A conversation with Laurie Halse Anderson and Meg Medina

We haven't even begun and Laurie and Meg are already tweeting about the energy and passion they're going to bring to the SCBWI Summer Spectacular this morning, our last morning of this amazing event. I have no doubt these two forces in our industry are about to deliver.

Lin Oliver introduces this last day, our dessert day. YUM! My favorite. Let's dig in. (And be sure to shop at the online bookstore and browse the Portfolio Showcase.)

Both Laurie and Meg are prolific and award-winning authors of many books for young readers. 

This session begins as the east coast is being hit by severe weather. Thankfully we've caught Meg at point she's having a break in the weather. "For now, it's all sunshine for our conversation," Meg says.

Meg tell us that they're going to ask each other the things no one ever asks them. Exciting!

Laurie says she came into writing through dumb luck and a lot of mistakes. She hated writing in college. But she was reader, and she was first a journalist. That helped her to communicate effectively in few words. She joined SCBWI and she says she never would have been published if it weren't for that. And Laurie says she even wrote very bad novels. 

Meg points out that it's hard to believe that Laurie wrote bad novels, but we all do. We all write very bad books. 

They both agree to be wary of the term "break out" author. Those breakouts usually have years and years of work before success comes. 

Meg started late, according to her. She started with food reviews and silly articles. Even though she had a lovely life, she felt something was missing. "I wasn't doing the thing I was meant to do." Upon that realization Meg wrote a mission statement for herself. When she did she was ashamed, thinking "who was she" to think that she could want the things she wanted, which was to write books. She still has that mission statement, and looking back, almost all of it has come true. Amazing! (Get to writing those mission statements, friends!)

Meg asks Laurie: How have you changed the most as a writer?

Laurie has learned that she's not as shy as she thought she was. She's grown to know she loves to talking to kindred spirits. Laurie says that she's still learning how to write. She still gets nervous.

Meg agrees, and says she's super cautious as a teacher that students feels like she has all the answers when she doesn't. 

Both Laurie and Meg have written across the many formats: picture book, middle grade, young adult. 

Meg says, "When I began I knew nothing and when I say nothing I mean nada, nada, nada, nada...in the beginning you grab any advice, but you have to be very cautious of that."

Laurie asks Meg: Do you think your craft has changed?

"Yes," she says. "I'm very character driven...I love people...I find people endlessly fascinating. But I have learned to honor plot more."

In discussing writing historical fiction, Meg and Laurie light up, getting excited about the gems they find, like the phases of the moon and what SNL episode was airing at the time of their stories. 

Meg asks Laurie: If you could do something over in your career, what would it be?

When Laurie was an emerging author and SPEAK came out (which she sold un-agented) she had no idea what she was doing. Laurie didn't speak up and ask the hard questions. She didn't share that she didn't think her second novel CATALYST was done. She didn't recognize her power and responsibility. Laurie wishes she would have spoken up. She wishes she could do that one again. 

Meg shares she often wishes she had started earlier. That she had been braver. That she hadn't tried every other career under the sun. But then she thinks she writes to make sense of what she's lived. What would her perspective have been at a different age? So now she thinks of it as coming to it when she was ready. 

Meg asks: Can we talk about legacy? 

This was a deeper conversation here, but to share a bit, Laurie says the concept of legacy is bewildering, but she feels a great responsibility to use it for good. She says to Meg,  "I've spoken to some Latinx authors that see you as a real "auntie."

Meg feels so honored when they say that. Meg tells us, "I want to have made room for the Latinx authors coming behind me. So they are not the only one. Or one of six... " Meg says. "I can't write all the books. I can't write all the perspectives." Meg only has her stories. She wants to encourage more. More!

Authors/books that excite Meg and Laurie now!

First, recs from Meg:

Recs from Laurie:

Laurie Halse Anderson Closing Keynote

Laurie Halse Anderson closes our conference by giving a shout out to her fellow introverts. Especially if this was your first conference, it's hard just to sign up, but you came here, and you aren't in your hotel room right now, so that's all a great job.

She thanks Lin and Steve for all they do, for changing the face of the children's book industry around the world.

