around her like flies, ideas that can't be swatted away or ignored.

She shared how she struggled to publish a story after her first picture book went out. When folks suggested to her that she had writer's block, she insisted she had publisher's block. She just couldn't get published. Here she mentioned something very interesting: she said that she had heard that 'funny' sells, so she had been writing light, airy books following that advice. (I've heard that bit of advice, too, many times.) But it didn't work for her. She finally sat down and wrote the deepest story she could think of, and that story was Notes from a Liar and her Dog.

I can't help but think that this anecdote supports the idea that we should write from our hearts rather than from what we hear 'sells.'

The next large chunk of Gennifer's talk was about the development of Al Capone Does my Shirts. She had read in a San Francisco newspaper that children lived on Alcatraz while the prison was fully functioning. This idea, she said, was too great to ignore. To learn more about the island and its facilities, she signed up to volunteer one day a week as a guide. This caused her to know the island in all kinds of weather, in all seasons. She learned what the views were like, what the wind was like, and it introduced her to people who could answer her many questions.

She took notes on post-its and scraps of paper while she was on Alcatraz, and then she said she compiled between 10-15 outlines, trying to map out the story. Gennifer said there are two types of authors: the kind that makes an outline and sticks to it, and the kind that flies by the seat of her pants. :) She said she felt she was somewhere in the middle: she got lost without a guide (hence the 10-15 outlines), but she needed some freedom to keep the story fresh.

Developing the voice of her main character was a fascinating process. She chose a young male character, and one who lived in the 30's. In the beginning of her writing, his voice was stiff because she was following what she thought was a model of 'historical fiction.' The character loosened up, evolving into an authentic (hilarious) young man once she thought of her dad being a young man in the 30's, and realizing his voice would be nothing like the stiff, canned stuff she was writing at first.

The last section of her talk was a generous chunk of question-and-answer time. I asked her to talk a little about the editing process. She had shown a picture of a tower of mss with notes from her editor. I wondered if she struggled with changing her story and if she was pleased with the final result. She adamantly assured us that no change of her story ever felt like a compromise. Every enhancement was just that, she said: a way to make her story better. She had friends that sulked and pouted when they got editor's notes, but she was lucky to have no editorial tension. She liked the revising process.

The hour ended with a boy, about age 10, telling Gennifer that he was a new writer and wanted some advice. What she said was priceless:

"If you really hate something or really love something, that's the kind of thing you want to put in your book because you'll have so much feeling about it. . . . Have fun with it. Don't follow the shoulds. You know, people say, 'write what you know.' I don't believe that. Write what you're interested in. You may know nothing about it, but then you find out."

What a wonderful way to begin our Book Festival. Thank you so much, Gennifer, for sharing your journey with us!