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Andrea Cremer
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by Konnie LeMay
Admit it. When our region makes national news - even if it’s for snow in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula or cold in northeastern Minnesota - you still call the family over to the television and say, “Look!”
Well, I’m calling you over.
Look! Two regional authors and an illustrator recently have earned national recognition. They chatted with me about their local roots and their new national fame.
Andrea Cremer, now a history professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, grew up in Ashland, Wisconsin, and attended Northland College.
She wrote Nightshade, a young adult novel about teens who are both wolf and human. Her book, released in October 2010, made the New York Times bestseller list.
Andrea’s childhood by Lake Superior set the path for her writing.
“I was definitely aware of the lake. My father was an avid fisherman, we always had one boat, sometimes two.”
In summer, “instead of being inside, playing with Barbie dolls, I was building forts near the creeks, basically making up worlds. When I was stuck inside during horrible winter times, I’d be writing down stories about these worlds. It still works.”
Telling stories was not really a trait of her family, she says. “They aren’t storytellers so much as readers. I come from a family of avid readers. I never thought of it as anything other than essential to our life. It would have been abnormal if you didn’t go out with a book in your hands.”
Her time near Chequamegon National Forest and the Apostle Islands influenced her choices in this first novel. She wanted to interpret the wilderness as “both magical and wonderful.”
Knowing of wolves, she couldn’t imagine that becoming one would mean transition into a terrifying mutant. “I thought wolves were always really cool. I just didn’t get the horrific looking half-man, half-beast. Werewolves had never appealed to me.”
For her main character, Andrea says, “I knew she was a girl and I knew she was a wolf … graceful and intelligent and social, powerful.”
While wolves certainly live near Ashland, Andrea ultimately chose Vail, Colorado, for its mountain - “I needed a real mountain” - and for its ultra wealthy residents, both of which did not blend into her hometown.
She may have a book in her with a Lake Superior setting. “There are a few ideas I have. I love Ashland. I love the dynamics of small-town relationships.”
But for now, she says, “my plate is really full.” The next novel in the series, Wolfsbane, comes out in July and she’s written the third and is working on a fourth in the “same universe.” She’s also developing an alternative history story in which the U.S. Revolutionary War failed.
This might seem like a lot of writing, but Andrea penned Nightshade in two months - November and December 2008 - after a horseback riding accident laid her up for that summer when she wrote two “practice novels.” She found an agency and the book had a major publisher within nine months. And now she’s a New York Times bestselling author with book tours in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, and a host of other cities.
“It’s been surreal,” Andrea admits. “I’m constantly in a pinch-myself state.”
Margi Preus teaches children’s literature at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth. She also writes short stories, plays, comic operas and, of course, children’s books - the kind that win recognition from one of the most prestigious of literary awards - a Newbery Honor.
Margi’s Heart of a Samurai, a novel that fictionally follows the real life of a 14-year-old Japanese fisherman in the late 1800s, earned one of four Newbery Honors this year. Since 1922, the American Library Association has given out one John Newbery Award and four Newbery Honors each year. Two of the honor awards went to Minnesota authors.
Margi Preus - pronounced as Margee and Proice - came to Duluth on an invitation from a friend in 1983. She was promised, Margi says, “We would ski during the day and do a theater project at night.” That project was creation of the Colder by the Lake Comedy Theatre company.
Writing plays and performing for both adults and children was fertile soil for fiction, she says. “The years of doing theater have really helped me in writing. I don’t have any trouble with dialogue. … I tend to look at the scene; who are the characters and what they are doing. It helps in getting your characters on and off stage, too.”
Margi has five published books and the latest, Celebritrees: Historic and Famous Trees of the World, was released in March.
She came to the subject of Heart of a Samurai while researching a book about the Peace Bell that was a gift from Duluth’s sister city of Ohara-Isumi City. Her son was a student delegate to that Japanese city and she was a chaperone and later wrote about the bell. “Before that, Japan was not on my radar at all.”
Another trip chaperone stumbled on the true story of Manjiro, a teenage boy who was shipwrecked while fishing then was rescued and crewed on an American whaling ship during a time when Japan remained closed to foreigners. Margi thought she would write that story as a children’s picture book, too, but it became obvious that “it just was too much of a story. I had an agent who said, ‘You should write this as a novel.’ I had no idea what I was getting into.”
Writing a novel, especially one based on a real person, proved challenging. “It’s a very interesting little dance, I think. What are you going to make up? What are you going to put in and what are you going to leave out? I try to first of all remain true to the character and not have the character do something that would be unlike him. “
Manjiro had written about his life, and Margi worked closely with a translated version of his tale as the basis for her award-winning work.
