An Interview with Heidi Roemer

The Writer’s Life

It’s every writer’s nightmare—you’ve sold your manuscript only to have something come up to delay or forestall its publication. If it’s something as simple as your editor leaving the company, your manuscript will be assigned to another editor at the publisher.

But what if the publishing company is sold? Chicago area writer, poet, and writing teacher Heidi Bee Roemer’s third book—the just released WHOSE NEST IS THIS?—ran into this bump in the road on its way to publication. I spoke to Heidi about her experience.

Heidi, congratulations on your book. Can you give us a short description of your book?

Whose Nest is This? (NorthWord Press, 2009) is a collection of riddles-in-rhyme that describe fascinating nests created by various birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, and even fish! I must mention that Connie McLennan’s illustrations are absolutely gorgeous!

How did you get the idea for the book?

In all honesty, the idea for the book wasn’t mine! Shortly after selling What Kinds of Seeds are These? to NorthWord, I asked my editor, Kristen McCurry, if she had any particular wishes for a new book topic. She mentioned nests, and I was off and running. Six weeks later, I turned in my manuscript for Whose Nests is This? Six weeks after that, she accepted it. Of course, I was thrilled!

When and how did you find out that your original publisher (NorthWord) had been purchased by Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group? Did the new company have a track record in publishing for children?

The artwork and most details on the book project were wrapped up when, one day, I got a surprising email from Kristen saying she was leaving NorthWord. The company had been sold to Rowman & Littlefield, a publisher that had not previously published children’s books.

Most contracts have a clause that if the company is sold, the book’s contract goes to the purchasing company. So you knew your book was still under contract, but did everything go as planned?

Communication with the new publishing house was difficult at first. I’m sure they were scrambling to handle the huge and complicated task of assimilating the new books and all the resulting legalities. My contract stated that the publisher had eight years in which to publish the book. If it wasn’t published within that time frame, then the rights would revert back to me and my illustrator; we could try to sell it elsewhere.  I certainly hoped I would not have to wait THAT long! But the new owners could not exactly pinpoint when Nests would be released. So I had to wait. And wait and wait some more! This made it difficult to schedule book signings and related promotional events that I’d normally do.

The delay, as I understood it, was because there had been some debate over ownership between Rowman & Littlefield and their imprint, Cooper Square Press. Whose Nest is This? was due to be released in spring, 2008, but didn’t come out until fall, 2009. But happily, it was truly well worth the wait!

What advice do you have for a writer when his/her book’s publication date is delayed?

The road to getting published seems to have an unusual amount of twists and turns, much like the dramatic plot line of any great story. If you’re having trouble getting information from the publishing house, you might consider contacting your illustrator to see if she has any updated news on the circumstances surrounding your book. In any case, be professional, polite, and patient as you try to glean information from the publishing staff. You have no idea how hard your editor may be working on your behalf to resolve the issue, whatever that may be. Lastly, try not to stew over things that are beyond your control. After all, a delayed publication is better than not being published at all!

What’s next for you? Do you have any more books in the pipeline?

I am hopeful that my new nonfiction book about African bathing beauties, tentatively titled, Warthogs Never Soak in Suds, will make the final cut with Sylvan Dell. Also, author Laura Crawford and I have collaborated on a geometry book geared for third graders; we will be marketing C is for Circle next month. As always, fingers crossed for another book sale!

Thanks, Heidi! I know this newest book is going to be another teacher favorite!

Author Heidi Bee Roemer can be found on the web at www.heidibroemer.com. She blogs with authors Laura Crawford and Kim Hutmacher about nature books and writers at http://wildaboutnaturewriters.blogspot.com.

THE WRITER’S LIFE features insights into the realities of writing. Look for it periodically at The Riant Writer!

A Real Contender

The reviews written in advance of this book’s debut were certainly eye-catching. One independent bookstore’s newsletter (57th Street Books in Chicago’s Hyde Park) proclaimed it was “the best middle grade novel of the year” even though it is just July. It came up again on my radar and I noticed it was getting starred reviews–from everyone. So I ordered it last week to see for myself.

It is the real deal.
The book is “When You Reach Me” by Rebecca Stead. I was just finishing Neal Shusterman’s ”The Schwa Was Here” when the book arrived and I thought this new book had better be good. I enjoyed SCHWA–it was imaginative and humorous–exactly what I like in a middle grade novel.

Then I read Stead’s book. Whooaaa.

I finished it last night and I’m still thinking about it. The main character, Miranda, is a fan of “A Wrinkle in Time” and the book weaves that story into its storyline. WRINKLE must have come out when I was in my WWII books phase in grade school because I do not remember reading it then. Of course, now I’ll have to go and read it now, like right today.

So is WHEN YOU REACH ME the Newbery Award winner for the year? We’ll have to wait and see, but in my book, it’s a real contender.

