How did I miss this?
How did I not know about 52 Cupcakes? Um, those pounds that I need to drop? That will have to wait until tomorrow.
Archive for April, 2007
I seem to be in pre-order mode
Not that there aren’t enough books in my life already, but I have *five* books on pre-order:
- Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez and Kristin Ohlson
- Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston (the author of Good Grief, which I absolutely loved)
- The Department of Lost and Found by Allison Winn Scotch
- The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (well, this one WE have on pre-order and will fight over it when it finally becomes available)
Luckily, my bookshelf is overflowing with books I still haven’t had a chance to read, so it’s not like I won’t have anything to do while I wait!
The Merrie Monarch Festival is Underway
“Begun forty years ago by the Hawaii Island Chamber of Commerce and continued by the private Merrie Monarch Festival community organization, the major purpose of the festival is the perpetuation, preservation, and promotion of the art of hula and the Hawaiian culture through education. The festival is considered the world’s premier forum for people of all ages to display their skills and knowledge of the art of ancient and modern hula.”~ From the Merrie Monarch Festival Website
People from all over the state travel to Hilo, Hawaii to watch this cultural event, but even if you can’t get to the island, you can watch the dancers online. Beginning at 6:00 pm Hawaii time, the festival will be broadcasted live, here. It’s worth a look!
In with the In Crowd
I just read that my publisher earned kudos from the Society of School Librarians International for two of their books. Amazing Leonardo da Vinci Inventions You Can Build Yourself garnered 2006 Best Book of the Year, and Tools of Native Americans: a Kid’s Guide to the History and Culture of the First Americans was a 2006 Honor Book.
It’s exciting to be part of these two new book series that are receiving such great recognition.
Connie Lapallo Interview - Final installment
Note: this is the final installment of my interview with Connie Lapallo, author of Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky. I’d like to again thank Connie for taking the time to offer such a detailed look into the making of this book.
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What was the most difficult part of writing this story?
Writing it was like working a multi-tiered jigsaw puzzle. Pieces had to fit historically and genealogically, while keeping the story line moving. I wanted to be true to all three aspects.
Beyond that were the many details I didn’t know. Some details conflicted—which was right? I had to consider the source carefully or look for additional sources as “tie breakers.” Some details I located in obscure places. Some I thought might be permanently lost to time.
If you can visualize a large floor puzzle with a few missing pieces—the way your eye fills in the gaps—you know could draw those missing pieces if you had to. As I “drew” missing pieces, I couldn’t know for sure these events did happen, so I had to consider how likely it was that they might have happened? Or was there anything to prevent them from occurring? Were they true to the customs and spirit of the times? Were they logical? Were they in character? Meanwhile, I would continue hunting the missing pieces, too.
Sometimes, by the time I’d gone through all of that reasoning, even having written around it, a detail would turn up just as I’d guessed it to be. These were golden moments when lightning struck—often when and where I least expected it. These reassured me that somehow I was “getting it right,” and helped keep the whole project from overwhelming me.
You talk to children about Jamestown during school visits and have participated in homeschool conferences. Do you have any upcoming events that we should know about?
The best place to learn about those is on my website, under “Come See Connie.”
A few things coming up—I’ll be speaking about self-publishing for homeschoolers at the VaHomeschoolers conference in Richmond on July 21. I’ll be at the Mariners’ Museum on April 24 (for Homeschool Day) and will speak there on April 25 when they feature Dark Enough as their April Book of the Month. I’ll be a guest speaker at John Tyler Community College’s Fool for Art Festival on April 21, and I’ll be at Henricus with the Godspeed on May 19 and 20.
I often speak at museums, historical societies, book clubs, business conferences, schools, homeschool groups, retirement communities, colleges, and festivals. Although I live in Virginia, I’m open to traveling to other states, having just returned from five signings in Houston, Texas, with requests to return to Dallas/Fort Worth and San Antonio.
You are planning a sequel to this story – when can we expect to see it? Can you share a synopsis yet?
Writing and research are my favorite part, and I miss the women at Jamestown! Ironically, the success of Dark Enough makes finding time to write the sequel difficult. But I will do it, because I promised Cecily (the older daughter in the story and my 12th great-grandmother.) I hope the sequel will be out during 2008.
