Yah!

Thanks to all who sent in their submissions for our Take Me Away writing contest! And holy cow there were a lot of you! I've got 3 gigantic bins full of student writing on my desk right now. As soon as I'm done making a way cool fort out of them, I swear, we're going to read each and every one. Who knows? Yours could be the winner! It could be the one a quarter of the way down stack #2 just waiting to be chosen! How exciting! Check out the April/May issue of Writing to see if your poem or story was the best!

Psst... don't tell anyone, but I'm rooting for you.

Keep it under your hat.

The deadline for the Take Me Away writing contest has passed. Please do not send anymore entries--they will not be accepted. Seriously now. Stop sending. There's nothing I can do, I'm sorry. Rules are rules, chief. Isn't that what they say? Yes, but they also say that rules were made to be broken. Well not in this case they weren't. No sirree, Bob. However, you can always send your writing to word@weeklyreader.com for possible publication on this site! Our blog shall never die.

Long live WORD!

Complete Transcript of Literary Editor Bryon Cahill's interview with
Stephen King
(As promised in the October 2006 issue of Writing Magazine)

"I'm Halloween's answer to Santa Claus."
     -Stephen King

Friday, April 22, 2005

What are your writing habits? Where do you write? When? Do you have any set rituals like drinking a glass of orange juice before you sit down to write?
I write in the mornings... well... it's never set, I don't know how it is with you... I have a time when I like to write. And that's usually from 8 until noon. That's when I feel the best. I get up in the morning and there's no grunge in my head. That time is usually dedicated time. I really don't have anything to do. Once breakfast is out of the way I can just go and sit until noon. That's on an ordinary day when the world doesn't intrude. But the world doesn't stop for me. It doesn't stop for any writer. And if I just have one project, that's the time that I do it. Generally speaking, if I have two things I have a column that I do for Entertainment Weekly, and I have a book that I'm working on so every third Monday I'll just not work on the book and I'll spend that day and work on that column. I have another book that I'm working on because these things sometimes don't wait, they just declare themselves. So I'm working a little bit at night, too. I don't like to do that and it doesn't always feel as good but the stories don't seem to feel any different when they're done. I work a little bit at night, too, but mostly I like to work days.

When you sit down to write a book, do you plot it out beforehand or do you just let the fingers go where they may?
No, I never plot out beforehand. But it's never a case of exactly letting the fingers go where they may. It's somewhere in-between those two things. I have a general story idea--a situation. That's where I like to start. Then I let it play out. And that always works as long as you're honest about what characters would do in a given situation. If you start to lie then things wander off-course. That is, if you start to make characters do things because it would be more convenient for you.

And you can tell the difference?
Oh yeah. You can tell the difference. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm working on a story right now where I really didn't want this lady to call the cops. Because it would be inconvenient for me. I would have to write about police procedure and bring people into the story that I didn't want there. But in the situation she was in, any sane person would call the police. So I let her call the police. And it was fine.

What role do you think a person's heritage, upbringing, and surroundings play in their writing?
Well first of all, it's a case of what you get from your parents for genes. My father wrote. I didn't know him. He left home when I was very little. But my mother told me that he wrote lots of stories, and he sent them off to magazines, and he got letters back saying "please send us more." He just was kind of lazy about it and never really did very much. But she said his stories were really good.

In your book On Writing you wrote some great stories about your mom encouraging you and giving you a quarter every time you wrote a story.
It's great to have people around you that care. You know what? They don't even have to care exactly. All they have to do is say "this is what you like to do. And that's OK." As long as they don't stomp on you and say "that's a stupid thing to do, go hoe the garden." It's OK to say "go hoe the garden" as long as you can still find an hour to go do what you want because somebody recognizes that's important to you. And it's the same way whether it's the guitar, trumpet, chess, whatever. And most parents do. Most peers do as well. So it's usually OK but you've got to get some kind of a background in it. And that always manifests itself because you have an interest in it.

Thanksgiving is coming up, and every time I go into a store, my eyes feast on shelves stacked with heaps of my favorite fall treats--pumpkin and apple pies, stuffing mixes, fresh baked bread, and egg nog. Yes, food is on my mind. Maybe that's why Sam Stern caught my eye when I was putting together the November/December issue of Writing.

   Although he’s only 14, Sam Stern may be well on his way to becoming the next Iron Chef! The British teenager is the author of Cooking Up a Storm: The Teen Survival Cookbook .   

   "I wrote this book for kids like me who enjoy cooking or who want to learn to cook. It’s full of simple tasty recipes—the kinds of things that my friends and I like to eat,” writes Sam in the introduction to the book. It features well-written recipes that range from blueberry and apricot muffins and chocolate mousse to sweet potato fries, party pizza slices, and chili con carne.