The Trouble with Big Kid’s Lit

Garrison Keillor’s weekly column in today’s Chicago Tribune (yes, Virginia, there is still a Chicago Tribune) looks at why more Americans don’t read fiction. A recent report said that an increased number of adults were reading fiction (just over 50%), but of course this is still down from the 1980s when almost 57% of adults read fiction. Why? Garrison explains as only he can. Check it out for a smile.

P.S. I found it odd that I couldn’t find an article covering the study on reading in the Chicago Tribune, hence the link to the NY Times, where I read about it. (Okay, enough talk about the CT. I’ve stopped smiling.)

Gifts That Never Stop Giving

Okay, writers, fess up! People who love us are always trying to give us just the right book or gadget to make our Christmas memorable. What was under your tree this year that lit up your face and made you say, “Oh, you shouldn’t have!”, when you were really, really glad they did?

My total surprise gift was from from my oldest.  I certainly wasn’t expecting a Sony Digital Book Reader! Yikes! You get a free gazillion downloads of the classics, so the first thing I did was download Dickens’ Bleak House. I don’t know if I’ll ever finish the 2,000+ pages, but I have a better chance than trying to carry the book around for a decade. I know folks who have Kindles adore them, but this gift is pretty sweet to me.

Wireless Zpen and Receiver

The other cool gift I got was from my hubby–money to get a digital pen, like LiveScribe or Zpen. These gizmos take your written words and transcribe them to your computer in typed form. Some have the capability to record everything that is being said as you write, beneficial if you’re in a lecture or such. Some of them use special dotted paper but some can write on regular paper. I guess I prefer one that doesn’t use special paper since I just bought a bunch of Levenger paper. (I am such an addict. Some people seek out fine wines, I hunt luxury office supplies.) Does anyone have one of these gadgets? I’d love to hear your feedback.

People also love to give writers books and got some hi-larious books–from Son 2, Steven Colbert’s book, I Am America. From my sister a book not for the politically correct, Stuff White People Like.

A Tale of a Book, a Studio, and an Adaptation

Well, I had my fingers crossed that someone would finally make a good adaptation of one of Kate DiCamillo’s great books, but the reviews seem to be mixed on The Tale of Despereaux. Manohla Dargis in the NY Times had this to say today:

“The main difference between the source and its adaptation is that while the book exudes charm, the movie leans toward cute, a substitution that largely speaks to the influence of Disney on animation. In the movie Despereaux wears a red cap that makes him look more like a well-dressed bunny than like a mouse. But at least he’s not wearing Mickey’s gold clodhoppers and bottom-line grin.”

Roger Ebert gave it three-stars, loved the animation, but wasn’t crazy about the story. (He also made a boo-boo when he said the book was “based on four Newbery Award-winning novels by Kate DiCamillo, all unread by me. . .” Of course, dear children’s book lovers, we all know the movie is based on just one book. Another review I heard said that the movie alternatively bored and scared her young companion. Yikes.

I will probably see the movie, however,  just to listen if narrator Signourney Weaver says the word, “perfidy.” Because it is perfidy, dear reader, when Hollywood gets the adaptation of another children’s classic wrong. When will DiCamillo learn (as Louis Sachar was smart enough to figure out with “Holes”) that if you want something done write in Hollywood you have to do it yourself.

The Gift of Laughter

It’s the season for shopping and gift-giving. Usually at this time of the year we’re shopping for others, but sometimes we’re just shopping for ourselves. No matter who the intended recipient is, here are two books I enjoyed this weekend.

The first book introduced me to Canadian author Tim Wynne-Jones, REX ZERO, KING OF NOTHING. I hadn’t read the first Rex Zero book, but I will now. Wynne-Jones sets his story in 1962 Ottawa. Eleven-year-old Rex Norton-Norton (called Zero because Norton minus Norton equals zero, get it?) has two mysteries to solve–what secret is his dad hiding and whose black address book has he found. His dad’s secret centers on Armistice Day (misunderstood by Rex to be Our Mistress Day). The mystery of the address book centers on an entry in the book as “Nate,” which Rex discovers is actually a beautiful woman  named Natasha.

Rex has to contend with his family, his friends, and a crazy substitute teacher while he solves his mysteries. (Actually, I picked the book up to read because it has a crazy substitute teacher and the novel I’m working on has a crazy substitute teacher.) But Wynne-Jones layers his story not just with humor, but with warmth and a tale of a boy on the bridge to adolescence.

The other book that made me laugh was VOSS: HOW I COME TO AMERICA AND AM HERO, MOSTLYby David Ives. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this book when I started reading. It reminded too much of the movie BORAT–broken English with cultural misunderstandings and immigrant stereotypes. Fifteen-year-old Vospop comes to America from Slobovia with his father and uncle in a freight container of black market Cheez Puffs (which have been misspelled on the packaging as Chiss Poffs). By the time I finished the book I was laughing out loud at Vospop’s adventures, but I did still wonder if I was being culturally insensitive about the stereotypes of Eastern European immigrants, even though this was a mythical country. Has anyone else read this book and had a similar reaction, or am I just being hypersensitive?

