Jackaby---a visit with the author and a review

William Ritter, author

This past Spring I met the author of Jackaby, William Ritter, at the Cavalcade of Authors West event in Tacoma. I introduced myself to him because he teaches school in the same district as my sister in Springfield, Oregon. Also, several student participants from my school were crazy for his Jackaby series and were eager to attend his workshop.  I attempted to sit on on one of them, too, but all the seats in his room were taken. Drats!

When I learned that William Ritter is a high school teacher, like me, I wanted to interview him for this blog. I am always interested in how authors find time to write, especially if they are also holding down demanding and time-consuming day jobs.

-I enjoyed reading your author essay over at Algonquin Books. Your experiences in Japan and at the small school in Salem make me think you are a guy who sees magic everywhere you go. Is that correct? Can you share another everyday magical story with my readers?

Absolutely! We get used to the magical things all around us, and we stop seeing them. The magic fades into normalcy, but it's still possible to reopen that part of our brain. Sometimes we still remember to marvel at the swirling colors in a soap bubble, or watch in awe as the land falls away when our airplane takes off, and that's when we remind ourselves that things that seem like they should be impossible are actually possible. When you start thinking like that about the things that already obviously exist, it opens you up to really think about the things that don't exist... yet. It helps to believe in impossible things from time to time.

I also see magic in storytelling. Every culture is connected to a long history of folklore and traditions. Every day of the week, for example, is named for a supernatural entity. (Sun-day, Moon-day, Tiw's-day, Woden's-day, Thor's-day, Frigga's-day, and Saturn-Day). The old gods are literally with us every day. Whether or not we are religious, our modern rational world is built on a foundation of faiths. We would not be who we are as a society if our ancestors had not had a little faith in impossible things.

-As a long time high school educator myself I am very curious how your students react to you as an author. For example, are they always wanting you to read their creative writing attempts? Do they refer to your characters or even seem to know about your other life? How do you juggle the demands of the publishing world with the demands of teaching? Is it your goal to one day leave teaching and devote yourself full time to writing?

I love teaching and writing simultaneously. My students are a big inspiration for my storytelling, and many of the life lessons Jackaby offers Rook are lessons I have offered to my students at some point or another in class. I occasionally bring my own writing into the class to show them what editing looks like professionally (MESSY. My early drafts need a LOT of revision), and occasionally I let my class have a hand in my writing process. Book 3, for example, had three different titles before I settled on GHOSTLY ECHOES. That decision was made by a class vote (they chose an option contrary to what the publicists wanted, and I sided with my kids). If I ever did stop teaching, it would be because the time constraints began to outweigh my effectiveness as a teacher, not because I want to get away from it. I love both of my jobs, and as long as I can balance them, I'll keep doing both.

-Talk a little about your daily/weekly schedule. When do you do your writing? With a young family and demands of a high school English teacher on your plate, it must be hard to find the time.  How long does it take you to finish a book once the writing process begins?

I'm working on book 4, and every book has been a different process. I spend roughly 6 months to a year writing a rough draft. By "rough" I mean I've edited every page a dozen times, but it's still awful. Then I spend another 6 months or so in heavy revision with editors, and then finally copyediting to catch the little errors. In the end, the publisher takes over with publicity, cover designs, and copywriting, and a few months later, a book exists. 

As for how I make time writing, I just had to commit to MAKE TIME, and stop WAITING for time to happen. My wife has been hugely supportive in that. In addition to being a beta reader, she also helps me make time to write. She'll come home after a full workday and offer tend to the kids a couple days a week, or she'll kick me out of the house so I can go concentrate in the library or sit in some coffee shop. Without her, I couldn't possibly keep to my publishing schedule. Even with her helping out, there are months at a stretch when little to nothing gets written, and occasionally a single week in which I knock out a quarter of a book.

-In your essay you mentioned that Jackaby insisted on becoming a novel. I love that description. It is as if he is real and you are just a conduit for writing about him. Is this correct or how would you describe your relationship with your characters?

