Laura, please tell our SFC audience
about yourself. I know you are happily married with two children, work a full-time job, and live in Minnesota. Did you grow
up in Minnesota?
Hi, Gayle,
and everyone!
I didn’t
grow up in Minnesota. I was born and raised in the Orlando area, but I hate hot weather. After college and a couple of years
working, my husband and I started researching and job hunting in places with actual seasons. Minneapolis was our first choice
and we love it!
I don’t
work a full-time job, though I worked part-time for the Star Tribune’s website for about 10 years. I patch together
my income from many sources: writing poetry (my favorite thing); teaching online classes; writing for the educational market;
speaking at conferences and at schools; and website updating for Children’s Literature Network and Winding Oak’s
writer clients. There are probably a few other things too, but that’s all I can think of for now. It’s a challenge
juggling everything.
When did you become a writer? What personality trait of yours do you feel makes you a good writer?
I’m
always jealous of people who knew they wanted to be a writer while they were still in the womb! I have always loved reading
and in school I was good at writing. But I never really thought about it or was even that aware of it as a career.
In college,
I was on the pre-med track, wanting to be a veterinarian. I worked 40+ hours a week supporting myself and went to school full-time.
I just couldn’t cut it. Chemistry nearly killed me (even though I love science). I was also a psychology major for a
while. Again, I loved the topic, but I couldn’t face 6-8 years of keeping up with supporting myself through school.
It was grueling.
So I tried
a creative writing class (in fact, that class is where I met my future husband) and loved it. I switched to an English major
with an emphasis in Creative Writing. That’s when I started to think about becoming a writer (though there were many
more detours along the way after that!).
Curiosity
and organization are my two traits that help me most as a writer, I think. I can find ideas anywhere, any time. And I have
to be super-organized to keep track of all the various writing and teaching projects I have going on.
Your first book was: Taking the Plunge: A Teen's Guide to Independence. How did the idea of this book come about? What do you feel was the most important message for teens
to hear in that book and why?
I moved
out of my parents’ house when I was 16. For background on that, see (http://www.laurasalas.com/nonfiction/nfbks/plunge.html). As an adult and a writer, I wanted to write the
book I wish had been available when I moved out on my own. I was lucky enough to have 3 older sisters to answer my questions
and offer moral support. I knew I’d never be out on the streets, because if worse came to worst, I could stay with one
of them if I had to. But lots of kids don’t have that safety net. So I wanted to write a really practical book to help
kids in that situation.
When and why did you get involved in writing for the educational field and can you tell us the titles of the books you
wrote in this genre?
I attended
a local (Minneapolis) SCBWI conference and several editors for educational publishers spoke. I thought it sounded like work
I could do and it sounded interesting. I ended up writing books for two of the editors from that conference, in fact.
Today,
I have more than 35 nonfiction books for educational publishers. You can see a complete list of my books here: http://www.laurasalas.com/about/My%20Books.pdf
Now I teach
about writing for this market. I give workshops at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and I now teach a month-long intensive
online class to help people learn how to break into this market: http://www.laurasalas.com/present/on_nf.html
You're certainly becoming a poet
extraordinaire! How did you get started in poetry and what books on poetry have you had published to date?
In about 2000, I was thrilled to win our local SCBWI Writer Mentorship program. I had submitted
a nonfiction picture book manuscript. And that’s what mentor Lisa Westberg Peters and I were mostly working on. However,
I have a family member with a chronic mood/brain disorder and my life was (and is) pretty chaotic.
Sometime
during the year Lisa and I worked together, she suggested I do some free writing about that illness, just to give some of
that pressure and intensity someplace to go.
I’m
not a good free writer. I’m very goal-oriented, so to sit down and write without knowing what I was trying to write
was completely new to me. Imagine my surprise when what came out was . . . poetry. It wasn’t good poetry, mind you.
It was quite lousy. But it was written in lines rather than paragraphs and it definitely had a different feel than my other
writing.
And that
was the start of it. For a couple of years, I mainly wrote poetry about topics I was quite emotional about—poetry seemed
the natural home for those words. But the more I read poetry, and the more I wrote it, the more it became my favorite form
to write in.
Now I have
six poetry books out with Capstone Press (http://www.laurasalas.com/poetry/poetry%20books/pobks.html) and a poetry picture book coming out with Clarion
in 2009. Ahem. I have many more unsold and oft-rejected poetry manuscripts,
too. It’s not an easy field to be published in. But I love writing it!
