Author: Ramona DeFelice Long

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 5

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 5, Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio by Peg Kehret

small steps

The first chapter of this memoir by acclaimed children’s author Peg Kehret ends with a chilling sentence: “When I woke up, I was paralyzed.”

The story begins on a Friday morning at school, in  1949. Twelve-year-old Peg is so eager to attend the Homecoming parade that afternoon, she tries to ignore the odd twitch in her leg during choir class. With terrifying speed, the twitch becomes her leg collapsing, which becomes her sent home with a high fever, which becomes her knees unresponsive to a rubber mallet, which becomes a spinal tap, which becomes a diagnosis: polio. The most terrifying thing of all? These moments happened in a little more than one day.

Over the next year, Peg would be hospitalized and isolated from her family. Her personal belongings were burned—even a favorite teddy bear and her copy of Anne of Green Gables. She suffered high fevers, muscle spasms, and painful rehab sessions; she spent time in an iron lung and, later, a wheelchair. She roomed with other girls stricken during the polio epidemic of the 1940-50s. Some of those girls would die. Some would never walk again. Peg lived. She walked. She fulfilled her childhood dream of being a writer, publishing dozens adventure and animal rescue stories for children, and continues to write. She wrote this memoir so others would understand what it was like to be a normal seventh-grader one morning, and paralyzed and fighting for your life by the next night.

Why is Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio a good read for women? A survivor story is a good read for everyone, and there is humor and many poignant young girl moments. This book also addresses powerlessness–in this case, a child at the mercy of a disease and under the rule of adults–and it is certainly timely. Peg Kehret’s courage in sharing her first-person account of a terrifying time in history benefits all of us who take good health and scientific advancements for granted.

 

 

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 4

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 4, The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

janeaustenbookclub

Once a month, a group of five women and one man meet to discuss one of Her Majesty’s novels. The story takes places over six months – March to August, one month for each of Jane Austen’s six published works – while each member studies the assigned book and prepares for the discussion.

The members of the club include a free-spirited leader who is its creator and binding force; a woman shell-shocked by her husband’s desertion; the shell-shocked mother’s daredevil daughter; a frustrated high school English teacher; a single and perfectly satisfied about that dog breeder; and a geeky man who reads science fiction but whose sisters loved Jane Austen.

Why is The Jane Austen Book Club a good read for women? As in real life, and as in Jane Austen’s novels, people don’t live in a vacuum, and life presents challenges and obstacles. We need friends to get through those times. Some of the JABC five-female-and-one-male members are friends when the story begins, but they are all friends when it ends. The group sees one another through a separation, a death, miscommunications, romance gone wrong, romance gone right, some wonderful meals, and a growing appreciation for books you might not ever read if something or someone didn’t push you toward them.

Plus, for lagniappe, there are discussions of Jane Austen’s novels!

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 3

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 3 – The Dearly Departed by Elinor Lipman

dearly departed

I own a stack of Elinor Lipman’s novels and love her wry portrayals of sisters, daughters, friends, and lovers across a range of ages, careers, and life experiences. Elinor’s writing style is warm-hearted and witty, but her stories address life and love with as much pathos as humor.

Why is The Dearly Departed a good read for women? In it, the sudden – and somewhat odd – death of her mother makes Sunny Batten return to King George, New Hampshire. Sunny’s recollections of the one-stop-sign town are mixed. She was both outstanding and an outcast as the girl who broke the glass ceiling of the all male high school golf team. Returning home with her grudges still intact, Sunny discovers that her old tormentors have matured into nice people. Is it possible that growing up in King George wasn’t quite as awful as she remembers it? She also discovers that her mother’s involvement in the town’s theater group made her a better actress than Sunny ever suspected. With a new vision of her past, Sunny plans her mother’s funeral aided by the chief of police. Joey Loach was a goofball in high school and maybe he still lives with his own mother, but now he’s solicitous, gallant…pretty cute.

The Dearly Departed is light-hearted in tone, but Sunny’s return to her roots allows her–and the reader–to think about longtime hurts from a mature perspective. It shows a daughter who begins to view her mother as a woman: a person engaged in her own life, pursuing her own interests, with desires and admirers. When did you stop thinking of your mother as Mom and began to regard her as a woman?

