Tillmon County Fire Blog Tour 09 - Pamela Ehrenberg

I am so pleased to be part of Pamela Ehrenberg's Tillmon County Fire Blog Tour.  You can read the reviews and track the rest of the blog tour on Pamela's site. I give you Pamela Ehrenberg.

When and why did you start writing for children?
 
In the spring of 1991, because a professor gave me permission.  She returned one of my short stories with the comment, "This sounds like the first chapter of a young people's novel," and I thought, "Really?  That's allowed?"

 At the time, I think most of my classmates in undergraduate creative writing classes wanted to write literary short fiction for the New Yorker--and the idea that I could shift that, that I could say first of all, I'm not very good at writing short stories, my ideas tend to go on all over the place and with any luck eventually find their way back to each other, but not so well within 30 pages--and that second of all, I'm allowed to reconnect with the self I was at twelve or thirteen or fourteen--that was very liberating.
 
That short story became not the first but the third chapter of a young people's novel, "Cheeseburgers and Other Hazards of Sixth Grade," that is probably not ever going to be publishable.  I worked on that book off and on for ten years, and I think everything I learned about writing for young people, I learned by working on that novel.
 
What is the most valuable advice you can give to a newly published writer?
 
To keep writing, so you'll always have an answer to questions like #4 below.  Also, not to be shy about marketing yourself.  The Internet provides all sorts of wonderful marketing opportunities for people who are too shy to actually talk to one another.
 
What is one of your favorite children's books that you'd like to recommend?
 
When my daughter was born in 2005, a friend who didn't yet have kids gave her a copy of Babar. The story seemed impossibly long, and I was shocked to (re-)discover that it began with Babar's mother getting killed in an opening scene. But my daughter was drawn to it, and we read it fairly often, usually with me rushing past the opening to get to Babar's adventures in the big city.
 
Last summer, just after my daughter turned three and a few months before her brother was born, my husband died at age 37. And of all the books that people brought to help us through that time--books about dying and hospitals and feelings and all kinds of things--Babar was what my daughter returned to, over and over again, seeking comfort perhaps in knowing that she was not the first one to experience the terrible loss of a parent. I can't pretend to understand the powers of great literature--but no other book came close to comforting her like Babar.
 
What are you working on now?
 
I'm working on a new middle-grade novel set in 1950s Baltimore. And keeping up with all of the freelance assignments I took on so I could have the "freedom" to write. I'm working on obsessing less over nap schedules, learning how to bake, and trying not to step in the pureed cauliflower often found within a 50-foot radius of my son's high chair.
 
What is your favorite dessert and why?
 
Whatever treat I'm sharing with my just-turned-four-year-old while her brother naps in his stroller. Because it reminds me that infant days don't last forever and that kids keep getting more fun as they get older.  And because her chocolate-covered face reminds me how dessert is meant to be enjoyed.
 
A small bio:

Pamela Ehrenberg is a consultant for the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and for Getting College Right.  She and her children live in Washington, D.C., several blocks north of the zoo.
 
Links:
www.pamelaehrenberg.com (includes links to other blog tour stops)
twitter.com/pamelaehrenberg
School Library Journal review of Tillmon County Fire: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6648613.html  (scroll down to Ehrenberg)

Comments

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[Barbara Bietz]

Tina,

Pamela is a terrific writer - and Tillmon County Fire is a gripping novel.

Best,
Barbara B

[Pamela Ehrenberg]

Thanks so much, Tina, for the honor of this wonderful interview! And Patricia, thanks so much for understanding (and for implying that a time might arrive in the future when I won't be quite so...encrusted). Thanks again so much for all!

[Patricia Cruzan]

The information in the blog by Ms. Ehrenberg provided material I can identify with. As a young mother, I can remember food being on me, the floor, and the table. I like chocolate too, and I, like the children mentioned, find crumbs or stains everywhere.

Thank you for sharing the blog with us, Tina and Ms. Ehrenberg.