[stylist] Writing process blog tour mentions 4 blind writers- 3 in Writers' Division
Applebutter Hill
applebutterhill at gmail.com
Mon Jun 16 21:44:56 UTC 2014
Jim,
Thank you, glad you found it uplifting.
Donna
-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Homme, James
via stylist
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2014 1:09 PM
To: Jackie Williams; Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] Writing process blog tour mentions 4 blind writers- 3
in Writers' Division
Hi,
This content is very up-lifting.
Thanks for sharing.
Jim
-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jackie Williams
via stylist
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2014 12:45 PM
To: 'Applebutter Hill'; 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] Writing process blog tour mentions 4 blind writers - 3
in Writers' Division
Donna,
Thank you so much for forwarding this information.
Reading all about e process you use for writing makes your novel so much more
meaningful to me. I do think, as a blind person, with a hearing problem, the
more information I have about a book or a story, before starting to read,
amplifies my understanding about 100%.
Also, I have been very aware of Amy Kraut-horn's accomplishments for some
time. Also, we have seen more of Phyllis Campbell's work lately.
All of this makes me proud to be on this list and able to share thoughts with
all.
th
Jackie
Time is the school in which we learn.
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz
-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Applebutter
Hill via stylist
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2014 8:02 AM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: [stylist] Writing process blog tour mentions 4 blind writers - 3 in
Writers' Division
Many of you will recognize Amy Krout-Horn and Phyllis Campbell, and Traci
McDonald is a member of the NFB of Utah. Below is the link followed by the
full text of the post. If you want to leave a comment, there's a "Accessible
Comment Form for Screen Reader Users" link on the page. The alt text for
the photos apparently doesn't transfer to email, so if you want to read those,
you'll have to go to the site.
Cheers,
Donna
http://donnawhill.com/2014/06/16/writing-process-heart-applebutter-hill-author/***
Writing Process: The Heart of Applebutter Hill Author Weaves Fantasy &
Reality
Many thanks to Utah novelist Traci McDonald for inviting me to participate in
the Writing Process Blog Tour. Traci is the author of the romance novel
Killing Casanova (Crimson Romance 2012). Her follow up novel Burning Bridger
is in the works.
Traci McDonald, author of romance novel Killing Casanova: photo courtesy of
Traci McDonald
Traci, who has been blind for eighteen years, began writing full time after
recovering from a kidney transplant in 2009. She credits modern technology and
good training with enabling her to enjoy all facets of being a mother, music
lover, reader, writer, and a history enthusiast.
Traci's contribution to the Writing Process Blog tour features her philosophy
about writing clean romance. Read her June 9, 2014 blog at:
http://www.tracimcdonald.blogspot.com
Purchase Killing Casanova at:
http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Casanova-Crimson-Romance-McDonald-ebook/dp/B008DVPAW6
Follow her on Twitter: @Tracimcauthor
After my answers to the four standard questions, I will introduce the authors
who will be participating in next week's Writing Process Blog Tour
What are you working on?
Blue butterfly on Milkweed: photo by Rich Hill
The Autumn Butterfly, next in the Applebutter Hill series, follows 14-year-old
refugees Abigail and Baggy as summer ends and they head back to school. They
soon learn that they aren't the only ones who know about the powerful but
unwieldy Heartstone of Arden-Goth.
The title refers to the "aki no choo" (Japanese for autumn butterfly(, a small
crystal ball containing a blue butterfly with a pink heart on one wing. The
crystal is cut so that the butterfly appears to move. In The Heart of
Applebutter Hill, Rutherford tells them to carry one at all times. Can it help
them escape from the growing band of power-hungry people interested in
acquiring the Heartstone at any cost?
The bulk of my time, however, is spent trying to advance diversity in Young
Adult literature. Abigail is losing her sight and has a guide dog named Curly
Connor. Promoting the book to the public, as well as the diverse and scattered
population of visually impaired people and professionals who could use it to
advance social justice (especially for blind girls and women), is a more than
fulltime job. Sometimes, I just have to stop myself and succumb to the awkward
metamorphosis that transforms me from the marketer/promoter to the fiction
writer, the one who started this whole thing in the first place.
