Writer's Voices

In her book, Friedman writes about the many instances when she came near death, but was able to narrowly escape each time. How was she able to survive such atrocities? “Luck and a combination of my mother teaching me how to behave and by listening. When she said ‘be quiet,’ I was quiet. When she told me ‘stand still,’ I stood still. She knew when I would be in danger, and how I would not be in danger if I didn’t move and didn’t cry, and then nobody would pay attention to me, so I should be as invisible as possible and I did that. Because I trusted her, because she always told me the truth.” Of the six million people who died during the Holocaust, over a million and a half of them were children. “Everybody who was a child who made it was just a miracle because their whole purpose was to destroy all children, every child in Europe, every Jewish child in Europe, because they didn’t want any witnesses and they didn’t want us to grow up and tell the world.”

Friedman hopes that her audiences will buy and read her book, “…but most of all I want you to remember, please, remember those that aren’t with us and be very, very weary, well, very careful, of hatred because hatred can lead to exactly what happened to me…We just got to be be careful with hating something we don’t know or we don’t understand.”

I don’t feel guilty for being alive, but I wanted to do something…I sort of feel an obligation to talk about the million and a half children who were just murdered…I’m thinking of all the innocent souls and I say I have to always talk about them so they’re not forgotten…I feel that I have a job to do on this Earth, and that’s my job. Guilt paralyzes you. Obligation spurs you forward to do something.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Wiles explains that a pivotal moment in Kennedy’s life happened when his brother ran for president and he helped by managing his 1959 campaign. After his brother was elected, he was appointed Attorney General and became one of his closest advisors, but things all changed when JFK was assassinated in 1963. “His grief was so deep. He left the Johnson administration. He’d stayed for some months, transitioned, and then left. We didn’t hear from him for months. Eventually, as we talk about it in the book, he comes out of that place of mourning and decides that the voices of the American people growing louder and louder asking for civil rights, marching themselves and trying to change the world, he might have a job to do here, marching against the war in Vietnam. There were things that were happening in the country that he could see he might be able to be useful and help. So he ran for senator from New York, and his life began again.”

For Wiles, her hope is that this book will be read not only for enjoyment, but also be used in other ways as well. Most importantly, she wants Kennedy to be remembered, especially with the younger generation. “I was really surprised that over the 15-year period between hearing about this, or thinking about this story and deciding to write it in its publication, no one has written about Bobby Kennedy to young people, and I just thought it was just so important. I thought this is a story of change and revolution within your own self and then how you’re going to make it come alive in the world is an important story for us to leave young people with.”

We are all, every one of us, storytellers.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

The idea for Toll’s story came from a lesser known tradition in Greek mythology that she discovered during her research. Instead of the more commonly known nine muses, this one had three: Song, Discipline, and Memory. Toll remarked, “…that was like being struck by lightning for me because I have a pretty strong music background, so I loved the idea of song, and I’m pretty obsessed with discipline…the importance of discipline and work in any art form… and memory is something that really struck a nerve in so many levels…memory is incredibly important for writers because it’s often the wellspring from where we get our ideas.” It’s these three ideas that help frame the novel.

Initially, Toll didn’t start off writing to make money right away. “…the thing is, I think this is so true for all writers, writers want to get published because it’s like a tree falling in the forest, otherwise you’re writing but you have nobody to read what you’re writing. It’s really a partnership. Writing is a partnership between writer and reader and I will admit to having years and years of pretty intense despair about not being able to get fiction published. So the reviews had a great psychological impact for me. I had the joy of sharing books that I love, but I also have to say, it was great to have a byline. It made me feel great, and it still does!”

…I think writing is an apprenticeship and we all have to do our 10,000 hours, and so by the time I was writing this book I had learned an incredible amount. I didn’t spend time in a classroom. I really learned it by doing. You just have to write to learn how to write.

It is music and dancing that make me at peace with the world.

One chapter of The Land Remains deals specifically with soil conservation and the importance of soil health. Hamilton says that people today assume that soil conservation has been taken care of. However, he explains, “We lose more soil than we should. In many ways, lose almost as much as we did in the 1930’s because our farming systems are so much more intensive and we’re farming so much more marginal ground…so we continue to lose soil, and we’re basically mining our way down through this wonderful topsoil…I supposed we’ll continue to do it as long as we can keep pouring fertilizer on it and get a crop out of it.”