My relationship with my writing is often a little combative. The thing about creating a book is that you're never really content with it while you're working on it. It's always either unfinished, or it's finished, but it's not good enough—otherwise you wouldn't be working on it. While you may never be content, you can still have fun with it. I spend 99% of my writing time trying to push through my intended plot, only to be foiled by characters who want to do things differently because it feels more natural to them. Frustrating, but also fun.

-Ghostly Echoes is due out in August. Will it be the last book in a trilogy or can we expect more Jackaby books after it?

Ghostly Echoes will be the penultimate book. It answers some big questions, but also sets up some major tension for the fourth and final installment. I may someday return to these characters, but for the time being, this storyline will end with book 4. 

-Is there is anything else you'd like my readers to know?

Do what you love and love what you do. I have been very lucky to see my books become successful, but that would not have happened if I had written for money, or if I had gotten weighed down by the parts of the process that are less fun. The books would not have been any good if I had written to satisfy a market demand, or if I had pandered to a particular demographic. I just wanted a story to exist in the world, and it didn't—so I wrote it. That meant that I got to have a lot of fun doing something that felt right for me. That's an experience I would PAY for, so the fact that I get PAID to do it is just a cherry on top.

-Thanks so much for taking the time to answer these questions. I am a big fan and wish you continued success with your Jackaby series and all future books. btw- I love the covers of your books!

I read Jackaby during my 24-hour readathon in April and enjoyed it very much. The little blurb on the book describes it as Sherlock meets Dr. Who.  I actually think the blurb is a good description of the book. It is a fun combination of classic-themed literature (Sherlock) with unexpected paranormal activity (Dr. Who.)

The narrator of Jackaby is Abigail Rook, young woman who is traveling the world in search of adventure. She has no money so has to find work immediately after she gets off the boat in New Fiddleham in 1892. She answers an advertisement to be an assistant for Jackaby, a private detective. She finds out soon enough he is a paranormal private detective. “Miss Rook, I am not an occultist,” Jackaby said. “I have a gift that allows me to see truth where others see the illusion--and there are many illusions. All the world’s a stage, as they say, and I seem to have the only seat in the house with a view behind the curtain.”  Abigail not only has a job but she also has lodging, which she has to share with a ghost, and a past assistant who was turned into a duck. Abigail ends up being a real ally for Jackaby because she is very observant of normal things whereas he notices supernatural signs. It is lucky they are a team because almost immediately they have to investigate a serial killer that leaves behind paranormal traces. 

What a fun and thrilling book. I recommend it often to my teen readers.

Disclaimer: I read the print edition of this book from my school library.

Day four

Interview: Aaron Hartzler author of Rapture Practice

Rapture Practice is an autobiographical account by Aaron Hartzler of what it was like growing up in an ultra-religious family where rapture is not just a word meaning ecstatic joy, it is a belief that Jesus will come again, any day, to take his people to heaven. “When I say we believe that Jesus is coming back, I don’t mean metaphorically . . . I mean literally, like glance out of the car window and, “Oh, hey, there’s Jesus in the sky.”

So begins this wonderful, warm, funny, poignant, sad, hopeful memoir by Aaron Hartzler in which he shares how he was raised to believe that Jesus was going to come back any minute so one dare not do anything too worldly for fear of being left behind.

When I contacted Aaron Hartzler, he graciously agreed to do an email interview. The answers are a bit long and he gave me permission to cut them down, but as I was moved to the point of tears by several of the answers I didn't want to diminish your opportunity to experience his answers as I did.

1. When did you decide to write this memoir and were you afraid that it would hurt your family to read it?

My career as a writer grew out of my career as an actor. Portions of the writing in Rapture Practice began as one-man shows I did in Los Angeles and New York about the experience of growing up Born Again and coming out to my family in college. In 2006, a friend working in television development suggested I write a memoir. I’d always been a big fan of memoir, especially humorists who wrote personal essays like Erma Bombeck and David Sedaris. At my friend’s suggestion, I decided to put together all the autobiographical writing I’d been performing on stage and expand it into a book.

As to fear of hurting my family, as I was working on Rapture Practice I did a great deal of soul searching. I said from the very beginning that I wanted this book to be a parade, not a baseball bat. Still, it’s always scary to be the truth-teller in a family unit. Eyewitness accounts are, as a rule, subjective, and I have four younger siblings, each of whom had their own experience of our upbringing.

