A couple of nights ago, and I don't quite remember how it started, I ended up telling Mason about an incredibly charming character that my friend and fellow Wyrdsmith Eleanor Arnason created for her Lydia Duluth short story series named "Three Hoots." Alas, the story "Three Hoots" appears in hasn't been published yet, but Mason has been at the coffee shop with Eleanor when she was struggling with the plot of that exact story. Anyway, it's been marvelous to hear Mason running around the house shouting, "Fierce! Fierce! Many bodies in the shadows, ready to defend!" (which is a paraphrase, but close to some of the dialogue in the story.)
At any rate, I knew I had some Lydia stories around, so he read all of "Tomb of the Fathers" and pronounced it, "nearly as cool as Harry Potter." So, I spend a few minutes this morning searching my house of the rest of the series. I found Asimov issues that contained "Cloud Man," "Lifeline" and "Moby Quilt," but couldn't locate my copy of "Stellar Harvest" to save my soul! Mason is quite determined to read the Lydia ouevre. I'm sure he could read the other stories out of order, but he's kind of stuck on reading "Stellar Harvest" first. (Note: if someone could find me a non-pirated version of this story on-line, I'd love the link. An inital search only turned up Torrent.)
Can I say, too, how amazing it is that I can share stories with Mason that, if he has some question about, he can just ask the author? It's super-cool amazing. I don't know if he realizes *just* how super-cool amazing that is. I mean, he's growing up in a house where his ima is a published writer, so I'm sure he kind of expects that anyone can be.
But it is one of those things I always remind my students. If someone as dorky as me can get published, there's a pretty good chance you can too. Not that it's an easy road, mind. Just that it's possible.
2 comments:
This is so wonderful. I sent you an email about Stellar Harvest, which I have in efile and can photocopy one of the two or three places it was published. Maybe I am aiming at the wrong audience. Mason is in grade school, but reads at the high school level. Maybe my audience is midschool or YA.
I'm not so sure, Eleanor. I think your stories always read on more than one level. Mason definitely reads Lydia as an adventure hero, and skips a lot of the moral and/or political story. It would be a different series without the politics, and not as successful, IMHO.
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