Lois Lowry's Blog

I am glad there is a word "miscellaneous." I use it in my Quicken program, where I record all the checks I write and organize them by categories so that when tax time comes I will know what I spent on OFFICE SUPPLIES and MEDICAL/DENTAL.  But when I spend money on an umbrella or a leg of lamb or a plastic kazoo, or anything the IRS doens't think I really need professionally, I categorize it under "miscellanous."  It is a word that serves me well.  And this post is in that category.

First of all, it is about Woody Allen movies. In New York last week, I had four hours free, and I very much wanted to see a movie called "Take This Waltz," and I walked in 95-degree heat 14 blocks to the theater where the NY Times had told me it was playing, only to find that it no longer was. But I needed the air conditioning so I went in anyway and sat through "To Rome with Love" and watched Woody Allen once again, for the 112th time, play a balding neurotic nerd of a man. The Roman scenery was lovely but it was not enough to redeem the experience for me and I came away vowing never again to sit through a Woody Allen movie.

This post—"Miscellaneous"—come to think of it, is also about vows. Because I made another vow just this week. A little history here: it seems to me quite unusual, maybe newsworthy, that over the course of my adult life I have TWICE found myself in a bank in the middle of a bank robbery. Once would be unusual.  Twice, I think, qualifies as downright spooky and maybe related to the way the stars are aligned.

And now I have...this has nothing to do with banks...found myself for the SECOND time (and one was quite enough) sitting in a pleasant restaurant, having a pleasant meal, with a pleasant friend, when we became aware that nearby, a couple at a table with a banquette was actually changing their baby's diaper on the banquette.  I had this experience years ago at GREENS in San Francisco; and three days ago at THE BLACK HORSE TAVERN in Bridgton, Maine. I'm not publishing those names in order to accuse or embarrass the restaurants...both of which I love...but just because as a writer I know that details bring a scene to life.  The other details, those of the diaper, are unpleasant and I am bypassing them.

So where is the VOW in all of this? Well, I am taking a vow to cease being dumbfounded and silent when I find myself in such a situation.  Dumbfounded and silent is the way I reacted in both bank robberies. (In the second one, actually, I was shoved and told "Get out!" and so I got out of the bank before I entirely realized what was happening. Still, on realizing, I remained silent. But someone else had already called 911 and seven police cars arrived as I stood there mutely.)

A number of years ago I wrote a book called THE SILENT BOY, set in Pennsylvania in the early 1900's and illustrated by old photographs....the story of an autistic teenage boy, told by the young girl who befriends him.

Last week I saw a staged reading of the adaptation which has been produced by Arts Power, a  traveling theater company that specializes in taking theater...book adaptations....into the schools. When fully staged the characters are in period costime, as shown in this photo. But last week, at Columbia Teachers' College in NYC, (the set is shown here) the performers simply read the roles (and did so very beautfully. A lot of people in the audience were snuffling and dabbling their eyes. okay: I was, too)

Arts Power (you can see their website at www.artspower.org) also has a musical production of Anasatsaia Krupnik, as well as a number of adaptations of other well-known and well-loved books.  Their shows each run about an hour so they can fit comfprtably into a school schedule and they offer a lot of study resources.

I sound like a publicity person. And I'm not. But I am very impressed by the quality of this organization and what they offer to students.

Just for the record, I am very mad at chipminks despite their annoying cuteness. If they didn't have that sweet stripey back they would just be ordinary rodents.

The thing is, this is the first summer I have had a pair of cardinals here, and it has been exciting: that vibrant red really spices up a morning. So I got a special birdfeeder for them...for some reason they prefer to dine from a flat table instead of perching on the hanging swinging feeder where all the goldfinches and grosbeaks hang out. So I got them their own private restaurant and put it in the crabapple tree. Trouble is, every other minute there is a chipmunk in it, yelling "Look how cute I am!" and eating all the safflower seed...which I bought especially for the cardinals...and every morning the feeder is blooming empty for that reason.

