About gretchenwing

A high school English and History teacher for 20 years, Gretchen now lives, writes, and bakes on Lopez Island, Washington.

Confessions of the Clueless, Part III: If John Green’s Clueless Enough to Write About Articulate Teenagers, So Am I, Thanks

Posted on October 21, 2017 by gretchenwing

Raise your hand if you

have read (or seen) John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars
are, or once were, an intelligent, articulate, even eloquent teenager
have read John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines
are the parent of someone who was formerly an intelligent, articulate, even eloquent teenager
have read John Green’s Looking for Alaska
believe that teenagers have as much capacity for intelligence, articulateness, even eloquence as adults (and way more than several recent Presidents)
are excited about John Green’s latest novel, Turtles All the Way Down.

Me? My hand never went down.

Thinking about the critiques my own books have faced–“Your heroine thinks and talks too much like an adult!”–I’ve found happy solace in this article by Jennie Yabroff of Signature Reads. com, which details John Green’s patient resistance to dumbing-down his teenage protagonists. Here he explains that his characters simply narrate not the way society expects of teens, but the way these teens, these PEOPLE, see themselves:

“The reality of experience is ultimately a lot more interesting to me than what I think is sort of wrongly called ‘objective reality.’ Because I don’t actually think objective reality is a thing — certainly not a very interesting thing for fiction, I don’t think,” he said. Rather, he believes that the way he represents his characters on the page is the way they see themselves in their heads. “Certainly, teenagers don’t sound [like my characters] when they talk to us… But they do sound that way to themselves. And that’s what interests me. I’m not really interested in capturing how they actually sound, because that’s not their experience.”

I say AMEN. Or rather, my protagonist, Jocelyn Burgowski, says that. Even though “that’s not something a teen would say.” Jocelyn is trying, like every other teen, to figure out exactly who she is. Her voice is the voice of the self developing inside her–which we, the readers, are privileged to peek into. So who are we to demand a different voice on the page?

(Orig. photo courtesy high school-aged Brian Whittier)

I prefer to get my books from the library or in paperback from my local bookstore, so I won’t get to read Turtles All the Way Down very soon. But if you do–and I hope you do!–please listen hard, and hear what Green’s heroine Aza has to say. Then apply that listening to the teen nearest you.

Coming in November, Altitude: Final Book of the Flying Burgowski Trilogy

Posted on October 16, 2017 by gretchenwing

(Design by Bob Lanphear; hands photo by Heather Harrison; hands themselves: Anah-Kate Drahn) Thanks, all!

“To thine own self be true…” Yeah, right.

I banked toward the warehouses, skimming the trees. Gotta find some way to USE my power…Reaching the first ratty rooftop, I hovered, quivering. If I could get Vivian back to the sky… put our powers together—What’s THAT?

Not a seagull. This sound was coming from the alley below. A quiet wail—kittens crying. Was that rusty blue shipping container there before? I landed behind the gnarliest warehouse and peeked into the alley. From street level, the giant rusty container towered above me. The kitten-cries were definitely coming from inside. Maybe someone dumped a pregnant cat in there. The box was hinged at one end—a pair of doors belted with a big ol’ rusty chain and padlock. Why lock a cat in?

“Kitty-kitty-kitty?” I called. “You in there? Poor thing!”

Two syllables floated from the stinking metal monster. A word I recognized from my Mandarin Terms a Traveler Should Know: “Bāng wǒ.” Help.

After a summer of betrayal and heartbreak and an epically rotten year, 16 year-old Jocelyn (The Flying) Burgowski is fleeing family and friends on Dalby Island for school on the mainland. What good is flying if it wrecks relationships? The guy she fell for almost destroyed her power. Now, discovering the ugly underbelly of mainland life, has Joss stumbled upon a fellow Flyer—only to bring her down? Confronting the dual forces of magic and maturity, Joss must face the question: what does “to thine own self be true” really mean?

Confessions of the Clueless, Part II: Think Outside of the Genre Box At Your Authorial Peril

Posted on October 10, 2017 by gretchenwing

[*Note: Confessions of the Clueless Part I was my #hashtag rant. Here comes Part II.]

