tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36367538688886851432024-02-07T15:57:25.791-06:00Pete Hautman says...This blog is mostly about my books and writings. Other topics such as mushrooms, politics, and cooking may intrude.Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.comBlogger315125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-51366553299398807942022-11-14T09:20:00.000-06:002022-11-14T09:20:14.506-06:00The Princess and the Mirror<p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Here’s one of the fairy tales from <i>The Rat Queen</i>. This was one of the first things I wrote, even before I knew what the book was about. It’s a story told to Annike by her Aunt Ozols, a cautionary tale about accepting gifts from strange rats.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="CWPBodytextFL" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextFL" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Once upon a time, a princess was born into the world with a full head of bouncing golden curls, rosy pink lips, and bright blue sparkling eyes. Her name was Princess Raisa. Her father, the king, proclaimed her to be the most beautiful child in all the land, and no one dared to disagree.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Remarkably, the princess became even more beautiful as she grew into a young woman. Princes and princelings came from far and wide in hopes of gaining her favor. The princess knew how beautiful she was, and she used her beauty to charm and befuddle her suitors. Many young men came and went, but not one of them did she deem worthy.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Alas, she was a rather foolish girl. Because her beauty was so great, she had no need for her wits, and therefore had little practice at using them. This is true of many beautiful people.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Time passed, and the queen, who was wise with years, saw changes in her daughter that others overlooked: a slight crease at the left corner of her lips, a hint of dryness at the tips of her golden tresses, a tiny mole just above her collarbone.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Soon, you must choose amongst your many suitors,” she advised the princess. “The day will come when your beauty fades. You will want the love of a man who remembers you as you are at this moment.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">The princess shook her golden curls and laughed.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I need no man,” she proclaimed. “As for growing old, I refuse to do so.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">The queen sighed. “Would that it were so simple.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">That night, when the princess retired to her rooms, her maidservant brought her a silver tray with two slices of toasted bread, a small ramekin of juneberry jam, and a flask of sweet rosewater, as was her custom. The princess ate the toast and jam, leaving the crusts on the tray, as always. In the morning they would be gone; she had never thought to wonder why.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">She drank the rosewater, then examined herself in her full-length mirror. The mirror was framed with gold filigree, and had once belonged to her great-great-great-great-grandmother. She was as perfect as ever. She picked up her hand mirror, also bordered with gold filigree, and smiled at her reflection. Her teeth were white and even, her lips were plump, her skin was flawless . . . except . . . was that a tiny wrinkle at the corner of her eye? And where had that mole on her collarbone come from?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">The princess threw the hand mirror across the room, crying out, “I refuse!” The mirror shattered against the stone wall. “I will not grow old!”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">With that, she threw herself onto her feather bed, pulled the covers up over her head, and after many long minutes of tossing and turning, she slept.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Sometime later, the princess was awakened by the sound of gnawing. The princess was not afraid, as nothing bad had ever happened to her. She sat up. At the foot of her bed, illuminated by moonlight, sat a creature larger than a rabbit but smaller than a goose. It had shiny black eyes, long white whiskers, and a glossy sable pelt. It was eating the crust of toast the princess had left.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“It is true, as they say, you are quite lovely,” said the creature in a voice that sounded like paper tearing. “Despite your lack of a tail.” It twitched the tip of its long pink naked tail. “Would you like a tail?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“No, thank you, Your Majesty,” the princess said politely. She did not know what sort of creature this was, but she recognized royalty when she saw it, a useful talent shared by all of royal blood.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Are you sure? I can give you a tail. You should consider it.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">The princess considered it for only the briefest of moments, then said, “I fear my dresses would not accommodate such an appurtenance.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">The creature shrugged. “As you wish. Is there anything else I can do for you?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Er . . . what are you?” the princess asked.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I am the Queen of the Rats,” said the Rat Queen.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">The princess accepted this immediately, although she had never seen a rat, and had always assumed they were somewhat smaller.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I’m pleased to meet you, Your Majesty.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“As you should be. I come to offer you a boon.” The Rat Queen smiled. Now, a smile on a rat looks nothing like the smile on a person. It is more of a wrinkling of the nose and a flash of pink tongue, but the princess grasped the queen’s intent, and smiled back at her.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">The Rat Queen frowned. In rats, frowning is a rapid blinking of the eyes. She said, “When you contort your face in that manner, you cause your skin to stretch and wrinkle.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I do not wrinkle,” said the princess.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Ah, but you will! You will grow old and lined and your lips will narrow and your golden curls will grow thin and limp and gray. Your belly will sag, your ankles will thicken, and your back will curve. Brown age spots will speckle the backs of your hands.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">The princess stared at the Rat Queen in shock. Even her mother, the queen, had never spoken to her so harshly.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Why are you saying these horrible things to me?” she asked.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Because they are true . . . but perhaps not unavoidable! Would you like to remain as you are—young and beautiful?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I would like that,” said the princess.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I can help,” said the Rat Queen. “As I said, I come to offer you a boon.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Why?” asked the princess.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">The Rat Queen shrugged. “I could say it is because you are the firstborn daughter of a firstborn daughter of a firstborn daughter, but that is not an uncommon thing amongst royalty. Or I could tell you it is because our families have shared these walls and crevices for a hundred generations—<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Is that true?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“A hundred <span class="CWPItalics" style="font-style: italic;">rat</span> generations. It would be seven generations for you.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Oh, I see.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“The truth is, you made a wish as you broke the mirror that belonged to your great-great-great-great-grandmother, who made a pact with my great-great-great . . . I will not bore you with all the greats. Your family and mine have lived in harmony ever since. For our part, we eat only such scraps of food as will not be missed—such as this delicious crust. For your part, you permit us to live in your walls and secret spaces, so long as we remain out of sight. Every night while you sleep, my subjects emerge silently from their cracks and holes and devour every last crumb of food or splash of grease left on the floor, on the counters, on the dining tables, in the garbage bins, and on your nightstand.” The Rat Queen ate the last bit of crust, as if to demonstrate. “This is why every morning your silver tray is empty, and your cooks wake up to a perfectly clean kitchen.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“That sounds like an excellent arrangement! But what does it have to do with mirrors and wishes?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I don’t know,” said the Rat Queen. “There is probably more to it. For example, every month at the full moon, we rats all leave the castle and gather around the moat holding paws, and the queen—your mother—stands upon the drawbridge and hurls handfuls of buckwheat into the water. A waste of buckwheat, in my opinion, but it is what we do, and no one knows why. Not even the queen.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“In any case, because of the mirror, I am compelled to grant your wish. Henceforth, you will not age, and your beauty will remain intact.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Thank you!” said the princess.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“There is a price, however. There is always a price.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I have gold,” said the princess.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">The Rat Queen shook her head. “Gold is of no use to me. It must be a part of you. A finger, a toe, an ear . . .”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“But then I would not be beautiful!”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Yes, that is a conundrum. But you have things to offer that will not make you less beautiful. A bit of your intelligence, perhaps?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">The princess was not terribly smart, as has been mentioned, but she was smart enough to know that intelligence was not a thing she possessed in excess.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I am afraid I need what wits I have,” she said.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“How about joy? I would not need it all at once—say, a tenth of a tenth for each year that passes.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">The princess considered. The mathematics were beyond her, but a tenth of a tenth did not sound like a lot. Still, she was not overflowing with joy.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“No?” said the Rat Queen. “Is there nothing you have in excess?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“My mother says I am too foolish.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I have no use for foolishness.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“She also says I am too stubborn, too vain, and too proud.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I do not want your stubbornness, and vanity is something you will need if you wish to remain beautiful, for if you are not vain you will let yourself go. But pride? That I can accept.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“A tenth of a tenth of my pride?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“That should be sufficient.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">And so the princess remained young and beautiful to the end of her days.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPSectionbreak" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: 13.5pt;">#<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextFL" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Ozols stopped speaking, but continued to read for a few seconds, then lowered the book to her lap.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“That’s it?” Annie said.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Ozols roused herself. “Is that not enough?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“How long did she live?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“A long time.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“But what about her <span class="CWPItalics" style="font-style: italic;">pride</span>?” Annie asked.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I imagine she became less and less proud as the years passed.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“A tenth of a tenth. That’s not so much.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“At first, but with each passing year she grew less and less proud, and after a hundred and seventeen years her pride was mostly gone.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Then what?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I will read you the end, but first you must tell me about the crying.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I’m not crying.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“When I first arrived yesterday you were crying. Why?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Annie was too startled to say anything but the truth. “My best friend in the whole world doesn’t want to be my friend anymore.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Ozols nodded. “That is deserving of your tears. But you are both young, and things change.” She lifted the book and continued to read.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“On the last day of her one hundred seventeenth year, the princess Raisa was as beautiful as ever, but when she beheld herself in her full-length mirror, she took no pleasure in it. Her pride had deserted her. She thought herself as plain as any peasant woman.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“She took up the silver tray by her bed and hurled it at her reflection. The mirror broke into a thousand shards, and as the glass shattered, so did the princess. The next morning, when her handmaid brought the princess her morning tea, she found nothing but a sea of broken glass and an empty nightgown.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Annie thought for a moment.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“You are right,” she said. “I do not like it.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Ozols shrugged. “One ought not expect a Litvanian tale to end happily, but there is always a lesson.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“What’s the lesson?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Ozols pursed her thin lips and gave her head a little shake. “It is different for every reader. It may be that pride is an essential part of us all, but pride in excess is unseemly. When I first read that story, I was no older than you, and I thought the lesson was to never give away one’s pride. Reading it now, I learned that everything has a price. What did you learn?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“To never trust a talking rat?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Ozols laughed. “You are incorrigible!”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“I don’t know what that means!”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Do you know how to look things up in a dictionary?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Usually I just ask.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">Ozols <span class="CWPItalics" style="font-style: italic;">tsked</span> and stood up. She went to the bookshelf, lifted the heavy dictionary, and set it on Annie’s lap.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="CWPBodytextmain" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 13.5pt;">“Look up <span class="CWPItalics" style="font-style: italic;">incorrigible</span>,” she said.<o:p></o:p></p>Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-68618667146961028562022-10-02T10:40:00.004-05:002022-10-02T10:41:14.196-05:00More Sausage Making<span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Writers often mention “Impostor Syndrome,” that unpleasant and sometimes crippling fear that you have no genuine talent and might be unmasked as a fraud at any moment. It’s a psychological phenomenon that it both entirely real and entirely made-up. Often it is self-owned in the form of a humble-brag: “I guess I got lucky.”</span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></span><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br />The flip side of “Impostor Syndrome” is “God Syndrome,” an equally common (but more useful) visitation. God Syndrome is the thing that allows writers to overcome Impostor Syndrome long enough to actually, you know, write something. <br /><br />God Syndrome allows me to believe that the book I am writing will be the best book I have ever written—maybe the best book of its kind ever written by anyone.<br /><br />I have never written a book without believing that it would be loved. With every new manuscript I send to my agent and my editor, I am certain that they will be astonished by its concept, execution, and overall quality.<br /><br />Am I deluded? Of course! It never happens that way. Maybe my work will produce a few hints of astonished admiration—things I can grab onto and clutch to my godheart.* Enough to keep my God Syndrome alive for the next book—the book that will be even MORE amazing.<br /><br />Anyway, thanks to God Syndrome, The Rat Queen will be available "everywhere" on Tuesday, October 11th.<br /><br />*That’s another humble-brag. Sorry.**<br />**Not really sorry. (That's yet another humble-brag.)</span><div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjoolJZwnFWsaF27tjZlS9RBLZKljcWmC9cm1bCU77hPpM99-rqdXdLUaWFUkyU_A7KTZgSGJH9_CF4oGeX9fTZ_vWxc2nNxXVhPt69Qrdl3jKkUVFoCjbuTXbUN-Mo7JgOgOq7PfblvmMNDHCuJGu9LRK7cKTnvP93qCMfl9nMvojdgQirCrmT4w_3" style="background-color: white; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2266" data-original-width="1500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjoolJZwnFWsaF27tjZlS9RBLZKljcWmC9cm1bCU77hPpM99-rqdXdLUaWFUkyU_A7KTZgSGJH9_CF4oGeX9fTZ_vWxc2nNxXVhPt69Qrdl3jKkUVFoCjbuTXbUN-Mo7JgOgOq7PfblvmMNDHCuJGu9LRK7cKTnvP93qCMfl9nMvojdgQirCrmT4w_3" width="159" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br /></span></span></div></div></div>Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-70178863853452430422022-08-25T09:31:00.001-05:002022-08-25T09:31:53.706-05:00 My First RatThis is a true story. <div><br /></div><div>I was living with my parents and six younger siblings in
St. Louis Park, a suburb of Minneapolis. My bedroom was a curtained-off corner
of the basement. My bed was a an old door topped by a thin horsehair mattress,
four feet off the floor, suspended from the rafters by chains. I was negotiating
a bleak, ascetic, existential phase, reading Sartre and Gide and Beckett and
Camus. Being seventeen, I felt simultaneously both stupid and brilliant, both
fearful and capable of anything. I was paralyzed by the hopelessness and
immensity of life, and overflowing with ambitious optimism. I contained
multitudes. </div><div><br /></div><div>Late one January night I was reading The Plague by Albert Camus, a
1947 novel set in Oran, Algeria. The novel opens with rats—a lot of
rats—emerging from the sewers and crevices and dying on the street. The invasion
of dying rats is shortly followed by a plague, the city is sealed off, people
die by the thousands, and so forth. It’s a sort of slow-motion horror novel; it
kept me up well past midnight. </div><div><br /></div><div>As I was reading, I became aware of a faint sound
from the cinderblock wall a few inches away from my pallet. A scratching sound.