I taught the cat not to climb the porch screen by using a water pistol, and it worked...Pavlov was right; negative condiitoning is very effective.  Even when there is a wonderful fluttery moth on the other side of the screen, you can see Lulu dying inside because she wants to leap at it, but she glances at the orange plastic pistol on the nearby table, and she stays put, with her whiskers vibrating

But I have work to do.  I can't lurk with my little gun out by the crabapple tree. Anyway, the UPS guy might see me and he would call 911. I would be in the local Police Blotter along with all the domestic disturbances and moose enounters.

I just want to let people know that for the past couple of months my website has been messed up and the email that came through the webiste mostly disappeared. I coudn't figure out why people had stopped writing to me! Boo hoo! Was feeling very sorry for myself...the "nobody loves me anymore" syndrome.  Today, suddenly, much of it has resurfaced though I am afraid all of May's mail is permanently gone. So if you wrote me in May and I didn't reply...that's why; try again, please.  If you wrote me in June and I haven't replied yet...stand by. There's a lot to reply to!

It is not clear why these things happen. I blame all sorts of villains, like those deposed royals in Africa who want me to help them get their millions out of escrow. More likely it is just some weird computer thing, but since it is no fun to shake one's fist at technology, I prefer to think that humans are lurking out there getting some kind of weird kick out of ruining the relationship between me and my readers and correspondents.

In any case, it appears to have ended but I'm sorry about those emails that have been permanently lost. If you were a student who needed a reply by Thursday in order to get an A....my fault entirely. Tell your teacher that. If you are a worthy cause who was looking for a donation...I would have had to say no anyway.  If you wanted me to read your manuscript...I would have said no, with regret; can't do it.

But if you were someone who loves books, who wanted to talk about books, or writing...or whose life had been affected in some positive way by something I wrote...then I truly wish I could have read your email.

Don't give up on me! I think I am back in business. And I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Well, this variety of clematis is now at its peak. But the peonies are done.

I had a vase of peonies in the downstairs bathroom and the combination of their beauty and aroma made it tempting to visit the bathroom much more often than nature required. But their time was past. The blossoms were browning at the edges and drooping. So this morning I took the whole vase to the kitchen in order to empty it and discard the dead peonies. But by the time I reached the kitchen I was carrying nothing but a vase of bare stems. I looked back and there, in the hallway outside the bathroom, were all the petals…white and pink…on the floor; and in the midst of them, like a show-offy flower girl at an aunt’s wedding, Lulu the cat was prancing and tiptoeing.

 I have been at my desk non-stop for two days...have not been hiking, picnicking, somersaulting, or anything else involving grass or woods.  Nonetheless: I just removed a tick that was burrowing into my neck. Second neck tick in two days!  What is this?!  Probaly not a deer tick...too big...but revolting nonetheless. If I wanted someone to suck on my neck, I would...no, never mind; I am not going to go there.

I have already had Lyme Disease, and it was NOT FUN. I do not wnat to have Lyme Disease again.  But they say this is the year...because of the weather (very little snow all winter)...of the tick. All kinds.  I have deer galore in my meadow.  I have seen them walking majestically across...fourteen at one time, once...and in apple season I have woken to see seven or eight munching at my apple trees, some up on their hind legs to hit the higher branches.  Once, at night, I took the dog out on a leash and had a close encounter with a very large deer in back of the barn...startled us both, and we fled in opposite directions.

Here are my kids at 6:30 AM.  This is mid-stage in our usual morning routine. Usually I let Alfie out at 6:15 or so, after he wakes up and woofs quietly from his bed at the foot of mine, more a kind of throat-clearing that means, "Ahem, hate to bother you but.."  So I take him downstairs, encountering Lulu en route...(I never know where she sleeps, but she is not allowed to sleep in my bedroom because sometimes she goes into nocturnal-beast mode in the middle of the night and turns anto a panther and attacks my feet)...and let him out. (Lulu is an indoor cat, much as she would prefer otherwise. There are too many predators out there: coyotes, fishers, eagles, hawks, and an occasional car) Then I feed them both and...this is the embarrassing part: we all go back to bed. Zzzzz. Till 8 or even 8:30.

