Dare to Be Mediocre with Children's Writer Katherine Paterson

Tucson Festival of Books

Lorna Kerin Beall 

For years my daughter Jana has invited me to go to the Tucson Festival of Books and I finally went. The fest was amazing.  In addition to street fair vendors, book signings with your favorite authors (500 of them!), entertainment, a science pavilion, and kids’ activities; they had authors speak on every topic imaginable.  I was delighted to find that there were at least twenty-five authors who spoke about writing for children.

The speaker I enjoyed most was two-time Newberry winner, Katharine Paterson, the author of one of my favorite children's books, The Great Gilly Hopkins. I found her encouraging, humorous and humble. She told us that no one thought she had the makings of a writer. In fact, when she was growing up, she wanted to be an actress or missionary. She ended up marrying a minister and joyfully becoming a missionary. But she still harbored thoughts about writing. Then a wise friend (and writer?) said, “Maybe that is something God is calling you to do.” Katherine protested that she didn't want to be mediocre. The friend replied, “If you don’t dare to be mediocre, you won’t be a writer.” 

I’m sure Katherine’s words inspired beginning writers, but they also rang true for me. I believe in plunging ahead and getting that first draft done, warts, typos and all. But I take it a step farther. Some of my friends only write when they’re inspired. Maybe that works for them, but I’d never get anything done.  I've discovered that I've accomplished some of my best writing when I didn't feel like it, and that the writing seems to have more depth. Then I go back later and  smooth out the rough spots. 

          

Katherine’s minister husband became her first supporter and editor. If he had insisted that she strictly maintain the traditional role of a minister’s wife, she would've never found time to write.  He informed his parishioners that she had her own calling!

Listening to Katherine Paterson

I related to this. Having six kids, we often had difficult financial times, but Richard never insisted that I get a job, and he always encouraged me to write. When he sees me puttering around the house, he’s known to  grumble, “Why aren't you in your room writing?”  This was in spite of the fact that I got (and still often get) enough rejection slips to wallpaper that room.

In addition to being inspired by Katherine, I felt a special camaraderie with the other writers.  With free lectures, panels and workshops on writing in every genre, as well as panels on self-publishing, marketing, and getting an agent, I would recommend this free festival to any author or aspiring author.

I was delighted when Katherine held up her brand new book and said, "It's called, The Story of My Life." It touches on both her life and her writing. My hubby claims that I totally ignored my own writing (not to mention cooking and housecleaning) while reading her amazing book. I hope all of you enjoy it too!

Servin' up Wormy Beans with Sisu

 by Lorna Kerin Beall

“Ugh,” “Ick,” and “Eww,” Nana's grandchildren responded when she told them how her family survived on wormy beans one hard Minnesota winter when she was a child. Nana smacked her lips, "Yum! Protein!"  I wasn’t so shocked. After all, didn’t they normally eat weird things like pickled pigs feet, and pig brains (that went by the name of headcheese?) I’d even heard that they, as well as my own family, ate rattlesnakes!

Little did I know at the time that wormy beans would play such a big part in the middle-grade novel I would someday write. “The Wormy Bean Winter," is based on real-life events of my Finnish American family. Though, as my husband Richard likes to point out,  it was his side of the family who actually ate the wormy beans!

In a card promoting my manuscript, I included the synopsis, “Kata didn’t realize that something as tiny as a wormy bean could be the difference between disaster and survival. While homesteading on the South Dakota prairie during the harsh winter of 1919, her family was barely surviving on their last bag of beans. When they discovered they were eating beans infested with worms, Pappa went to work in a copper mine leaving 12-year-old Kata in charge of the outdoor chores in the bitter cold. What was worse was that Papa’s confidence in Kate was bean-sized, too. She had to prove her sisu, the Finnish word for guts and determination, while she faced challenges like her baby sister’s ear nearly freezing off, vicious old “Three-Toes” the wolf, and all her sisters’ refusal to eat the wormy beans even if it meant starvation!”

I loved writing the book and coming to know more about my family. And I am so thankful for the humor, sisu and faith that both our families had when they helped settle this wild and wondrous country.  

Rag Dolls and Kewpies

by Lorna Kerin Beall


I recently attended an OWAIC Writing for Children conference in Springfield with two of my good friends. Though it wasn’t the main theme of the conference, the focus that I came home with was to "write from the heart."