A gnawing sound. An animal sound. It went on and on. I imagined a rat chewing
its way through the cinderblock, attempting to invade our safe suburban home. </div><div><br /></div><div>Reading became impossible. I got dressed, put on boots and a parka and gloves,
grabbed a flashlight and a jar of peanut butter, and went out to the garage. It
was snot-freezing cold, well below zero. After a few minutes of searching I
found my old Havahart live trap underneath a deflated wading pool. I baited the
trap with the peanut butter and placed it alongside the foundation, right
outside where I calculated the head of my bed would be. I went back to bed. I
opened my book. I listened. The gnawing sound stopped. Eventually, I fell
asleep. </div><div><br /></div><div>By morning, the temperature had dropped to -18°F. I checked the trap,
not really expecting to find anything, but inside the trap was a rat. The first
rat I had ever seen in the wild. I could feel my heart pounding in my throat.
There is Significance here, I thought. What were the chances that this rat
should arrive just as I was reading The Plague? Especially considering that I
had never seen a rat in St. Louis Park, or anywhere else outside of a pet store.
and I had always associated wild rats with big cities, not squeaky clean
suburbs. What could this mean? The rat was smaller than I thought a rat should
be—about the size of a chipmunk—and it was frozen popsicle solid. I had to pry
it’s claws (they looked like little pink fingers) off trap’s wire grate. </div><div><br /></div><div>After
disposing of the ratsicle, I reset the trap. </div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLW_JnhgQNatGcwtUt5sI8x2WYJHYYxx32yTfhgBdHTbfBkrtn5r4RoPD19CQdY-NIB9f36L31Rmqycf0eMhdqDEcCr1Tfh_5r2TLxJRnRRVGuLlRo4hYHjqdjaa5UeXWKNfqxzV89OtJoWBI10sHRDvlUns1wrJ1BCU4fKX75kblqCbCn6tPe_qIP/s2266/RatQueen_Final%20copy.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2266" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLW_JnhgQNatGcwtUt5sI8x2WYJHYYxx32yTfhgBdHTbfBkrtn5r4RoPD19CQdY-NIB9f36L31Rmqycf0eMhdqDEcCr1Tfh_5r2TLxJRnRRVGuLlRo4hYHjqdjaa5UeXWKNfqxzV89OtJoWBI10sHRDvlUns1wrJ1BCU4fKX75kblqCbCn6tPe_qIP/s320/RatQueen_Final%20copy.jpeg" width="212" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br />
</div>
That night, the gnawing resumed. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the morning, I had another small frozen rat. </div><div><br /></div><div>And, again, the next night, more gnawing. And a third frozen rat in the morning.
There was no audible scratching or gnawing on the fourth night. I finished
reading The Plague. Good book. When I checked the trap in the morning, I found
the queen rat. She was twice the size of the others—a good nine inches long,
not counting the tail. She, too, was, frozen, although not quite rock hard like
the others. </div><div><br /></div><div>I continued to set the trap every night, but never caught another
rat. </div><div><br /></div><div>That’s it. That’s my first rat story. </div><div><br /></div><div>My second rat story can be found
here:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div>Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-4372492629603477932022-04-14T07:47:00.003-05:002022-04-14T08:25:23.071-05:00Cover reveal!<p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Publishing is a sluggish craft, but the big wheel keeps on turning. THE RAT QUEEN has a new cover design, and I gotta say, I LOVE IT. Advance review copies (ARCs) should be out any day now, and I’m enjoying the weird melange of hope, dread, joy, and nausea that arrives with every new publication.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">THE RAT QUEEN is new territory for me. It started out as a horror novel based on a childhood nightmare, but as the story unfolded it became a meditation on the nature of the human conscience disguised as a fairy tale composed of fairy tales, which is kind of what fairy tales</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">are</i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">—and if you can unscramble that train wreck of a sentence you might like it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Here’s the cover. Pub date is October 11</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">. Preorders much appreciated!</span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEhe1IP7lo3SbIDuJJ5rnf6j5Yv7g0nfELegRn0376FaQ7sRCz-Iz-dH-cXTQ8mZFkauRtHu2cHubohievWGf-Qw1IMTkmQrNKAMPgIR4s7KJ8ecP6j8i9zriNfWnNrbKmlHh-LWHU4-X6iVNhmg8GIGdZHq2lVs3Ql2k_mX_XhvCh70Mn99Zl2pXo/s2266/RatQueen_Final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2266" data-original-width="1500" height="657" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEhe1IP7lo3SbIDuJJ5rnf6j5Yv7g0nfELegRn0376FaQ7sRCz-Iz-dH-cXTQ8mZFkauRtHu2cHubohievWGf-Qw1IMTkmQrNKAMPgIR4s7KJ8ecP6j8i9zriNfWnNrbKmlHh-LWHU4-X6iVNhmg8GIGdZHq2lVs3Ql2k_mX_XhvCh70Mn99Zl2pXo/w435-h657/RatQueen_Final.jpg" width="435" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cover art by Anastasia Suvarova</td></tr></tbody></table></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-30627599109707129812021-12-30T07:45:00.000-06:002021-12-30T07:45:06.517-06:00It's been a while...<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">…since my last book. Coming up on three years. Not that I haven’t been writing. Just writing more slowly. And also delayed…by…supply…line…issues in the publishing industry. You remember the great toilet paper “shortage”? It ain’t just the paper you wipe your butt with that’s hard to come by. I’m hearing a lot of weeping from authors whose books got great reviews, or won an award, or hit a bestseller list, or whose aunt wants to buy ten copies for her book club—and there are no copies to be found. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">In retrospect, it was a good time to <i>not</i> be launching a new book. We’ve had two years with very few public appearance opportunities. No school visits, no bookstore signings, no conferences. This may change in the latter half of 2022. I hope so, anyway, because I have a new book coming out in October.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">A lot can change in ten months. This pandemic was always managable in theory, but we are creeping toward the sort of social responsibilty that will make it manageable in practice. There are still too many anti-vax anti-mask people out there. There will always be some, just as there are still drunk drivers, cigarette smokers, and untrained, irresponsible gun owners. But their overall numbers are waning. Or so I choose to believe.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Anyway, I have this new book to look forward to. It’s called THE RAT QUEEN, and yes, there are rats. And a queen. Ten months is a long way out, so I’ll say no more. Later, I’ll say plenty, because I am unhealthily excited about this one. I’ve seen a cover design. Here:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzF-g66BURfaq-jvaF4JgCYH8cAczFQmjQX40ibrZoewQn4imKwQrATPMvMp4V9IOVIT4lQNlD5mrBMMpQUsmV4wxD_guqgF1afKiOSf4UtjKtApxY-cetAtdgvHSWv4ZOfdsqiQcjg1m0Igf2VAZYQk6UZvCKE6rN4j_ZIhsktFeww3JBtI8_tGvf=s750" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzF-g66BURfaq-jvaF4JgCYH8cAczFQmjQX40ibrZoewQn4imKwQrATPMvMp4V9IOVIT4lQNlD5mrBMMpQUsmV4wxD_guqgF1afKiOSf4UtjKtApxY-cetAtdgvHSWv4ZOfdsqiQcjg1m0Igf2VAZYQk6UZvCKE6rN4j_ZIhsktFeww3JBtI8_tGvf=w109-h164" width="109" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(It’s tiny because I’m not sure this is the final design.)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Be well, stay safe, and let us bring hope with us into the coming year.<o:p></o:p></p>Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-16948439668890986112021-11-26T10:31:00.000-06:002021-11-26T10:31:39.946-06:00 Post-Thanksgiving Post<p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">After last year’s pared back celebrations, I was really looking forward to T-Day 2021. It wasn’t the usual full-bore extended family circus because we had a couple of anti-vaxxers who did not attend, and a few others who opted for smaller, safer venues. Still, there were about two dozen of us.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The food was great: Turkey, goose, duck, and a plethora of sides. For apppetizers there were stuffed mushrooms, sockeye gravlax, a beautiful cheese board, and more. I brought two crocks of rillettes—one duck and one pork, served with baguette croutons, cornichons and pickled okra. (If you don’t know what rillettes are, ask the internet.) I had planned to bring duck breast prosciutto as well, but I weighed the breasts this morning and they need to hang a few more days. We had four pies—apple, pumpkin, wild huckleberry, and wild blueberry.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">I meant to take a photo of the presentation, but all I have is this preliminary stage of the rillettes:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-fS7pDCydm-Jl8l1Zv0nHwu-XFK-JVeeK1MIER-EXn8xkoVyMsVp50U_eirWqvzNqgKvZF-dvMlJfyl4Xzp6PRJe7QLUQJ_uMFedION77pSEpeySdN76aj5QMH0anmYb6uf3c7gKKd7g/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-fS7pDCydm-Jl8l1Zv0nHwu-XFK-JVeeK1MIER-EXn8xkoVyMsVp50U_eirWqvzNqgKvZF-dvMlJfyl4Xzp6PRJe7QLUQJ_uMFedION77pSEpeySdN76aj5QMH0anmYb6uf3c7gKKd7g/" width="240" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The high point of the evening for me was the following exchange over dessert:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Cousin Tim: I have a joke.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Everybody: *groans* <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">(CT likes to make up his own jokes, and they are far too often racist or homophobic or otherwise offensive.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Sister-in-Law: Tim, don’t.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">CT: It’s okay.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">SiL: Just don’t. Seriously.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">CT: But it’s good! This guy has a pet rabbit—<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">SiL: Tim, stop! I’ll tell you what, let’s you and I go into the next room. You can tell me the joke, and I’ll tell you if it’s okay to tell.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">CT: Really, it’s fine. This man has a rabbit that won’t wake up. He brings it to the vet. The vet examines the rabbit and says, “This rabbit is dead.” “Are you sure?” the man asks. “Maybe it’s just sleeping!” The vet whistles and a black lab trots into the room.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Me: Why is the lab black?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">CT: Okay, a <i>white</i> lab. So the dog walks up to the rabbit and paws it and sniffs it all over. The dog snorts and leaves. The vet says, “See? Dead.” “I can’t believe it!” the man exclaims. “It was fine this morning! Are you sure?” The vet sighs and snaps his fingers. A cat comes into the room, hops up on the table, and sniffs the rabbit. The cat hisses and departs. “The rabbit is dead,” says the vet. The man sighs and says, “Okay, I guess you’re right. What do I owe you?” “Two thousand dollars,” says the vet. The man gasps. “Two thousand dollars!? To tell me I have a dead rabbit?” “Well,” says the vet, “I performed an examination, then there were lab tests, and a cat scan…”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">(Moment of silence)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Everybody: *relieved laughter*<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">SiL: That was pretty good, Tim. I’m sorry I doubted you.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">CT: I have another one.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Everybody: Nooooo!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">I have a lot of rillettes left, so I’m making pierogi for the freezer. One batch filled with pork, porcini, and sauerkraut, the other stuffed with duck and potatoes. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">I hope you all had a lovely holiday!<o:p></o:p></p>Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-5605420320907632192021-09-02T09:48:00.003-05:002021-09-03T07:36:26.361-05:00"Poached by an Angel"<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #800180;">A little more than ten years ago I wrote about how to poach an egg. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="color: #800180;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #800180;">I was wrong about some things. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="color: #800180;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #800180;">Since posting that blog I have poached more than 3000 eggs, and I have learned a few things about what works, what doesn’t, and what matters.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="color: #800180;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #800180;">My basic technique has not changed: Bring water to a boil in an eight-inch nonstick pan, turn off heat, drop in two eggs, and wait until the eggs reach your preferred texture—ten minutes, more or less. Add a little heat if they seem too soft for you. Trim off the “loose white” (the frilly stuff) and use a slotted spatula to transfer the eggs to whatever you’re going to eat them on. For me, that is usually an English muffin, toasted sourdough, hash browns, oatmeal, polenta, or a bowl of greens.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="color: #800180;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #800180;">I also stand by my original advice to use plain water. Adding salt or vinegar won’t help. And you can forget about swirling the water to create a vortex and dropping the eggs into the center of the whirlpool. None of those techniques are necessary or useful.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="color: #800180;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #800180;">Here is what has changed: In my original post, I go on about the importance of the age of the eggs, and how to read the Julian date on the egg carton. I have since learned that whether the egg is one hour, one day, one week, or four weeks old is irrelevant to their poachability. What <i>is</i> important is the age of the hen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="color: #800180;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #800180;">If your eggs have a nice, plump, coherent inner white, they were laid by a young hen. If they spread out in a frilly mess across the bottom of the pan, the hen was older. I learned this from the book “Locally Laid,” by Lucie B. Amundson, a Minnesota egg farmer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="color: #800180;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #800180;">Unless you raise your own birds, you will not be able to determine the age of the hen, so don’t fret about it. Some eggs will be better than others. Most will be just fine.