So this picture was taken at 6:30, after Alfie had come back in, and before I fed them both. While they were both eating, I had a sudden enlightened moment: the awareness that  I didn't need to go back to bed. i was up. Awake. I could STAY up and awake. I stood there a moment, in my bedroom after we had gone back upstairs, aware that Vice and Virtue live very close together. Vice=bed. Virtue=shower. I wavered. Alfie was already curled up in his own bed, watching me. And ta DA!  I went and turned the shower on. I stayed up. And now I am in my office, with coffee and NPR and a feeling of self-worth, and it is still early morning.

Last week I had three friends here and it was fun but meant that I didn't spend much time at my desk. There was too much fun stuff to do. Even when I was at my desk, tending my email or reading the NYT online, I was thinking: If I pick up some pine nuts I could make that good cauliflower thing for dinner or We could go up to North Waterford and have lunch at Melby's...

When I was a kid, I had a Great-Aunt Mary whom I loved but who I thought kind of batty because she was a bird-watcher. And now look at me, here with my binoculars, all excited because today there are rose breasted grosbeaks and purple finches at the feeders.

I have had company for the entire past week and now am by myself so perhaps it is that the birds provide camaraderie now that the house is empty and quiet.

They say in Maine that the black flies will last from Mother's Day to Father's day...in other words, mid-May to mid-June...and that generally holds pretty true. The dragonflies are everywhere now, swooping and hovering like little helicopters, and the biting flies are gone. It's is Father's Day once again, a day on which I remember my own father, who lived to be 92.

He was the son of Norwegian immigrants. Here is a picture of my grandfather, whom I never knew...he died when Dad was in high school...with his stern and taciturn looking brothers.

He is the one seated on the right; his name had been Carl Augustus Hammersberg...from Oslo...but he Americanized his first name to Charles. The brothers were Andreas, Oliver, Christ, and Thorvald, if I remember correctly; and the suits and ties were not their usual dress. They were blue-collar workers...my dad's father on the railroad. After his father's premature death, the railroad pension helped Dad get through college and dental school.

I am going to put a list here of the cities I wil be in, speaking and signing, in the fall.  When I have the specific times and venues, i will post them on the calendar called "Upcoming Events" on my webiste. But for starters, because people are starting to ask, here is my schedule:

SEPTEMBER 2012

 22-23 Washington National Book Festival

Here I am with a bunch of glitzy guys: Kadir Nelson, John Green, Walter Dean Myers, and Chris Colfer (from "Glee") at the BEA convention...we all spoke at the Children's Book and Author Breakfast, such a nice occasion. One had the feeing that all 1100 poeple in the audience were soulmates.

And here I am a couple of weeks earlier, with Jan Coates, of the Mount Desert Island Readers and Writers Project.  Tough to get to the island...a 9-passenger plane; I wouldn't want to go in fog or stormy weather. But worth the trip!  A whole lot of seventh graders had been reading and studyng THE GIVER; it was great to be with them, and with Jan and all the others who work so hard.

I drove up here Saturday with the car loaded (and still, forgot some stuff but nothing vital).  Both dog and cat are good travelers and Alfie is clearly thrilled to be back here in his country life ...  though since he was here last I have had my guy cover the underside openings to the barn with wire mesh...no more critters, I hope!  But Alfie is frustrated; he used to love going under there to see what was going on...risky!  He paid the price one night and came away loaded with porcupine quills. You'd think he'd learn)

New screens on the porch because Lulu, a kitten last summer, had torn them by climbing. I can't afford to replace them yet again so instead have been teaching her to stay off.  Complete Pavlov by way of water pistol, and she is learning quickly.  Beware of Woman with Plastic Gun.

The grandsons have been here this weekend and found a plastic snake in the toy closet, which made for a lot of torment-the-cat moments:

In 1977, hired by her parents, I photographed a 10-year-old girl with blond hair and big eyes.  Later, when I wrote NUMBER THE STARS, one of those photos was used on the  cover of that book.  The little girl was actually Swedish and had the Scandinavian look that was just right.

I have remained friends all these years with her mother; and recently, talking on the phone with her, she mentioned that her daughter...now of course grown...was now living in Connecticut. As it happened, I was headed to that part of Connecticut because a musical of NUMBER THE STARS was being performed there (Spirit of Broadway Theater, Norwich, CT)

This is a wonderful old building, former fire house, converted to a theater.The show will run for two more weeks.