How does your work differ from others of its genre?
The Heart of Applebutter Hill book cover shows a cave scene - stalactites
reflected in an underground lake, while a hand holds the Heartstone of
Arden-Goth: photos, Rich Hill;, design, Lizza Studios.
The Heart of Applebutter Hill is commercially classified as either a Young
Adult novel or a fantasy. I, however, think of it as "a high school
adventure-mystery with excursions into fantasy for general audiences."
Although the setting is fictional, most of the book takes place in a realistic
environment. Making seamless transitions between reality and fantasy is one of
the great challenges and joys of my writing process.
What really sets The Heart of Applebutter Hill apart, however, is the way in
which it portrays a member of the most marginalized minority -- people with
visual impairments. Most YA novels featuring blind girls focus on the
acceptance of blindness or the transition to the use of nonvisual adaptations,
such as Braille and text-to-speech software. Abigail, although she is learning
these skills, is primarily involved with her best friend, photographer and
mechanic Baggy, and the secrets they discover in the course of their
adventures. Abigail's blindness is not dwelled upon, and it's not ignored.
Why do you write what you do?
I was bitten by the publishing bug when my four-line poem was published in
elementary school. I spent twenty years as a self-promoted
singer-songwriter/recording artist, presenting programs about blindness and
motivation for k-12 schools.
I've also written articles for print and online publications about blindness
issues, including the Braille literacy crisis and the lack of accessible
classroom materials, websites and so on. For five years I volunteered as a
publicist for the National Federation of the Blind and placed stories about
exceptional blind people with newspapers and other media.
I am motivated because beautiful young people with intelligence, talent and
grit are still forced to fight the battle of their lives for inclusion in a
world that too often dismisses them as incapable of making valuable
contributions. Public ignorance, fear and pity result in unnecessary
roadblocks such as low expectations, a lack of accessible books, web and
software designers who fail to build in the 1s and 0s which would make their
sites accessible to people using screen readers and a general atmosphere of
shunning and bullying.
I've sung about it, spoken about it, written articles and memoirs about it and
now I'm using fiction to try to break through the social stigma. By giving
readers an exciting adventure featuring a fully-fleshed character with skills
and flaws, dreams and nightmares, I hope to play a part in awakening the
sighted world to our common humanity.
How does your writing process work?
Donna W. Hill, author of YA fantasy The Heart of Applebutter Hill, & her guide
dog Hunter on path in Redwoods with a glowing mist: Photo by Rich Hill
My main characters, Abigail, Baggy and Curly Connor are reality-based and had
been floating around in my mind for many years prior to my knowing how to tell
their stories. I like to experience a story in my head before committing it to
words. I walked in the fictional town of Applebutter Hill and mapped it out in
my imagination. There was a lot to make up between the school, the carriage
house and the old Victorian where Abigail and her guardian live. Then, there
was Abigail's trip to the mountains to visit Baggy.
Similarly, I imagined in detail the settings in the fantasy world, such as the
Castle of Bar Gundoom and the land of Satori Green. The innermost domed
courtyard of the Castle of Bar Gundoom is an ultra-embellishment of the
"Finger Bowl" at the Grey Towers National Historic Site (Milford,
Pennsylvania). Grey Towers is the ancestral home of Pennsylvania Governor
Gifford Pinchot (1865 - 1946), founder of the USDA Forest Service.
I also invented the Cloud Scooper and the virtual reality classroom called the
Nickel Room. I need to know all of these settings thoroughly. In addition to
providing material for the book, an intimate acquaintance with the setting
enables me to live and learn there, keeping my focus inside the novel's
internal reality.
I worked out the back-stories for the characters and the Heartstone and set up
a calendar to outline the various plot threads. The Heartstone was inspired by
a passage in C.S. Lewis's The Silver Chair. Many of the incidents in the book
were taken from my own experiences.
My philosophy about fiction writing is that it is like journalism. You get the
details of the story, confirm them, write them down and start editing.
next week: Phyllis Campbell, author of Out of the Night & Amy Krout-Horn,
author of My Father's Blood
Next Monday, it will be my pleasure to host two extraordinary authors.
Phyllis Campbell:
Out of the Night, a suspense novel by Phyllis Campbell, book cover
Phyllis Campbell, author of the new suspense novel Out of the Night (2014),
has been writing since the '60s. Her first novel, Come Home My Heart (Brett
Books, 1996), was picked up by St. Martin's Press (1997) and translated into
Chinese (Sea Breeze, China, 1998. Who Will Hear Them Cry? and A Place to
Belong were self-published in 2012.
Out of the Night is a gripping tale of two women, two centuries, and one man
determined to destroy them even from the grave. Chris has faced many
challenges in her twenty-one years of life -- a mother more involved with her
career than with her daughter, a father who deserted his family also to pursue
a career, and the loss of her sight. Nothing, however, has prepared her for
the challenge faced by her and the four other clients attending an
independence center held in a historic building on the campus of the school
for the blind.
Phyllis, who writes two bi-monthly columns for the Our Special magazine
(National Braille Press), serves as organist at Faith Lutheran Church in
historic down town Staunton, Virginia. She teaches piano and voice,
specializing in Braille music.
Born in Amherst County, Virginia, Phyllis moved to Staunton at age seven. She
is a graduate of The Virginia School For The Deaf and The Blind, and went on
to study at Lynchburg College in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Dunsmore Business
College in Staunton. She took further courses from the Hadley School For The
Blind (Winnetka, Illinois). in 1989, she received their Lifelong Learning
Award. She has worked as a music teacher, peer counselor, computer tutor, and
as Youth Transition Coordinator.
Pick up your favorite electronic version of Out of the Night from Smashwords -
available e-versions include .mobi (Kindle), .epub (Apple, Nook, Sony, etc.),
.pdf and .rtf (accessible for readers with print disabilities):
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/405450
Or, find it on Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.com/Out-The-Night-Phyllis-Campbell-ebook/dp/B00IA04IXW
Be sure to catch Phyllis's Writing Process Blog Tour contribution right here
next Monday at: http://DonnaWHill.com
Amy Krout-Horn
Amy Krout-Horn, blind Lakota Sioux author of the autobiographical novel My
Father's Blood, and her German Shepherd guide dog Bella: photo courtesy of Amy
Krout-Horn
Amy Krout-Horn, Oieihake Win (Last Word Woman) has resided in two worlds; the
world of the sighted and the world of the blind. She has been a writer in both
of them. She is the co-author of Transcendence (All Things That Matter Press
2009), which received the National Indie Excellence Award 2012 for visionary
fiction. Treat yourself to the audio version:
http://www.audible.com.au/pd/Fiction/Transcendence-Audiobook/B00FOBT2CW
She is also the author of the highly-praised autobiographical novel, My Father's
Blood (All Things That Matter Press 2011). Pick up a copy At:
http://www.amazon.com/My-Fathers-Blood-Amy-Krout-Horn/dp/0984639292
Her work is included in the anthology, Unraveling the Spreading Cloth of Time:
Indigenous Thoughts Concerning the Universe (Renegade Planets Publishing
2013).
Amy, a member of the Lakota Sioux tribe, worked as the first blind teaching
assistant at the University of Minnesota's American Indian Studies program. A
staunch advocate for social and environmental justice, she writes and lectures
on native history and culture, diabetes and disability, and humanity's
connection and commitment to the natural world. For more information, visit
her web site at: http://www.nativeearthwords.com
Be sure to catch Amy's Writing Process Blog Tour contribution right here next
Monday at: http://DonnaWHill.com ###-- The Heart of Applebutter Hill - a novel on a mission:
http://DonnaWHill.com <http://donnawhill.com/>
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