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="color: #800180;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #800180;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #800180; font-size: small;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">Another thing I have learned: Cracking the eggs into a bowl and then sliding them into the hot water is not helpful. These days I crack the eggs directly into the water. One less bowl to wash.</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #800180; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #800180; font-size: small;">Following is the original, ridiculously complicated post from 2010:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A perfect poached egg is a thing of beauty—an aesthetic and nutritional miracle that is, happily, within anyone’s reach. The technique is simple, and even the priciest organic chicken eggs cost less than a quarter apiece. One would be hard-pressed to name a more versatile and inexpensive delicacy.</span></span></div><div> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Recently I served a poached egg to my friend Susan. She looked at the egg perched on it’s mound of hash browns and said, “It looks like it was poached by an angel.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507826070818868914" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoHEFplaKS1QHHkM5fHGeBmnf4WstSVIzahs9qNOZOiJ4jeVHbt3I2sxOaPOGhavIOm8ApPuRnG2LeTjaxWaK0KVfjwhUVIUoqIVKKE1g0DQooUYHURCQrgw5lFM89UpsXU5tg-BJsn-c/s320/eggs+2.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Alas, for every angelically-poached egg, there are many thousands of less-than-heavenly poached eggs. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The phrase “perfect poached eggs” gets about half a million hits on Google.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> There are a lot of people who think they know how to do it. I have looked at all 500,000 of these sites</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, and I am sorry to report that nearly all of them are flat-out wrong.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I have poached a lot of eggs, using every technique available to me, including adding vinegar and/or salt to the wa</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">ter, swirling the water before adding the egg, using water at various temperatures and pans of various sizes, bringing the eggs to room temperature before poaching, and employing assorted mechanical poaching devices. I have poached eggs individually and </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">en masse</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. I have poached medium, large, extra-large, and jumbo eggs. I have poached eggs in the oven, on the stovetop, and in a microwave. I have poached emu eggs in the outback. Okay, not true about the emu eggs, b</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">ut I </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">have </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">poached</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">My first few hundred attempts were not perfect, but over the past few years I have developed a simple technique t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">hat produces a perfect or near-perfect poached egg most of the time.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The egg: </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Of course, if you have access to a good farmers’ market—or better yet, if you have chickens—freshness will not be an issue. The happier the chickens are, the better their eggs will taste.Freshness is the key. Learn to read and interpret the date on the egg carton. In the U.S., there is a three-digit number on the carton that tells you when the egg was packed. This number, from 001 to 365, is the “Julian date,” with 001 representing January 1, and 365 (or 366, during leap years) indicating December 31. The “sell by date” is usually thirty days after the “pack date,” or about five weeks after the egg leaves the hen. For poaching purposes you want an egg that is not more than two weeks old. If the egg is older than that, make yourself an omelet.</span></span></p><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507822929680112898" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5MbWyjhTbTY5JAaTBWGK5hPGn2C_JBNHgaQXQM208SOuNLn37ytrmdKCSFnZUJyI2RiSPtnFTeI6fsvIZt-CAnbMLHZVNTIA8xlULZLDbcUTUFwqlOZMWhmwBf4WvZYeboMSEU2UizBM/s200/eggcarton.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 150px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /> <span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The grade of the egg is somewhat important.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Grade A eggs can be fine for poaching, but Grade AA eggs usually work better. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Egg grading is an arcane business, but it does take into account the firmness of the albumen (the white), and that makes a big difference to the appearance and texture of the final product. Shell color, however, is irrelevant—that depends entirely on the breed of hen, and is no indication of quality. Any size egg will work—keeping in mind that the bigger the egg, the longer it will take to cook. I usually buy whichever size has the most recent date on the carton.</span></span><!--EndFragment--></div><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The pan: </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I use a ten-inch non-stick skillet. A smaller pan will work, but its lesser volume means that the water will cool more quickly when you add the eggs. Adjust cooking time accordingly.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The water: </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Use plain tap water. No vinegar or salt! I don’t know what it is with these vinegar-adders. Acidulating the water does nothing good for the egg’s texture or appearance, and everything bad for the taste.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The cooking: </span></span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Fill the pan to within ½ inch of the top and heat the water. When it reaches a boil, turn it off and let it sit for a minute while you prepare the egg for immersion.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Your egg should be cold, straight from the fridge. Anyone who tells you different is wrong. A cold egg will hold its shape better. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Crack the egg into a small bowl. It is important here to understand the structure of the egg. (This is not biology class, so don't worry - I’m not going to get into a discussion of the chalazae and vitelline membrane and so forth.) I think of an egg as being composed of four parts: the shell, the firm white, the loose white, and the yolk. The “firm white” is the thicker albumen that surrounds the yolk. In a fresh egg, this will comprise most of the white. The “loose white” is the thinner, more liquid albumen—the part that spreads out around the edge like a frill when an egg is sautéed. The older the egg, the more the “firm white” breaks down to become “loose white.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">When cracking the egg into the bowl, take care that the sharp edges of the shell do not tear into the firm white.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> This is important! Tearing into the “firm white” will produce a lopsided end result. Be gentle. Respect the egg. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Carefully lower the egg into the hot water. The water temperature will be somewhere around 180-190° F. Believe it or not, the precise water temperature is not that important, so long as it is at least 160°, and less than boiling. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If you have performed your task well, and if the egg is fresh, it will look something like this:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507824488843952354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ4U_lcW-iuw-Wje5BCa17XTeUoz7bbNi3ULtQAFQVKq3fAIxkEzBCjcNPQ_3KU5HEszR9mAaOsjeB99MyQu8MuO3Lk6xBC5tAwtlC7BaMDX4RUZys7irq0EeVO5ZZhZX7fQGSwlkVXuI/s320/eggs1.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Once the egg is in the water, do something else for five or six minutes.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Fry some potatoes, slice some bread, make a cup of coffee, check your email—whatever. Now look at your egg. The white will be opaque. The loose white will have spread out a bit. Carefully trim the loose white away with your spatula. Slide the edge of the spatula between the egg and the bottom of the pan. The egg will be quite jiggly. At this point, the process becomes very personal. It’s between you and the egg. If you like your egg quite loose, lift it carefully from the water and serve at once. If you like it on the firm side, you can turn on the heat for a few minutes. Not too hot though—the water should never boil. If your water gets too hot, the egg white will become unpleasantly firm.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I mentioned before that the exact water temperature is unimportant. I lied a little. Sorry. The final texture of the egg can vary tremendously depending on time and temperature, but because one person’s perfectly poached egg is another person’s slimy nightmare, I cannot make specific recommendations. David Chang (Momofuku) poaches his eggs for thirty minutes at 160°. Thomas Keller (The French Laundry) poaches eggs at about 205° (a simmer) for less than two minutes. Two completely different approaches, both producing excellent, albeit different, results.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">IMHO, the slower the poach, the nicer the texture. It is possible to slow-poach an egg to the point where the yolk is nearly (but not quite) solid, while the white remains soft and yielding. This is the Momofuku ideal. A fast poaching results in a much firmer white contrasting with a runny yolk, as preferred by Thomas Keller. I like an egg that is somewhere in between.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Like I said, it’s personal. I considered giving exact water temperature, timing, egg size, and water volume…but really, this is worth learning to do by feel. There are so many variables—altitude, egg temperature, cookware material and weight, barometric pressure, moon phase, pollen count, etc.—that the more precise the instructions, the more likely you are to fail.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">To test the doneness of your egg, lift it from the water with a slotted spatula** and look at it. Experience is important here. After a few tries, you will learn to gauge the doneness of the egg by the way it behaves on the spatula. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Cooking more than one egg at a time: </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Some cooks recommend lowering each egg into the water individually. Bah. That is counterproductive and completely unnecessary. You can crack two, three, or four eggs into a bowl together and slip them all into the water bath at once (gently, please). The eggs will not stick together, and they will all get done at the same time. One thing to watch out for though, is </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">that multiple eggs will lower the water temperature more quickly, so you will have to add more time or more heat than you would for a single egg.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Serving: </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Recently, I have been enjoying my poached eggs on hash browns.* They are also quite nice on toasted bread, or eaten with a spoon from a small cup. You could swing out and make Eggs Benedict, or even serve them cooled to room temperature on a green salad.</span></span></p><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507825363176914898" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNMeVft7Ox51BEMoaSQSWPlHsbV5PGzoHcDuiT_kS7Fo2gcuiKsu4lG4JECK2PUziEVgmhekO29qB61_G-zuEhA-hQbVJ1-3cO6iujW9gR97gn7u-qm0Mbl0AY8g0mbUUQ4rGsrFYRj2U/s320/eggs+3.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 240px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 320px;" /> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Concerning perfection: </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Not every poached egg will come out perfect. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Sometimes you will tear the albumen when cracking the egg, and get a lop-sided result.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Sometimes the white will be too runny, and your egg will come out looking like a shallow disc with the yolk jutting up from the middle.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">These eggs will taste just fine, despite their lack of visual appeal.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“We aspire to perfection, but we do not insist upon it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">* My article on “Perfect Hash Browns” will be coming soon.<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">** The slotted spatula will make it easier to keep the egg from sliding off as you lift it out of the water.