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Talking with Michele Norris of All Things Considered at NPR, about THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS and writing with and for young people. You'll find primary source material for my books archived here, including playlists for COUNTDOWN and REVOLUTION. I use Pinterest as a visual resource for my books. You can hear Jim profiled by Susan Stamberg at NPR right here. I married musician/composer Jim Pearce 12 years ago. area (Frederick, MD) for 25 years, where I raised a family, I moved to Atlanta 14 years ago, and now live in a little house with a purple door in a little woods. My parents were Mississippi born and bred, and I spent most of my childhood summers there and grew up in Mississippi and all around the world as an Air Force dependent.Īfter living in the Washington, D.C. I'm a Southerner born in Mobile, Alabama, where I lived until I was five years old. COUNTDOWN 1962 REVOLUTION 1964 and ANTHEM 1969 (to be published fall 2019) Pioneer of the Documentary Novel containing scrapbooks with primary source documents - photographs, song lyrics, newspaper clippings, etc., and opinionated biographies alongside the story/narrative, mixing fiction, non-fiction, and biography in one book/story in a trilogy about the 1960s. MFA in Writing, Vermont College, I have taught teachers at Towson University ("Writing Techniques for Teachers," ECED 422), and have taught in the MFA programs at Lesley University and Vermont College. Thurber House Writer-in-Residence, Columbus, Ohio World's Worst Piano Player (but I play anyway)Ģ014 National Book Award Finalist for REVOLUTIONĢ015 NAACP Image Award nominee for REVOLUTIONĢ015 Jane Addams Peace Award for REVOLUTIONĢ005 National Book Award Finalist for EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGSĮzra Jack Keats Award Winner for FREEDOM SUMMERīank Street College/Josette Frank Award Winner for EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS ( Speech) And now, forward, toward that inmost cave. We tracked its progress across the country, and we knew there was nothing we could do about it. I remember adults talking about the Sedan Site in Nevada, where an underground nuclear test was conducted in June 1962 (photo at right), resulting in two radioactive clouds drifting across the United States toward my home just outside of Washington, D.C. really? Really? This would have so totally terrified me as a kid. Just a note: As I surfed the Web this morning, looking for a suitable public-domain photo of a nuclear blast, I found this video game, "World in Conflict," with its accompanying YouTube moment of nuclear blasts, and all I can say is. It feels good to be racing for the finish.
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I can review everything later, but for now, I want to keep moving forward, and take Franny to the heart of her fear, and let her figure her way out. I am moving into the heart of my story - I'm racing OUT of the middle, thank goodness. Maps may be reviewed, attacks planned, a reconnaissance launched, and possibly the enemy forces whittled down before the Hero can face his greatest fear, or the supreme danger lurking in the Special World." "The Hero must make the preparations needed to approach the Inmost Cave that leads to the Journey's heart, or central Ordeal. If you are a novel writer, or a student of story, you'll recognize the place: If you have read Chris Vogler's THE WRITER'S JOURNEY, you'll recognize that term. I am approaching the inmost cave with this revision. Yesterday I figured out the way forward, I took long, solid strides, and I can see that I have left the stage of " Tests, Allies, and Enemies." It was filled with a surreal, walking-under-water feeling, and this is how I feel about the novel now. I'm holding both sides of Uncle Edisto's stick. There is a sense of foreboding in the novel, but I hope you are laughing, too, when you read the finished book.
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It's bleak and beautiful, painful and powerful, and I recognize the landscape of that novel in my dream. I'm sure my dream is influenced, too, by Cormac McCarthy's book, THE ROAD, which I read several months ago, about a father and son trying to survive a nuclear winter. (All my characters are part of me.) And I am a grown-up, writing this story. There is a bomb shelter, and everyone is afraid of nuclear war. There is a gravel pit that looks like a nuclear blast site or a crater on the moon. I'm writing about all of this right now in my novel - isn't that weird? Or not. I let them play with the hose in the back yard and wash trash cans. The kids didn't understand what was happening and were soon bored. Jim Williams, my contractor friend, drove his truck through the haze to my house to bring me my dog, who had been swimming in brackish water. Bombs exploded (with a half-muted sound) in the distance and the sky turned orange and then gray and then everything was ashen and it was hard to breathe.