Hamilton also points out that whether we own our own land or not, we’re all essentially landowners. “…there’s a billion acres of public-owned land, hundreds of thousands of acres… almost no one lives less than 5 miles away from public land, whether it’s a city park, or a county park, or a state park, or a river that you can paddle on, because all of the water in the state’s public property, public resources, and so, we’re all land owners of that public land and both have the opportunity to use it, have a responsibility to it, and are benefited by policies that help add to it, for example, and take care of it. But I also make the point that all the land, even land that people think of as being privately owned, has a public dimension to it.”

Almost everyone in Iowa and many people in the country have a connection to land and we all have a story. The land has a story too, and those stories may be woven together. The land has a resilience…land has a wonderful, sentimental attachment and so those stories and that connection to the land is woven into the book as well.

I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want.

Sanders noted that one part of the stories is about marriage. “Lots of marriages are miserable and break up for good reasons…but the fact is, there are actually a lot of durable marriages in the world. These don’t make it into movies or TV shows or novels very often…there are many marriages which are mutually supportive, and loving, and fulfilling, and durable, and Gordon Mills and Mabel Mills happen to have one such marriage, and so part of what the book is about is about that possibility.” Additionally, the stories are also about generational care, the problems and challenges of parenting, and elderly care. “The underlying love across those three generations is one of the themes of the book. It’s a reminder of what’s possible for humans.”

While some of the stories have touches of magical realism, others are ordinary and mundane, but serve as examples of humanity. Sanders remarked, “…I keep coming back to this idea of kindness because most human beings, most of the time, are considerate to one another, are helpful when they can be, are neighborly, and we forget that because the headlines are full of news about people who are exact opposite of all those things…but if most humans weren’t most of the time decent to those around them, including members of their own family, our species would’ve died out a long time ago.”

One of the things I hope for a reader of this book, I hope they’re entertained. I always want to engage the reader and give them a reason for reading…but one of the things I hope they would come away with or just even as they read, is to look up from the page and just look at something in their world, maybe it’s a human artifact, like a watch or a cell phone, or maybe it’s a leaf twirling down in the wind from the tree as the season begins to change, and to have their awareness renewed.

Where there is great love, there are always miracles.

When describing his work, Recker explains, “I point out that I do work with the design and retail sector of our economy to figure out the psychosocial, emotional, cultural needs that are coming and how we can satisfy those consumer needs for color. What stories will people need to be hearing? What stories will they want to be hearing? What will they find satisfying, nourishing, supportive, energizing, aggressive, noticeable, glamourous, and really trying to do that 2-3 years out in advance to give people time and make a really successful season for themselves and for their customers.”

Deep Color is filled with Recker’s plethora of knowledge regarding the history and evolution of each color, going back to the prehistoric era, through recorded history, up to modern times. Recker also includes the religious and cultural history of those colors and how particular colors are associated with linguistics. “In order to be very coherent, and very correct, and as accurate as I can possibly be, it has to continue, that research, to make sure that I’m telling the story that needs to be told, that should be told, that are accurate…on the way I find new stories and new wrinkles and new things to dig into.”

That’s really important to me, that we nourish people with originality, creativity, and this kind of emotional vibration that we need… we shop and consume to be satisfied, make ourselves feel a certain way, and I want color to be a part of that equation.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

Vail would describe herself more as the grumblesquinchy type, not having thrown any tantrums growing up. She would feel anger, but held it in because she didn’t want to upset others. “But at some point you have to cope with your feelings, you have to think about it, you have to explore, ‘why am I feeling this way?’ And you don’t have to only be a pleasure all the time. I was a kid who enjoyed being a pleasure and I love when my kids are a pleasure. I love when they’re feeling happy and generous and kind, but that’s not their job to just be a pleasure for me… they’re not only entitled to happy and kind and generosity of spirit.”

The illustrations in Sometimes I Grumblesquinch also give readers a true sense of Katie’s range of emotions as the story progresses. “…there was something about Hyewon Yum’s art that just spoke to me that I thought was so tender, and expressive, and beautiful all at the same time, so I had a preference for her, and luckily enough she said yes…I feel like I’m going to give you the text and I hope that as an artist, the artist will find something in it, and bring something to that, and she just brought her own artistry to this family and to this story and came up with this visual vocabulary that I think is quite brilliant.”