Bearing in mind that I’m still researching, here’s the way it looks now:
The story will probably open in 1611, with Cecily’s voyage to Virginia. Cecily will face her first loss on ship, though I won’t say what that is yet. She will live first at Jamestown, then be part of the settlement’s westward expansion upriver, moving to Henricus. She’ll probably be present at John Rolfe’s marriage to Pocahontas, since Cecily’s stepfather and Rolfe were close friends and business partners. She’ll be neighbors with John Rolfe a few years later when her sister Jane (Janey) marries Rolfe after Pocahontas dies. (All true.)
Then, history sadly repeats itself, for just as her mother Joan found herself a 20-year-old widow with baby Cecily, Cecily will herself become a widow with a baby girl while still in her teens.
Virginia’s growing and changing world will sweep Cecily with it, as it does all the settlers. She’ll be part of the first self-government in the New World through her husband’s position in the Virginia General Assembly. The Governor will grant her and her husband a point of land that still bears their name today. She’ll find herself entangled in a legal battle with the settlement’s pastor, who tries to force her to marry him. Cecily then becomes embroiled in the first Breach of Promise lawsuit in the New World, a case which will make its way across the ocean. (All of this really happened and is in the court records.) She’ll face the devastating 1622 Indian uprising, which wipes out a large portion of the settlement and “burst the hearts of all the rest.”
In the first book, Cecily shows us her fire and determination. In the second book, she’ll need it.
Connie Lapallo Interview - Part III
Note: this is the third part of my interview with Connie Lapallo, author of Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky. Today, she discusses her path to publication. Tomorrow, get a sneak peek at her next book!
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Why did you decide to self-publish Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky? How did you go about doing this?
Since the research took eight years, I was scrambling to finish the manuscript by May 2006, with the 400th anniversary of Jamestown coming in 2007. I knew I could self-publish and have the book back in a matter of months, not the years it might take to find a mainstream publisher. My aim was to have the book debut at the VaHomeschoolers Conference in August 2006, where I was to be a speaker. I made it by only days! I planned to approach museums and schools during the autumn leading into 2007.
To move forward with self-publishing, I researched POD (print on demand) publishers and chose Llumina for their package and flexibility and their ability to get my book on Amazon and into Ingram’s (the wholesale book catalog).
However, I would bear the risk and expense of production and promotion, and I would directly determine the manuscript quality and marketability of the book, including its format and attractiveness. Although they did the actual formatting, I chose the size (6 x 9) and the font (Garamond)—even the spacing between lines of text. More research—I talked to graphic designers, went to bookstores, read up on the market and learned printers’ terms. I even printed sample pages and passed them around to see how people felt about “the look.”
I did a test run of 200 books—fairly large for POD. When those sold quickly, I took the plunge and printed 3,000. For this quantity, I used offset printing rather than POD. The cost per book dropped dramatically, meaning I could offer the books to bookstores and gift shops at the 40-50% discount they require. I could also send out review copies economically.
Once museums decided they liked the book, things began to roll, and that’s when speaking engagements began coming in as well.
Some people don’t know that writing a book is only the first step; once a book is published, authors step into marketing mode. How can your fans help Dark Enough to see the Stars in a Jamestown Sky succeed?
People have been wonderful. They’ve opened their homes for me to speak, invited me to their clubs, libraries, or historical societies, or presented the book to organizations and schools as a gift. They have talked to newspapers or magazines, or written articles themselves.
Some have shared the book with family or friends. Others have written reviews, or have passed it on to those who write formal reviews or who might be in a position to promote it. (It was in this way that my book fell into the hands of a librarian who was reviewing Jamestown books for School Library Journal. I was thrilled when she recommended it as one of only two fictional books for grades 7 and up studying Jamestown.)
Wonderful folks have posted items on homeschool lists or in their blogs, with a link to my website. (And I do get hits from these!) Others have taken the time to “tag” my book on Amazon—I never even knew how to do this. That means readers searching for a specific topic can find it.