</span><o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-61809416926245648312019-04-05T10:31:00.000-05:002019-04-05T10:31:15.067-05:00Four Things I Will Do This Spring, in Chronological Order<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm not doing a lot of book stuff this spring, which is good, because there will be mushrooms in the woods that need picking, and yard work to do, and a novel to finish. Here's what I've got:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>April 6—Minnesota Book Awards</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM4WEnKye4bvOHMQ3_jhWNdfPnWTgDAM93UX4jC2zDXOmtftWwzpKAKwd6hCc5JRXFdlzFILQnWzRl9RWobgPhGLBDxeX3VQ1aST2QG_ayy-mHvite0GzJL0s1ghhyphenhyphenaOVQyoUEo-fi58U/s1600/Otherwood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM4WEnKye4bvOHMQ3_jhWNdfPnWTgDAM93UX4jC2zDXOmtftWwzpKAKwd6hCc5JRXFdlzFILQnWzRl9RWobgPhGLBDxeX3VQ1aST2QG_ayy-mHvite0GzJL0s1ghhyphenhyphenaOVQyoUEo-fi58U/s200/Otherwood.jpg" width="133" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Most state book awards draw from a national pool, but Minnesota is one of the few states with so much talent that we have a high-profile literary award for only “our” authors. This year the Minnesota Book Awards recognize nine categories, including three(!!!) books for younger readers categories: Young Adult, Middle Grade, and Children’s Literature. I especially like that Middle Grade books get their own category—possibly because my novel <i>Otherwood </i>is a finalist. Mary and I will be attending the ceremony on Saturday. I’ve won four previous MBAs, and I think Kate DiCamillo has a bunch, so it’s probably Jacqueline West’s or Pat Schmatz’s turn to win. However it pans out, I’ll be applauding.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>April 23—Paperback Release of </b><i><b>Slider</b><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With a cool new cover design! This middle grade novel explores autism, eating contests, middle-child syndrome, Darth Vader, and Wonder Woman. Not really, but those subjects come up. It’s mostly a funny book containing (I am told) Important Life Lessons that somehow got in there without me knowing it. No events on the schedule, but there will be copies at the Red Balloon event (see below).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>April 25—The Edgar Awards</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHttI-70MyTRDgQZ4L4pQDObMpVQlGrj1MxRK0Gpp3DGd2nOlCUaVNbSHGtn3f39PFKWjVSkud-TSr_VdHXbxOPyqXHElBPtGaHfsuoKqISXDcm6l7NLGjyBzNq-8tfri3mgXzGI78V60/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-04-05+at+10.28.09+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHttI-70MyTRDgQZ4L4pQDObMpVQlGrj1MxRK0Gpp3DGd2nOlCUaVNbSHGtn3f39PFKWjVSkud-TSr_VdHXbxOPyqXHElBPtGaHfsuoKqISXDcm6l7NLGjyBzNq-8tfri3mgXzGI78V60/s200/Screen+Shot+2019-04-05+at+10.28.09+AM.png" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Mystery Writers of America’s annual Edgar Allan Poe awards will be in New York, and we are going! I get to wear my tuxedo for only the fourth time ever. <i>Otherwood</i>is a finalist in the Juvenile (aka middle grade) category, and I could not be more delighted. Funny thing though—I never thought of this book as a “mystery,” but I guess it is.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>May 14—<i>Road Tripped </i>Launch at The Red Balloon Bookshop</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVnhgmgBYnNe8ouWbUDkdGfP_oj8T6aqVZmSMUGBVk8rmbuizPEVp5n0QviavvWcbRyyTbx6BFZKKq1PEyGgz8J09V3L3XWlTGeZ_Z44MJODZg2xx1REfMsLPSiV33HLX_lGyPUT9KEMc/s1600/RoadTripped_front_lo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVnhgmgBYnNe8ouWbUDkdGfP_oj8T6aqVZmSMUGBVk8rmbuizPEVp5n0QviavvWcbRyyTbx6BFZKKq1PEyGgz8J09V3L3XWlTGeZ_Z44MJODZg2xx1REfMsLPSiV33HLX_lGyPUT9KEMc/s200/RoadTripped_front_lo.jpg" width="132" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yes, I wrote another YA novel. Possibly my last, as I’m more interested in Middle Grade these days. This will be a multi-author event. Jacqueline West (<i>Last Things</i>) and Kirsten Cronn-Mills (<i>Wreck</i>) also have new YA titles coming out, and Bryan Bliss will be there to celebrate the new paperback edition of his National Book Award finalist <i>We’ll Fly Away</i>. I haven’t yet read Jacqueline’s book , but Kirsten’s is a powerful gut-punch, and Bryan’s book is killer, literally. The event is at 6:30 p.m.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-24771126484709640352019-03-08T09:58:00.001-06:002019-03-08T10:01:27.888-06:00Returning to Pippi and Her Ilk<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>In honor of International Women's Day, I am reposting this item from six years ago. It is the first of five posts I wrote about strong young women in film and literature, including Rebecca (of Sunnybrook Farm), Scarlett O'Hara, Emma Bovary, Becky Sharp, Emma Jean Lazarus, Veronica Mars, and, of course, Buffy.</i></span><br />
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MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2013</h2>
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Strong Young Women Part 1: Pippi Longstocking</h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It started for me back in the third grade, with Astrid Lindgren’s 1950 novel, <i>Pippi Longstocking: </i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I love spunky, tough, resourceful young women. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That’s one of the reasons I loved </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Hunger Games</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. But I have to say, Pippi could kick Katniss from District 13 to Villa Villekulla and back again. Could Katniss lift a horse? <i>No</i>. But Pippi could do it with one hand.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPMIc5Nn_Ds8ePyvXZSIg_cCFDNDeEzU26knNCYYaE-CgdfPVdUOM3c30cuoV9h-PfAHMzQDIG19GyGbozU-VyF86SDO5BNbcvlbgh4bPbi3KSAHs6_R8-sQQlOj6QxnY73hDHbpeSMTw/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #4d960c; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPMIc5Nn_Ds8ePyvXZSIg_cCFDNDeEzU26knNCYYaE-CgdfPVdUOM3c30cuoV9h-PfAHMzQDIG19GyGbozU-VyF86SDO5BNbcvlbgh4bPbi3KSAHs6_R8-sQQlOj6QxnY73hDHbpeSMTw/s1600/images.jpeg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(206, 198, 171); padding: 4px;" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We writer/librarian/teacher/reader types pride ourselves in our literary broadmindedness. With tens of thousands (give or take) of new titles being published every year, we like to think that we are living in a golden age of Anything Goes. That is partly true…and partly not. Would Pippi Longstocking be published today? I mean, other than as a self-published ebook?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Pippi owns a number of handguns, which she fires into the ceiling for fun and gives them freely to her friends. She uses the kitchen floor to roll out cookie dough, and eats raw eggs. She is impudent and disrespectful to adults, and has no respect for any rules or laws. She physically attacks policemen, and suffers no consequences for her actions. She has no math skills. She is functionally illiterate, and has no interest in reading. She is a heavy coffee drinker, and lives on (mostly) cookies and caramels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Send a manuscript like that to Random Penguin, and see how fast they reject it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course, many of today’s kids’ books contain elements that would have made them unpublishable fifty years ago. LGBT characters, references to certain body parts, and anti-government sentiments, for example. But let’s not pat ourselves on the back for our “open-mindedness” just yet. The only reason Pippi Longstocking is still in print is because she has been grandmothered in as a “classic.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcQbV2LUkANMxa0HrDzRkJNfBj2sN4tBXcATs3bsjgozTTBBNL7tWofQOdjsT1f9wXNZMrmrCNuURwzpASbwKT6onN_Ru9dEnq3t7k3FhUjaZxLPHW7ZDr0XrRQVUUlIcqaq0OeokMbHA/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #4d960c; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcQbV2LUkANMxa0HrDzRkJNfBj2sN4tBXcATs3bsjgozTTBBNL7tWofQOdjsT1f9wXNZMrmrCNuURwzpASbwKT6onN_Ru9dEnq3t7k3FhUjaZxLPHW7ZDr0XrRQVUUlIcqaq0OeokMbHA/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(206, 198, 171); padding: 4px;" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Today, we require certain approved behaviors in our heroines. Some of my own female characters have been criticized for being bitchy (<i>Sweetblood </i>and<i> The Big Crunch</i>), unrepentant and unpunished (<i>How to Steal a Car</i>), physically violent (<i>What Boys Really Want</i>), and dishonest (all of the above). It is true, and I hold Pippi Longstocking and her ilk to blame.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Next up: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm</span></div>
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Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-86931229167947649392019-02-12T08:51:00.000-06:002019-02-12T08:51:45.528-06:00Some Unsolicited Thoughts on Self-Publishing<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For about twenty years now I’ve been watching and (mostly) staying out of the debates concerning the viability of self-published books, and the way they are received by reviewers, booksellers, librarians, and other gatekeepers. There is a lot of anger out there in the self-published community, and there has been a lot of dismissive elitism on the part of traditional publishers and their authors. Conflict happens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Much of the disdain heaped upon self-published books has to do with poor or nonexistent editing. Yes, most authors who self-publish have the good sense to hire an editor. There are many heavily advertised editorial services available. Some are good, some not so good. But even the best freelance editor might not be enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My experience as a reader has been that most self-published works need not just editorial advice, but editorial <i>intervention</i>as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most writers, when they start out, have no idea what an editor does. I certainly didn’t. I did not expect, for example, that the editor of my novel <i>The Mortal Nuts</i>would suggest taking a minor character and making him the protagonist. I did not expect that he would tell me to make my second book “funnier.” I did not expect another editor to ask me to add 100 pages to a 200 page novel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My first editor, Bob Asahina, once said to me, after listening to me argue against one of his editorial suggestions, “Well, you can do what you want, Pete. It’ll matter a lot more to you than it will to me.” I took his suggestion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For my recent young adult novel <i>Eden West</i>—my twenty-eighth published novel—the first editorial letter I received from editor Deb Noyes was twenty-nine pages long. It took me three months to revise the manuscript. Her second letter was much shorter and I was able to address her concerns in a few weeks. I think the book turned out pretty good.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But suppose I had decided to self-publish <i>Eden West</i>. I could have hired an editor—maybe one as talented as Deb Noyes. But that editor’s job description would have been very, very different. For one thing, she would have a different employer: she would be working for me. That alters the author/editor dynamic in ways both subtle and not-so-subtle. A freelance editor working directly for an author has a vastly different mindset.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can see this dynamic even in the world of traditional publishing. When an author becomes so famous and sells so many books that he or she has a significant impact on a publisher’s bottom line, the relationship between author and editor changes, subtly at first, then dramatically. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A midlist or emerging author who sells a book through traditional channels usually regards his editor with some combination of awe, fear, and desperation. The editor (as perceived by the author) controls the purse strings, and has the power to make or break a book by means of cover quality, catalog positioning, marketing budget, and the semi-existent <i>whisper line</i>,* aka “buzz.” This spills over onto the art part of the deal—when editors suggest changes to a manuscript, they speak with a big stick in hand. This is largely a matter of the author’s perception, of course. The reality is that the editor is at the mercy of corporate and marketing forces, and while she can help a book, her power is not so great as it seems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No matter what the reality, for most midlist authors in a traditional author/editor relationship, the editor’s word carries tremendous weight. For the superstars, not so much. Have you ever noticed how many superstar authors’ early novels are shorter, more powerful, and more elegantly constructed? And how their later work is often bloated, sloppy, and self-indulgent? I could provide many examples,** but I’m sure you’ll have no problem supplying your own.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why is this? I believe the change in the author/editor dynamic is largely responsible. The editor-of-a-superstar has a little demon on her shoulder saying, “This guy is a genius! His numbers are fantastic! Don’t screw it up! If something doesn’t seem quite right, well, keep him happy or he’ll jump to Harper or Knopf. If he wants to go on a tangent for thirty pages on one of his pet topics, let him. The book is going to sell regardless.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That same editor, working with an emerging author, will go butt ass to make that book the best book it can be. She or he will argue for and sometimes insist on changes—often big changes: <i>Make the villain the hero. Cut four hundred pages. Write it over in third person. Make the main character younger, older, funnier, smarter, stronger, more likeable</i>…you name it. And then, once the author makes those changes, there will be another round of edits, and another, and possibly even more. And that’s long before a copyeditor sees the manuscript.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How does this relate to self-published authors? Well, even a hard working, well-intentioned writer who digs into his savings and pays big bucks for an editor, and a copyeditor, and a proofreader, and a book designer, and a cover artist (You need all of them. Really, you do.), he will be working with folks whose mission is to make the customer happy. And who is the customer? The author.