At a writer’s conference I attended in 2007, I heard Katherine Patterson speak about writing Bridge to Terabithia.  She talked about the very personal, very real events upon which that book was based. She made the comment that as writers, our greatest fear is not to tell our truth; that our greatest fear as writers is that we will tell our truth, and be despised for it. I started crying in the balcony of the hall where she was speaking because I realized this was my fear—and that at some point, I was going to have to be courageous and write through that fear.

2. Your book is extremely well written and readable. Talk about the writing and publishing process.

It is very kind of you to say that the book is well written, and yet, to me, it is simply the book that I was capable of writing at the time. I sat down and worked very hard, and took feedback, and made edits, and this is what came out. I don’t know if that means it’s good or not, really. It’s only what is.

I’ve found that my job as a writer is not to judge my work. That is the job of the reader. My job is only to write. It’s an exercise in releasing expectation. At the end of the day, writing is a solitary process: you, alone with the page. I have learned that expectations are baby resentments waiting to grow up and wreak havoc, and resentment is the enemy of creativity. If I want to live free of resentment, it is imperative that I release my expectations and not allow my self-doubt to play the comparison game.

As to the business of publishing, I have learned that Anne Lamott was correct in her book Bird by Bird: publishing will change your life, but not in the ways that you expect that it will.  Publishing—any book, really, but especially a memoir—is a very tricky thing because in doing so, you put your heart in the marketplace. This is why it is so important to write the thing you know you must write. That may not match the trend, or the current wisdom. There is a not a giant shelf of other young adult memoirs at your local bookstore. My book is shelved in the “Teen Nonfiction” section next to a lot of books with celebrities on their covers. I only knew that I had to tell this story—my story—and doing so opened the door to publication for me.

3. I was raised in Christian home. My father is a minister. I was always teased for being a PK (preacher's kid.) You know about those PKs (wink-wink), they are trouble-makers. 

To what degree do you think that your drinking and acting out was in relationship to the strictness of the rules at home and the fact that you had to show your friends that you were your own person not a clone of your father?

I don’t believe that breaking the rules my parents set down for me was about showing my friends I was different than my Dad. I think I wanted to experience things I had not experienced before for myself. I grew up in an environment where I felt that all my decisions were being made for me. In that sense, while the world of my story my be unique, my teenaged experiences were fairly universal.

In Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, a young Cinderalla sings the lyric “Although how can you know/Who you are till you know/What you want, which you don't?” That perfectly describes being a teenager to me. I wanted to have my first kiss, see movies with my friends, listen to the music I liked, try a beer, find out who I was by learning what I wanted—what I liked and didn’t like.

The trick about doing that in my family was that my eternal soul hung in the balance. I’ve heard from lots of young readers who have identified with my teen experiences regardless of their religion, race, creed, sexual orientation, or socio-economic status. The reason always comes down to the idea that as teenagers, we may have adult opinions and increasingly mature bodies, and yet we lack power over some very basic decisions.

4. Though I really like the ending, it seems like there is more story to tell. Will there be another book picking up where this one left off?

I certainly plan to write it. I’m not sure it’s a young adult book. Adults who read the book are all disappointed there’s not a big coming out scene at the end. Interestingly I haven’t heard that from a single teenager, and to me, that means I did my job of writing a book specifically for teenagers about being a teenager. The first librarian who read the book wrote me and said, “I just wish there’d been more actual gay content in the book.” To which I replied, “ME TOO.” The tricky thing about memoir is that you can’t just shoehorn in scenes that didn’t really happen chronologically until later. I didn’t come out to my parents until I was in college, and I felt that was a very different story—a book of its own. Since this story dealt specifically with my teen years, I wanted to relate that as authentically as possible. For me, being a teenager was far more about asking questions than about finding answers. 

5. My father-in-law always says "There'd be more Christians if it weren't for the Christians." You certainly experienced both the loving (good) and the judgmental (bad) sides of the faith. Talk a little about your current faith journey.