Please tell us about your current online poetry classes. Can young authors sign up for your classes?
These are
poetry classes for grown-ups who want to write poems for kids or teens. The classes are all online. I post a blog entry each
day of the class and only class members can see it. People read and respond, and share their homework.
I’m
really having fun with them and so are the writers participating in them. I should call them workshops really, because there’s
no black and white, right and wrong way to write a poem. In these classes, we talk about many aspects of good poetry and we
write lots of poems, and talk about them. I think we’re all learning a lot.
I have
two classes. One is a week-long class (five days) for very beginners. It’s called Getting to a Poem. The other is a four-week class (16 days) and is more intense. It’s for beginning and intermediate
poets. Neither class is about writing in rhyme, though I might offer a class on that at some point. You can read more about
these classes by clicking on the links from this page: http://www.laurasalas.com/present/on_poetr.html
As I’m
teaching more online classes, I’m learning a lot about that format and tweaking some things. So the schedules for these
classes might change somewhat in the future, but you could always find up-to-date info on my website or by emailing me.
What's your next writing project?
Oh boy.
I always have so many going on!
Right
now, I’m working on several things. For the educational market, I just turned in four science songs. These are song
lyrics written to the tune of copyright-free songs (Clementine, for instance) that teach 1st-2nd grade kids all about a certain
scientific topic. They were a challenge, trying to work in plenty of info, and still keep the rhyme and meter right, but they
were really fun.
On the
poetry side of things, I’m working on some new poems for a second poetry collection that Clarion has made an offer on
(I’m excited beyond words about that!), and I’m pondering some structural changes and a new ending for a humorous
poetry collection aimed at boys. It mixes a bit of prose with the poetry collection, so it’s more of a story than my
first two collections.
And, as
usual, I have about 10 (seriously) projects on my when-I-have-time list. There are so many great possibilities for kids’
books and never enough time to do them all justice.
What were your favorite books to read as a child?
This is
embarrassing to say. I don’t remember.
For the
most part, I have little memory of the books I loved as a child. I read voraciously—anywhere, any time. I lived off
of books. But few individual books remain in my memory.
A few I
remember from my upper elementary and older years:
Nancy Drew
books
Flowers
for Algernon
Wrinkle
in Time
Every single
Agatha Christie book my library had (more than 100)
Edgar Allan
Poe stories
Nathaniel
Hawthorne stories
All Creatures
Great and Small, by James Herriott (and all the sequels)
The Hobbit
(and the first couple of books of Lord of the Rings)
Little
House books
Judy Blume
books
Sunshine,
by Norma Klein
I loved
a series of books for young kids about a pair of twins, brother and sister, who lived in all different times and places .
. . caveman times, ancient Egypt, etc. I wish I knew what they were!
Did your parents read to you? How old were you when they first started reading to you? Did you also read to your girls?
If so, what age were they when you started doing this?
I don’t
remember my parents reading to me. But they both valued books and I’m thinking they must have. But as the youngest of
four kids, who knows? Nobody takes pictures of you, that’s for sure.
My three
big sisters, though, taught me to read. We played school all the time, and I was always the student, never the teacher. I
could read by age four and my nose was rarely seen out of a book from that point on.
My husband
and I read to our daughters from early on, probably 2-3 months old (though story time consisted more of gumming books than
listening to them). My younger daughter, Maddie (12), and I still read books out loud together. We read both contemporary
and older books. Right now, we’re reading The Arm of the Starfish, by Madeleine L’Engle (Maddie is partly named after L’Engle, my favorite author).
If you could be a character in any children's book ever written, who would you be and why?
Gayle,
You’re asking hard questions!
Hmm . .
. I think I would be Poly O’Keefe from L’Engle’s work. She’s funny, smart, she doesn’t quite
fit in. Her family is unconventional but caring and adventurous. She travels the world because of her scientist father’s
work. She thinks about things and is curious about the world. She’s also heartbreakingly honest and vulnerable. She
is just a very cool character. She’s in Arm of the Starfish, Dragons in the Waters, House Like a Lotus, and a couple of others. Vicky Austin, another L’Engle protagonist,
would be second choice.
What's the last children's book you read for your own enjoyment?
I’m
reading constantly, mostly children’s stuff. Here is a list of some of what I read this past week:
I Am the
Wallpaper (middle grade novel)
The Brothers’
War: Civil War in Verse (poetry collection)
One Thousand
Tracings (picture book based on fact)
I Heart
You, You Haunt Me (young adult novel in verse)
Castles,
Caves, and Honeycombs (nonfiction in verse)
What's the funniest thing that's ever happened to you in your writing career?