I hadn’t planned to buy a book but keynote speaker Paula Morrow, the editor and publisher of Boxing Tree Books, put out copies of the book, Rose O’Neil, The Girl Who Loved to Draw, by Linda Brewster. (Rose O’Neil was the creator of the Kewpie Doll.) It’s a beautiful book with innumerable pictures illustrating Rose’s life as an artist by both Ms. O’Neil and author Ms. Brewster. It’s a feast for eyes and heart. And I loved how, in the early chapters, the author captured the child like wonder of little Rosie. 

But one reason I wanted this book was because it reminded me of the Kewpie doll that I got when I was four-years-old and living with my Finnish Mumu in the tiny town of Buffalo, South Dakota.

When I was six, my Mama married my Step-Daddy and we were about to head out West to find a new home. I wrapped Kewpie in tissue paper, and after a final kiss, put her in a Buster Brown shoe box and packed her with the rest of our things in the back seat. She traveled with us to an apple picking camp in Hood River, Oregon. I felt bad that Kewpie was missing the sights like the huge Hood River and Mount Hood. The mountain looked like my Grandpa with its white head and beard of snow. But I was happy that Kewpie was with us. At least I got to cuddle the Raggedy-Ann my Mumu had made. We’d tell Kewpie everything when we got to our brand new own home. (Our oma tupa.)

We loved our new stucco-covered home in Prosser, Washington even though Mama said it looked like a chicken coop and we had to use the outhouse at first. Snug in our oma tupa,  I gave both Kewpie and Raggedy Ann a goodnight kiss every single night. 

I still have my porcellin Kewpie though her “skin” is cracked and wrinkled much like my own. Sometimes it's good to unpack childhood toys and family heirlooms to see what precious memories they conjure up and what stories they inspire. I appreciate the sweet reminder I got to "write from the heart"  from the conference, Linda Brewster’s book, and memories of my beloved Kewpie Doll.

Weavings of Another Kind: Braided Pulla and Love.

by Lorna Kerin Beall

In Model T Biscuits Mama, Step-daddy and six-year-old Lorna head cross country in their Model T picking apples along the way to stretch their meager nest egg until they can find a little farm of their own. Mama shows her sisu, the Finnish word for guts, determination, and ingenuity, when she’s faced with no oven in the apple-picking camp. She surprises Lorna and Step-Daddy by baking biscuits on the engine (actually the flat head) of the Model T.

Earlier in the story, Step-Daddy recalls Mumu's baking. He rubs his belly and says, "That house always smelled of fresh bread." 

Lorna answers, "Know how we made it? Know how Mumu and I got the bread so skinny? And made the outside so crispy? We rolled the dough out flat. Then poke, poke, poke, we poked holes in it. Then we baked it smack-dab! - on the bottom of the oven. Mumu even let me..."

While I was writing Model T Biscuits, I tried to weave some Finnish customs and language into the story. One way I did this was by including traditional Finnish food. My mama, as well as my Finnish Mumu who raised me up until this point, loved to bake heino leipä: Finnish flat bread, pulla: Finnish cinnamon rolls, and other braided kinds of pulla. My Mumu’s little home in Buffalo, South Dakota, always smelled of fresh-baked pastry. And the kahvi pot was always on for neighbors or passers-by who were welcome to pop in. Tugging her little sled, my small cousin, Willo Boe and our Mumu delivered homemade bread to shut-ins and other friends. In my story, the family heads out West and Lorna frets that Mumu won’t be able to deliver bread without her, since the wheel on her wobbly little wagon is broken.

The smell of fresh baked goods brings back cherished memories of Mumu and Mama baking in our big black cast iron stove. All kinds of love was kneaded and braided into these Finnish delights.

Here are two recipes that I included in prologue of, “Model T Biscuits.”  

MODEL T DROP BISCUITS

(Kids, you’ll need your Mama’s or Mumu’s help.)

Start up the Model T engine. Let it warm up.

If you don’t have a Model T, heat oven to 450 degrees.

Model T directions: Grease tin cake pan

Bake covered.

Oven: Use a tin cake pan. Do not grease. Do not cover.

2 cups flour

l/2 tsp. salt

4 teaspoons baking powder

l/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

2 teaspoons sugar

l/2 cup of lard or shortening

¾ cup buttermilk (Used canned milk in the Picking Camp.)

Mix dry ingredients. Add the lard or shortening.

Then add milk. Stir gently till soft dough forms.

Model T: Drop by spoonfuls on a greased cake pan.

Oven: Drop by spoonfuls onto an ungreased cake pan..