Nothing like working on the cover design of a book to let you know how hard you’ve made life for yourself. I’ve been looking for an image that…

…captures the dark beauty of the Pacific Northwest, without being too beautiful

…suggests the ugliness of the American industrial underbelly, without being too ugly

…encompasses an aerial view, but not from too high

…orients the viewer toward the water, but still keeps the shoreline visible

…won’t involve me in complicated and expensive negotiations over copyright usage

…allows for the addition of text elements in line with the previous books in the series

Turns out I really could not have thought up a more difficult set of requirements. Starting with beautiful vs. ugly: waterfront pictures are generally taken for two purposes, a) to lure tourists, or b) to lure business. The first wants only beauty; the second, only utility. And don’t forget that je-ne-sais-quois whiff of Northwest! Gotta have some dark forest in there. I searched internet images from Oregon to British Columbia. These were a couple of the finalists:

Port Angeles, WA–good on ya!

Or maybe, further north:

Powell River, BC, anyone? Great town.

But the image dilemma is really a stand-in for the difficulty my books face in terms of categorizing. You see, the Flying Burgowski series

…takes its time to drop its heroine into the action, and said action involves no combat, no werewolves, no vampires, and not a single zombie.

…is fantastical enough to involve flying humans, but otherwise very much real-world (sorry, no parallel universe lurking just behind Platform Nine and Three Quarters!)

…deals with political issues like religious extremism, homophobia, and human trafficking

…has a middle-grades heroine, but one who faces adult themes like divorce and addiction from a very early age

…follows said heroine into her mid-teen years where, guess what? sexual maturity is suddenly an issue.

Let me dwell on that last point a moment. Jocelyn Burgowski’s personal literary hero, Harry Potter, also ages in his series, has a crush, finds a girlfriend. But author J.K. Rowling managed to keep Harry’s physical responses to said girlfriend–his natural teenage lust–safely off the page. Author G.K. Wing was not that unrealistic, or smart, depending on your perspective.

So, bottom line? How would YOU characterize this series? Have I made these books difficult to advertise, or what?

I call the first two books of the Flying Burgowski trilogy Middle Grades Fantasy, and the last one YA Fantasy–because I have to call them SOMEthing. But you know what? I’d really just rather call it a damn good read. Can that be a thing?

…

#Hashtags #makeme #crazy #howboutyou

Posted on October 6, 2017 by gretchenwing

#hashtags #makemefeellikeI’mbackin #middleschool

#tryingwaytoohardtobe #cool

#notfullyconvinced #Icanpullitoff

#orevenwantto

#butitstimeto #promotemynewbook #altitude #flyingburgowskitrilogybook3

#ya #fantasy #book #girl #flying = #hot

#comingofage #tothineownselfbetrue #magicvsmaturation #discoveringlifesmorethanyourownlittleproblems = #not

#theysayhashtagshelpyou #jointheconversation

#feelslikeshoutingintoa #crowdedroom

#alreadytooloudinhere

#wouldibuyabookfromsomeonewhosscreamingatme

#dontthinkso

#besidesiloveandhonor #punctuation

#callmeoldfashioned

Coming soon to a book launch near you…excuse me, #booklaunch #book #launch

#justpleasereadmy #books #flyingburgowski #headwinds #altitude

#ipromise

#theycontainzero #hashtags

PS–check out my Goodreads page to win a free copy of The Flying Burgowski or Headwinds, Oct. 10-Nov. 11

#blatantcommercialism

Watching Your Writing Role Model Strip Bare: Iris Graville Publishes Hiking Naked

Posted on October 2, 2017 by gretchenwing

If you’ve published your words in any form, you know the feeling when someone looks you in the eye and tells you they read what you published. It’s not like singing at a concert or displaying visual art. These are YOUR WORDS, your literal, expressed thoughts, straight from your brain into someone else’s. Who is about to tell you what they think.

Now imagine those words you’ve published are your MEMOIR. And imagine the people who are looking you in the eye are your neighbors, folks you bump into at the market, at the post office.

My friend Iris’s new memoir, Hiking Naked: A Quaker Woman’s Search for Balance, could not be better titled. As Iris tells it in her latest blog post, “Baring My Soul”:

I reel a bit each time someone says something like, “I’m reading your book, and it really speaks to me.” Or, “I was right there with you.” And, “My back hurt just reading about your work in the bakery!” What stuns me is the realization that, as I go about my life each day, some number of people are reading about it. There’s an intimacy in that knowing that I hadn’t anticipated. I’m discovering that the metaphor of “hiking naked” extends to how I feel about others now reading my words.

(Courtesy Homebound Publications)

My own forthcoming book, Altitude, Book Three of the Flying Burgowski series, could not be more different from Iris’s. My book’s a novel. It’s Young Adult (although I’m finding that Older Adults seem to like it just fine). It’s fantasy–not vampires nor zombies nor dystopian archer-warriors, certainly, but hey! my heroine can fly. So, yes. Fantasy enough.

