Introducing the Electrifying Ellen Booraem

This month we're thrilled to have three debut authors. Our first celebration is for Ellen Booraem and her MG fantasy, The Unnameables.

“The Unnameables” is a whimsical fantasy set on an island where everyone is named for what he or she does. The hero is a 13-year-old foundling boy named Medford Runyuin, whose meaningless name underscores his status as an outsider in a rigid, orderly society. Medford has a dangerous secret that just keeps getting worse as he gets older. A smelly, chaotic goatman shows up to expose the secret, kicking off a chain of events that changes Medford’s life—and his island—forever.

Ellen quit a job she loved—arts and special sections editor for the county newspaper—to take her third stab at writing a novel. This time, it worked! Before taking the plunge, she had been writing and editing for rural weeklies for nearly twenty years. Before that, she wrote and edited employee newsletters for corporations and college publications.

Ellen and her partner, artist Rob Shillady, moved to coastal Maine from southern New England in 1984. In the early 90s, they bought land in their tiny town (population: 800) and built a house with their own hands (mostly Rob’s, since one of his day jobs had been carpentry). They live there now with a dog named Calamity Jane and a cat named McGonagall, after the Harry Potter professor who can turn herself into a cat.

Ellen is a founding director of the Brooklin Youth Corps, a summertime work and self-esteem program for teens. She is a mentor and writing coach at the local school, and freelances for the newspaper where she used to work.

Here’s what Kirkus Reviews had to say about The Unnameables:

(Starred Review) On Island, “thou art thy name.” At age 14, residents receive their names and their vocations from the Council. A cook becomes Cook, a tanner becomes Tanner and everyone follows the rules set forth in Capability C. Craft’s Frugall Compendium of Home Arts and Farme Chores (1680). Thirteen-year-old foundling Medford Runyuin hopes to be designated Carver, like his foster father. He also hopes no one will discover the Unnameable objects he’s created and hidden under his bed: They could cause his exile to Mainland forever. The Council puts off naming him, however, and he must continue to work hard for acceptance. When someone nameless and possibly Unnameable enters his life, all his plans—and the islanders’ way of life—could be in for drastic changes…but after 300 years, is that necessarily a bad thing? Booraem’s debut is an ever-surprising, genre-defying page-turner. Realistic characters deal with philosophical problems in vivid, flowing prose that is evocative and often funny. A sort of combination of witch-trial-era Salem and The Giver, this book offers a treat with nearly every page turn.

Day 3: Mapping Things Out

We all know writers have a love of words, but did you know Sarah Prineas also has a love for maps?

An interesting thing about hobbits is they don't like to travel, but Bilbo always loved maps. Especially Thror's map.

I love maps, too, with a deep and geeky love for things like magical runes and "here there be dragons" and the compass rose and place names like "the Withered Heath" and "Mirkwood the Great".

For fantasy writers, maps are really important because we often create what Tolkien called a "secondary world" that is, a world completely removed from the "real" world, with its own geography and history. Maps make real the places of the imagination. That's why you'll see maps in the first couple of pages of many fantasy novels, including THE MAGIC THIEF.
When the book was being designed, my editor asked me for a map sketch to give the artist. I started out by consulting a really excellent map of 18th century London because Wellmet, the city in my book, is very loosely based on it, especially Southwark which was, back then, the seedy side of the Thames. I was inspired by the twisty streets with the funny names:

London map

Then I started sketching, coming up with twisty streets and funny names of my own. This is a detail from the Twilight, the part of Wellmet where you wouldn't want to live:

my map sketch

Then the artist for THE MAGIC THIEF took my sketch and turned it into a real map which is right at the beginning of the book:

book map

I have a puzzle version of Thror's map, by the way. It's one of my favorite things in the world.

What a cool thing to see the evolution of a story map. Now be sure to come back early tommorrow because Sarah will be treating us with biscuits and bacon. Yum!

Day 2: Getting to know Sarah

We're back with the lively Sarah Prineas for an intimate interview with this imaginative author. Settle in for your chance to get the 1 on 1 scoop.

2k8: Tell us, Sarah, where do you do most of your writing? Are you a coffee house writer or house hermit?