With chapters such as “When Friends Stop By,” “Impress a Crowd,” and “Exam Survival,” this book is sure to please the eye, the mind, and the stomach!

Read an interview with Sam Stern and then, click here to download his favorite guacamole recipe (courtesy of Candlewick Press). Maybe you can whip up this guacamole for your family this holiday season.

Then, post your favorite recipe in the comments section below. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

When I was in high school, my relatives bought a new house not far from ours. As they were moving in, my uncle commented on the house's previous owners. "They didn't have books. There wasn't a book in the house," he said to me. "Can you imagine a house without books?" He was aghast. He was a professor at a top university and he had written quite a few books himself.

But I was taken aback. "Maybe they used the library," I said in defense of the unknown previous owners. "We don't have any books in our house," I pointed out. My parents were not readers. At our house, we got the daily newspaper and the Reader's Digest. That was it. But my mother had diligently taken me to the library from the moment I could read. For me, a trip to the library was as wonderful as a trip to the toy store. More so, really. At the toy store, I would gaze longingly at the glittering displays but usually leave with only one small token. At the library, I knew I would go home with my arms full of treasure.

My uncle mumbled something like, "Oh, well, yes, the library..."

I was confused. I had never thought of books as being things to own. Why would you want to buy books when you could read them for free from the library? I figured my uncle was being a snob. After all, he was wealthier than my parents were. My dad was a cop. He didn't read books, but he always said he was going to write one about all the nutty people he'd encountered during his career. (He never did write that book, and he's gone now. But that's another story. I'll tell it another time.)

Over the years, I began visiting bookstores and buying books when I could afford to. I began to understand the concept of books as beloved objects. I loved the heft of them in my hands, the covers, the bindings, the stories. Today, I own shelves and piles of books. In the attic of our house, I have boxes of them, including boxes of my children's books from when they were little. Some books, I pick up time and again. Others just sit there gathering dust. Honestly, I don't need all these books. And yes, I do still love the library.

But I can't imagine a house without books. To me, they make a house a home as much as pots and pans, family photos, pillows, and teapots do. Well, I must be off. I'm going to the bookstore. I need another book.

The following story is an interpretation of the 1,000 Words image in the October, 2006 issue of Writing Magazine.

A Forest Under The Floor
Story by Veronica Brown, Grade 6 

      "Come on Sara!"  Yelled Alli. "If you don't hurry up and come, I will go to the park without you! ... Sara!" Alli ran into the living room only to find her sister's favorite fantasy book, her sister's journal, grape juice, a shovel, and a hole in the floor surrounded by broken floorboards. Alli peered in the hole. She saw a forest. It was about 5 feet tall and looked as if it went on forever. "Sara! Sara!" Alli called. Alli ran to the garage and grabbed a long piece of rope and hurried back to the living room. She tied one end of the rope to a chair and the other end to her waist. After taking a deep breath Alli jumped into the forest. Alli searched the greenery for Sara. "Sara!" Alli's voice quivered even though she was the older sister. 
       "Alli!" The whisper came out of nowhere.
       "Sara? Is that you?" whispered Alli. 
       "Shh! Come look at this!" Sara shined the flashlight at a glimmer of bronze in what appeared to be an enormous web. "It's a dragon!" mouthed Sara. Alli scoffed but upon further inspection, she realized it looked exactly like a dragon. "We have to save it, Alli! We have to bring him home!"
       "Yeah, we'll bring home a dragon and walk him around on a leash!" scoffed Alli.
       "Please!" Sara begged. Alli realized she had clearly lost this argument. 
       "Fine! Just hurry up! When you grab him grab onto me so I can reel us up." Sara leaned into the web and grabbed the dragon and then Alli. As Alli began to walk towards the hole a 3 foot long and 2 foot tall spider began running towards them.
       "AAAAAHHH" both girls yelled. They ran and ran and finally climbed out of the hole. They quickly boarded it up. Sara promptly made a bed for the dragon in her room. Sara and the dragon nodded off to sleep.
       Alli couldn't sleep. Something in the forest was moaning. After listening to the moans for several hours, Alli got out of bed and tip-toed into the living room. Alli yanked up the floorboards and peeked into the forest. There sat a dragon. It looked identical to the one Sara had saved except larger.
       "Hello." whispered Alli. The dragon sniffed and looked up. "Was that your baby we saved?"  The dragon gave Alli a meaningful look that Alli interpreted as a yes. "Hold on." Alli said. She ran into Sara's bedroom, being careful not to wake her. She rushed back to the hole and lowered in the dragon. "Good luck" said Alli. Alli carefully sealed up the floor and walked back to her room. She would need rest if she was going to explain to Sara what happened tomorrow morning.