Boy, I’m
trying to think of something. I’m nervous the first few minutes of speaking in front of a group of writers so my voice
often shakes. But that’s just sad, not funny.
Oh, here’s
something semi-writing related, because I was on my way to the SCBWI annual conference in L.A. I blogged about it:
“I got to the airport bright and early, checked my luggage, and headed to the security line. The conveyor belt
paused for a long moment, and then someone held up my carry-on: "Whose is this?"
I said it was mine, and after I walked
through the x-ray arch thingy, I went to the back table, where the woman had my purse and carry-on. She was putting on
gloves and asking, "Is there anything sharp or dangerous in here?"
"Nope," I answered, hoping I hadn't accidentally
put my sharp nail file into my carry-on instead of my luggage. I had taken my hand cream and hand sanitizer out of my purse
(both of which were confiscated from my purse last time I flew), and I was pretty sure I was all set.
She starts methodically
going through my carry-on, including the zipper portfolio I had inside it (which I hadn't used in a couple of years, since
I had taken it to a local writing conference). She said, after a few minutes, "No knives? Nothing sharp?"
"Nope,"
I said again.
She took my bags back to the conveyor belt to be x-rayed again. "I can't find it," she
said to the other workers.
I wondered what I could have in there that resembled a knife. I wracked my brain, because
I knew I certainly didn't have a knife.
So she came back to the table and started
going through my portfolio very carefully, and pulled out . . . a knife.
Oh my gosh. My jaw must have dropped
to the floor, and I'm sure my face was bright red and guilty looking.
"I'm so sorry," I gushed. “I
don't eat apple peels, and I take apples everywhere and sometimes take a knife to peel them, and I must have left that in
there the last time I went to a writer's conference and I wasn't flying to that one and--"
I must have sounded like
a complete idiot! And I probably looked so incompetent of carrying out anything premeditated that they knew it was an innocent
mistake. The woman asked if it was okay to throw away the knife, and I apologized some more. My heart was pounding
and I was waiting to be wanded or fingerprinted or something. Luckily, the woman just threw away the knife and let me go.
So
the lesson to take away from this? I will always check every zipper and Velcro pocket of any luggage/briefcase/portfolio I'm
traveling with.
And I really should start just eating the apple peel. More fiber and fewer security stops!”
Laura, tell us about YOU THE PERSON! You are so
busy being a wife and mother, working a job, as well as being a writer, poet, and teacher to other writers. How ever do you
find the time to write? Do you have any hobbies? Any organization tips you'd like to share with us on how you keep everything
moving forward?
I’m
a multi-tasking fiend, which has its pros and cons. I’m finding the busier I get, the harder it is to just relax. Especially
with teaching in the online format now. I’m finding more of my evenings devoted to checking email from students, etc.
I do love
to play racquetball and board games. I sing karaoke (poorly) only at home with family members. People tend to think I’m
a goody-goody, so my sense of humor often surprises them. I love to go dancing. Hmm . . . that’s probably more than
you wanted to know. Oh, reading! That’s my number one hobby. How could I forget?
As far
as staying organized, I am a HUGE believer in goals and lists. Each year, I set goals for the
coming year. Here are my poetry goals for 2008, in fact: http://www.laurasalas.com/poetry/poetic%20pursuits/0801gls1.html
Using my
yearly goals as guidelines, I do a monthly status sheet where all my projects are listed and I set monthly goals for those
I’m actively working on. Each week I make To Do lists, and every day I have a To Do list on my Palm Pilot. Nothing makes
me happier than crossing things off a To Do list. I’m a list junkie; I admit it. But it’s the only way I can stay
on top of all the kinds of writing I LIKE to do, plus all the writing-related tasks
I NEED to do in order to earn an income. I definitely treat my writing like a small business.
Is there anything else you'd like our Stories for Children’ audience to know about you or your books?
Lord, no.
I think I’ve bored you to tears already. Pinch! Are you still awake?
But
to your audience, I’d say that writing for kids and teens is just the most satisfying thing ever. Congratulations for
taking on the task and good luck with all your writing!
Laura
and fellow Minnesota author Lisa Bullard are teaming up to offer you an online class which will run June 2-19th: Matchmaking Your Manuscript: Finding the Perfect
Publisher for Your Manuscript.
You
can find out all about this class by clicking on this link:
http://www.laurasalas.com/present/on_match.html
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