Also, I never understood the importance of reviews on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com until I became published. Now I get it! Even librarians check these sites to see what readers have to say. I also thought you had to purchase the book on these sites to post a review there. But Amazon and B&N welcome your review, wherever you purchased the book—and so does the author! If you appreciate an author’s work, you can literally “tell the world” on Amazon and B&N.
I could go on and on. I’ve just been so touched by all of this. I never expected it, but it does make a difference—both in book sales and in author morale! This is a great opportunity for me to say thanks for the efforts and kind words of so many. I truly appreciate it.
Math Memorization
I ran across this post about the struggle to memorize at A Small Corner of Nowhere. In spite of the fact that E does mental magic with math problems, he still struggles with basic math facts (our problem is multiplication). Interestingly, the post made me realize that I’m not all that good at my facts, either! While some gaps have been pretty evident (Ahem. Multiplying 7s? Forget it), my method for addition has always been to do what I learned in school: regroup. I still have to regroup even small numbers when I add. 7 + 9 for example requires me to take 1 from 7, add it to the 9 to make 10, then add the remaining 6 to the 10 to get 16. I can do this very quickly, but still, I’m calculating, rather than remembering a fact. So, I was interested to see in the comments of the post a link to Math Mojo. Now that’s some mojo I can use! I haven’t explored extensively, but I want to check it out - for myself and the kids. I’m a big believer in math games and just backing off when it’s too much, but maybe there’s something there that will be fun to try.
Connie Lapallo Interview - Part II
Note: this is the second part of my interview with Connie Lapallo, author of Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky. When you’re done reading about how the Jamestown women survived on acorns, I highly recommend that you stop by Connie’s site to read her daughter’s detailed account of making acorn flour
The ladies in this story survive in large part because of their acorn stockpile. They knew that the Native Americans used acorns as a food source, but how did they know how to prepare them properly?
Acorns were an important food source during lean times for the Natives, but in England they had also been food for the poorest peasants—a supplemental grain when rye and barley were in short supply. In fact, since the Stone Age, many cultures have eaten acorns as food. The main thing is to peel them and leach out the tannic acid. Then they can be ground up like any other grain.
The women probably already knew how to leach acorns, but Pocahontas may have confirmed to Anne Laydon that the Natives also ate acorns and how they prepared them. In fact, Pocahontas probably would have been enthusiastic about acorns as a supplemental food—which may have been helpful to the women to hear.
The breakthrough for these women (at least in my telling) was when it dawned on them that their prayer for manna—daily bread—from heaven, might come in a source they had previously viewed as fit for only hogs and the poorest of the poor. Could they humble themselves? Were they willing to work for it? Could they accept God providing in such a way?
Joan had collected acorns half-heartedly until she realized that they were falling like rain—bread from heaven, just as they had prayed for.
I had written about the women collecting nuts of all kinds before I, like Joan, was struck by the volume of acorns available all over the ground here in Virginia. It hit me as forcibly as it did Joan and in much the same way. A quote from John Smith sprang to mind:
“…of 500 [settlers] within six months after [my] departure there remained not past 60 men, women, and children–most miserable and poor creatures. And those were preserved for the most part by roots, herbs, acorns, walnuts, berries, now and then a little fish.”
Smith goes on to list all the horrendous things that the settlers had eaten, but I’d never before noticed that he distinguishes those who survived as being “preserved for the most part” by plant foods, including acorns. And the nuts and acorns would have been most available in the fall—waiting until winter’s severe hunger set in would have been too late. So the ones with foresight, like the women in my story, worked and gathered before they were into full starvation. That was the key.
But then I wondered—what about Jamestown suffering the worst drought in 500 years (as research now proves). Would there really have been many nuts and acorns? I researched it and found that nut trees have their top-producing years—mast years—in severe drought! So I knew I was on the right track.
Also, to my surprise, I learned that acorns contain fats and proteins as well as carbohydrates, and they’re extremely high in B vitamins, amino acids, and minerals. Suddenly it made sense to me—the whole oak was in the acorn! Far from being a “poor” food, the acorn was rich beyond words, dense in the nutrition the settlers sorely needed. Those who ate acorns may have found themselves healthier for more reasons than one. The women’s instincts were right.