This really falls into the category of "quick trip" but it could not have been a better one...a delayed 75th birthday + Mother's Day. On Wednesday  my son and I flew from Boston to London and checked into our hotel in Leicester Square about 10 PM. We had two days to hang out, and on Thursday morning we took a 3-hour walk around London's West End, investigating many nooks and crannies including a wonderful cul de sac that I had never seen before (and can't now recall the name of) in which each building was painted a different wild color and decorated in whimsical ways.  After lunch at a pub I went back to the hotel for a nap, but intrepid Ben went to the half-price ticket booth near our hotel and snagged a matinee ticket to "The King's Speech" -- not the movie, but the play that came either before, or after.

That afternoon there was a protest march in central London...20,000 policemen from all over the UK. (We saw only the hovering helicopters)  but that evening, all dressed up, we headed toward the Royal Opera House (blue dot to upper right) and stopped at a pub en route for a glass of wine. The pub was filled with post-parade off-duty police wearing t-shirts that said "GET SHAFTED AND CARRY ON"... Ben and I were privately expressing our sympathy and solidarity with the police...but when Ben (in his jacket and tie) went to the men's room, he reported that he had encountered several policemen, one of whom said to him, "So what're you, f---ing royalty?"

Outside the opera, in Covent Garden Market, we stopped for cappuccino and to listen to a string quartet...Ben went over and told them he was celebrating his mom's birthday, so the musicians circled our table and played "Happy Birthday" to me...  a nicer encounter than the one with the police!

The opera was fabulous: "Daughter of the Regiment," by Donizetti, which late in the first act has an aria in which the tenor must hit I think eleven high C's.  The normally reserved Brits rose to their feet with wild and well-deserved applause when the young (and handsome) tenor performed it flawlessly.

The revival of Porgy and Bess has been nominated for a Tony; and that makes me think of the lovely song "Summertime"...and that makes me think of summer, which will be here soon; and of Maine, where I will go the end of this month. Maine is where I get the most work done. Of course I'll be entertaining company, and poking in my gardens, and cooking in my (newly renovated!) kitchen...but I will also be alone a lot, and it will be quiet, and my brain will be in Creative Mode.

I've just been in Minneapolis, where I attended The Giver opera, beautifully performed. And in a few days I leave for three self-indulgent days in London: an art exhibit (Lucien Freud), and the opera, and the theater.

But I am starting to pack for summer.

Tonight, at Lesley University, will be the annual (14th annual!) presentation of the Susan P. Bloom Award, which goes to a so-far unpublished New England writer of promise. Many of the recipients have gone on to successful publication and careers.  This year we selected two YA novels from the huge stack of submissions.  I usually am the one to make the certificates, and I try to incorporate some of the content. Here are this year's:

Martin and I traveled a lot. I mean a really LOT. We went to Africa and Australia and Antarctica...and that is just the beginning of the alphabet.  We were once in northern Russia and once in northern Iceland and once in northern Finland and probably a lot of other northerns.  We were once in Fiji, wondering why there were no other tourists there...and it wasn't until we got home that we discovered that Fiji was in the middle of a revolution and the state department had told American tourists not to go there. Oh, well.  Nice to be on a  deserted beach!

Martin's back went out in Denmark and he found himself in a Copenhagen hospital getting a taste of socialized medicine...(an excellent taste; and no charge)  We were robbed in Nairobi. We bathed in a unisex public bath in rural Japan. We did a little of everything and enjoyed every minute (well, maybe not the getting-robbed part)

Then, last year, Martin was hospitalized in Boston and there came the morning when the staff members gathered around his bed. They had asked me to be present at this meeting so i was there as well when they told him that there was nothing more they could do and that his life was coming to an end.

After they went away, he and I sat there talking, and I commented on how fortunate we were, really, because we had done so much, enjoyed so much, and there was nothing left on a to-do list.

Martin had a very wry sense of humor. And that morning, despite the most depressing of circumstances, he grinned a little and then said, "I don't know about that. I always wanted to go to Patagonia."

