I'm so excited to post our first author guest post!
The synopsis for the book: (Publisher's Weekly)As Stolzman's character-driven debut opens, eight-year-old Anna Levy and her mother witness a horrific scene: the small boat that her five-year-old sister, Megan, is on with their father capsizes close to shore, and Megan drowns. In the immediate aftermath, Anna blames herself for not plunging into the water and joining the frantic search. She begins an imaginary, one-sided conversation in sign language with Megan that leads the grown-up Anna to adopt a deaf five-year-old (whom she mistakenly renames "Adrea" by incorrectly signing "Andrea") and to a career working with deaf children. As Anna and Adrea grow into their lives together, watchful Anna is forced to confront ghosts from her past and to learn to stop living life as a spectator. Stolzman gives Anna a poetic soul ("words of sympathy had exhausted my tolerance for words themselves"), and a carefully constructed redemption that unfolds with vivid observational detail.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Sounds great right?
Rachel Stolzman, author of The Sign for Drowning, has graciously offered one autographed copy of her novel, and we asked if she would do a guest post for us. Intrigued by the way an author develops a story, and their imagination, I asked her to share her imagination as a child with us. Here are her thoughts below.
Dear Ashley & Bellas Novella,
Thank you for asking me to guest blog and for posing the provocative question about writers and childhood imagination. For some reason, it has never felt very accurate to me when people say how creative one must be to write stories or novels. Creative is just not a word I strongly identify with. Imaginative feels much closer to the bone, and something I'm often guilty of. Children are innately imaginative and I think writers and other "creative types" have a hard time letting that go as adults. Us writers keep one foot, if not both, in the land of make-believe.
Growing up in Los Angeles, I spent a lot of time in the back-seat of a car, getting from one place to another. I also had a loud family, that at times I needed to mentally escape from while driving all those freeways. I used to come up with "what if" stories. After imagining bizarre occurrences, I'd ask myself- "I wonder if that ever happened to anyone?" I always determined that yes, anything I could imagine, had happened to someone, somewhere, at some time.
I also had one baby-sitter named Missy who I know increased my imagination with her story-telling. I would even suggest going to bed early, because Missy would sit in my room, and tell me a story that lasted 30 minutes or an hour, about tiny people who lived under the sewer grates, beneath the streets, and all about their secret society. Her stories followed me into my dreams, and inspired me to do my own baby-sitting story-telling years later.
As I writer, I ground my stories in fact and research. But they wouldn't come into being without that day-dreaming child still wondering- could this have happened to somebody?
******
Thanks so much Rachel! If you'd like to win this copy of the book, tell me if you ever had an imaginary friend growing up, or any overactive imagination stories you can recall. One winner, no PO Boxes, US only, we'll run this through October 15th.
Posted by Ashley
Posts
25 comments:
I had an overactive imagination I would say. I had a little kiddy cash register when I was younger and I used to take all of my mom's food out of the cabinets and "scan" them and add everything up. I really wanted to work in a grocery store. lol
lovestoread0708(at)yahoo.com
I never had an imaginary friend but my sister did. I believed in "Petero" and was always upset that I couldn't see her!!
mj.coward]at]gmail.com
I never had an imaginary friend, but my niece did: Shawncy!! LOL
I'd love to read this book:
dd DOT bookgoddess AT gmail DOT com
I was an only child and had an unbelievable imagination. I had imaginary friends, made up stories, read them books, sang to them, climbed trees with them, everything. To this day, I love to spend lots of time alone.
rebecca dot cox at charter dot net
I was the oldest and I had no time for imagination. Please include me in your giveaway.
Thanks
Debbie
debdesk9(at)verizon.net
No imaginary friends-I would get lost in books.
chocolateandcroissants at yahoo dto com
Despite having a younger sister to pal around with, I always had imaginary friends growing up! My most memorable companion was Peter, named after the "Brady Bunch" character :) And I think he resembled him, too! I was around six when he mosied on to help some other kid, but I'll always remember him! :)
Thanks for the chance to win -- this book looks/sounds great!
writing.meg [at] gmail.com
I never had an imaginary friend...
karen k
kmkuka(at)yahoo(dot)com
I didn't have an imaginary friend but When I was 7 or 8 I liked to imagine that I was living in the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my twin sister...I liked to imagine us camping out in different rooms, did different things at night when the doors closed....my fantasies got very elaborate! Similar to the Eloise books.
Thank you!
Aimala127@gmail.com
I didn't have an imaginary friend, but I wish I had. LOL!
Froggy
froggarita@gmail.com
http://froggaritavillesbookcase.blogspot.com
A Blog with Bite!
http://blogwithbitereviews.blogspot.com
I did not have an imaginary friend although I was an only child so it would have made perfect sense if I had of had one.
Thanks for the chance to win a copy!
espressogurl at hotmail dot com
Actually, I did have an imaginary friend as a child - oddly enough, I had 3 imaginary friends at the same time that seemed to travel together. I don't remember much about them but my parents and aunts and uncles definitely remembered this. I was very young and not sure how long the imaginary friends were around, but one day the 3 imaginary friends fell out of a car and I never mentioned them again.
Please enter me in the contest! This is definitely a book that I would enjoy reading!
I am a follower of your blog on Google.
Cindy
Socmom213@aol.com
Since the others mentioned the names, my imaginary friends were Deena, Reesa and Mr. Anderson. I have no idea how I came up with those names but I did when I was a young child and my family talked about it for years afterwards. I am just thankful that I no longer have Deena, Reesa and Mr. Anderson to have to keep up with! LOL
Thanks for the great giveaway. I would love to win a copy of this book!
Cindy
Socmom213@aol.com
Never had an imaginary friend. But i used to imagine myself as the princess in different fairy tales and in that imaginary world, I could have more adventurous and exciting experiences and of course, it always ends happily ever after. :D
linna.hsu at gmail dot com
As the oldest of four, did not have time for an imaginary friend. Busy taking care of real siblings. I did think I had a real "Guardian Angel," and I did speak to her walking back and forth to school.
cyeates AT nycap DOT rr DOT com
I did have an imaginary friend when I was little. It only lasted a couple of weeks, but I do remember that! I wonder whu?
Thansk
dcf_beth at verizon dot net
I don't recall any imaginary friends of my own but my 3 yr. old certainly has some. He's regularly translating things his Bunny or Teddy need to tell us.
melacan at hotmail dot com
I personally didn't really have an imaginary friend when I was younger. But I did live (in my mind) among the Superheroes...being like Wonder Woman - if I could only look as good now as an adult as Lynda Carter did! - and helping out Batman & Robin.
I never had an imaginary friend but I did have an over-active imagination and wrote lots of stories. My frinds and I would put on plays and shows. Lots of fun and good memories!!
nancyecdavis AT bellsouth DOT net
This looks really interesting.
I had an imaginary friend after Drop Dead Fred, and I'd make him come cook with me in my Playskool kitchen.
I had an imaginary pet cat that could speak human. haha. I was more at home with animals than people.
saulpaugh.chelsea(at)gmail(dot)com
-- Chelsea
No imaginary friends, but definitely made up a lot of stories! Most of them somehow involved ghosts or vampires.
mybookviews[at]gmail[dot]com
I didn't have an imaginary friend, but my sister had an imaginary evil opposite named Bob. When ever my sister was acting up or in trouble, she always blamed Bob...it was pretty funny! Thanks for the chance, bekki1820cb@gmail.com
Never had too much of an imagination, but found that my books were my friends. Each and every one has a different personality.
joannereynolds@sbcglobal.net
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Sorry for offtopic
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