Margi was skiing in Washington state when the Newbery winners were announced in January. The chairman of the awards committee called. Margi can tell you that it’s hard to find Washington-state grown champagne, but the wine works fine for toasting.
“It’s kind of humbling,” she says of her award. She recently was in a Barnes and Noble, and noticed a table of Newbery books from the past. “I can’t believe that I’m in that club,” Margi says. “It’s just amazing.”
Duluth artist Rick Allen is quick to point out that the Newbery Honor given to Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night salutes the writing of Wayzata, Minnesota, author Joyce Sidman, not him as illustrator. But on Joyce’s advice, he’s also learned to give this response when people congratulate him on being part of the award-winning project: Thank you.
Rick gives his personal thank you to Houghton Mifflin editor Ann Rider in Lutsen, Minnesota, who chose him as illustrator. “She really has something approaching genius for making these kind of matches.”
Rick, an owner of Kenspeckle Letterpress, only met Joyce after being hired to illustrate her work.
“I’m sure it’s different for every illustrator and every artist. I spent a lot of time reading the poems,” Rick says. “I’ve done illustration work before, but this is the first time I’ve done it for a national publisher.”
The distinctive illustrations in Dark Emperor are linoleum block prints. “You essentially cut light into the block, and that seemed oddly appropriate to a book of poems about the night.”
Each image requires two to six blocks, one for every color, and a block can take 30 hours to cut. “You have to cut the image in the reverse of how it will appear. You get used to thinking backwards. It’s native to me; I’ve always been a backwards artist.”
Rick was attracted to both art and writing as a child signing up for a library card at Duluth’s old Carnegie Library on West Second Street. The library had magnificent stained-glass windows and black-and-white art hung on the walls. “I got the sense (there) that words and pictures go together. … In a world where everything moves … there’s still something that can be compelling in an unmoving image.”
Rick, who prefers to send a self-portrait than a “publicity” photograph, has a philosophical observation about his relation to the Newbery Honor given this book: “It’s good for a bridesmaid to remember who’s standing at the altar, but it’s fun to be part of the ceremony.”
Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night
by Joyce Sidman
illustrated by Rick Allen
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-0-547-15228-8
$16.99 Hardcover
The Heart of a Samurai
by Margi Preus
Amulet Books
ISBN: 978-0-8109-8981-8
$15.95 Hardcover
Nightshade
by Andrea Cremer
Philomel Books
ISBN: 978-0-399-25482-6
$17.99 Hardcover
Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night
This witty and knowledgeable picture book unfolds in so many ways. Joyce Sidman’s poems unveil critters of the night, pirouetting porcupettes to sherbet-colored moths, in a way that makes each turn of the page a discovery. While the poems are placed on the left, on the right comes detailed and intriguing night facts. You can read all of the poems first and return for the facts (my preference) or read both together. Visually the book also becomes a treasure hunt.
Rick Allen’s rich illustrations reward those who linger over them with hidden details and even the type becomes a visual surprise. Who is formed in words of the poem Dark Emperor? Whoo, whoo indeed.
- Konnie LeMay
The Heart of a Samurai
You might say that Manjiro’s life was a wild ride. At age 14, the Japanese fisherman was shipwrecked with four mates for months on a deserted island then rescued by an American whaling ship and for the next decade has adventures on the high seas and visits places unimagined by a boy from a Japanese fishing village in the mid-1800s.
Retelling this true story is fascinating enough, but Margi Preus enhances the true story through additions of fictional characters showing the tensions and prejudices that may erupt in two cultures meeting and detailing what life might have been like for the mid-19th century sailors - on and off their ships.
Margi’s writing draws readers completely into this world and time. It doesn’t matter if you are young or grown, this book for children tells a human story for all time.
- Konnie LeMay
Nightshade
Being a teenager is complicated enough, but imagine being a teen who heads a pack of human-wolves that can change in a instant. Oh, and you are about to be in an arranged marriage at the same time you’ve just fallen, unarranged, in love. Such is life for Calla Nightshade.
Andrea Cremer’s first novel is a grabber from page one (bear attack!) to its cliff-hanger ending (sorry, no spoiler reveals here). She creates characters you can care about and a world that is familiar, mysterious and dangerous. For those of us who have always appreciated the majesty of real wolves, Andrea’s pack gives a refreshing change from the freakish werewolves of the past.
If you don’t have your summer reading booked, put this on the list.
- Konnie LeMay