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s a minefield, and relatively few self-published authors—even those with decent writing chops and a great idea—have the time, the funds, the experience, or the disposition to negotiate it. Those few who do have my admiration and respect. Unfortunately, the <i>vast</i>majority of self-pubbed books are a severely flawed, and that makes booksellers, reviewers, librarians, and end market readers chary of shelling out their time and/or money to look at them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have read dozens of self-published books, most them by friends or associates, or because the book dealt with some niche topic that caught my interest. I have enjoyed many of them, but in every case I encountered scads of wince-inducing moments that shrieked for editorial intervention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That’s kind of sad. Because I know there are a lot of good books that need a little help, or a lot of help, but for whatever reason the author couldn’t—or chose not to—break into the business through traditional publishing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Does this mean that self-publishing is not viable? Not at all. But the challenges faced by the self-published go far beyond marketing and distribution. Those who want to make a good book and publish it themselves should be aware of how much the editorial relationship matters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">*A little joke for you sci-fi geeks.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>**Michael Korda’s memoir </i>Another Life </span><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">provides a fascinating look inside the editor/superstar relationship—particularly the section on working with Harold Robbins.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-56441579379858140552019-01-23T08:50:00.001-06:002019-01-23T08:53:04.783-06:00The Edgars<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Otherwood </i>is a finalist for the Edgar Alan Poe Award in the “juvenile” category. The other finalists are <span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;"><i>Denis Ever After</i> by Tony Abbott, </span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;"><i>Zap! </i>by Martha Freeman, </span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;"><i>Ra the Mighty: Cat Detective </i>by A.B. Greenfield, </span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;"><i>Winterhouse</i> by Ben Guterson, </span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;"><i>Charlie & Frog: A Mystery by </i>Karen Kane, <i>and </i></span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;"><i>Zora & Me: The Cursed Ground</i> by T.R. Simon.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mary and Pete at the Edgar Awards, 1991</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have a long history with the Edgar Awards. I joined the Mystery Writers of America back in 1990 after making my first short story sale to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. I attended the annual Edgar Awards banquet that year with Mary Logue, who was a judge in the Best Novel category (<i>Black Cherry Blues </i>by James Lee Burke won). I had never been in the company of so many published writers. It was a magical evening. I was fanboying to the max.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Six years later I was at the banquet again, this time as a finalist in the YA category for <i>Mr. Was</i>, and as a judge in the Juvenile category (<i>Looking for Jamie Bridger </i>by Nancy Springer won). That was fun too, even though <i>Mr. Was </i>did not win.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My next Edgar banquet was in 2007, when <i>Snatched</i>, a middle grade novel I wrote with Mary Logue, was nominated in the Juvenile category. That was the year Stephen King stepped on Mary’s dress, a moment she will always treasure. We didn't win, but we got a bobblehead.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgljIry8b17u1h8jaOuBt8ruiL95ZWbUJ5CdioDmXuLXEtNT_505QwEzYsd1-o0hcF9YABRMiUR2pBqU8Blbu69odf5uMu7-kJdv1shW8fOlqbbi8CuojtcJWPliFJ9BXdzUZqE-0YSu0/s1600/Photo+on+1-23-19+at+8.47+AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgljIry8b17u1h8jaOuBt8ruiL95ZWbUJ5CdioDmXuLXEtNT_505QwEzYsd1-o0hcF9YABRMiUR2pBqU8Blbu69odf5uMu7-kJdv1shW8fOlqbbi8CuojtcJWPliFJ9BXdzUZqE-0YSu0/s320/Photo+on+1-23-19+at+8.47+AM.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This year I probably won’t be attending the banquet. I mean, unless somebody else wants to pay for my flight and hotel. <i>Otherwood</i> probably won’t win, but you never know. I haven’t read the other finalists yet. If they all suck, I have a chance, but I very much doubt that is the case. Either way, I’m honored and delighted to have <i>Otherwood </i>included on the list.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-83322570403019520372019-01-16T14:08:00.000-06:002019-01-16T14:08:15.977-06:00Why “Creep” isn’t on the ROAD TRIPPED Playlist<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkzRNyygfk" target="_blank">“Creep,” Radiohead’s first single</a>, was the song that inspired me to begin the novel that became</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Road Tripped</i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Released in 1992, “Creep” was a huge hit, and was consequently grossly overplayed. For casual listeners, it defined Radiohead. Musically, it is not as interesting and complex as their later work, and for many years they refused to perform it. Nevertheless, it is a seminal work, and will remain forever in my top twenty-five pop tunes. Maybe even in my top ten. The lyrics are brilliant and perfect—they speak to every young person who has felt shy, awkward, unattractive, and worthless—in short, nearly all adolescents and, at times, most adults.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When Thom Yorke sings, “I want you to notice, when I’m not around,” you hear a character who is so unsure of himself he can’t even imagine saying, “I want you to miss me.” He can hardly imagine a reality in which she, the object of his fascination, knows he exists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back in August of 2013, I began work on a novel about a stalker—a teen boy who becomes obsessed by an ex-girlfriend. The working title was “Creep.” I was thinking about the Radiohead song, and about Scott Spencer’s novel <i>Endless Love</i>, a book that made a big impression on me when I read it thirty-odd years ago. But as often happens, the story I set out to tell was not the one I ended up telling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stiggy Gabel, my “stalker,” began as a rather one-dimensional character. As his backstory grew and sent out tendrils, he became less monomaniacal, more complex, more sympathetic, more human. The story became less about his obsession and more about depression, loss, the grieving process, and things we think and do to stay sane when the world feels broken. The stalking element almost disappeared. The title changed from “Creep” to “Crock,” and finally to “Road Tripped.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Road Tripped </i>has a playlist from Stiggy’s recently deceased father’s iPod, which he carries with him on his solo road trip. The songs I selected relate to Stiggy’s journey, and I was strongly tempted to include “Creep” among them, since it was important to the genesis of the story. But other songs by, Concrete Blond, Pixies, Amy Winehouse, and others seemed to me deeper and less “mono.” Radiohead didn’t make the cut.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-31352581540702239692019-01-12T08:37:00.003-06:002019-01-12T08:38:56.809-06:00Writing with Music<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I often listen to a particular playlist while writing a novel. I don’t listen while I’m actively writing; I listen between sessions, while imagining what comes next. Usually a collection of songs that feel right for the story. Sometimes it’s a particular album. Side One of Miles Davis’s “Jack Johnson” got me through <i>How to Steal a Car</i>. Sometimes it’s just one song, over and over—when I wrote <i>Rag Man </i>back in 1999, I listened to K.D. Lang’s “Infinite and Unforseen” hundreds of times. It kept me focused on the moody ending I was pursuing.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/31zhkuy2pllop7zp4rcac7pqew44/playlist/2J0O0P45jQaUMAIDGtRzav?si=Jz4orV6iRPKLTe647Xu-xA" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1275" data-original-width="844" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA1XnTacOiLv2_IaWHt8oJUnD_PDdXCAr0kbZ4U7b7jdC7P4-D6BSXz2bMRUMChMjiO4d7T_M4uqjmSPOQd6cr0AspryBwzqtaPhFilKB0FmDaHp0ts10gH3gRSJrwitoXRdT1EFbld24/s320/RoadTripped_front_lo+copy.jpeg" width="211" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/31zhkuy2pllop7zp4rcac7pqew44/playlist/2J0O0P45jQaUMAIDGtRzav?si=Jz4orV6iRPKLTe647Xu-xA" target="_blank">Click for Playlist</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the novel <i>Road Tripped</i>, Stiggy Gabel leaves home with only his late father’s iPod for company. His dad, he discovers, had peculiar taste in music, ranging from Bach to Babymetal, from Snoop Dogg to Tammy Wynette. Some of the song titles serve as chapter headings. I assembled a bunch of them on Spotify. <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/31zhkuy2pllop7zp4rcac7pqew44/playlist/2J0O0P45jQaUMAIDGtRzav?si=Jz4orV6iRPKLTe647Xu-xA" target="_blank">Here’s a link.</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">About half of the songs came off my own iPod. Stiggy’s dad is solely responsible for the rest. Spotify refused to load a few of them—not sure why. I’m new to Spotify. Maybe I’ll figure it out by the time the book is released (May 14).</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-27614358875501039212018-11-22T09:41:00.003-06:002018-11-22T09:41:58.474-06:00Thanksgiving Post<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are having a micro-Thanksgiving this year. Just four of us. A</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> mushroom-hater, a pescatarian, a lactose intolerant, and a diabetic. A cooking challenge!</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We will miss the big Hautman Thanksgiving taking place a few miles to the east, but I’m sure I’ll hear all about it over the next few days. I need to catch up with a few cousins I haven’t seen since <i>last </i>Thanksgiving.</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Despite the small guest list, our house is in a frantic uproar of cooking activity. It’s only nine a.m. So far this morning I’ve made vegetable stock for the wild rice casserole (we have one pescatarian). The turkey has been dry-brining for two days. (Pro tip: if you are making gravy from the drippings of a dry-brined bird, rinse it thoroughly before cooking, or your gravy will be ungodly salty.) I have taken a block of strong chicken stock out of the deep freeze—I’ll need that for the gravy. I have vacuum-sealed a piece of venison backstrap courtesy of my brohter Bob. I’ve been aging it for a few days, getting it ready for the sous vide bath. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last weekend my neighbor Mark returned from North Dakota after a successful pheasant hunting trip. He had told me that he and his buddies breast out their pheasants and don’t bother with the legs, and I was, like, <i>WHY? </i>Anyway, this year he brought me fifteen legs, and I confited them in the sous vide. When I share the result with him I guarantee he will never leave another leg behind. Yesterday I made rillettes from some of the confit. It’s <i>amazing</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the moment, Mary is working on her pumpkin pie. She has a great recipe suitable for her lactose intolerant self. It’s the best pumpkin pie I’ve ever had. She’s also making cranberry sauce. I think it’s going to be an uncooked version—more of a relish than a sauce.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The pie comes out of the oven at 12:30, and the turkey goes in. I take a short nap. The venison goes in the sous vide bath at 3:00. Two hours at 129°. Our guests arrive at 4:00. </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We're aiming at at 5:30 sit down. Depending on when the turkey is done. </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Things are about to get crazy. Toast some bread for the rillettes. Parboil some wild rice. Chop and sauté vegetables, nuts, and lobster mushrooms (the mushroom-hater will just have to deal) for the casserole, assemble it, check on the turkey. Robin is bringing mashed potatoes this year—one thing I don’t have to think about. Did I burn the toast? Just a little. Oh, shit, I forgot the sweet potatoes. Do we need sweet potatoes? Probably not, but…peel, slice, and throw in a sauté pan with some butter and honey.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Four o’clock. <i>Ding-dong</i>. The dogs go insane. Open wine. Hang coats. Assemble an appetizer tray: Toasts, rillettes, cheese, gherkins. Don’t eat too much—there’s a lot of food coming.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Check on the turkey—it’s only ten pounds, so it should be done around 4:30. I’ll let it rest while the wild rice casserole is in the oven, and use that time to make gravy. Mary is making a green salad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last minute: Carve turkey, sauté the venison. Oh, and sauté some scallops for the pescatarian. Is there enough food for him? I think so. What am I missing? Dressing? Green beans? Never mind that, there are only four of us. We’ll be eating leftovers for weeks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll edit this to add food pics tomorrow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Happy Thanksgiving.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-11565980171752373342018-10-28T08:59:00.000-05:002018-10-28T08:59:09.677-05:00But It Really Happened!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 5pt 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From 1990 until about 2010, I was part of a weekly critique group, possibly the most valuable thing I ever did to bring quality and focus to my writing. The membership of our small, usually five to seven person group, evolved over the years. People would join us for a few meetings, or a few years, then move on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilzalLEe58Ed4t5DH1_9BtHLx_IEHyMy_D3AkWxZtSLNcMBYqfKNu0sGC1Gpv-5_RVoULABxyfe6vVUyzN4Wq4MzARMT5wxJela39A-i4XLLpWVluJnKboWslcnRKittPcNIjRAZ93gRI/s1600/90px-Hell%2527s_Gate_Trestle_Underside.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="120" data-original-width="90" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilzalLEe58Ed4t5DH1_9BtHLx_IEHyMy_D3AkWxZtSLNcMBYqfKNu0sGC1Gpv-5_RVoULABxyfe6vVUyzN4Wq4MzARMT5wxJela39A-i4XLLpWVluJnKboWslcnRKittPcNIjRAZ93gRI/s320/90px-Hell%2527s_Gate_Trestle_Underside.