I write because I love doing it, and I kept doing it even when nobody seemed interested in publishing what I wrote. I especially like writing historical fiction because I want history to live and breathe for readers the way it does for me. When I was offered a contract for my novel, LIKE A RIVER (a novel about the Civil War), I was ecstatic! A published novel at long last!

Before LIKE A RIVER launched, I was offered a contract on a second novel (EMPTY PLACES, due out in 2016). Unbelievable! The folks at Boyds Mills Press had made my dream come true—twice!

But things I had never dared to dream happened, too. LIKE A RIVER earned great reviews. I received fan mail. I talked to readers, young and old, who truly loved reading the book, even readers who want a sequel and a movie (not happening). I couldn’t keep a smile off my face. Dreams can come true after all.

In September, something happened I could never even have dreamed. I was informed that LIKE A RIVER had won the Grateful American Book Prize. This prize was the brainchild of David Bruce Smith and Dr. Bruce Cole, and it is brand new. It’s an award for a book that depicts the past in a way that engages young readers in American history, just the thing I had been trying to do all along. And I am its first recipient ever!

On October 22, 2015, I received the prize in Washington, DC at the Robert H. Smith Museum and Lincoln’s Cottage. I met so many fascinating people, who love history as much as I do. And I stood in the room where Abraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. That is heaven on earth for a history buff and Lincoln fan like me.

I am grateful to the committee who selected LIKE A RIVER for this prize, and grateful to those wonderful folks at Boyds Mills Press, who believed in the novel. And I am incredibly, incredibly honored.

For three and a half years, I was part of a group blog called Swagger Writers. We ended our run in March of 2015.

The blog began at a Highlights Foundation workshop in October, 2011, but that was not the first time I met the group that started Swagger.

Nine of us attended Rich Wallace’s Writing the YA Novel workshop in 2009. Ann, Gina, Grace, Jon, Juliet, Kim, Melissa, Tracy, and me. Ann and Tracy were unable to attend the reunion workshop in 2011 where Swagger began. The remaining seven plus Rich were the original bloggers for the site.

The one I want to tell you about today is Grace. Her real name was Graziella, and she was a lovely Italian woman, who had come to the U.S. at the age of 17. When we first met, she was writing a memoir about immigrating and meeting the love of her life. By the time we met in 2009, she was a widow.

Before our reunion in 2011, I met Graziella again at another workshop to learn how to promote a book. Graziella was promoting her picture book, DANCING ON GRAPES, a story of the wine-making she helped with as a child in Italy.

I got to know Graziella a little better at this second workshop. A former second-grade teacher and lover of opera, she could regale us with her stories of life in Italy.

Swagger held another reunion in 2012, but Graziella had to cancel at the last minute due to health issues. I never had a chance to see her again, and recently learned of her passing.

She liked to be called by her given name of Graziella, but the name most of us knew her by was an appropriate one. Delicate, soft-spoken, and lovely, she was the epitome of Grace.

Rest in Peace, Graziella.

Olympic gold-medalist Mary Lou Retton said, “Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something. It’s our goal in life to find it and keep it lit.”

I’ve watched friends and family struggle to find their Something.

One writer friend illustrated many successful books before she decided to write them. A few of the books she wrote were published and successful, but as the business became more and more cutthroat, she looked for something new. She turned to music, then crocheting, then jewelry making. She stayed in creative fields, while she searched for the one which would fuel her fire.
Another friend, whose first novel was very good, but not published, began a second novel. She began more than one second novel, but never finished them. Her flame struggled. She eventually turned her creativity to quilting, and that fire is burning strong.

I found my Something at a very young age. I’ve been a writer since I was five. It’s what I love doing.
But, as my friends and I learned, sometimes that flame stands little chance in the face of forces that “throw water” on our work.

Some writing instructors and editors have praised my work, which stoked my fire. Others dismissed me or ignored me, and the flames sputtered.

The hardest rejections came when editors praised and encouraged and asked for revisions, building that fire strong. Then when my confidence was at his highest point, they got out the fire extinguisher and doused my ego. I was forced to wonder why I keep at it.

But deep within, I felt the warmth again. A spark inside me said, “Write, write.” I signed up for a workshop or just launched myself into a new writing project. The rejected piece would still be there when the pain was less intense.

I have wonderful writer friends who helped to keep me encouraged, but I’ve learned that the spark begins with ME. I’m happy when I’m writing, and I can’t let the nay-sayers extinguish my flame.

If your Something is writing, write! Feed the fire and keep it lit.

I wrote the first version of this blog post more than two years ago, before I was offered a contract for LIKE A RIVER, my first published novel. That novel launched in April, 2015, and earned a starred Kirkus review. My second novel, EMPTY PLACES, is due out next year. I am proof that not giving up can work.