 

 

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 2

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarFor 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 2 – This One and Magic Life by Anne Carroll George

anne george

Mystery readers will recognize Anne George’s name from her Birmingham-based Southern Sisters mystery series. Apart from writing the adventures of Mouse and Sister and their view of the Vulcan’s naked backside, Anne Carroll George was also a poet, a publisher, and a Pulitzer Prize nominee. The subtitle of This One and Magic Life is “a novel of a Southern family” and it is true. The book portrays a Southern family in all its glorious dysfunction.

Why is This One and Magic Life a good read for women? A few pages in, a chapter begins with “The Deep South is still a mystery. It is even a mystery to those who live there” and the novel proceeds to show why and how one woman’s choices ripple through the lives of people she loves. This is not a mystery novel, but who is more mind-bending and alluring than a Southern woman with a secret?

In the story, there is a death near Mobile Bay, and the family gathers for a tender and troubling send-off for Artie—mother, wife, aunt–whose last wishes, if honored, will shiver every branch on the family tree. This story’s prose reflects Anne George’s poetic style that makes it an evocative and thoughtful read.

A writerly note: Anne Carroll George chose to write this in the present tense. It was published in 2001, proving to naysayers—as strong-willed Artie might–that a present tense narrative is not some newfangled fad.

40 Days of Book Praise, Day 1

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarOn Mardi Gras, I had an epiphany.

There’s been a lot of talk about poorly written books or works that are insensitive, tacky, or harmful to women—so much so that the negativity seems to overshadow any conversation about great works about girls or fantastic fiction for women.

I’ve decided to begin my own little mission of change. For the next 40 days, I will choose a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a relevant and worth reading. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

I hope you’ll join the conversation.

A_Gathering_of_Days

Day 1 – A Gathering of Days, by Joan W. Blos

This middle grade novel written in the epistolary (diary) style won the Newbery Medal in 1980, for excellence in children’s literature. I chose it because, though I was not a child in 1980, it was recommended to me by a child. I worked as a children’s librarian for a while, and a young patron checked out this book. When she returned it, she told me it was the best book she had ever read and it made her want to be kind.

Why is A Gathering of Days relevant in 2015? First, it is set in snowy New Hampshire, which is a fair portrait of this year’s winter. The story is about a young girl who records the hardships and joys of pioneer life in New England in the 1830s. Catherine, the narrator, still mourns her mother and is pained to accept her father’s remarriage. Her new stepmother tries to bond with her through quilting. Catherine and her best friend Cassie secretly help an escaped slave by leaving out food and a blanket—and by not revealing his hiding place. At the end of the story, Curtis sends a note of thanks and a gift for both girls, but it is a bittersweet package.

A Gathering of Days is a quiet book full of drama. It shows that oppressed people will rebel, that youth are naturally generous, that family traditions are important, and that kindness is never forgotten.

 

 

Who wants what? A character exercise

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarWhat does your character want? This is one of those helpful—or irritating—questions writers are asked at workshops or by editors. The question is meant to make you, the author, dig deeply into your character’s soul to discover what drives him/her to do all the crazy things they do in their fictional world.

You created this character, so answering “What does he/she want?” should be a snap, right?

Ha ha.

Continue reading “Who wants what? A character exercise” →

SAD in the Studio

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarAnd on the 7th day, I got depressed.

 It’s raining as I write this post, which is a departure from my usual how to, what is, or inspirational ramblings. In the past, a rainy, cold, dark January morning would say “perfect writing day” to me. I’d have lit a candle or two and spent the day in relative darkness, writing away. Not today. A few minutes ago, I strung a length of white Christmas lights across the windowsill in front of my desk. A lamp is shining down on my keyboard. A soothing aromatherapy candle is burning on the shelf to my right. Continue reading “SAD in the Studio” →

8 Pre-Writing Questions for Novelists

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitar“What do you need to know before you begin writing a novel?”

This was the question my short story writer friend asked after learning that I—a fellow short story writer—had written a novel. After some thought, I decided on the following 8 basic questions.

Continue reading “8 Pre-Writing Questions for Novelists” →

Renew Your Writing Vows in 2015

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarI spent most of 2014—and 2013 and 2012—writing about love.

My recently completed novel manuscript addresses falling in love, second time around love, old people in love, disappointments in love, unconditional love, and steadfastness in love. There’s also a bomb scare, dog antics, and a poetry reading in the story, so don’t think all I did was write characters who spent 350 pages giving one another moony looks. Continue reading “Renew Your Writing Vows in 2015” →

Event: Teen Writing Workshop

by Ramona DeFelice Long

teen wrirtng worksop