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One man (I will call him Bill, because that was his name) was part of the group for only a few months. Bill was a good storyteller, a competent writer, a thoughtful critic, and a nice guy. He was working on a young adult novel set in the rural Minnesota community where he had grown up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the key scenes in his book was set on a train trestle running over a ravine. Several characters were involved. When Bill read this scene, we were confused—the complex physical setting with the multiple characters were all but impossible for us to visualize. We had many, many questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bill was frustrated. He didn’t understand how we could be having trouble “seeing” the scene as he did. “It’s a real place,” he said. “I was there.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We talked about it for a long time. Bill returned to our next meeting with a complete revision. He read it. We still didn’t get it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He revised again, and presented his new version at the following meeting. By this time we had heard the scene too many times, along with his lengthy explanations for what he was trying to describe. The scene still didn’t work. That may have been Bill’s last visit to our group. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After that, we added a new term to our lexicon: The Trestle Problem. We have all run into it in our own writing. Sometimes the problem is solved by endless rewrites; sometimes it never goes away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Trestle Problem: A complex physical scene based upon a vivid real-life memory.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You might think that a strong, reality-based memory would form a solid foundation for a scene—and sometimes it does. But often we are sabotaged by our memories. Because they seem to clear and compelling, it can be difficult to step outside our memories and put ourselves behind the eyes of the reader. The more vivid and profound our real-life experiences, the harder they are to communicate through prose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A common cry heard in writing critique groups throughout the known universe: “But…that’s what really happened!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the 1993 movie <i>The Fugitive</i>, when the cop, Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) has fugitive Richard Kimball (Harrison Ford) cornered, Kimball cries “I didn’t kill my wife!” Gerard says, “I don’t care!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because all we care about is our <i>own</i>story. And so it is for the reader, who doesn’t care about you, or what you’ve experienced—even though, if you ask them, they <i>think</i>they do. They care about what it means for <i>them</i>. If you don’t make it real for <i>them</i>, they <i>will not care</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The singer and songwriter Johnette Napolitani expresses it as I rage-tinged cry in her song “When I Was a Fool:” <i>Grow up and get real, have a kid in their teens, who won’t care what I’ve done, what I’ve been, what I’ve seen…</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And that’s a terrific problem for us writers—to accept the fact that our readers don’t give a shit about us. Because all we really want at bottom is to be loved, to be cared about, to matter. But here’s the thing: Every book you write, every sentence, every word, has to bring your reader back to themselves. Standup comics deal with this every night, every joke. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If there is a practical technique for dealing with the trestle problem, it is this: Say less. Tell them only enough to trigger access to their own storehouse of memories and emotions, then get the hell out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Using words to insert specific images and emotions into the readers mind is a tricky business, and one we are often best off avoiding. Tell them you are looking at a…say, a pen, and they will see a different pen than you. Tell them it is a red fountain pen and they will see a different red fountain pen. Tell them it is a dark red Namiki retractable fountain pen with a chipped, chrome-plated ferrule, an extra-fine nib, and an empty ink cartridge…and you will lose all but the fountain pen aficionados.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are exceptions, of course. When it is done well, the sentence- or paragraph-level infodump can be informative, evocative, and altogether pleasing. Rules must be broken! But when a complex scene is not working, consider stripping it down to its essentials and letting the reader do the heavy lifting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-45815899698027243192018-10-08T08:09:00.000-05:002018-10-08T09:11:38.639-05:00Cover reveal: ROAD TRIPPED<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, I wrote another YA novel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This one is about death and grief and depression and fun stuff like that. It's about a boy and a car and Star Wars figurines and Wonder Woman and modern art and wisdom found in peculiar places. It's funny and dark and (I always say this) different from all my other books.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The <i>Road Tripped</i> cover is the sort of cover I usually hate, except I don't hate this one. I love it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The sort of covers I hate are the ones with a clutter of scenes from the book—as if the designers had no ideas, so they just crammed in whatever they could. Usually such book covers are confusing and ugly</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This one is not. This is a very cool design: retro but modern, garish but elegant, noisy but composed. Did I mention I love it?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH6FnfybZGC8RLUJ-stkiEsfEvQuzoOd43jSiZUXDsjMF9DNG1tVx1rwtooYsAKVPSWtH6g9vR_Ew4hVvSni4FrhJcbSZ7MMyTR4xH4fJsgl3uGlUvIW0KMW0n78g7qQ_y4hunPDp9LFY/s1600/RoadTripped_front_lo.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH6FnfybZGC8RLUJ-stkiEsfEvQuzoOd43jSiZUXDsjMF9DNG1tVx1rwtooYsAKVPSWtH6g9vR_Ew4hVvSni4FrhJcbSZ7MMyTR4xH4fJsgl3uGlUvIW0KMW0n78g7qQ_y4hunPDp9LFY/s320/RoadTripped_front_lo.jpg" width="212" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The wraparound spread is fantastic. Click for bigger.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwAVw3ge6gfhoc-AXp3T-lS41jhzRVTN_C7j1A-t69Eijvqko1VB7vCsTPvL7FbaWt_RksMeWUOBOquEqhYDCtOxxmkPMqQz9o6vLe-w_rpdKZrxgWL1gfJ3pOjeqqFJ526xQf7v1dcrs/s1600/RoadTripped_wrap_lo.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwAVw3ge6gfhoc-AXp3T-lS41jhzRVTN_C7j1A-t69Eijvqko1VB7vCsTPvL7FbaWt_RksMeWUOBOquEqhYDCtOxxmkPMqQz9o6vLe-w_rpdKZrxgWL1gfJ3pOjeqqFJ526xQf7v1dcrs/s320/RoadTripped_wrap_lo.jpg" width="320" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I can tell the illustr</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ator (</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(31, 73, 125); color: #1f497d;">Studio Muti / Folio Art) </span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">really did read the book, and put a lot of thought into his/her/their choices. I can see the research behind the illustrations. They are true to the real places and fictional events they represent, but also quirky and fun—which I believe represents the book well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Road Tripped</i> will be coming out next May, just in time for reading while on a summer road trip.</span><br />
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Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-32520267415885112872018-09-29T07:44:00.000-05:002018-09-29T07:44:15.742-05:00SMILE<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_6b8AH-GRe6P0rYwqBxCJs8Ku762qjdlR4pQ7hETu0VfXGZ2tk_wlmHJk9xrjsbzrB5mdP7sDsjcqh7847Im_7o5kxx2Ns2JpTmRouZyO0wPNRHA7cWQMVFAvcfH-3ybifUbN1-avptw/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_6b8AH-GRe6P0rYwqBxCJs8Ku762qjdlR4pQ7hETu0VfXGZ2tk_wlmHJk9xrjsbzrB5mdP7sDsjcqh7847Im_7o5kxx2Ns2JpTmRouZyO0wPNRHA7cWQMVFAvcfH-3ybifUbN1-avptw/s400/Unknown.jpeg" /></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve told this story often. This morning I woke up thinking about it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About twenty-five years ago, I was at Cub Foods doing some grocery shopping. It was early morning—there were only a few other shoppers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I started in the produce section, as I always do, and noticed a woman sniffing the cantaloupes. She was under five feet tall, and probably about sixty years old. A huge mop of grey-streaked black hair corkscrewed out from her head. She was wearing colorful full-length skirt and an equally colorful blouse, with a sort of cape across her rounded shoulders, and at least two long scarves. Her large eyes were rimmed with heavy black mascara, and surmounted by equally black eyebrows. A slash of red lipstick defined her wide mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She looked at me. Her eyes were like black holes. She stared at me fixedly for what might have been two seconds but felt like much longer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I looked away. There is something <i>wrong </i>about this woman, I thought. I wanted nothing to do with her. I made a U-turn and headed for the dairy aisle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few minutes later I saw her again, As I pushed my cart into the cereal aisle, she was at the far end, coming in my direction. She was looking right at me. I turned my cart around, as if I had suddenly remembered an item I had forgotten, and fled. Something about the woman alarmed me deeply.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I killed some time back in produce, picking out the perfect apple, the freshest head of lettuce, the most noble baking potato. When I thought it was safe, I returned to the cereal aisle to get a canister of oatmeal. I turned into the aisle and found myself face to face with the scary woman. The fronts of our carts were almost touching. Close up, she was even scarier than I’d thought. Her lipstick covered not only her lips, but a quarter inch beyond them. Her eyes were mesmeric. I froze. Her black eyebrows came together, her lips parted and I was in that moment certain she was about to deliver a curse, or a dire omen, or that she would reveal a snake in place of her tongue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She said, in a raspy voice, “You should smile more.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And without another word, she guided her cart around mine and headed for the checkout lanes.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-31226005639327996332018-08-13T10:28:00.001-05:002018-08-13T15:09:02.938-05:00Snapshot #2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Otherwood <i>is a fantasy, a ghost story, an adventure set in a fictional version of the wooded area where I grew up. None of the events in the book *actually* happened in real life, but the story is constructed from bits and pieces of memory. Here is one such recollection.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At age seventeen I was living in a three bedroom rambler with my parents and six siblings ranging in age from fifteen down to five. Privacy was at a premium, so I spent a lot of time out in the woods behind our house. Sometimes I would climb into the crotch of a big elm tree—up high where there were no mosquitoes—and read a book. Other times I would wander through the woods I knew so well, following the many twisted trails, dreaming of a future when I would have my own apartment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One day I was tramping through a seldom-visited boggy area, and came upon a heart-stopping scene: several items of apparel laid out on a mossy hillock, carefully arranged to mimic the shape of the person who had worn them. The clothes looked as if they had belonged to a little girl: a T-shirt, a pair of pink shorts, underpants, and socks. No shoes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I stared at those clothes with a rapidly growing sense of unease. I walked in a circle around them, then a bigger circle, half expecting to find a body, but found nothing. Fearing the worst, I ran home and called the police. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The officer who arrived an hour later was a large, soft-featured young man who looked as if he had not been a cop long. I sensed that he was excited—this could be his first big case! A possible abduction, maybe even a murder!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I led the cop out into the woods. Several of the little kids in the neighborhood saw us, so of course they followed. It was me in front, the cop a few paces behind me, and about fifty feet behind him a train of curious five-year-olds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To get to the clothing, we had to navigate a boggy area chest-high with nettles and swarming with mosquitoes. The cop outweighed me by a hundred pounds, and his feet sank into the soft, peaty ground. I could hear the sucking sound as he took each step, and some muttered curses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We arrived at the scene. The cop stood staring, waving away the cloud of mosquitoes, no doubt imaging things even more horrific than those I had been imagining. The train of little kids, led by Jimmy, my youngest brother, caught up with us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The cop asked them if they knew whose clothes those were.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Jimmy said, “Those are Wendy’s.”*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Who is Wendy?” the cop and I both asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“She lives in the corner house,” Jimmy said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Where is this Wendy now?” the cop asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“I think she went home,” said one of the other kids.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Then why are her clothes here?” asked the cop.