I am still writing, still loving it, and the flame burns strong!

I wrote my first poem when I was five years old. I pounded it out on the keys of Dad’s old, manual Underwood typewriter. The poem was sixteen words long, and I was hooked on the magic of Words.

After that, I used the old Underwood every chance I got. I wrote poems and plays. A few of my fellow fourth graders performed one of my plays in history class. Maybe I was destined to write about history.

I was twenty-three when I mailed my first submission. My first rejection letter arrived soon after. I still have it. I saved all my rejections—hundreds of them. Early on, most were form letters. Eventually, they gave advice and criticism. And then, a few editors showed interest and requested revisions.

I kept writing. I wrote poems, short stories, and novels. A few of my short stories won prizes, and in 2002, I received my first acceptance letter. It was for a poem (MY FACE) published in February, 2005, in Ladybug magazine for children. Another poem (NO RETURN) was published on Meadowbrook Press’s website. And still another (IMAGES OF 9/11) was published in Everything Prose…And Poetry, Too in 2013.

In November, 2013, I was offered a contract for my novel LIKE A RIVER, which launched on April 7, 2015, from Calkins Creek. Earlier this year, I signed a second contract with Calkins Creek for my novel EMPTY PLACES, due out in 2016.

The published novels are my dream-come-true! But they are not what make me a writer. The published poems and prizes helped to validate my struggles, but they did not make me a writer either. What makes me a writer is the time I spend doing what I love, creating stories, choosing words to put on the page, structuring them into paragraphs, sentences, or stanzas. I’ve been a writer since I was five.

This week (April 5-11) is Launch Week for my novel LIKE A RIVER. I am excited! It is a fitting week to launch this Civil War story. This week, 150 years ago, saw the end of the US Civil War, the bloodiest war in our nation’s history. With dead numbering nearly ¾ of a million, it would be impossible to find a family from that time who was untouched by this conflict between two halves of one country.

Yet, this marks a week of celebration those many years ago, that the war was finally over. It also marked a beginning. The two halves had to come together, try to put the past behind them, and find a way to move forward. Together. As one nation.

Civil War statistics compelled me to write a story that did justice to the human suffering of 150 years ago. Yet, I am a sucker for a happy ending (or at least a hopeful one). Finding the balance to do both was my challenge in writing the novel. And now it is time to put the story into readers’ hands, and let them judge for themselves whether I accomplished my goal.

Getting to the point of a launch was a long journey for me as a writer. I could tell you about the decades (yes, decades!) of rejected novels that led up to this published one. I went through my own personal struggle to improve my writing skills, decide just the right story to tell and the way to tell it, and find the right publisher who wanted it to happen as much as I did. I am glad that LIKE A RIVER is my debut. I am incredibly proud of the book, and eager to take readers on the journey with my characters.

And so this is a week to celebrate, celebrate the launch of LIKE A RIVER, celebrate the beginning of the book’s journey.

It is also the beginning of a new journey for me. New projects. New novels to write. Meeting readers. I am truly excited!

In November, the Highlights Foundation hosted a dinner to celebrate my novel LIKE A RIVER (due to launch April 7, 2015). As I mingled through the attendees, the question I was repeatedly asked was “How long did it take you to write this book?”

That is not an easy question to answer.

The first spark of an idea entered my brain over twenty years ago when I first heard about the Sultana disaster. I was working on other novels at the time, but I did research on the Sultana and Andersonville Prison. I jotted down notes. I visited the site of the prison and the town of Andersonville. I visited Rome, Georgia, and was introduced to another place that would find its way into my book.

I mapped out a possible storyline and wrote a first chapter. I discarded that chapter, and went back to my other novels. Over the years, I wrote five or six first chapters and discarded them all.

Four and a half years before I finished the first draft, I took a rough synopsis and five chapters to a Highlights Foundation workshop with Rich Wallace. His advice caused me to add a new character and totally revamp my storyline. When I went home, I worked on other projects while I spent time figuring out how to proceed with my new storyline for LIKE A RIVER.

I honestly don’t remember at what point I put all those other projects aside and worked steadily on the novel, and that was an interesting part of the writing process. And even after I did, I still took time to go back and revise another novel and write several short stories. I also did preliminary research for a new novel. I usually work on more than one story at a time.

I have never gone back and tried to tally up the actual hours (or days or weeks or months) I devoted to LIKE A RIVER, but it has lived inside me for more than twenty years. I am thrilled that it will finally be published and in readers’ hands.

On Thanksgiving, we got together with numerous family members (as we do every year), and the subject of LIKE A RIVER came up. My nephew’s wife asked me, “How long did it take you to write the book?” Maybe I need to make a rough calculation for a quick answer.