Laurie asks us to take a moment to feel all the feels right now and in the next 24 hours take a chance to write or draw about this weekend so you can turn this into a touchstone moment you can take home with you.

Because, Laurie says, we have to go home, back to reality now. In the space we're in right now we feel like we can do anything.

The doubt and fear of our everyday life, of the current political situation, the fear of being found a fraud even if you are already published is what stops us from making the work we are so excited to make during weekends like these.

Laurie's giving us three ways to take all this love and energy home with us.

1. Laurie says, "You are the boss of your brain, and your brain is the boss of your emotional states. I know this to be true, I've done the research." When you start to spiral down into anxiety and fear, your lizard brain thinks you are about to be eaten, and all of your creativity shuts down.

Laurie's secret weapon for combatting this is the country of Denmark. She wants you to learn the word hygge. A warm, pleasant, and comfortable atmosphere, it's an interior coziness that extends to your external surroundings. A lot of it has to do with being surrounded by friendship and supportive, kindred spirits, too.

2. GET STARTED. Laurie blames our educational system for teaching us that the first draft is what we get judged or tested on. We don't get tested on our first drafts in the real world, first drafts are hot messes, the only way we can fix it is to let that mess be made and then revise it. You have to give yourself permission to suck. Revision is about clarifying, just like when you are getting your eyes examined and the doctor is trying out lens after lens. Lower your expectations to the basement and make a hot mess, you can clean it up later.

3. We are saving #3 for the conference goers, but we hope you have enjoyed all the posts on this conference blog and we would love to see you at a regional or international SCBWI conference in person some time soon, so you, too, can share in this bubble of love.

Laurie Halse Anderson: Ch-ch-changes!

Laurie Halse Anderson: Ch-ch-changes!: A Look at How My Writing Process and How the Publishing World has Changed in the Last 15 Years, and What Writers Need to do to Stay Fresh and Vibrant

Laurie Halse Anderson is the award-winning author of many books for kids including SPEAK and CHAINS, both of which were National Book Award finalists. Her 30th book is coming out in January.

On Sept 7, 1992, the day Laurie put her child on the bus to first grade, she gave herself five years to get a book published. It took her four years. She said she should have given herself ten.

Laurie knows herself, knows her place in the world, but she is at a new point where her shell is starting to crack because things are changing in her life. 

Questions to ponder:

• What was your bus stop moment? When did you consider walking this path of creating book for kids?
• When you had that moment, what were you dreams?
• At that point, what did you think would happen?
• What are the biggest changes in your life since you committed to this path?

When thinking about our careers, we have to realize there is fluidity, that things are always changing.

The Internet is a bit of a trickster God for those who are creating. There is great benefit, like the ability to do research. Also the ability to have relationship with a community of writers, teachers, librarians, and especially readers. But the Internet is also the devil. It's a rabbit hole you get sucked into. It's a great procrastination tool. 

Procrastination = Fear

The Internet also allows you to delude yourself: I'm doing this for my work. Take time on the Internet and use it directly and effectively instead. 

Another reason the Internet is dangerous for us is that it's really easy to get beat up on the Internet. Avoid googling yourself.

The process of the writing doesn't get easier. Each time Laurie writes a book, she adds more craft tools, but with each book it's one she hasn't written before. She's never done it.

Laurie is now more aware of what time of day she writes well, as well as how much physical activity she needs to create. Knowing these types of things about herself helps. She also became more savvy with the business-side of writing.

Laurie Halse Anderson's Keynote - Born To Be Mild: What It Means To Be A Writer For Children

Laurie Halse Anderson is amazing - she's the New York Times best-selling and multi-award winning (including TWO National Book Award Finalist distinctions) author of -- among many others -- Speak and Chains, historical thrillers, fiction and nonfiction for young readers and teens.

Here be magic woven...

It's not just my camera:  the light and magic pouring out of Laurie Halse Anderson

Laurie weaves a magic spell over us, using her words and amazing energy to transform the large hotel ballroom (with over 1260 of us!) into "our cathedral, our sacred space..."  a fire circle where we can gather around, stay warm, keep the dark at bay and tell our stories.

