Tag: kid lit

On Writing, Oregon

Building a Writing Community: Fairy Godmothers, Lifelines and Schmoozing

Jenny Pessereau
Children’s book writers listen to one another’s work at an SCBWI Critique Cafe in Napa. (2014)

I read two picture books every night for years. Eventually, my daughters began reading to themselves, but I missed the magical world of their children’s books. I’d gone to journalism school and figured, hey, I can write a kid’s book, no problem.  It turned out writing novels is a practiced art.

My first effort was a chapter book about a narwhal and a unicorn. I trucked off to share it with a writers’ group that met at the local library. I brought some pages, read them aloud, and listened while they discussed my fledgling efforts. It wasn’t easy to stay quiet which was the rule. When the first critiquer stated how much she loathed talking animals, I wanted to leap to the defense of my characters. Yet, if I had done that, I would have missed the entire point of the meeting: listen to feedback and improve the story, so even the snarkiest critic finds merit in it.

Sherry and Hillary (pictured) ventured up to Willamette Valley to winetaste and write (2019)

The writers’ group whittled down to four steady members – Leslie, Hillary, Sherry and I. We met monthly for the next 14 years, sometimes around my creaky dining room table, or in Leslie’s cozy living room, or in Hillary’s home office. Every July, we trekked to Sherry’s for a homemade meal and one of her signature desserts. 

We settled into the “sandwich method” of critiquing. The critiquer says what she likes about the story or chapter, then defines problems with voice, character, plot, setting, etc., and, finally, finishes on a positive note. 

Leslie and I at the SCBWI Conference in Los Angeles ( 2014)

Over time, we become familiar with one another’s strengths and difficulties, commiserated over rejections, and celebrated every gain. My critique group  transformed a very solitary vocation into a shared journey. They are the fairy godmothers who help me turn a pumpkin of a story into a chariot every time, as I hope I do for them. Even after I moved, we continue to sprinkle fairy dust on each other’s work though semi-magical Facetime. 

Another writer I met along the way became a daily lifeline. In 2015, I met Debbie through the SCBWI Nevada Mentor Program (more on SCBWI in a sec). A bestselling author picked both our manuscripts and helped us revise them over six months. A couple coincidences become obvious right away. We lived 3000 miles from each other, in each other’s home states and close to each other’s hometowns. With the clock ticking, we emailed each other five days a week about our revision progress.  It was like riding in a bike race as a team and tossing the water bottle back and forth. Last fall, we spent a few days together on the East Coast. What a pleasure it was to pull out our laptops in a coffee shop in person and read each other’s work. Four years later, we still check with each other several times a week. 

Debbie and I dashed to New York City for writing inspiration. Here on the High Line.(2018)

I met all the writers above – and many more – through the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). SCBWI is a professional organization for writers and artists who create stories for children and youth. This largely volunteer-run nonprofit hosts conferences and workshops across the U.S. (including my new home state of Oregon) and in over 20 other countries. In 2015, I started the Napa County arm of SCBWI’s San Francisco North and East Bay Region, and ran it for the first four years. Now I’m happy to grow my writing community in Oregon, and schmooze with local writers here.

These are just a few ways to find support as a writer – critique group, productivity partner, professional associations. What supports your writing life? (Other than coffee.)

Oregon

A New Start: A Writer Finds a Home

Jenny Pessereau
We started out in this cute AirBnB a few blocks from downtown McMinnville, OR

Eleven months ago, I left Napa Valley and the friends I’d made in 20 years of living there, and I moved to Oregon. At the time, I could count the number of Oregonians I knew on one hand, and that included their children. It was the big adventure. My three daughters were more or less launched, and now there were only two of us at home, me and my French husband who I’ll call P.  P. wanted to pursue a new adventure in vines and wines. And me? I would be Jenny 2.0, an updated version of myself as a writer.

I vowed to Paterson-ize my journey. In the movie Paterson, a gentle bus driver writes thoughtful poems about life as he drives his route in Paterson, NJ. He navigates the streets, mentally rewriting lines in his head. While he turns the oversized steering wheel, he muses about space, time and love. He manages to be present to everything that happens to him, no matter how odd, and, in turn, those things become the stuff of his poems. 

Before moving, I had lived mostly in Connecticut and California, two places far apart geographically and culturally. My parents and sibs dispersed to the wests – the Midwest, the Southwest, the Far West. France was the only constant. P.’s family still lives in the wide river valley where he was born. 

Photo by Philippe Pessereau

Oregon reminded us both of home – the big, puffy clouds that sail overhead in the summer, vineyards climbing the hills, and the profusion of spring flowers. The smell of blackberry bushes warming in the sun was familiar. The sharp peak of Mount Hood in the distance was not. I learned to pick out a decent pinot noir. Break up clay to make a garden. Listen for the sump pump under the house after a day of rain. Little by little, my life was becoming Oregon-ized. Instead of me writing poems about Oregon, Oregon was writing me a poem every day and inviting me to live it. 

I look forward to sharing my musings about writing, children’s books, the Northwest, France and beyond. But, wait, I forgot to introduce myself! My name is Jenny Cox Pessereau and this is where I live now.