Your children are homeschooled. Has having an author as their mom provided them with any unexpected lessons? Has your passion for writing and research inspired any projects for your kids?
They learned that a big project requires patient research and belief that “there’s a book in there,” even when you can’t see it. It’s about thinking in the long-term, knowing that single footsteps take you to your goal.
They each critiqued the manuscript. I took their comments and suggestions seriously and incorporated quite a few.
My oldest daughter (who was 16) painted the ship on the book’s cover. After photographing it, she had to learn Adobe Illustrator to create the rest of the cover and the spine. Then she had to adapt to critiques of her artwork and make changes for artistic and practical reasons. The cover design took an entire summer—and about a case of dark chocolate! She designed my website, business cards, and signing banner as well. She also designed and sewed 17th century costumes for herself, her sister, and me, which required that she research materials and patterns. (I don’t sew at all, so I was no help!) She now plans to make a career of this type of work—graphic design and marketing.
We all put our heads together to come up with a way to create visually appealing, accurate maps. We found the solution in satellite maps and Ultimate Paint.
All four children (the youngest was 10) began to grasp what it meant to format a book, edit it, and tend to details even when everyone was tired. They began to understand the meaning of market appeal, of being on deadline, and of choosing priorities. I often asked their opinions as it progressed.
My two girls also turned our kitchen into an acorn-flour mill for a week. (Sarah’s version of the story and her pictures are on my website.) They decided to use 17th century techniques—discovering it was not nearly as fun as the geometry they were escaping! It was hard, tedious, finger-cutting work. After a while, it became a mission to finish and actually get the flour made, which they did. They created a bread recipe of half acorn flour and half cornmeal, as we suspected they made at Jamestown. This made a hearty, brown, tasty bread.
My two girls accompanied me to Houston for a week of presentations and signings. They hauled inventory, counted money, kept records, greeted people, and set up displays. More hard work, but a good way to see the business of a book come full circle.
Homeschool version of Pajama Mom
I can remember being dropped off at school by a mom in pajamas and curlers, horrified. I will never do this to my kids.
Flash forward to me as an adult. I am not a morning person. One of the very best things about homeschooling is the fact that we don’t have to rush into our day. That is, until one 14 year old child gets a job that requires an 8:15 clock in time once a week.
(Diversion: all of you people who worry about us homeschoolers setting up our kids for failure in the work force take note. Said 14 year old has adjusted beautifully to his job, loves it, and gets out of bed and to work on time every morning. And all that without public school hours to train him.)
Suffice it to say that I am not completely put together by 8:15 in the morning, let alone 7:30, when we need to leave. I haven’t yet left in pajamas, and curlers aren’t something I use, but by golly sweats and a t-shirt and unbrushed teeth are as good as it gets that early in the morning. Hey, I’ll clean up when I get back home. I just keep my fingers crossed that the car stays in one piece until I do.
Interview with Connie Lapallo, author - Part I
I first heard about Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky by Connie Lapallo right here on homeschooljournal. With a head full of colonial America, and on the recommendation of two different bloggers here, I bought it. Published following years of research, Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky is based on the true story of the women and children at Jamestown. Women in Jamestown? Children at Jamestown? True, they are mentioned infrequently - if at all - in most of the history books, but they were indeed there. Connie Lapallo (another homeschooling mom!) has pieced together bits of history to create Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky. I have been in contact with Connie, and she graciously agreed to answer some interview questions.
Connie has answered my interview questions as thoroughly as she researched her book. Her answers are detailed and compelling. Because it’s so much text, I’m going to break it up and post it in several parts. Today, we’ll hear from Connie about the birth of this book and the research involved in getting the story right, and we’ll learn some facts that didn’t make it into the book. Enjoy!
Where did you find the original impulse to write this novel? Did your genealogical research lead you to think that this story was worth telling? Or did you have the idea to write a story after learning about Joan?
I grew up with four generations under one roof, so I began researching my family tree at 11, writing down the stories my great-grandmother told me.
Twenty years later, in 1994, I found Cecily in a mystical way. I felt drawn to a certain library book, though its cover gave no clue it was relevant. To my amazement, it traced my line back to Jamestown and 11-year-old Cecily—whom I promptly forgot while searching other lines.
