The University of South Carolina’s Moving Image Research Collection has posted new archival footage of Elinor’s attempt to set the world altitude record- with her powerful Bellanca “Geraldine.” What a treat to hear Elinor’s own words as she describes her terrifying recovery when the engine suddenly stopped at 25,000 feet.
Elinor Smith tells of narrow escape
Filmed on March 30, 1931. Scenes include Elinor Smith speaking about a failed attempt to achieve a new altitude record. Smith speaks about the technical steps she took to land the plane, also explaining her embarrassment and the desire to attempt again.
News Flash! My Vermont College of Fine Arts classmate Debbie Dunn and I sold our new book WANTED: WOMEN MATHEMATICIANS. WANTED will be published by Disney-Hyperion in 2019.
Common wisdom suggests computers are an exclusively male domain– ironic when one considers that women invented computer programming.
WANTED: WOMEN MATHEMATICIANS tells the story of a team of nearly forgotten innovators, Jean Jennings, Kay McNulty and Betty Snyder, young women who hacked the first electronic computers (before hacking was a thing) to win the war and change the world. Betty, Kay and Jean knew computers must be small, nimble and communicate with each other, just like they did. WANTED doesn’t just give these pioneers their due. It demonstrates how the team’s “feminine” attributes– cooperation, communication and teamwork– formed the essence of how modern computers function.
This book is a labor of love and a dream come true. We can’t wait to share Jean, Betty and Kay’s story with you!
My next book, RADIANT MAN, a picture book biography of radiant, ground breaking artist Keith Haring will be published by fabulous Joy Peskin at Farrar Straus and Giroux Books For Young Readers in Spring 2017!
For me, like a lot of other novelists, plotting used to feel IMPOSSIBLE. As unfathomable as an algebra problem. And just as bound up by some weird set of rules I thought I’d never understand. (more…)
Are you a plotter or a plunger? Can I see a show of hands for each category?
I’ve always hated that question a little because I just don’t get it, at least for my own writing. Plotters plan ahead, arranging the sequence of events in their novels with the precision of a German train schedule. Plungers take a blind leap off a cliff and write whatever their heart tells them to put on the page.
There are sound neurological reasons storyboarding works for some of us. It literally probes the deepest recesses of the creative mind. How?
Neurology.
A human brain is a mysterious thing and as a writer I’m always looking for ways to push inside my unconscious, to lift the veil between what I know on the outside and what my heart and mind know about my story on the inside. I’m trying to enter “the flow”. Even though I’m no great shakes as an artist drawing a scene is a powerful tool to lead me through the curtain into “the understory”. (more…)
Recently I had the chance to speak with Candlewick Press editor Kaylan Adair.
Kaylan has edited a number of outstanding middle-grade novels including Down Sand Mountain by Steve Watkins, Small As An Elephant by Jennifer Richard Jacobson and the upcoming Garden Princess by Kristin Kladstrup. She was even the American editor of A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, a novel that straddles that tricky YA/Middle-grade line. (more…)
With grit, passion and determination these ladies SOARED.