I’m home from another tour (this one to support the paperback publication of Ginny Moon), and had a particularly great time this time out because in addition to visiting bookstores in several major cities, I went into several public schools as well. It was like being a teacher all over again. I got to talk with kids about the writing process, and creativity. Some pictures follow – my favorite is the drawing that one of the kids in Denver gave me after our talk!

I’m extremely happy and humbled to report that Ginny Moon has won the Handi-Livres Award for Best Novel of 2017! My French editor, Hélène, accepted the award on my behalf in Paris last week. Here’s a video of the envelope being opened, and Hélène’s gracious speech.  The award itself is on its way in the mail, so I’ll be sure to post more pictures when it arrives.

 

https://benjaminludwig.com/2017/12/5269/

Some quick updates, and news to share –

This morning I was super glad to find that Booklist included Ginny Moon as one of their Top Ten First Novels of 2017!

Also, Ginny will be translated into Portuguese!

Finally, here’s a look at the stack of books that arrived from Slovakia!

This might be the shortest blog entry I’ve ever written, but I wanted to share some good news: The paperback edition of Ginny Moon will be out on December 26th, and here’s the new cover!

I started writing seriously in fourth grade.  Every day before school and after school.  During classes, too. I was hooked on the inherent joy of storytelling.

By the time I was a senior in high school, I’d learned that no one could “get a job” as a novelist.  Writing was something you had to do on your own, which meant you needed a career that provided you with lots of extra time.  Who had lots of extra time?  English teachers, of course. They had their summers off, plus work days that ended around 3:00 in the afternoon, right? If I wanted to write full-time, all day, becoming a high school English teacher would be the first step towards my goal.

I applied to the University of New Hampshire, which I’d heard was a great school for English teachers. In the fall I entered as an English Teaching major. Right away I got completely caught up in my studies, and started working as a substitute teacher at a local middle school. I was fascinated with different philosophies of education, with how students learn to read and write. I learned new approaches to reading and talking about literature. Over the course of four years I was offered multiple part-time positions at the school where I was subbing, first as a Spanish translator for a student from Mexico, then as a special-education aide.  A long-term classroom sub.

All of which is to say I fell in love with teaching.  I wrote the whole time, just as obsessively as ever, but now I there was something else that I cared about.

I had an unofficial advisor at UNH, a brilliant man named John Yount. He was so important to me that I mentioned him in the Acknowledgements of my book. John was a novelist, and had attended the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. When he asked one day what I planned to do when I graduated, I told him I wanted to teach – and he said I’d be crazy if I did. It was a huge surprise for me, because he’d always been so supportive. Teaching would take up all my time, he explained. By then I’d seen enough teachers at work to know that he was right. Still, I had my feet firmly planted in two separate (but adjoining) rooms, and John’s sudden admonition made me drop two anchors. I believed him, but I wanted two things. I wanted to write and to teach.

When I graduated, I became a middle-school language arts teacher, one who still had every intention of becoming a novelist, but who was extremely happy with his day job.  The year was 1996.

A few years passed. In May of 2017, my first novel was published.  It’s called Ginny Moon. If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’ve heard of it.

A debut novel requires a tremendous amount of support from the publishing team – and that includes the writer.  My publisher wanted me to do a lot of traveling: a month-long prepublication tour, and a month-long book tour. Both were necessary in order to give the book the best possible chance of success. Also, there would be articles I had to write, and I needed to finish my second book. I was happy to do all of these things – ecstatic, actually, and filled with more gratitude and pinch-me-I’m-dreaming joy that I ever could have imagined. I planned to take two months of leave, but when I made the official request, my superintendent said no. Two months was just too long.

So I resigned. Leaving my position was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. I knew I could come back to teaching afterward, though in a different district.  The position I’d left would be long-gone by then.

