New Cover #1

Here is the first of a few potential book covers for the next book.  I am so close to being done. I can't wait to release it!

Bonjour from France!

I realize I have not posted in 9 months, but there wasn't much to post about.  I've been working on "The Fairy Hollow" for a year and a half, but I've only really made progress on it in the past week.  I am currently in the Languedoc region of France doing a writing fellowship.  I am staying in an 11th century manor where I spend my days writing, reading, hiking, and eating.  I am half way up a mountain and to walk anywhere you either go up hill or downhill.  Needless to say my legs have been sore this entire time.

The original plan of this trip was to go to Paris first and "take notes" for the follow up to Turtle Soup and Tiramisu.  I put that in quotation marks because I knew a lot of my research was going to involve eating croissants.  But for a number of reasons my trip got all rearranged and I am now going to Paris tomorrow and then home to Boston.  I was going to have the follow-up (which will be named something like "Croissants and Crepes") start in Paris, but now that I am in the South of France, I think it may start with Emily exploring an old church in the country or something.

I am really excited about "The Fairy Hollow," however.  It is very different from "Turtle Soup and Tiramisu."  One interesting fact about it is that whereas T and T had characters and places named after the town of Wellesley where I was a teacher, this book has places and people names after things around the Tewksbury, MA area where I grew up.  I even have a character named after a student I had in a writing workshop in Tewksbury, per his request!

Writing Group

I realized after publishing my first book that having a group of people outside of my students and family to review my book would be helpful. So I started a writing group here in Boston. While it took a few months to get things going, we now have 11 members. At the last meeting, Scribe Ori (we are called scribes in my group) made the observation that I use way too many adverbs and not enough strong verbs. This was excellent feedback, and I went back through the first eight chapters and replaced my action words. I also got some great ideas for the twists and turns the story will take. I'm very excited about this new group!

Letter from a Student

When I set out to do this blog, I wanted to post letters from students whose classrooms I had visited. But then I could not find the stack of them. I for some reason filed them with my bill stubs. As I try avoiding looking there as much as possible, it is not surprising that I could not find them. But low and behold, I found them today. So here is one of my favorite letters form a classroom visit I did in May.

Dear Ms. Ramsay,
Thank you for coming to our class. Everybody in my class liked the book "Turtle Soup and Tiramisu." I have one question, would you put my name in one of the books you are writing? I'm not trying to be greedy but I'd like to be in the book. Also, I was the one wearing the gray sweatshirt sitting in the front right. I also want to read your new books that are coming oot.

Sincerely,
Kyle P.

I love a kid with chutzpah, so I totally named a character after him in "The Fairy Hollow."

Crash Course in Marketing

When ever people ask me about promoting my book, I always tell them it's been a crash course in marketing. This was again true this weekend at the book signing. I needed way more signs at my table. People had no idea what I was selling, and when they did walk over, they thought I was selling a cookbook. And when they went to buy it, they were surprised at how inexpensive it is. So next time, I am going to have signs, pirate paraphenilia (sp?) and possibly some set pieces from my launch party just to make it more appealing and interesting. I will say, the people watching at the farmers market made the time go by so fast! In bookstores, I usually just stare at a wall of books.

Book Signing this Saturday!

I will be doing a signing this Saturday at the Waltham Farmer's Market from 9:30am to Noon. The market is located at the corner of Main and Moody. It will be interesting to see how many books I sell as this is the first event where I didn't do some sort of classroom visit or other event before hand. Wish me luck!

I have officially completed the first 7 chapters of "The Fairy Hollow." That means I am a third of the way done with it. Hopefully, I can say it is half done by the end of July.

Fairies and Such

If you are reading this blog, you probably already read Turtle Soup, but I just want to let you know that the printed copy is temporarily unavailable for 48 hours. I'm reading the entire thing to a group of Pre-K kids (I think the book is a little too old for them, but the teacher insisted since they did a lot of author studies this year, and it was just way too exciting to have the actual author in the classroom to read the book to them.) I discovered some major typos that even my team of outstanding copy editors did not pick up on- the biggest one being that there are 2 chapter 11's, 2 chapter 15's, and no chapter 16. Even my mom who has the eyes of a hawk did not notice it, so I'm hoping not too many other people did either. I could pretend it didn't know about it, but as I know I have young aspiring writers reading my blog, I want to tell them about my mistakes as well as my triumphs. Writing is a never ending learning process, just like life!

I'm really making a lot of progress on book #2, which is tentatively called "The Fairy Hallow." This will most likely change, but I have to call it something! I'm learning some really great facts about fairies and changelings:

1) Changelings are actually a type of fairy.
2) If you cut a changelings hair, it will grow back in a day.
3) In the Catholic tradition, they believe that fairies were once angels who refused to take sides in the battle between God and Lucifer. They were banished to earth for their indecision- some to the ocean (mermaids), some to the barren countryside (leprechauns), and others underground (goblins and trolls). (Raised a Catholic, I found this one to be the most interesting. I'm pretty sure this was a compromise the priests made with the Irish. From all the stuff I've read recently, it is apparent that there was no way you were going to convince the Irish of yore that fairies weren't real, no matter how much you told them they were going to be damned for it.)

Enjoy this beautiful weather!

-AER