...and what he said, as we sat on the runway in Punta Cana, was that we didn't have enough fuel to get to Newark, our destination.  Whaaa???!!  Wouldn't you think United Airlines would plan better?  He had to go to another destination in the Caribbean, to refuel, thereby jeopardizing the connections of many passengers, including us.

But we eventually got home, with memories of a lovely vacation (view from the hotel room):

....and now my German family has returned to Germany and my granddaughter back to the Gymnasium she attends.  Me, I ended up sick...I think from too much Airplane Air these last weeks...but revved and dosed myself up to head last Friday to Spokane for their annual quite spectacular GET LIT! festival.  Several days of workshops, panels, readings, etc...many, many things going on. I missed most, alas, holed up in my hotel room with a throbbing head and drippy nose.

Photographers always love the early morning (and early evening) hours because of the light. You can see that here, taken this morning of my granddaughter at 6:30 AM.

We head home tomorrow...at least to MY home, in Massachusetts; then my German family heads back to Germany a few days later (after hitting the Mall one more time!)

A little more about writing a series (since I have been thinking about this topic, while starting on a  new series book)...it is important that the characters, who are familiar by now to the reader --- and the writer --- grow and change. Of course this varies according to the amount of time passing. The Gooney Bird books began in October and have gone month by month through a year of second grade. People don't change hugely month to month, though second graders of course are maturing and learning at a rapid pace. Felicia Ann was lisping because of missing front teeth in the early books; now her new teeth have grown in. Malcolm was having trouble adjusting to baby triplets in his family....he's a little more sanguine about them now. These are not major changes, of course,

I am writing this from Punta Cana in the Dominican republic, where I have come for a few days of vacation with what I think of as my "German family"...my daughter-in-law (my son's widow), Margret; her partner, Jürgen; and my 18-year-old granddaughter, Nadine. If you live in Germany...which has had a hard winter this year...you really welcome a warm beach by April. And we have certainly found that here.

Here are Margret and Nadine at the beach yesterday. This morning Margret is by the pool; Nadine and Jürgen are off snorkeling; and me..I am at my laptop, and actually, amazingly, working! On a new Gooney Bird book...the month is March, now in her second grade classroom. I had not intended to work during this vacation...but the room is air conditioned..the weather is hot outside...I can only take so much sun....and it is quite comfy in here feeling slightly productive. Nadine is a good roommate...she reads instead of watching TV!...we realized this morning that we have not turned the TV on since we got here.

It is particularly fun to start a new book in a series because you already know the characters (though it is usually a good idea to introduce a new one, or two) and at its best it is like moving back in with a familiar family.  Then, of course, you have to set a plot in motion; that's what I have been doing this morning. And for the first time I am using a formatting program called "SCRIVENER"...this is a test run for me and I have not figured out all the ins and outs...but so far, I like it.

The production of THE GIVER in Chicago used a puppet as a baby; here is the puppet-baby with Jonas, played by Aaron Lawson and also the puppet-maker, Taylor Bibat. Usually the baby was wrapped in a  blanket and so the audience would only see a waving hand or nodding head; and the sound...whimpers, giggles.. was provided very effectively as well.

Nonetheless, at the end of the play, when the cast sat at the edge of the stage and took questions from the audience...a child asked: "Why did the baby look so weird?"

The puppet was head and shoulders above the limp doll often used by theaters but not as dazzling as the live baby used by the Kansas City Opera. But hey: you can't depend on a baby being as good as that one! The opera will be presented in Minnesota the end of  April but I don't know how they are dealing with Gabriel.

...I forget the next words. A toddlin' town? (And what does that mean?)

And here I am, though soon to leave. I flew in yesterday morning, attended the 4 PM performance of THE GIVER, and am about to fly home.

I have seen the play of THE GIVER performed in countless towns and cities, done by countless theaters; and each one is different. The words are always the same, of course. but the set design, the costumes, the directing, the casting and acting...makes each one unique.

Three years ago ADVENTURE STAGE produced the stage version of GOSSAMER and did a great job so I was not surprised that once again they put on a fine production. Here is the set: