MAP ART LAB~Interview with author Linden McNeilly

We’re thrilled to have Linden McNeilly with us today talking about her newly released book Map Art Lab. I met Linden in the MFA in Writing For Children and Young Adults program at Vermont College of Fine Arts years ago and have had the exceptional good fortune of being in a writer’s critique group with her in San Francisco for the past few years.

Sharry: Welcome, Linden! I’ve always been intrigued by maps—I love the way they look, the information they contain and the way they provide insight and guidance to a landscape, so I’m really, really excited about your new book! Could you give our readers an overview of what Map Art Lab is about?

Linden: Well, the whole book is about maps, or map parts, and the history of certain aspects of maps. We have 52 mappish projects. Some have to do with pirates, or sea monsters, or making your own cartouche. We show maps in the endpapers of books, stitched maps, and art objects made of maps. We have maps in the style of various artists.

Sharry: Mappish projects—I love that. What a great resource for parents and teachers and kids of all ages! Can you tell us about any of the projects?

Linden:  One project is making a map of a story you are reading or writing. It’s super fun to do. The example includes a map of the village Okno in which The Cabinet of Wonders—a most fantastic book by Marie Rutkoski —takes place.

Sharry: I bet you had fun creating the example!

Linden: I did. I drew the map with watercolor pencil and fine tipped pen. It has lots of green and black, and is surrounded by yellow, since there are brassica flower fields all around. There’s a little central part of the town that I imagined, with the Leather Shop, Tack Shop, Metalworks and Sign of the Compass, all important places in the story. I had to read through the story to find references to the river and where the mayor’s house was with respect to the forest, and in which direction the characters went to the next town, Morado.

Making a map of a story, whether you are writing it yourself or reading it, helps you understand it so much better. I kept this one simple, since the story takes place at the end of the 16^th century, but even still, it had complexity.

Sharry: I’ve always loved stories that include maps showing the landscape where the story takes place and I think that creating a map of a story’s landscape is such a great idea. How important do you think a landscape is to a story?

Linden: It’s just plain essential. Landscape, and thus the map of that landscape, is the soil on which every story stands.

I think that topography and geography are the underpinnings of all human stories. The land gives us the lives we lead, whether they are oriented toward boats or camels or skyscrapers.

Likewise, maps show us how land and people interact. They situate us. Maps demonstrate the limitations geography places on us. For example, towns stop at the shoreline, and topography affects how much building you can do, or where vantage points can be found, where villains can escape, and where the dragon’s lair is hidden.

Sharry: Wow. Beautifully articulated. I completely agree.

Linden: Thank you.

Sharry: Could you talk a little about what inspired you to do a map book—what sparked the idea and maybe a little about the process of putting it together?

Linden: The inspiration for this book started after my co-author and sister, Jill Berry, published her first book, Personal Geographies. It is an excellent book about making artful maps to explore your inner self: your goals, dreams and history. We decided we wanted to try a different kind of book together that had teacherly aspects combined with fun and beautiful art, all tied together in quick projects. We were delighted to be included in the “Lab” series produced by Quarry Books.

Putting it together was somewhat tricky as we live 1000 miles apart—she’s in Colorado and I’m on the California coast—but we worked it out by emailing and drop boxing things to each other, having regular phone conferences, and then also working for several weeks in each other’s studios. She’s more of the artist and I am more of the writer, but we each did both things while pulling together the projects for this book. We also had contributions from wonderful guest artists from all over the world, which was very fun and stimulating.

Sharry: What a wonderful collaboration. After such a great interview, I’m sure our readers would love to know more about you.

Linden: I’ve been a public school teacher for 27 years. I always seem to put art into my classes even when it’s not officially part of the curriculum. We knit, draw, paint, doodle, dye things, make our own books, etc.

I also write children’s literature. I love maps, and often draw maps to go with my stories or scenes in the novels I am working on. Sometimes the maps help me understand how my characters need to behave (or misbehave, as the case may be!). Often making maps with my stories helps me see the fictional world in greater dimension, and helps me locate my character and ground him or her, if you will.

I live on the central coast of California with my family. Besides writing and teaching, I love to knit, hike and ride my bike in the forest.

Sharry: I understand readers have an opportunity to win a copy of Map Art Lab—what do they need to do?

Linden: Yes! We are having a book giveaway for those who leave a comment here and then share on social media. The deadline is May 4 at midnight PST. For every share or comment your name will be entered into the pot. The winner will be drawn at random and announced here at Kissing The Earth on May 8^th. Be sure to leave an email address where we can contact you.

You can also follow the official blog hop that starts on May 8. There will be more chances to win the book. If you visit all the blogs, you’ll have the highest odds in winning a free copy of Map Art Lab by Jill K. Berry and Linden McNeilly. Our first blogger on the hop is the artist Kim Rae Nugent at http://kimraenugent.blogspot.com/. To see the rest of the blog schedule, check our websites next week at www.lindenmcneilly.com or 

http://jillberrydesign.com/blog/

Sharry: Linden, thank you so much for visiting with us today!

Linden: It was great fun! Thank you.

Reprise: The Landscape of Longing

Kind of amazing to read this, a year later, a year that has been filled with much change.  Among many things I took note of over the last twelve months, one thing stood out for me, which is just what I was contemplating below: how to sit with longing.  I truly spent the year trying to do this, and being curious about it, thinking about it, feeling what it felt like to do it… It's not easy.  It feels like too-tight shoes much of the time, and the urge to kick it away is strong.  But I got used to it, and the result was that I developed a quirky sort of relationship with it, like it was a strange, but endearing, sister. I came to appreciate its presence in my life.  And as I practiced sitting with it, and recognizing its nuances, I found that I was better able to sit with other people's feelings too - people real and imagined.  So I was a better mother and a better friend, perhaps.  And I was definitely a better writer.  By the end of this year of practice I was so much better able to understand, empathize and write about my characters' longings, as well as their other emotions.

So here it is, a year later...

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

I feel on-my-knees grateful for the people in my life. I don't know how to articulate the depth of that gratitude... I mean, I can barely scratch the surface of the meaning my family, friends and community make of my life. I feel the same way about my home, the landscape around my home, the dogs, cats and chickens in and out of my home. And I most definitely feel the same way about being a writer.

by Thiemo Muller

 But--or maybe And is a more appropriate conjunction--And, at the same time, this sense of longing has taken up residence inside me...somewhere near my heart, lodged against the curve in my ribs. I feel it in my heartbeat, I feel it when I breathe. I know the reasons for it. There are a few. For now, and for here, I will say that some of it is about wanting to sell a book, wanting to work with an editor, wanting to feel that collaboration and build a story in that way, and wanting to finally see my book in print and share it share it share it with the world.

My longing for this experience is intense. So intense that sometimes, for short bursts of time, it blocks my view, and blocks my other sensory capacities, of other details in my life. Do you know what I mean?






I've been contemplating this longing for the last few weeks.  I have noticed that there is a tendency to do one of two things with longing.  One is to try to push it away. And I think the most common way to accomplish that is to transform it...so maybe, let's say, you turn it into jealousy (she got that and I was supposed to get that and I'm probably entitled to that more than she is, damn it...) or into denial (I never wanted that, and even if I did, which I didn't by the way, but even if I did, I certainly don't want it now...) The other is to allow it to consume you (I feel this longing so badly and so deeply that I think I, in fact, AM this longing...where are my hands and feet and heart and mind?...they have been taken over by the body-snatching longing monster...)

But what about just letting it...be?

When my sister, Callie*, was diagnosed with cancer she had, not surprisingly, a deep and loud fear. I remember sitting by her bedside during a few of her chemotherapy sessions and listening to her talk about it. She told me she knew she couldn't push her fear away. She told me she knew, also, that she couldn't let it become her either. And so, she said, she was learning to sit with it...pull up a chair, invite that ole' deep and loud fear to sit, not on her but next to her.

A chair for her fear.

I mentioned this idea to two of my friends** while I was contemplating my longing one morning (and by contemplating it I mean, on this particular day, having a total crying breakdown about it...sigh...what can you do?!) and one of them said, You need a bed for your longing...a place to tuck it in, let it be, while you get on with being you... The other one came over later that day and gave me this:

An actual bed for my longing! Isn't it awesome?  A beautiful purple bed with cozy white feathers to rest upon...

So here's the other part of my contemplations: longing is not a bad thing. It might not be the most comfortable feeling in the world (think a slightly-too-sharp object stuck under your rib), but if it is given a place to call home, longing kind of smooths itself out, and is even kind of sweet-looking as it rests there... Longing is not a bad thing at all.  It lets us know what matters in our lives. It indicates our dreams. It reminds us that we have hearts and minds and that they are beating and buzzing all the time.

The trick, for me, is to let longing hang out while I sit at my computer revising my picture book for the 12th time, or writing a new chapter for my middle-grade novel, or or or...

And now that it has its own happy home, I can do just that.

One more contemplation: It feels good to talk about longing. I have a hunch that if we writers, especially, talked about it more we would feel better.  Pure longing, no more, no less. What a cool topic for an SCBWI conference, perhaps?  Or for a conversation between blogs?

What do you all think?

With gratitude,
Tam



*Callie, by the way, kicked cancer's butt, as she likes to say. I think it's been five years now that she has been cancer free...talk about on-my-knees gratitude...

**Thank you Alice and Stef...

Remembering Cody

It has been a year since Cody died.  And I thought it appropriate to remember him here, with a rerun of my post about him.  He plays a big part in my middle grade novel, Marble Boys, which, amazingly, I just found out (almost exactly a year since Cody died, mind you) will be published by Schwartz and Wade in August 2015.

*      *      *      *

My running buddy, Cody, is gone. He was Kara's dog and we all ran together, with my dog Winn-Dixie, three times a week. On the river trail. At Mud Pond. In the cornfield at the end of our road. We've done it---consistently, religiously, rhythmically---for the last few years or so.

Kara is always the leader. She sets the pace.
Cody is always second in command. His steady gait focuses me, and on dark, winter mornings the white tip of his tail is like a light.
I take up the rear.
(And Winn-Dixie? He runs here and there, and way over there, and then comes on back and does it all again.)

It is this way.
It was this way.
But Cody died.
And so the landscape of my runs has changed.

Cody was this enormous black and white dog. Part border collie and (if you asked Adam, Kara's husband, he would say:) part holstein cow. Smart and sharp, he would stare into my eyes and I felt like he was telling me things--secret dog things, like how it felt to chase Winn-Dixie at top speed in the field by the river on a windy autumn day (the best feeling in the world!), and I felt like he heard me too. There were plenty of nights I lay on the floor by his side and sought his advice on how to handle life (stay present, love a lot, let the rest go.) He also taught my son to laugh. Luc was not even half a year old when he belly laughed for the first time...that deep in the gut, pure joy kind of laugh...and it was Cody, simply Cody's presence, that caused that reaction. Created that joy. Cody had sleep-overs at our house, and he came to my parents' farm in the summers where he waded in the pond to fish for salamanders. He was kind and tolerant. He was wise and thoughtful. He was full up with love.

My littlest daughter, Tavia, said to me this weekend, "Cody is in the ground but his energy is out in the world."

I said yes.

Then she asked, "Will the energy float down to our house? Onto the field? Into the river? Into a new puppy?"

I said yes again. Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

And I realized that not only had the landscape of my runs changed, but the landscape of my house, the field, the river...the landscape of all of us...had changed.

(And maybe, just maybe, there is a new and tiny black and white puppy out there somewhere too.)

Gratefully yours,
Tam

Haiku And The Art Of Flaneur

I’ve been taking an online class in Flash Fiction and really enjoying it. It’s good to think about writing differently and to try some new approaches to story.

One of the first things we did was write a series of haikus—still observations, descriptions with a sense of presence. In each haiku, we were asked to depict a moment in time when we were suddenly aware of reality though something simple and ordinary but striking.

Recording the art of flaneur.

Here are a few from my daily wanderings~

A man in the park
Sits on a stool and plays the saxophone
Cars honk and dogs bark

Six tai chi dancers

Slowly swing their swords in circles

Overhead a hawk

Dog chases a pigeon

Wet grass shimmers in the sun

My socks are cold and wet

Boots pound down the hill 

Hot sun on the back of my neck

No fog on the bay

A flock of green and red

Squealing like bicycle breaks

Backpack baby cries

Hydrangea stars burst


Wood steps lined in green and white

Bridge lights sweep in waves

After writing the haikus, we used them to build a story—or rather tried to incorporate them into a very short story—a piece of flash fiction. This turned out to be a brilliant tool for bringing specific details, sensual details, into a scene. I’ve started using it in my longer fiction—mentally “walking” through a scene with an eye, an ear, a sniff here and there, and then jotting down a series of quick haiku-like poems that can be folded back into the scene.

It’s also a fun way to make journal entries, to find the extraordinary in the ordinary details of your day. 

I encourage you to try a little haiku in your life—you just might really like it!

Take good care,

Sharry

The Landscape of Longing

There is a space between man's imagination and man's attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.

                       

                                                                                               ― Kahlil Gibran from Sand and Foam 

I am thinking about longing this week.  I think about it often, and I know I have written about it here before.  It's a complicated thing, longing.  It's a good thing, a great thing, a salvation. To long for something is an affirmation of your very self; a vibrant reminder that you care and you feel and you have a bonfire burning inside. But it is also an ache, isn't it?  A pull outside of yourself – for what you desire is not with you, not yet.  It is your head against the cold of the windowpane, searching, searching through the glass for that thing, that (as of yet) unattainable thing.

I tend to rest, ultimately, not on the dark side of longing, but on the light side.

God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me.

Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

                                                                        — Rainer Maria Rilke, Go to the Limits of Your Longing

I had an epiphany this week though.  Perhaps you all already know this, but for me it was an eye opener.  I realized that, historically, when I feel a longing, I immediately and unconsciously attach it to many, many thoughts or memories or fantasies. Let me explain: I long for something. Nanoseconds later I either have a fantasy about that longing – What would it be like to have this? I can see myself having it, feeling so happy, sitting in my living room basking in its glow… or I have a memory about it – I remember when I wanted this before. I almost had it, and then, in the last moment, it fell through my fingers. It felt awful, I felt like a failure…

See?  In the former, my longing is hitched to a fantasy train, wildly careening down the tracks, and in the latter, it is strapped to a memory bomb, whistling and hurtling at terrifying speeds to the earth.  Both are a ride. Neither will get me anywhere useful.

So my epiphany was this idea that longing is best treated with a buffer of space and reverence. It needs to breathe.  It needs to be – not lonely, perhaps – but solitary.  It deserves to be respected in that way.  We who feel longing deserve to be respected in that way.

I know I have posted this poem before, but May Sarton says it in the very best way:

The phoebe sits on her nest


Hour after hour,


Day after day,


Waiting for life to burst out


From under her warmth.


Can I weave a nest of silence,


Weave it of listening, listening, listening,


Layer upon layer?


But one must first become small,


Nothing but a presence,


Attentive as a nesting bird,


Proffering no slightest wish


Toward anything
that might happen or be given,


Only the warm, faithful waiting,
contained in one’s smallness.


Beyond the question, 
the silence.


Before the answer, 
the silence.

— May Sarton, Can I Weave a Nest of Silence

With gratitude,

Tam