A Visit to a Delightful Graveyard

On Saturdays in the summer and fall, I usually get up and head to the local farmers market and then head to the Jewel to do my mom’s grocery shopping. But since the farmers market has ended and I was feeling like a pajama morning, yesterday I grabbed Neil Gaiman’s THE GRAVEYARD BOOK. I’ve never been one to hang around graveyards, but I did not want to leave this one. My friend AJ warned us that we wouldn’t want this book to end and boy was she right.

The Graveyard Book

I’m not a fast reader, and I generally favor books under 200 pages since longer books take me FOREVER to read–usually. This 320 pages was over before I knew it. I can’t remember when a book made me actually get that creepy pang of impending danger during the climax. I was scared for Nobody Owens, the book’s main character and the only living resident of the historic graveyard. And I could barely read the last few paragraphs of the book because my eyes had gotten some kind of watery substance in them.

Besides having total awe of Gaiman’s imaginative setting and characters, THE GRAVEYARD BOOK left me thinking about what it means to be alive. I realized that some of us think we are alive, when we really aren’t.  Not in a Sixth Sense kind of way, but in a sense that we have yet to fully live our lives, experience new things, and really see the world around us. Some of us are more like the permanent residents of the graveyard–static and stuck in the past.

Take a visit to this graveyard and let me know what you think.

This Tree Grows a Winner

I came across a clever reworking of the Jack and the Beanstalk tale recently, Thea’s Tree. This picture book by Alison Jackson turns the appearance of a mysterious beanstalk in Thea’s yard into a science project. She records the tree’s amazing growth and does research by corresponding with a botanist, natural history museum curator, zoologist and others to try to identify the source of the tree and the strange things that come from it (like a giant golden egg).

Thea

Hats off to author Alison Jackson. I tried to write a modern update of a fairy tale and it isn’t that easy to be fresh and interesting when the original material is so well-known. (Another re-telling of a fairy tale that rocks is Falling for Rapunzel. Love it!)  Janet Pedersen’s cheery illustrations remind me of Ard Hoyt’s work, who–I might mention, has illustrated my friend Carol Brendler’s upcoming book Winnie Finn, Worm Farmer. Look for that totally cool book in September of 2009.

On the same library trip I found Thea, I picked up Susan Orlean’s Lazy Little Loafers. Susan Orlean is not a celebrity in the sense that Madonna is a celebrity so I can’t call this a celebrity book. Susan Orlean is the well-respected adult author of The Orchid Thief (and was depicted by Meryl Streep in the utterly wonderfully insane movie Adaptation). The premise of the book as presented on the book flap is, “This book sets out to answer the question why don’t more babies work? The truth may shock you.” Getting to the truth kind of bored me. If the book was intended to help younger children understand the important developmental activities of babies, who only look like they are doing nothing, I think the story could have been told with a lot fewer words and a better structure. Just my HO (humble opinion)–who am I to critique Susan Orlean? The illustrations by G. Brian Karas were enjoyable.

Since today is Halloween, when I have a free moment I will be reading Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. It came yesterday and from just the little bit I read, friend AJ’s enthusiasm for the book is well-founded.

Enough blah-blah from me. Go eat some candy and enjoy the day!

Funny Doings at Ella Mentry School

Today I read “Mr. Granite Is from Another Planet” by Dan Guzman (HarperCollins, 2008). This is the third book in the My Weird School Daze series, but it’s the first one I’ve read. These are chapter books for kids in grades 2 – 5. It’s total fantasy and mayhem at Ella Mentry School (real name!) when a class thinks their new teacher is an alien, but it’s funny. And if I think it’s funny, any 3rd grader is sure to love it. I especially smiled when I read this part:

   “St. Patrick’s Day is in March, dumbhead,” said. Neil.
   “So is your face,” I replied.

My son D (who is now 17) used to make me crazy at that age saying, “So’s your face.” As a parent, it made NO sense to me because it, well, made no sense. But now as a reader and writer of nonsensical fiction, it makes perfect sense to me.

Maybe the presidential candidates could work it into the debates tomorrow.

  “Your economic plan taxes people, my friend.” (Guess who said that!)
  “So is your face.”

THAT’S a debate I’d pay money to see!

Not-So-Funny Book from Funny Guy

M.T. Anderson is a funny guy. He’s also a smart guy (understatement here) and the object of love-from-afar by my friend CB and me. I love his crazy ”Whales on Stilts” series. This is the Tobin Anderson I want to grow up to be. But his book coming out tomorrow is no laughing matter and there is no way on earth I am ever going to become that Tobin Anderson.

The second book in his Octavian Nothing story debuts tomorrow. The first book about an extraordinary slave in the Revolutionary War era was awesome and won the National Book Award for young adult literature. If you don’t know Tobin, you don’t know what you’re missing.