Sarah: House hermit. My house is pretty small so I don't have a home office. During my "writing days" (days off from my halftime dayjob) I write at the kitchen table. Keeping me company are the cats, Feather and Sparkle (who, by some weird coincidence looks just like Lady, the cat in THE MAGIC THIEF). This is a picture of them looking symmetrical instead of fighting, which they do on a schedule. I write on a black stealth MacBook computer named Sparks. It has a dragon sticker on it. Also keeping me company when I write is a cup of Lady Grey tea with cream and sugar. Check out the mug! One of my best buddies sent it to me after I got the book's cover art.

2k8: What a great gift! So, how did THE MAGIC THIEF come about? What got you started with the story?

Sarah: It was originally supposed to be a story for Cricket magazine. I had the first couple of lines--"A thief is a lot like a wizard…"--in a file on my computer for over a year: but I didn't have a protagonist or a story. But once I saw the letters to the editor in Cricket asking for mores stories with magic and wizards and more two-part stories, Conn's voice and character leaped into being.

2k8: It's amazing how things evolve, isn't it? How did you end up finding a publisher for it? Give us the deets.

Sarah: My publication story is pretty much textbook and boring. About a month after finishing the novel I got an agent through a referral. The agent had me do some revisions. She sent off the manuscript to 10 editors and after a couple of weeks we did the deal with HarperCollins. As my agent said later, "It's the way deals are supposed to work but never do." Except that it did! It took about a year from the day I started writing the book to the day I sold it.

2k8: Very cool! We like it when things go smoothly. Did anything at all catch you off guard when you were writing it?

Sarah: Oh, yeah. I didn't know I was a children's writer! Well, and first I didn't know it was a novel. It was supposed to be a story, but I found Conn's voice so fun to write and the possibilities of the Wellmet world so exciting, that the story turned into a novel manuscript. When my agent sent it to mainstream children's publishers instead of sf/fantasy ones I was surprised. She knew what she was doing, though.

2k8: We love it when all the pieces fall perfectly together. Now what question won't most people know to ask you? And what's your answer?

Sarah: What's your favorite disease? Lyme disease, definitely. Book one was put onto a "crash" publication schedule, so the editing process happened quickly. My editor called at the beginning of June and asked if I could finish edits by the end of the month. Then I caught Lyme disease (stupid tick). All of a sudden, edits needed to be done by the end of the week. And I did them! With a 102 fever and chills from the Lyme disease. The funny part of it is, my hometown is Lyme, Connecticut. Not funny ha-ha, really…

Wow, talk about rough revisions! And you and Meg Cabot now have something in common. Hopefully you'll share some good things too! Thank you so much for your time, Sarah.

Tune back in tomorrow when Sarah will expound on maps!

Let us introduce you to the magical, mystical Sarah Prineas

We're so excited to introduce you to our magical MG author, Sarah Prineas! Sarah lives not too far from the Iowa River in Iowa City, Iowa, where she works at the University of Iowa. It's a good thing she really likes Iowa… She has two kids and two cats and is married to a mad scientist. Her biscuits are the kind that come out of a can (put 'em on a pan, hope they don't burn...).

THE MAGIC THIEF is her first novel and is the first in a fantasy trilogy—or possibly a series, who knows—about Conn, a scruffy kid with a dark past who survives by picking pockets on the streets of Wellmet. When he picks the wizard Nevery's pocket he sets off on an adventure involving magic, peril, misery eels, pugilistic displays, evil Devices, the most amazing locus magicalicus in the world, and crossing a (mostly) frozen river on a night of stars as bright as daggers. He also eats a lot of biscuits and bacon.

Chapter one can be found here: http://www.magicthief.com/

RAVE REVIEWS!

"Sarah Prineas' vivid descriptions made me feel as if I was walking right next to Conn, her young resourceful hero." –D. J. MacHale author, of the

Pendragon series

"I couldn't put it down. Wonderful exciting stuff."--Diana Wynne Jones, author of Howl's Moving Castle

"Conn's attempts—both sorcerous and light-fingered—to save Wellmet's magic will enthrall readers, leaving them hungry for more of Conn's adventures—and perhaps for a biscuit or two!"--Ysabeau Wilce, author of Flora Segunda

"An uncommonly engaging young narrator kicks this debut fantasy ahead of the general run." --Kirkus (starred)

"What works wonderfully well here is the boy's irresistible voice, which is supplemented by the writings of Nevery in his journal, its creased and stained pages appearing as apart of the design."--Booklist (starred)