Model T: Check frequently.

Oven: Bake for seven to nine minutes.

*Or buy canned biscuit dough from the supermarket.

Make and bake according to directions on the package.

Serve the biscuits hot with butter and honey.

IF POSSIBLE LOOK AT SUNRISE WHILE EATING.

PATCHWORK WRITING

by Lorna Kerin Beall

After Jana did the screenplay adaptation of Model T Biscuits she had several of her filmmaker friends critique it before sending it out to a contest. Some had the feeling that our protagonist, 8-year-old Lorna, was a little too whiny and needy and therefore not completely likable. A few of my writer friends had the same opinion. (While others loved her just as she was.) My opinion, Little Lorna was me! Now what was not likable about perfect little fictional me? Ha! Obviously I was too close to the situation to see clearly. Perhaps some of you may be able to relate to this problem when basing fiction on your own lives.

In Model T Biscuits,  little Lorna was overjoyed to be reunited with her Mama after being raised by her Finnish Mumu. She was also anxious that Mama might not stick around. So what was the problem? Lorna didn’t really want Mama and Step-Daddy (who were newlyweds) to hold hands, smooch or have privacy at bedtime. After getting her friends’ feedback, Jana suggested that I have the parents hang a sheet in the corner of the migrant apple-picking shack, and have Lorna come to accept it. This enabled me to have Step-Daddy duck under the sheet and to give Lorna her rag doll in order to show his love and tenderness early on. So honoring their feedback by patching up that issue inspired more creative ideas!

Besides working on the screenplay, I continued to tweak my children’s novel, Model T Biscuits, which the screenplay was based on. Advice from our writer friends was extremely helpful. We weighed each suggestion carefully, though we might not always take it. Later I joined a local critique group, which is invaluable, and have been privileged to work with my SCBWI mentor, Leslie Wyatt on my children’s novel, Wormy Bean Winter.

Patchwork quilts are sometimes stitched by a group of caring hands. I am grateful for the writers who have helped us stitch (or take out stitches) in our writing endeavors.

How I Came to Write "Model T Biscuits"

Lorna Kerin Beall

    I have a very poignant memory of one Sunday when I was 6-years-old. Recalling this incident is what inspired me to begin writing Model T Biscuits. Remembering the experience makes me feel like I am that little girl again.

    I was attending the Cave Hills Lutheran Church, near Buffalo, South Dakota, with my Mumu (my Finnish Grandma.) I clung to Mumu’s hand. Though all the folks, who seemed very big and old to me, were friendly, I had a lonesome feeling way down in my tummy. I missed my freckly, redheaded Mama. Unable to find work close by, she was away working in the big city of Chicago as a governess. I had trouble saying the word “governess,” and Mama had told me I could say, “nanny.” She sent me a postcard with lots of tall skinny buildings on it. They looked scary. But the XOXO’s she scribbled on the other side of the scary postcard made me feel all better.

    One time when she was home for a visit, she showed me a picture of the boy and girl she took care of, Charles and Jacqueline. They were standing as pretty-as-you-please in front of a big mansion. “Is that our house, Mama?” I’d asked. She shook her head, and reassured me that someday we’d have our oma tupa, our own home. I tried very hard to pronounce the girls name. “Jac – Jac…” Mama told me I could call the little rich girl Jackie. Jackie was dressed in a frilly white dress that was prettier than any I owned. And Charles had a white shirt and shorts on. Also suspenders. I wished I knew what color those suspenders were. Everything in the photograph was black and white. Even Mama’s red hair. She was in the picture, too, holding onto the children’s hands. I didn’t like that. She was my Mama.

    I knew my Mumu loved me. Our little stucco house always smelled for homemade thin bread. She called it a big Finnish word I couldn’t say, something -- leapa. Only she spelled that last part “l-e-i-p-ä.” Mumu and my Aunts loved to chatter away in those hard words that I couldn’t understand. I don’t think they wanted me know what they were saying. From the funny looks on their faces I knew they were telling secrets.

     Mama married my Step-Daddy, and they came to see us. They said they were going to Wash-ing-ton, State, to see his sister, Sill. They promised to take me too. But I didn’t believe them.  I always raised a big noisy fuss when Mama had to go back to Chicago after a trip home, so she’d sneak off in the middle of the night. I was afraid they’d sneak off without me.  So I hid away in he back seat of our
Model T.

    And that’s where and when Model T Biscuits begins.