But Cecily did not forget me. Over the next four years, I’d find references to her while looking up other family lines. I began to feel that she was calling me somehow—that she wanted her story told—but why?
I decided to read more about the women and children of Jamestown—and discovered little to read!
Then I understood: they had been mostly forgotten. As I began to track their ships and arrival dates from the 1625 muster, I saw that these women and children must have endured the hurricane at sea, must have survived the Starving Time, must have even made it through the Indian Uprising of 1622, and I wondered how their story had never been told? I began to feel for them. How had we overlooked these first Englishwomen to settle the New World permanently? What of the children who died during the Starving Time?
As I continued to piece information together, I was astounded that, of the little that had been written about these women and children, much was inaccurate, flippant, and even irreverent. This was all very troubling to me.
Perhaps, I reasoned, it was troubling to Cecily too.
At first, I had only felt Cecily’s voice whispering to me, but slowly Joan’s voice joined it: “You are my granddaughter. Remember me. You are our grandchild. Remember us.” It was nearly a plea.
The project, however, was daunting and, some said, impossible. The only way I could reconstruct the women’s story was by pulling snippets of facts from many, many documents. Yet, I felt that if Cecily wanted her story told and had gotten me this far, perhaps she would continue to help me. I often felt this was the case, as strange pieces of information would surface at just the right time in unusual places.
When I first began reading Dark Enough to see the Stars in a Jamestown Sky, I struggled to keep the characters’ history straight – there’s a ton of information packed into the book! How did you manage to keep track of all of the connections between the characters?
For family trees, I drew charts, marked with arrows and color-coded. Key characters had several charts—showing them as a child, a sibling, an ancestor, etc.
I outlined original and secondary sources, rephrasing them in modern language. l merged smaller outlines (like three first-hand accounts of the hurricane at sea) into one master timeline. Some first-hand accounts conflicted, forcing me to gauge which was likely to be more accurate, or if there were political or personal reasons for the information to be skewed.
The master timeline was a table with dates, characters’ ages, and personal events alongside historical events. This is how I merged family history with English and Virginia history. It was amazing how connections came together by this juxtaposition.
As it fleshed out, the master timeline grew so intricate that I could see nearly week-by-week what happened during the Starving Time.
I linked the master timeline to Word files of compiled research, which I could reach with a click! These included my conclusions and reasoning, highlighted points, sources, outlines, images, charts, and websites links. (For library data, I had physical files for each topic.).
Finally, for the story line itself, I used Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey.” (If anyone is doing a study of that, they’ll find Campbell’s classic elements embedded in Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky—the Ordinary World, the Call, the Refusal of the Call, etc.)
I then merged the timeline of Joan’s actual family events (genealogy) and surrounding political events (history) with the steps in the hero’s journey (story line). This consolidated timeline became the framework of the book.
Gosh, reading it now, it all sounds complex. But it was like solving a giant puzzle. I’ve been calling it “the original Sudoku”!
Were there any interesting people or stories that you learned about in your research that didn’t make it into the book?
Strange as it sounds, I researched the history of Britain back to its beginnings. Events kept leading me back further in time and I was trying to understand the people. Who they were, what they thought and felt, and why. Their entire heritage as a people contributed to who they were at the dawn of the 17th century.
One thing I found fascinating was that most Virginia settlers trace back to Viking warriors. The Vikings settled Normandy, and the Normans conquered Saxon England in 1066, taking control and mixing with the Saxon population.
As for the Saxons, some believe they’re part of the Lost Tribes of Israel—“Isaac’s Sons,” which became “Saxons.” Their ancient course can be traced through Turkey and into the British Isles. Some theorize that when the lost tribes finally made their way to the New World, this may have been the Canaan described in the Bible. Some Jamestown Adventurers did feel the New World was their “Canaan”—but they wouldn’t have known that they themselves may have been literally “Isaac’s sons.”
Another interesting story is that Chief Powhatan’s (Wahunsonacock’s) shamans had warned him, before the settlers’ arrival, that men would rise up from the Chesapeake—“conquerors from the East”—and destroy his kingdom. In response, it seems, Powhatan destroyed the Chesapeake Indians.