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“She took them off in Jackie’s yard and went home, so we brought them here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Why?” I asked. I was horribly embarrassed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“We were playing,” Jimmy said, as if that explained everything.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The cop asked a few more questions, but clarity was never achieved. Some weird five-year-old logic was operating—a game in which the rules changed every two minutes. The policeman gathered up the clothing and we headed back. On the way, the cop sank knee deep into a sinkhole, pitched forward into a stand of nettles, and lost a shoe. He had to reach elbow-deep into the peaty muck to retrieve it, then put his foot back into the muddy shoe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He was not happy about the way his big case had developed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’m not sure what happened next—I went home. I imagine the cop found out where Wendy lived, returned the clothing to her parents, and ascertained that the girl was okay. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Later, I quizzed Jimmy on what had happened, but never could quite figure out why Wendy had taken off her clothes, or why the other kids had carried her outfit deep into the boggy part of the woods and laid them out so precisely. The more he told me the less sense it made. I decided it was one more unsolved mystery I would have to live with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">End of story? Not quite. Two months later I was driving down Cedar Lake Road a little too fast, heard the whoop of a siren, and saw flashing red lights in my rearview. I pulled over and rolled down my window. The cop got out of his car and—guess who?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He told me I had been traveling at forty-six miles per hour in a thirty-five zone. I handed him my license. He looked at it, looked at me, and scowled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He said, “I know you, don’t I?” He peered at me closely. “I’ve had some trouble with you before.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From his furrowed brow I could tell he didn’t remember our encounter. I reminded him of our walk in the woods.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">His expression cleared. I thought for a moment that he would laugh and let me off with a warning, but there was no laughing. He gave me a ticket. Pretty sure he was still mad about the shoe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">*<i>Not her real name.</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-71532517371529015342018-08-07T08:49:00.001-05:002018-08-07T08:49:18.267-05:00Snapshots<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think about my childhood a lot. It’s the curse of the kidlit author, because no matter if we’re writing fantasy, historical fiction, nonfiction, or any other sort of book intended for younger audiences, we are always mining our early years, if not for events and characters, then for perspective.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My memories, of course, are colored by the intervening years. There are the exaggerations I have come to believe, dreams conflated with reality, simplifications and embellishments, and the blatant lies I choose to tell myself. But mostly they are true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;">For example, one day in the late sixties (I think I was about fifteen), my father, Tuck, arrived home after a long day at work. As was often the case, one of us seven kids—probably Bob—had left his bike in the middle of the driveway, preventing Tuck from pulling into his usual parking space.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tuck got out of his pickup truck, picked up the bike, and threw it up on the roof of the garage. He got back in his truck, parked it, and never said a word to any of us about the bike.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three days later, the bike was still up there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Dad,” I asked, “aren’t you going to get the bike off the garage?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“No,” he said. “It remains as a monument to my stupidity.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next morning when I got up the bike was back in the garage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaxwDZ5O9-zAVwreVJoVcNFVzDcTkDjs-QAKgPO1KCMnbcH1fxVmepDM_j4yX7sQlndPs0iKImDlA_urUmnc6Wc9586tb0p3EfW6ZXvR9SHkHrZ6DEBETlU93A7exL7g2m86TYofkzk6w/s1600/5679874.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaxwDZ5O9-zAVwreVJoVcNFVzDcTkDjs-QAKgPO1KCMnbcH1fxVmepDM_j4yX7sQlndPs0iKImDlA_urUmnc6Wc9586tb0p3EfW6ZXvR9SHkHrZ6DEBETlU93A7exL7g2m86TYofkzk6w/s400/5679874.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With Tuck and Elaine, 1972</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was typical that Tuck never said anything to Bob—no yelling, chiding, or extracted promises. There was little scolding in our household. The bike on the garage roof was sufficient. Most of us kids were perfectly capable of climbing up there and bringing the bike down. But we didn’t, for the same reason Tuck left it up there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Around that same time that I took up cigarette smoking. I kept it from my parents. Although I’m sure they could smell it on me, they never said anything. I would buy a pack of Camels for thirty-five cents from the vending machine at the bowling alley, and hide them on top of a rafter in the garage where no one would ever think to look.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One day Tuck was in the garage looking for something. He came back in the house and tossed me the pack of Camels. “You left these in the garage,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That was my smoking lecture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few years ago, Joel Shoemaker was writing <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442257191/Pete-Hautman-Speaking-the-Truth-to-Teens" target="_blank">a book about my books</a>, and he interviewed my sister Amy by email, asking her about her memories of our childhood. He asked what our parents had done to “rein (Pete) in, or give him advice.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amy replied, “The question made me laugh. I read it to my mom and she laughed too. She said, ‘Advice? I don’t think any of you got advice!’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-55512993203800607442018-03-16T12:59:00.001-05:002018-04-17T09:12:02.326-05:00Some Personal History, and How It Turned Into a Book<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: 1.0in; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">In 1958 our family moved from California to Minnesota.
My father had grown up in Minneapolis and met my mother there. They were sad to
leave the avocados and artichokes and mild weather behind, but happy to be back
amongst “their people.”</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">They bought a house on the outer edge of St. Louis
Park, a suburb of Minneapolis. Back then there were still working farms within
walking distance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The day we moved in, my dad took me for a walk in the
woods behind our house. I was five years old. He taught me the names of the
trees and the animals. He taught me about poison ivy and wild berries.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">We lived on a dead end street with a few hundred acres
of woods and fields behind our house—most of it had once been the Westwood
Hills Golf Course, a twenty-seven hole public course. My dad and his brothers
had golfed there in the 1940s and early 50s. In the mid 1950s, the course was
reduced to eighteen holes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">A few years later only nine holes remained playable.
Part of the course went to a housing development, the rest of it was left to
nature. When my family moved there in 1958, only the last nine holes of the
golf course was still being maintained. I golfed those holes when I was eight
years old. My handicap must have been about fifty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">During our first walk in the woods, my dad showed me
where an old fairway had been—four years after that section of the golf course
had closed, the fairway had become a long, narrow field of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>knee-high grasses, weeds, and saplings. At
the end of the field we discovered a large patch of creeping bent—the tight,
low grass variety used for golf greens.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">In 1961, the last nine-hole golf course closed. That
same year, a water main broke, and sixty acres of the old golf course flooded,
forming a marsh that would later would become known as Westwood Lake. My friend
and I built a raft out of scavenged construction pallets and poled out onto the
newly formed marsh. We could see through the clear water to the bright green
turf below. In one place, gas built up beneath the underwater turf, creating a
huge bubble that rose up out of the water—a bright green, perfectly
circular island about ten feet across. Of course, we jabbed a pole into it. The
marsh farted, complete with sulphury reek.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Late that fall we had a hard, early freeze. The water
turned to glass. You could see through the ice to the green grassy bottom. The
ice was only an inch or so thick—just enough to support a ten-year-old on
skates. An infinity of utterly smooth ice to skate on!</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Although we were only six miles from downtown
Minneapolis, the area still had a rural feeling. In the early 1960s I and
several other kids in the neighborhood trapped muskrat and mink in the marsh.
We sold the pelts to Berman Buckskin for pocket money. For several years I
subscribed to Fur-Fish-Game magazine. I still have my copy of <i>The Trapper’s
Companion</i>, the first book I ever bought. My literary hero was Jim
Kjelgaard, who wrote about dogs and the outdoors. I wanted to be a trapper,
like Danny, the hero of Kjelgaard’s novel <i>Big Red</i>.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhAVzKsK9IJ9iKYseXpxkvSX0SNfFR4xMd7hANSM9XWStg47zCcsi1ToYDS-8-YHVeHpRhbNIitf1kzrenzyec38hCUcXXEbSHerdFx6dLsIHAx-1hj36bYteTRYPPAa60k6DxdMEUilI/s320/Screen+Shot+2018-03-16+at+12.44.07+PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What it looks like today.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhAVzKsK9IJ9iKYseXpxkvSX0SNfFR4xMd7hANSM9XWStg47zCcsi1ToYDS-8-YHVeHpRhbNIitf1kzrenzyec38hCUcXXEbSHerdFx6dLsIHAx-1hj36bYteTRYPPAa60k6DxdMEUilI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-03-16+at+12.44.07+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The woods and the marsh were my playground, my refuge,
my universe. Every part of the woods had a name: First Woods, Second Woods,
Bone Woods, the Twin Peninsulas, the Swamp, the Field, the Fort, the Hill, the
Sand Pit, Gopher Bazaar, the Poplar Woods, and so on. I swung across a ravine
on a grapevine swing, and spent many hours playing inside a deadfall fort. I
sank to my knees in peat bogs, suffered countless mosquito bites and nettle
stings, and built memories that will be with me to the end of my life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Today, most of that land has been leveled to make room
for housing, auto dealerships and office buildings. About 200 acres, including
the marsh, has been preserved as a nature center. It’s no longer the wild place
I remember—there are fences and woodchip trails, interpretive signage and
rules. I still go there a few times a year to search out the old paths and
reawaken memories, but it is not the same. The magic is still there, but it has
become civilized, lethargic, mundane.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbP9BzbwrybFpWi5Cktu5ISujNSSmARV-ZQUfgixmq2GtiW2M4gkdJX703VAD_lPF9DpeWkaw87FyTZlVS7ycTkEICKoX4j8OLyJJBgLBnNdB_2fIFKQWQJhvVjpgIzMzPjfvZJ-ZtXZg/s1600/Otherwood2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbP9BzbwrybFpWi5Cktu5ISujNSSmARV-ZQUfgixmq2GtiW2M4gkdJX703VAD_lPF9DpeWkaw87FyTZlVS7ycTkEICKoX4j8OLyJJBgLBnNdB_2fIFKQWQJhvVjpgIzMzPjfvZJ-ZtXZg/s320/Otherwood2.jpg" width="211" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">My novel <i>Otherwood</i> is my eulogy to the woods
that live now only in my memory. I have taken great liberties with the
woods—made them bigger, and more recent—but I hope that some of the wonder and
mystery and magic has survived.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Otherwood</span></i><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">
will be published by Candlewick Press on September 11, 2018.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-13102411497529753052018-03-13T11:02:00.000-05:002018-03-13T11:02:10.225-05:00Cover Reveal<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Otherwood</i> is a middle-grade novel about...well, I haven't yet figured out how to describe it. I guess you could call it a contemporary story about friendship, family, and secrets—with ghosts. I'll let the reviewers sort it out. I've never written anything quite like it before. But I always say that, don't I? Anyway, here's what it's going to look like:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigVttr6Y0MPIW3s6YbcxvvVMoxkfPlwLcTJjyqEIgn4ykiILKwAJrtsPrFLIuoAaTWyXkEnEPfo9839BES8X6WIhCgl0UJMrxhp5RP_2W6qABCrzxvbt8_AkggwrVbGO-kBliPYL_OHi0/s1600/Otherwood2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigVttr6Y0MPIW3s6YbcxvvVMoxkfPlwLcTJjyqEIgn4ykiILKwAJrtsPrFLIuoAaTWyXkEnEPfo9839BES8X6WIhCgl0UJMrxhp5RP_2W6qABCrzxvbt8_AkggwrVbGO-kBliPYL_OHi0/s1600/Otherwood2.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pub date is September 11. More info to come. </span>Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-91219376277845100382018-02-09T13:43:00.002-06:002018-02-09T13:43:59.451-06:00My Process, FWIW<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This week I completed a first draft of a YA road trip novel
I started back in 2013. That’s typical.</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2013 I had an idea for a character and a journey, and
wrote a few pages so I wouldn’t forget it. A year later I wrote twelve more
pages, then wrote this note in my journal: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This
is the point where I realize that I have a couple characters, an
emotional/intellectual journey, a compelling opening, and an epiphanic ending.