The only thing my book has in common with Iris’s is that she helped “midwife” mine, via critique, while I did the same with hers (both of us with a LOT of help, and in her case, Masters-in-Fine-Arts-level help).

Well, maybe two more commonalities: they’re both set in the northwest, and they’re both about strong females.But that’s it.

So how can Iris be my writing role model? Because she is, to borrow her metaphor, hiking ahead of me on that rocky path called publication. She started years ago, creating her own press to co-publish Hands At Work: Portraits and Profiles of People Who Work With Their Hands, with photographer Summer Moon Scriver.

Then last year she published Bounty: Lopez Island Farmers, Food and Community–which is just what it sounds like, only more mouth-watering.

But all the while, Iris was working on that memoir. Crafting and drafting, re-crafting, re-drafting; pitching, pitching, pitching; writing and submitting short pieces to increase her visibility; keeping her chin up through inevitable rejections…until one day…

You go, girl.

I am still bummed to have missed Iris’s launch party because of some silly plane tickets to Ireland. But now that I’ve heard about it, I’m totally planning to follow in her footsteps at my own launch party in November.

(Not sure who took this photo…but Iris will tell me.)

Iris introduced by her own writing mentor, Ana Maria Spagna? How ’bout Gretchen Wing, introduced by Iris Graville?

I better ask her, huh?

Best Relationship Advice EVER: Take a Walk. Anywhere.

Posted on September 26, 2017 by gretchenwing

Parents of adolescents and teens know this better than anyone: the best place for a neutral, non-threatening heart-to-heart is…the car. Think about it: enclosed space but no eye contact, no discomfort with long pauses, plenty of scenery to look at while processing responses. And it works even better when it’s dark.

But what if the person you’d like to connect with doesn’t naturally spend car time with you? Another relative, perhaps, or a friend, or a co-worker. I would like to propose an excellent substitute to the car for close, productive conversation: the walk.

Ready? Let’s walk & talk.

***benefit: EXERCISE!***

I recently rediscovered this on the walking tour I organized for the Mate and me with my 80-something parents (plus another Senior friend) in Ireland. The #2 purpose of the trip: seeing Ireland. The #1 purpose: talking. And I was not disappointed.

IRELAND! Just what you imagined.

Think about it. As in the car, while walking, your eyes are generally forward. No intense eye contact as when sitting at a dining table. No awkwardness with long pauses (especially going uphill when you need your breath!). Plenty of scenery and time to process responses. And even better (unlike in a car), plenty of shared joy in that scenery, which serves as a magic carpet to whisk you over any emotional toughness in the conversation.

Spread out as necessary…then come back to talk when you’re ready.

Most of our conversation, over the course of six days and sixty miles of hill-walking (around the Sheep’s Head Peninsula in Southwest Ireland, in case you’re curious), was light. But as it happened, I did have some deeper, more difficult relationship issues to discuss with my dad. And the rhythm of our steps, the green hills, the shared forward movement–all contributed to the depth of that conversation, removing the difficulty.

And when you need to rest, rest. Whole new possibilities of conversation arise then. (Necessary pun: Ireland, I like your stile.)

But why go to Ireland? Why go anywhere further than around the block, through the park, over to your favorite cafe…on foot? Invite someone. Go somewhere that takes an hour or so. Let your feet and the scenery carry you past the difficulty and into the depth.

And enjoy whatever local scenery you have: sheep, alley cats, sparrows…all part of the harmonious background of communication.

Repeat as necessary. I intend to.

Ireland, Aging Parents, and Pubs, or, Why Go Halfway Around the World to Go For a Walk?

Posted on September 9, 2017 by gretchenwing

In my experience, there are three reasons why Americans travel to Ireland:

Their heritage is Irish. (ethnic pilgrimage)
They’re in love with Irish ~~culture~~ music or whiskey, or both. (cultural pilgrimage)
It’s so greeeeeen! (photographic pilgrimage)

There are probably a few other reasons, and some hybrids. But here’s the reason the Mate and I are going:

my parents

That’s it. (And no, they’re not Irish, nor do they live there.)

The Mate and I made a list a few years ago of trips we hoped to take one day. Then we put those places into three categories: a) need to go as soon as possible; b) can go any time in the next 10-15 years; c) can wait until one or both of us is no longer mobile.

Many countries and special places made the list (like New Zealand and Grand Canyon). Ireland did not. So why are we going?

