Wisconsin Loves James DeVita

Or at least, I do.

Which is not to say that my report on his visit to Neenah last Wednesday for our annual Fox Cities Book Festival will be more detailed than my report on Gennifer Choldenko. In fact, I have less to share. I didn't notice a food table, and I didn't notice what he was wearing, and I didn't take time to count the attendants. I just watched and listened and tried desperately not to reveal the giddily-manic-high-school-fan waving frantically inside me.

James began his talk explaining how teachers and librarians played key roles in his pursuing a writing career. Posted by his computer is a note from his 6th grade teacher encouraging him to keep at it. And libraries are where he learned everything about the writing world--how to write a children's book, how to write a query letter, how to submit manuscripts, and then, what to do when his manuscript's been rejected.

I couldn't help but be encouraged to hear how he succeeded publishing Blue and The Silenced in this quiet, persistent way. I can appreciate that an author doesn't necessarily need to be polished and grooomed for the publishing world in order to get published.

He shared then how it actually took him until age 30 to ever show anyone his writing. It took him that long to get the nerve, he said. "I write fat and fast," he said. "It's kind of sloppy at first, and I've come to accept that. Just getting ideas out--it's rough, and bad, and humble. It took me years to be brave about being bad in front of my peers."

He recommended Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott as wonderfully funny and really useful for new writers. He confessed he had a literary crush on Anne. She visited Madison where she has a huge band of followers, and he stood in line with a hundred people to meet her. He said he was a mess--his voice went up three octives, he was hot, mumbling, and altogether lame. She, of course, was gracious and lovely. :)

He talked next about the origins of his new book. The idea for his recent YA novel, The Silenced, first came in the late 90s when a school asked him to write a play about youth violence. James had made his career as an actor, training in New York and UW Milwaukee, working as a classical actor at the American Players Theater in Spring Green, WI. As he researched for his play on bullying and violence, he queried thousands of kids. He found that students wanted to talk less about bullying and more about what the schools were doing to maintain safety (this is when talk about arming teachers and profiling students was in effect). Students were buzzing over the issue of how much of our lives are we willing to give up for our own safety?

Around the same time, James was writing another play, The Rose of Treason, an inspiring story of German WWII protester Sophie Scholl. Twenty-one year-old Sophie and her university friends were the first to resist the Nazis. They would type up leaflets describing Nazi activity and pass the papers out covertly at movie theaters, drop them in doorways, mail them from out of town--all in an effort to inform and move Germans who didn't know or didn't want to know what was happening.

Here James shared something extremely interesting. He said that he writes about things that bug him, things he doesn't understand. "I write the questions. I want to think I would be a good man and help my neighbor. But then, they [totalitarian regime] would come and take my two children. So would I? I want to ask these questions. I don't know."

I think this is fascinating, and really appealing as a reader. I love that he doesn't offer the reader a didactic morality tale; he doesn't craft and manipulate in the worst way writers can--puffed with propaganda or trite lessons (think Richard Paul Evans). I live that he explores, and we join him. I think that method of storytelling shares a lot of the responsibility of the story with the reader, and it offers the reader a great deal of respect.

Next in the program, James read what was one of my favorite scenes in the story, when the students' art class is stripped of all projects, the windows are painted over, and students are drilled by Mr. Greengritch (a sizzling antagonist) to embrace the body and deny the individual. "You see people, you live like you're all so different and unique, like you're all so special. Well, you're not! Mommy and Daddy lied. And starting now, this facility will no longer tolerate any differences whatsoever." Chilling stuff.

The last portion of James' presentation was Q&A. I asked him to share his writing process, and if large amounts of coffee were involved. He laughed and said yes, he poured about seven cups of coffee (leaving one for his wife so she wouldn't kill him) into a big green mug and walked out back to his writing studio. Leaving home was important, he said, to step away from the daily routine. Then, his first job is shutting off the 'screaming monkeys,' the voices in his head that criticize and nag. "I just shut that off and tell myself to write one sentence. Then another. I say 'Shut up and write,' I actually do that. When I'm on a roll, I don't hear them."

His process is similar to Timothy Hallinan 's suggested steps to writing: he starts the day by reviewing what he wrote the day before. That way, by the time he hits the blank page, he's on a writing roll. He reminded us new writers that writing is like driving in the dark with your headlights on: you can only see what's directly in front of you. But if you drive a little farther, you'll see a little farther. If you stay still, you won't see new terrain. So stay in your chair, if nothing else. And try to drive your story a little bit farther.

Brilliant stuff. Thank you so much, James DeVita! And many thanks to the board of the Fox Cities Book Festival for coordinating such a stellar event.