sharondarrow

Norma Fox Mazer, acclaimed and trail-blazing author of Young Adult Literature passed away on Saturday, October 17, 2009 at 3:05 a.m. at her home in Montpelier, Vermont. For many years, she and her husband Harry Mazer divided their time between New York City and Jamesville, NY where she wrote over 30 novels, contributed to short story collections, edited volumes of stories and poetry, and collaborated on several books with Harry. She taught in the National Book Foundation’s Writing Camp and in the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program of Vermont College of Fine Arts, as well as spoke to thousands of young people and writers in schools and conferences around the nation.

She served as Faculty Chair of the program and it still bears the marks of her dedication and personality. Her books, hard-hitting and true to the life and hearts of teenagers, touched a deep cord in her readers. She received honors and awards of every kind, notably among them the Newbery Honor, National Book Award Finalist, Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery, and Christopher Medal. She was for her students and fellow faculty a shining light of encouragement and high standards in the craft of writing and in the art of living. She said, “Get into the habit of writing, get easy with it, and you will come at last to that part of yourself where you don't write what's expected, but what's true and you….” Few writers have lived that out so well as she, always surprising us with the unexpected and always speaking what was true and most herself. She loved her students, her stories, her family and friends, and her beautiful garden. She lived lightly and carefully on the earth and gave so much back, bringing flowers and beautiful stories into our lives.

Norma told us, “Don’t worry about being ‘creative’. The more you write, the more ideas will come to you. Don't tie yourself into knots with the thought of writing. Just write.” She also told us about how she wore an old misshapen fedora over her eyes while she wrote. I can see her now, that old hat hiding her eyes, her braids brushing her shoulders as she speaks aloud the dialogue she is writing—and her brilliant smile—but I know that fedora is where I saw it last, hanging on the chair back in her office, waiting, like me, for more Norma stories. I’m so sad that there are no more.




(Photo from Norma's website)

(photos by Rob Miller)

My resolutions:
1. Write in my blog more often.
2. Finish the two books I am writing currently; research another.
3. Visit my daughters and families as much as possible.
4. Give internet dating a try.
5. Sing and dance every day. La, la, la, la, la. 1-2-3-cha, cha, cha.
6. Bring more poetry into my life (in every form).
7. Make lots of new friends.
8. Smile when I go to sleep and when I wake up.
9. Volunteer and give more.
10. Stay healthy.

Here's wishing you a Happy New Year!

I've taken a long break from my blog and much has happened in the interim: a first grandchild born; a trip to NYC on Sept. 11; an amazing autumn in Vermont; a speaking trip to Chicago where I saw so many wonderful old friends and made new ones; a visit to my daughters, sister, and mother at Thanksgiving; home again to watch at least two feet of snow fall and collect in my yard; DC for Xmas; then home again to watch in the New Year.

Now I'm thinking about resolutions for this coming year. What should I change, maintain, ditch, or acquire? I'll be thinking about it. What are you going to resolve this year?

Lang Lang


On my drive yesterday through the mountains of southeastern Vermont on my way to visit my oldest daughter in D.C. and greet my youngest daughter just flying in from Kiev, I listened to an NPR interview of Lang Lang, the nearly 30-year-old Chinese pianist/superstar who played in the Olympics opening night extravaganza. I loved several things I heard from him and from others speaking about him and about the growth and development of the artist. But my favorite bit was when he was asked how he had been able to sustain 8 to 10 hours of daily practice throughout this childhood and teen years. He said that he "closed his eyes and imagined scenes and paintings and stories" to go with the music that would help him access the deeper emotions needed to translate the music from the page through him into the air. He said he hadn't then had much life experience so all he had to go on was his imagination. I was so intrigued by this crediting of the imagination; in fact, honoring of it. I hope no one ever tried to tell him something was "just his imagination."

I always had my imagination running away with me (sounds kind of fun huh?) or that I had a big imagination, which was not always a compliment, but I took it as one. What would school have been like without using your imagination to get you out of there? I remember making up stories about the numbers I was adding or subtracting during math class. I even imagined what 6 felt when 2 was taken away (sad) or what 5 and 3 felt when they were added together and transformed from odd to even as an 8 (not too happy, though 8, himself, was rather pleased). But 6 added to 6 made for two quite nice numbers and, well, they all felt nice about it, too. I also liked coloring them whatever color they felt like at the moment. No wonder I'm a writer and one who insists on going deeply into character. I knew even when I was 6 that motivation and action/reaction was everywhere--if I could let my imagination run that far away with me. It's time to play. Come on, let's run.

I was just now emailing with Tami Lewis Brown about tapping into the unconscious as writers and realized that this is the very kind of thing I could blog about--see, it's taking me a while to get up to speed on this.

In fact, it takes me a good while to "get up to speed" on just about anything I do. Is that because I'm a truly well-practiced procrastinator? Maybe. But it also might be because I'm learning to wait, to listen, to become open to the creative experience, giving my mind and body time and space to prepare for the activity, to enter it slowly, and to find connection with it, to "go with the flow" of the moment. I've learned that it takes us as organisms time to adjust our brain waves from one activity to another. Thinking we can rush here and there, be bombarded by outside and extraneous information, then zip into our writing spaces and immediately tap into the deepest parts of ourselves for our poems and stories is wrong. We put so much pressure on ourselves to do just that and we really need to stop. We need to make space in our lives, take time with our musings, and tone and relax our bodies in order to be the best we can be as writers, and, I believe, as people.

If you haven't done so already, take a look at Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi's work on creativity and the flow state. Among his books is FLOW: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OPTIMAL EXPERIENCE, a favorite of mine. It's been long enough since I read it, I think I will revisit it. I need to find the flow myself.

In Paris


After a summer of rain in Vermont, travels to visit childhood friends on the Texas Gulf coast and daughters as far away as Paris and St. Louis, I've settled in at home today to begin reading and commenting on the first packets of the Fall 2008 semester of Vermont College. This moment is one filled with excitement and hope. I'm always thrilled to be one of the first readers of a book that eventually many readers will own and enjoy, writing that will be well received and loved by young people and that will have allowed a great deal of growth and self-understanding in the author. I'm all about going deeper in characterization and allowing the characters to lead the way into a plot that only they could have experienced. I believe this process takes a fair amount of exploration and acceptance of oneself and is as valuable as anything else this hard work earns.

Writing
is as

easy as
falling off

a log;
it's climbing

back on
that's hard.

Hello and Welcome!

I've been wanting to start a blog for a while and now here it is. I have so many ideas about what I could possibly do with it and may try them all. But today, I just want to get started, get it up and running and see what y'all think. I hope that all of my friends will stop by from time to time to say hello, announce their new books, and add their wisdom to discussions of the art and craft of writing.

Here's my poem for today:

Love, look at this morning, this blue
sky, this sun. To dive into
life, like this, one tiny moment
taken to its depths,
one raindrop on one leaf, prisming.