She tells us her own story (from hating English class in school, to a rejection letter for Speak that she laminated, to having her 30th book coming out in January 2014!), encourages us to be there for each other, and cuts to the core of our insecurities - the ones we as creative people share.  She's funny, and eloquent, and honest.

She lifts us up, assures us that there's a reason we have the urge to be create, that we have this creativity in our hearts, that we have this gift of magic...because we write books for our reader's hearts.

Books that will capture the power of pretend, the glory of love, that protect, defend and celebrate childhood.

She gives us wonderful advice, challenges us to go outside our comfort zones, urges us to

"tell the story that's in your heart."

And she is magic.  And maybe, feeling the truth of what she shared, each of us can trust that we are magic, too.


What a beautiful start to the conference!

Laurie Halse Anderson: Daring the Universe



Laurie Halse Anderson


Awesome author Laurie Halse Anderson closes the non-Intensives portion of the conference with a keynote address.

I would not be a published writer if it was not for SCBWI, Laurie says. Lin and Steve has created a sanctuary for writers with SCBWI.

Her first bit of advice: You should all move to central New York. Land is cheap and the weather is crappy--there's nothing to do but create. (Note: her website is madwomanintheforest.com.)

Giving scary speeches is very much like writing books, she says: The only way out is through.

Laurie quotes a questions from T.S. Elliot's  Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:

Do I dare disturb the universe?

Art disturbs the universe she says and artists dare to create.

She feel like American culture exists to make rich richer and rob the rest of joy and dignity. People feel tired and defeated; melancholy.

In her 30s, she had done everything she had been told to do. She went to college. She got married. She has babies. She had taxes. She didn't run with scissors. And she was sick and depressed and miserable (much like Judy Blume). At that point, the seed of her art was spinning in her sole. The straighforward pathway had been lost for her. She knew she had to change something.

She started to write, she says, badly. Things like a 7000-word picture book about the tooth fairy with nothing original in it. And it made her feel better. And she found friend at SCBWI where she learned:

The study of craft

and

The art of revision

Laurie quotes Bruce Coville: If you don't jump, the wings never come. For her, the wings were there. She found light and love. And, she says, she also worked her ass off because a creative life demands dedication and discipline.

Writing, she says, forces you to be alive, and being alive can really hurt. Writing stirs up demons, memories and dust.

Laurie says we sometimes seduce ourselves into thinking that writing-related activities are writing. It's easier to blog about writing than to actually...write. It's hard to write because writing disturbs the universe.

Your chances of predicting the next trend is slim to none. But your chances of writing a story that someone wants to read and publish are very very good. You have little control over the publishing world; you have all the control over yourself.

Lauris says your muse is you--it deserves love and tender care. Know that a very good portion of what we do is magic. Hold onto that magic and remember to have fun (and that discipline can be fun). And remember, writing is not about the destination or even about the publication. It's about walking the path. She urges the crowd to go forth laughing and disturb the universe.

Laurie Halse Anderson: The Nuts and Bolts of Crafting a Creative Life

Laurie Halse Anderson is an award-winning author of many books for children.

You've got to love an author who starts her session with: So everyone’s screwed for time and not feeling very creative, huh? I feel your pain.

Laurie notes: I’m an author because of SCBWI. I’m an author because the authors I listened to at SCBWI told me the truth and I’m a grown up. (She could handle it.)

"Welcome to Laurie Beth’s Boot Camp."

On September 7, 1992 she had her moment when she took her child to the bus stop. On that day, instead of going to the Pancake House, she went and wrote in her journal, “I give myself 5 years to get published.” Notes she should have given herself ten years. (Although it did take her only 4 years.)

The Myths that Hurt Us

1. If you get published you'll be free from financial pressure.

2. Being published will solve all the painful personal conflicts in your life.

3. Full time authors who make a living writing their books belong to a club run by Jon Sciezska. 

Attitudes You Want to Grow in Your Soul

• 24 hours in a day is more than enough.
• The universe wants you to be creative.
• Change equals discomfort. Discomfort won't kill you.
• You have the intelligence to reclaim your lost time, but are you brave enough?
• You have more control over how you spend your precious time and energy than you care to admit.