But I have no story</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I set the manuscript aside and worked on other things. Six months
after that I wrote another twenty pages, got stuck again and didn’t look at it
for another seven months, when one day I told a friend, Geoff Herbach, about
the book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFzn1aW-xiSwtdjqNzQwepyZUMT3nb56LV8P232P-BQTxqaP0wOABZI4uY0t2uc_z0MyVdeXF8GCForHirO40vq11qhjREqnU8ccj0DITTVfhkcry4knB9DdBrV5YIALbg80aCH1053cQ/s200/invisible2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="133" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Invisible sequel? Not now.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Talking about it with a fellow writer—we discussed his
nascent novel too—got me excited. I went home and wrote five more pages,
bringing it up to thirty-six pages. It was looking promising, but I was deep
into revising a middle-grade novel called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Otherwood</i>
(coming this September!), and writing a contracted sequel to my 2005 novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible</i>. so the road trip story went
back into limbo. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFzn1aW-xiSwtdjqNzQwepyZUMT3nb56LV8P232P-BQTxqaP0wOABZI4uY0t2uc_z0MyVdeXF8GCForHirO40vq11qhjREqnU8ccj0DITTVfhkcry4knB9DdBrV5YIALbg80aCH1053cQ/s1600/invisible2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The novel (I was calling it a novel now) reemerged last
April, when I had the opportunity to take a solo road trip down the Mississippi
River to the state of Mississippi. Hundreds of photos and pages of notes and a
couple thousand miles later I was back at my desk. I wrote four pages and, once
again, set it aside to work on other things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last summer the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible</i>
sequel died halfway through. I mean, that thing had been dead for months but I kept
administering CPR. It finally got to the point where it was stinking up the
house so bad I couldn’t stand it. That’s another story I may share on some dark
future day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I returned to the road trip novel in late August, and over
the next 157 days I wrote another 244 pages. For those of you who like to count
words, that’s an average of 346 words per day. For me, that’s a reasonable
pace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I reread the manuscript, made a bunch of deletions,
additions and edits, and yesterday called it a first draft. Now, on to a couple
beta readers and what I fear will be an arduous rewrite. That, too, is typical.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m still working on a title. Titles are hard, unless they
come right away. This one didn’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, that’s how I do it. I’m now starting work on a novel
I’ve been thinking about for twenty years, based on a recurring nightmare from
early childhood. I think it’s a horror novel but maybe not. I have three
characters, a setting, some existential dread, and a bit of dialog. No plot or story
yet, but it will come.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope your process is cleaner and easier. But I’ll bet it’s
not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-30964943533000431052017-11-24T07:16:00.000-06:002017-11-24T07:16:27.853-06:00Post-Thanksgiving Post<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everything was delicious. Two turkeys—one heritage and one
conventional—and a platter of duck breasts. My green bean casserole turned out
great, as did my brother’s green beans with garlic and anchovies. (Between the
two of we brought five pounds of green beans.) All the sides were fantastic.
There were four pies, including Mary Logue’s impeccable pumpkin pie, which
disappeared first. Charlie’s broccoli salad made a late appearance, so he’ll be
eating it for the next couple days. There was wine, and an exceptional rye
whiskey from Iowa of all places.</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYqUMybjg9ll9BV0i_tjpPl3Vt0VKB9N-WxuRke_Xs_22WhGoh36nYnDukAJs89hZkBaw1c66DOXoBwztwIRvtcx1v_D4ehCP7Y2JcVZWenaHDbqTsHN9kFIri_g8qlhpBZElo-X53lPM/s1600/IMG_0396.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYqUMybjg9ll9BV0i_tjpPl3Vt0VKB9N-WxuRke_Xs_22WhGoh36nYnDukAJs89hZkBaw1c66DOXoBwztwIRvtcx1v_D4ehCP7Y2JcVZWenaHDbqTsHN9kFIri_g8qlhpBZElo-X53lPM/s400/IMG_0396.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The GBC</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was our first Thanksgiving without Elaine (my mom), so
we talked about her a lot. There was some Roy Moore bashing, but most of us seem
willing to grant Al Franken a pass—albeit with finger-wagging. There was no
praying—I think the last time we prayed was back in 1969, and that didn’t go so
well. Nobody watched football, or so much as turned on a television. Bill and
Sherrie’s son Jake got trapped in Milla’s massage chair and as far as I know
he’s still there, smiling vacantly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today I will be doing something I swore I would never do: visit
a shopping mall on Black Friday. From noon to two I’ll be on display at a table
at the Barnes & Noble in Minnetonka with a pile of books in front of me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If
you are in the vicinity please stop by to say hello. If you want a book, I’ll
have plenty, and I’ll sign it and inscribe it to anyone you name, along with a
pretty illustration on the title page. There will be several Young Adult novels
(ages 12 and up) and some Middle Grade novels (ages 9-13). Got any of those on
your Christmas list?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-90482707720717393442017-11-22T11:15:00.000-06:002017-11-22T11:15:30.529-06:00Pre-Thanksgiving Post: The GBC<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Green Bean Casserole is a Minnesota Thanksgiving staple—as
important as the turkey, the dressing, the mashed potatoes, the yams, and the
pumpkin pie. Okay, maybe not as important as the pie.</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-7b02Ru3KzIrDA6bieutYdbLrOpzkTDm-xeNVKBQsJQ7oh7F7WeZSoDzzUAaYMYng65J4-GnJk69QV7MFVxiH0WUQZvjd2oAnKJyrB9cDpIAsn850JcYX_NGjql7oIUl62hI9hDss3Vo/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-7b02Ru3KzIrDA6bieutYdbLrOpzkTDm-xeNVKBQsJQ7oh7F7WeZSoDzzUAaYMYng65J4-GnJk69QV7MFVxiH0WUQZvjd2oAnKJyrB9cDpIAsn850JcYX_NGjql7oIUl62hI9hDss3Vo/s200/Unknown.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Lime Jello Salad. Yes, it's a thing.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back in the 60s and 70s, the GBC was often the only
green thing on the table—unless someone brought a lime jello salad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As usually constructed, GBC is a super easy dish: Two cans
of green beans, one can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, splash of milk. Mix
in a baking dish, top with one can of “French fried onions,” bake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I never much liked it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These days we get all fancy-schmancy. Our extended
family-and-friends potluck menu might include venison, goose, delicata squash,
wild rice, and multiple leafy green salads. Cousin Charlie will want me to mention his
broccoli salad here, and there will be at least one dish that I won’t be familiar
with, and cannot identify even after eating some. It will contain cheese. There will be no candied yams with marshmallows, no cranberry sauce from a can, and no lime jello salad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This year I decided to reintroduce the Green Bean Casserole.
Or some fancy-schmancy version thereof. Naturally, I must make things as
difficult as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg3fEdvYJWQNbdiY3myTddYSfQCfKLPY9BuoRnVL-Mr9YG3xliS09JVNutweGQ_hQWuANBsjX_qg05VPPtNtzOyjBpvNRlIkAcHP7y8RZ4rdYf1WRSiWbB4GXKAQXm1oZgNbnTZnOy0Ls/s1600/IMG_0392.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg3fEdvYJWQNbdiY3myTddYSfQCfKLPY9BuoRnVL-Mr9YG3xliS09JVNutweGQ_hQWuANBsjX_qg05VPPtNtzOyjBpvNRlIkAcHP7y8RZ4rdYf1WRSiWbB4GXKAQXm1oZgNbnTZnOy0Ls/s400/IMG_0392.JPG" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the mushroom soup I will substitute home-made crème
fraiche, cream, fresh thyme from the garden, and an assortment of foraged wild mushrooms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the green beans I will use fresh haricots vert—small,
thin green beans that have French pretentions, but in truth, at this time of
year, must be </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">imported from Guatemala.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead of canned onions, I will fry some shallots, because shallots
make me feel special. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is quite possible that my </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">fancy-schmancy</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> GBC will be no tastier than the traditional version, but it doesn’t matter. People
will scoop a small beany glob onto their plates between the mashed potatoes and
the some fancy-schmancy cranberry chutney. Gravy will slop over onto
everything, and we will all be talking with our mouths full, and no one will
notice that I used shallots instead of onions, or that the mushrooms are wild,
or that the Guatemalan beans have a French accent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And that’s okay. Because we gather on this day to be together,
to remind ourselves that we are not alone, to feed each other, to feed that
which connects us. The whole point of making the food is to prove to ourselves
that we care. Cooking for others is its own reward. The more effort that goes
into it, the greater the love—even if the turkey is dry, even if the gravy is
too salty, even if the fancy-schmancy green bean casserole tastes of gravy and cranberries.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Photo of the finished dish tomorrow. Have a lovely holiday!</span></div>
Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3636753868888685143.post-76456089600060275852017-09-19T07:35:00.001-05:002017-09-19T07:35:26.722-05:00More Slider Events<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">If you missed the Slider Eating Contest at </span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wildrumpusbooks.com/hautmanslider" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Wild Rumpus</a>, too bad! It was a multi-species event. The dog won.</span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBnn3E44rVz5W2ZoaFaFuRydV2eYmI97NmTiSypV4wznyJ7Md9fhjz_TumclxxZVJj4EFhoImbwowSsS-2IUEQ6yl_Is-8qw66OkK1sQ7KERsoulxabx9V0jeRSimqUMkS8omJgTYp6Vc/s1600/IMG_0240.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBnn3E44rVz5W2ZoaFaFuRydV2eYmI97NmTiSypV4wznyJ7Md9fhjz_TumclxxZVJj4EFhoImbwowSsS-2IUEQ6yl_Is-8qw66OkK1sQ7KERsoulxabx9V0jeRSimqUMkS8omJgTYp6Vc/s320/IMG_0240.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bodie, the champ, at 8 pounds.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> launch party at</span> </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.redballoonbookshop.com/event/pete-hautman-slider-melanie-heuiser-hill-giant-pumpkin-suite-double-launch-party" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">The Red Balloon</a> was fun too. Debut author Melanie Heuiser Hill and I shared a book birthday, so although there was only one species present, there were two authors.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">You can still pick up signed copies at either store.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b>On Saturday, September 23 I will be doing events at two different Twin Cities area Barnes & Noble stores.</b></span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><a href="https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780061889821-0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">In Edina, at the Galleria B&N</span>,</a><span style="font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> I'll be on a panel with Bryan Bliss, Carrie Mesrobian, Monica Ropal, and Jacqueline West. I don't know who's in charge of this thing, but they had better bring a whip. 11:00-1:00.</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A few hours later I will be at the </span><a href="https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780061886536-0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">B&N in Minnetonka</a><span style="font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> with debut author Andrew DeYoung. Andrew is launching his new sci-fi novel, </span><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;">The Exo Project</em><span style="font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">. Can't wait to meet him, and read his book! 2:00-4:00 p.m.</span></span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Of course, we will be signing books at both events: my new middle-grade novel <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;">Slider</em> will be on hand, as well as my most recent YA book, <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;">Eden West</em>.</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.petehautman.com/slider-reviews.html" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Click here to read SLIDER reviews.</a><br />
<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.petehautman.com/slider-reviews.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4-6vWiu1uIhcRd0u_0L7kY57ctd3JHvmbWWNZRZMApNiTtEj4fKDVUET-BP57U0zEuyWSjvdxAJKi7_0nAdgMENGmw0HIasYXsvQmranAkoB8KX9_fvw4MO0xwY8FQAKN31Ts80a4WYE/s1600/Slider.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4-6vWiu1uIhcRd0u_0L7kY57ctd3JHvmbWWNZRZMApNiTtEj4fKDVUET-BP57U0zEuyWSjvdxAJKi7_0nAdgMENGmw0HIasYXsvQmranAkoB8KX9_fvw4MO0xwY8FQAKN31Ts80a4WYE/s320/Slider.jpg" width="212" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG4c3CaaAKlTkCxMKz8LKv7PIjWxMjoL4VlP6FEz81XuRdg5ShSaaXGdIqXHIDsInARCjb4HbXz8eHQhNKyvRTxTJc76wxb0E5XkwDFWKhhUY5YOg5ycQk6kJ_t1ABhIjgQh8AhvbHyhA/s1600/EdenWest_Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG4c3CaaAKlTkCxMKz8LKv7PIjWxMjoL4VlP6FEz81XuRdg5ShSaaXGdIqXHIDsInARCjb4HbXz8eHQhNKyvRTxTJc76wxb0E5XkwDFWKhhUY5YOg5ycQk6kJ_t1ABhIjgQh8AhvbHyhA/s320/EdenWest_Cover.jpg" width="212" /></a></span></span>Pete Hautmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04904540764318731548noreply@blogger.com0