The idea that it’s still ok, you’re still ok, you’re still a valued person, even if you’re feeling annoyed, even if you’re feeling frustrated.

Each of us has so many feelings. Not all of them are pleasant. We are all, every one of us, entitled to the full buffet of human emotions.

A Letter in the Wall initially began as a screenplay, but later turned into a biography. However, while Brill did find some information on Joan and her family, she wasn’t able to gather enough details to create the biography. She then changed the book into a novel, with Joan as a woman who wanted more in life than just marriage and motherhood. “This was someone who was trying to, along the way, challenge the status quo and push back a bit and was not getting the support she wanted… I attempted to make her multi-layered and and complex because I wanted her life and her personality and her decisions to be open to interpretation… She, sort of, in the end, I do think she changed and evolved…So I wanted to create a character that, she kind of pushed your buttons, and you had to, if not like her, possibly empathize or understand her, if you know where she’s coming from and what some of her struggles were.”

I don’t think that most people are all good or all bad. We’re all kinds of shades of gray, and we have our secrets and we have our foibles, and sometimes we make bad decisions and hopefully we learn from them. So I wanted to create a character that you kind of had to…if not like her, possibly empathize or understand her, if you know where she’s coming from and what some of her struggles were.

A letter is never ill-timed; it never interrupts. Instead it waits for us to find the opportune minute, the quiet moment to savor the message.

Lewis became interested in the topic of sleep deprivation in teens when her oldest son started high school in 2015 and the school start time was 7:30 am. To her, that was shockingly early and it was the earliest her children ever had to go to school. “I was quickly noticing that this was far from ideal. We’d get in the car at 7:10 am…he was hardly what I would characterize as alert and ready for a full day at school.” As a concerned parent, she became a part of the group that helped get a law on school start times passed in California. “…our new law in California just went into effect on July 1st and it is the first law of its kind in the entire country. We are the first state to enact a law that sets any sort’ve mandate on how early is too early for middle and high school to start the day.”

According to Lewis, one of the reasons teens don’t get enough sleep is that they are so overloaded with activities. “…you have teens who have a full day of classes, but many or sometimes even all of those classes are advanced level, meaning heavier homework loads. Plus they’re in involved in sports or other extracurriculars…they’re doing this because they feel like they have to in order to be successful…the bar just keeps going higher and higher but it really is…cutting into their sleep time…and of course also exacerbating mental health issues.”

As a writer, you write your article, you put it out in the world, and then you never know what kind of impact it’s going to have. You hope it will be read and people will connect with it, but I could not have possibly foreseen how this particular op-ed, what was going to happen as a result.

The Polish Prince , set in eastern Poland, begins in 1939 when Janczewski is just 13 years old. It follows his life as he navigates the difficulties of surviving through WWII, from being captured and sent to work camps to his eventual escape. In spite of what he went through, Janczewski remained neutral. Ross remarked, “That’s, I guess, what makes the book special…he doesn’t pick on one side. So in the beginning of the war, he sees the Germans massacre even his friends. He sees that, first hand, and later in the war, he’s deported to Germany when the war is coming to an end, and he ends up having a German girlfriend who he cares for…” In addition, Janczewski also helped others during a time where he had access to food and many didn’t. He would sneak food to people at the risk of getting shot. From that experience, he learned, “I now see what bread could be for a man.”

What will Ross do with his great-grandfather’s story going forward? “…My end goal with this is it’s worth doing a documentary or movie about this…a documentary where you visit all of the places that he went… and then also an actual movie because I do believe it’s movie-worthy…That’s really the end goal, to make it into an actual movie and to just keep the story alive.”

That’s why this book is so timely… when [Janeczewski] talks in the end about this plague of nationalism, he talks about how it can spring up again…if these stories aren’t told…It’s this nationalistic tendency that’s happening.. with the war in Ukraine. The same atrocities are happening. It’s not like it’s completely different. It’s the same area of the world…but then again I feel like he…would see the humanity in both sides.

Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.