Well, turns out one of the “places” on the “as soon as possible” list was, “somewhere we can go with Gretchen’s parents while they’re still as active as they are.” They are GREAT travel companions. But since they’re also great travelers, finding a spot to visit together was actually a bit tricky. Slovenia? They’d just been. Ditto Croatia, and various parts of Italy.

Then, last year, my folks did a walking tour of the coast of Cornwall–you know, the kind where they carry your luggage for you from wee hotel to hotel, or inn, or B & B. Very local, very low-key. They LOVED it. So I tried to find another bit of the U.K. to walk, and quickly found that the chunk of Cornish trail they’d walked was the flattest available, and it had challenged them.

(Did I mention that my folks are 82 and 87?)

So I started looking around…and this bit of southwestern Ireland seemed to be rated gentler than its counterparts in the U.K. The tour company could be totally blowing smoke. We might ALL be challenged. And, if I know anything about Ireland in September, quite wet.

OK, so it looks a LOT like where we already live…but hey, cute little hotels, right? And that accent! (courtesy Hillwalktours.com)

But we’ll be happy. And feeling blessed. And I’m pretty sure I’ll learn some Irish sayings about that.

So please don’t bother sending me lists of ancient sites we must see or pubs we must visit or bands we must hear. We’re going to Ireland to do something we can’t do in the U.S.: walk together for days, from quaint hotel to quaint hotel, meeting mostly sheep along the way.

I also fully expect–hope!–to be slammed by love for a culture I know mostly through music.

And speaking of music…I’ll leave you with this heart-rending version of Mo Ghile Mear by the silvery-voiced Mary Black.

So thanks, Ireland, for the grand excuse. And readers–I’ll check back in on our return. For the next two weeks, I’ll be walking and talking and looking at sheep. And hoisting a Guinness or two, with my very cool parents.

Real Soul Food: 30 Years of Marriage, and the Best Damn Fried Chicken in the Country

Posted on September 3, 2017 by gretchenwing

On September 6, the Mate and I celebrate 30 years of marriage. I don’t know what we’ll have for dinner. All I know is, it won’t be fried chicken.

Not because we don’t love it…but because we do. Specifically, we love Mama Dip’s fried chicken from Chapel Hill, North Carolina (where we met in 1977 and were married ten years later). We loved Mama Dip’s chicken so much we got her restaurant to cater our wedding. So now we’re spoiled; no one else’s fried chicken comes close.

Mildred Council, a.k.a. “Mama Dip” (courtesy WRAL)

***Sigh…might as well have spaghetti…***

Of course with fantastic fried chicken come all the fixins: fried okra, stewed greens and tomatoes, black-eyed peas, cornbread, biscuits, corn on the cob…Some folks would add mac ‘n’ cheese to this list, or Brunswick Stew, or pulled pork, but to me those are meals in themselves, demanding their own sides: cheese grits, home fries, slaw…OK, I’ll stop.

“Care for dessert?” Are you kidding? I’ll just start over with another meal. (courtesy Black Hair Media Forum)

The Mate and I are very health-conscious people. We’re lifelong athletes–in fact, distance running is how we met. But we LOVE our soul food. In fact, I love even the IDEA of soul food.

Here’s how Wikipedia defines it:

Soul food is a variety of cuisine originating in the Southeastern United States. It is common in areas with a history of slave-based plantations and has maintained popularity among the Black American and American Deep-South “cotton state” communities for centuries; it is now the most common regional cuisine in southern cities such as New Orleans, Louisiana, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia. Soul food influences can be commonly found as far north as Richmond, Virginia, as far east as Jacksonville, Florida, and as far west as Houston, Texas. The expression “soul food” may have originated in the mid-1960s, when soul was a common word used to describe Black American culture (for example, soul music).

Home, sweet home. (courtesy TripAdvisor)

I TOTALLY dig the idea of food feeding one’s soul. Soul food is culture, family, love. Yearning. Nostalgia. Gratitude. Nourishment of your deepest parts.

The Mate and I might not be southern by heritage; we might have abandoned the south to live all the way across the country. But Mama Dip’s chicken and okra and cornbread fed us and our 250 guests on a day of torrential September rain back in 1987, and that food and those memories continue to nourish us daily in this hard-work miracle known as marriage.

Since we can’t be in North Carolina on September 6, I’ve asked my parents, who still live there, to go out to Dip’s for us. Their own marriage is in its 63rd year. Guess they must have found some soul food of their own.

Hate Phone-calling? Me Too. But Let’s Not Let the DACA Dream Die.