But just as I learned that teachers don’t really stop working when the bell rings at the end of the day (ever respond to reading-journals until midnight?), I quickly learned that for a very long time I’d been burning a candle at both ends. Writing as obsessively as I’d been writing, while teaching full-time, was having a serious impact on both my writing and my teaching. I was a wreck and hadn’t know it.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t have it all.  Not if “all” means being both a novelist and a public-school teacher at the same time. I’m writing full-time right now, and trying to squeeze in a bit of teaching where I can. All my friends are colleagues at the middle school are already into their first week of the school year, while I’m at home, writing.  I have what I set out to achieve way back in high school.  I would never go back and choose the other option – giving up the tours and time in order to keep my teaching job – but I’m not even close to being done with teaching. Teaching has been a part of who I am for a long, long time.  And I like it that way.

Ever find yourself in possession of the thing you’ve always wanted, only to find out that you’ve become someone who now wants more than that? I still have both of my feet in adjoining rooms, but I have a feeling it will always be a balancing act.

 

I remember being in graduate school, listening to a group of teachers talk about change.  “You can’t be afraid of change,” they all agreed, nodding.  “Change is inevitable.”

Perhaps.  But the fact that something is inevitable doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a healthy fear of it.  After all, tornadoes, earthquakes, and forest fires cause pretty big changes, don’t they?

Of course, the teachers weren’t talking about forces of nature.  They were talking about shifts in educational trends.  Still, the idea that we must all embrace change is one that most of us encounter in our lives.  Personally, I have a had a hard time with change.  I remember, when I was very little, my dad shaved his beard.  I was so upset I didn’t want to talk to him.  And my mom still tells me how mad she would get whenever she changed the furniture around in the living room.

I’ve gotten a lot better (I had a reader ask recently if Ginny Moon was really a thinly veiled version of me because I said that change can be difficult), but I’m always a little rattled when someone I’m close to changes.  Because when a person changes, my relationship with him or her changes as well – and really, that means I have to change too.  I have to evolve.

I haven’t thought about it a lot yet (I will soon, though – see below), but I suspect that the changes we experience because of how other people change present us with much greater challenges than the ones that occur more naturally, in our own hearts.

Our own hearts?  Sometimes I wonder if there even is such a thing.  An awful lot of people seem to have a share in mine.

In the next few weeks I’m going to be thinking and writing about some changes – specifically, how my own beliefs changed as a result of changes in other people.  I’ll write about why I stopped eating meat, and my transition from teacher to writer.  About going to Bee School.  Social media.  And finally, about one of my best friends, who found his calling when the right technology was invented.

I’m wondering, though – what do you think about the changes you’ve undergone because of a change in someone else?

My son, who’s almost four, finished preschool in late June.  He’d been attending for two hours a day, Monday through Thursday – just a taste of school, a chance for him to be in the classroom with kids his own age.  It was a successful year for him, so there was a lot to celebrate on the last day of school.  The year would end with a slide show, the teacher told the class.  All their parents were invited.  They would set up a screen, and watch the year’s highlights. Since I really needed time to write, my wife said she would take some time off from work to go with him.

He was beyond excited.  On the day of the slide show, he woke up at 5:30 in the morning, completely jazzed.  He got dressed before going to the bathroom, and put his backpack on before sitting down for breakfast.  “Mom is taking me to school!  She’s coming with me for the slide show!” he told me.  Afterwards there would be a party (!), and he would take his portfolio home (!) to show us his beautiful (!) artwork (!).

They left for the event, and I sat down at the kitchen table to type.

Two and half hours later, the car pulled into the driveway.  He walked back in, threw his backpack down, sat on the couch, and frowned.  “What happened?” I asked my wife.

“I’m not sure,” she said.  “He had a great time, but as soon as we left the party he got all quiet.”

“What’s wrong, buddy?” I asked him.

“There wasn’t even a slide show,” he said.

“There wasn’t?  What do you mean?”

“It was just a bunch of pictures of me and my friends.”

“Wait – you mean they couldn’t put the pictures up on the screen?”