Posted on August 28, 2017 by gretchenwing

I hate calling politicians. I’d much rather go for a walk with them and ~~rant and rave lecture them ask them what the hell they were thinking~~ explain my point of view–and, of course, politely listen to theirs.

But today I called a whole bunch of them about DACA. [That’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era act which has granted permission to stay and work to about 800,000 immigrants brought to the U.S. originally by their parents.]

DACA’s the kind of act that makes me feel proud to be an American. Stay, you fine, hardworking kids, you Dreamers–stay and prosper! (And while you’re at it, teach some of our native-born kids what it means to be an American.)

And DACA being under threat makes my stomach turn heavy and cold. This is what last year’s election boded. Now it’s happening. Or it might.

From the May 2006 Immigration rally in Los Angeles (courtesy Jonathan McIntosh, Wikimedia Commons): No Human Being is Illegal!

Hence the phone calls. The president is on the fence so far. As the New York Times explains,

Since attacking DACA on the campaign trail, President Trump has pledged to keep the program alive, calling recipients, also known as Dreamers, “absolutely incredible kids” who deserve compassion. But in recent days, key players in his administration have advised Mr. Trump to wind down the program, and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has informed him he considers it unconstitutional and cannot defend it in court, according to people familiar with the discussions who insisted on anonymity to describe private deliberations. While the White House has declined to comment on the fate of DACA, several officials and people briefed on the discussions now say the president is on the brink of ending it, although they note that Mr. Trump often changes his mind.

Mr. Trump has been pondering — and publicly agonizing over — what to do about the program since he took office. But discussions about it inside the White House took on new urgency after a group of conservative state attorneys general threatened to sue the Trump administration in federal court unless it begins to dismantle the program by Sept. 5.

Maybe I’m naive. But I see a slim bit of hope here. If you do too, here are some people to call to register your opinion:

White House Comment Line: 202-456-6213

Jeff Sessions, U.S. Dept. of Justice Comment Line: 202-353-1555

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan: (213) 335-2244

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (855) 336-0788 (Note: these last two numbers will begin with a brief message about the threat to DACA–very useful info)

And if you prefer to talk to (and thank) someone standing up for immigrants, Washington’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson is leading a coalition of 15 other attorneys general to support the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) against a separate legal challenge. Is your state’s AG on this list? Call Bob’s office to find out: (360) 753-6200.

You know what? I still hate calling politicians. But I feel better knowing that maybe a few of you guys are now joining me.

Scrubbing Our American Nooks and Crannies: Racism and Other Filth

Posted on August 18, 2017 by gretchenwing

I don’t want to write about Charlottesville. I don’t even want to THINK about Charlottesville.

Last weekend I was in a sleep-deprived daze, going straight from wilderness camping to back-to-back days at my bakery job. And the Mate was out of town. I didn’t see any news, and since the twentysomethings I work with were even more exhausted than I, we talked mostly of cinnamon rolls and music.

Now the Mate is back home, the news is back on, and a weight has settled in my stomach, completely at odds with the fresh, beautiful view I see from our window.

So I’m going to write about my kitchen floor. It’s spotless again. So is the nook behind the toaster, and the gap between the dish drainer and the wall. Because–as I just mentioned–the Mate is back home.

It’s not that I’m a terrible housekeeper. I’m ~~great fine perfectly~~ quite competent. I keep my dishes washed and my counters wiped. But somehow, when the Mate is away for any length of time, my kitchen starts looking filthy.

It’s not that he’s a major cleaner. He’s a MINOR cleaner. He wipes a different spot each day, making the rounds. Today: behind the toaster. Tomorrow: under the fridge. Like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, once done at one end, it’s time to start back at the other. But it’s no sweat, ’cause each spot-clean takes maybe two minutes, max.

Gotta stop pretending this ugliness will just disappear if I don’t look at it.

We live on an island of mostly left-leaning, mostly-white people. Not all privileged, by any means, but protected by race and by distance from the ugliness on display at Charlottesville. That weight in my stomach is for my country, not for myself.

But it is my weight just the same. Our weight, whether we live near or far. The threat of virulent, presidentially-approved racism is, in fact, a threat to us all. Our community.Our democracy.

A visitor told me this week he had seen a Confederate flag flying near someone’s driveway at the far end of our island. I don’t know when or how, but I’m going to find the person who owns that flag and talk to him/her. I’m not looking forward to the conversation. But that flag is a little pocket of grime in my kitchen, and I know what happens when you let those little pockets alone.