“No Dad,” he said.  “It was just pictures!  They weren’t any slides! No big slides, no tunnel-slides, no water-slides…”

And then I got it.  He’d expected exactly what anyone born after the era of circular slide-cartridges, and who didn’t know anything about Prezis or PowerPoints would expect from a slide show: a presentation of extremely exciting, totally awesome PLAYGROUND SLIDES.

After a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, 15 minutes of playing dinosaurs, and reading Three By the Sea, he was more than ready for a nap.

A few days later, we went to the town playground and made a slide show of our own.  Here’s a brief sampling from it.

When Ginny Moon was released on May 2^nd, I started getting a lot of e-mails from librarians in New Hampshire.  A lot of folks from my home state were talking about the book.  Even more exciting was that quite a few of the librarians asked if I could come to their libraries to give a book talk.

I said yes, every time.

As a result, I have quite a few NH library events scheduled for this summer.  And I’d love to have more – so if you’re a NH librarian, please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected].  Schedule permitting, I’d be glad to come to your town and talk with readers about Ginny Moon.

And if you’re not from NH, please know that I’m also scheduling a lot of Skype appearances.  If you’d like to set one up, please send me an email, and we’ll see what we can do!  Here I am, by the way, at a book talk hosted by East Meadow Public Library on Long Island.

While on tour, I’ve been stopping into independent bookstores – lots of independent bookstores – not only to sign copies of Ginny Moon, but also to browse, and to pick out books for my kids.  I fell in love with bookstores at a very early age.  There was a bookstore in my hometown, Wallingford, Connecticut, called Library Hours.  It was closed in the morning when I walked past it on the way to school, but after school it was open.  I would go in, and browse through everything.  At first I spent my allowance, but after I got a paper route (remember those?) I spent almost all my money there.  My bedroom ended up full of books.

Library Hours closed down long ago, sad to say.  But for a long time, going to school was exciting because all day I could look forward to walking past the bookstore.

So when I’m out doing readings, I like to stop by as many independent bookstores as I can.  Here are some of my favorites!  And some pictures, of course.

The Book Stall in Winnetka, Illinois
http://www.thebookstall.com
@thebookstall

Water Street Books in Exeter, New Hampshire
http://waterstreetbooks.com
https://www.facebook.com/Water-Street-Bookstore-87125636629/

Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
http://www.flyleafbooks.com
@FlyleafChapelHill

Second Star on the Right, in Denver, Colorado
http://secondstartotherightbooks.com
@secondstartotherightbook

The Book Cellar in Chicago, Illinois
http://www.bookcellarinc.com
@BookCellarInc

Book & Bar in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
http://www.bookandbar.com
@PortsmouthBookandBar

An Unlikely Story in Plainville, Massachusetts
http://www.anunlikelystory.com
@anunlikelystoryplainville

Mysterious Galaxy in Los Angeles, California
http://www.mystgalaxy.com
@EventsMysGal

Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, North Carolina
http://www.quailridgebooks.com
@QuailRidgeBooks

 

 

 

I’m getting ready to head out on tour on May 1^st.  I can hardly believe it.  I mean, it’s one thing to have your book available for people to read, but to talk with a group of folks who’ve read or are about to read it – it’s just too good.  Most writers write, I think, because they want to connect.  This one does, anyway.  But previous to this year, I never envisioned being able to connect with readers through any means other than through the book itself.  In other words, I never thought my relationship with readers would extend beyond the experience of people simply reading Ginny Moon.  After all, that was sort of my fantasy, growing up: I wanted to write books that people would fall in love with, because I had fallen in love with so many books myself.

So I’ll be visiting 15 different cities between May 1^st and June 2^nd.   The list of stores and locations is available on my website.  If you happen to be nearby when I’m in town, please stop by.  I’d love to say hello.

The first event will take place at Water Street Books in Exeter, New Hampshire, which is close to my hometown.  You can read all about it here.   Quite a few people are already planning to attend, so if you’re in the Seacoast area and would like to stop in, please sign up using this link to reserve your spot.  It’s free, of course, and catered.  So if you enjoy good conversation, books, and wine…