I’ve actually written about this in a couple of other interviews at The Pirate Tree and Salon, and I encourage your readers to check out those pieces, too. I will sum up by saying that I am no longer religious. I was raised with all of the pat answers to the world’s unanswerable questions: Why are we here? What happens when we die? The questions that began in my childhood and teen years led me on a quest for knowledge and science, and I can only say that the older I’ve gotten, the less I know for certain, and the happier I am.

Most of the teens that I’ve heard from—especially the LGBTQ ones—are struggling with the idea that their faith is set up as an all or nothing proposition—and that was my experience as well. It opened up a real chasm in me as a teenager and I struggled with it for years. Eventually, I was unable to reconcile that discrepancy, and I left religion altogether.

6. I was shocked to read that your parents thought the To Kill a Mockingbird (my favorite book) wasn't a good book. Were there other "classics" you weren't allowed to read? What are some of your favorite books today? Who are some of your favorite authors?

My parents were big on reading. We didn’t have a TV at home most of the time when I was a kid, and books were everywhere. Reading was what we did—individually, and as a family. When I was very young, the great majority of the books we had available at home were Bible-themed, or from religious presses. As I got a little older, my mom took us to the public library a lot during the summer, and when my second grade teacher at the Christian school I attended started reading us Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, it was an epiphany. This was unlike any book I’d read before. The next time we went to the library I found the “Blume” shelf, and checked it out. After I finished it in one sitting I went back and checked out every Judy Blume book at the library. My mom took notice of this pile of books and after looking them over and not being happy with what she found, my parents called the school and the teacher suddenly stopped reading us Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing in class. It was my first experience with censorship. My parents objected to what they perceived as the disrespect of the characters towards their parents, and the secular nature of the families portrayed among other issues.

I was very disappointed, but we kept going to the library, and while my mom was over in the picture books with my younger siblings, I would sit in the floor under the “Cleary” shelf, ostensibly reading about Beezus, while actually reading every book by Judy Blume on the shelf just above.

This is why I am so indebted to librarians. I understood, even at eight years old, that the men and women standing behind that desk, who had allowed me to check out Judy Blume books without a second thought, were fundamentally different from my parents. These were the Adult Guardians of the Books, and collectively they said to me, You may read any book you like, and decide for yourself.

So, to librarians everywhere, I owe a debt of gratitude for my life as a reader and a writer. I felt your presence and knew I didn’t have to hide my Judy Blume books from you. I heard your silent message that I could decide what to read for myself. Because of your fearless voices, I grew up, and found my own.

As to favorite authors, I could never pick just one. Today, I am still a voracious reader. I read as much and as often as I can. Here is a too short list of authors across several genres that I read most often, or have recently found and love (in alphabetical order):

Peter Cameron

Jonathan Franzen

Jim Gavin

Holly Goldberg Sloan           

Lauren Groff

Barbara Kingsolver

David Levithan

Tom & Laura McNeil

Carrie Mesrobian

Tom Perotta

David Rakoff 

David Sedaris

Maria Semple

Julia Sweeney

Donna Tartt  

Jonathan Tropper

James Thurber

Ryan Van Meter

Jess Walters

Corey Whaley           

7. As a school employee I like to think that I am available if a student needs to talk about issues and concerns, but kids may not view me that way. It didn't seem that you had anyone you could talk to about your concerns as you were growing up, except maybe your grandma.  For teens who are being raised in such restrictive environments, do you have any suggestions where they can go for help if they feel they need it?

Yes! The INTERNET. I graduated from high school the year before Al Gore invented the World Wide Web, and for LGBTQ teens especially, the web has been a game-changer. Here are some of the best resources I can suggest: 
-The Trevor Project: http://www.thetrevorproject.org/ 
-The Trevor Lifeline: 1-866-488-7386 
Trained counselors are here to support you 24/7. If you are a young person who is in crisis, feeling suicidal, or in need of a safe and judgment-free place to talk, call The Trevor Lifeline now at 866-488-7386. It's free and confidential.   
-Trevor Space: http://www.trevorspace.org/
TrevorSpace is a social networking site for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth ages 13 through 24 and their friends and allies. 
-GLSEN (Gay Lesbian & Straight Education Network): http://www.glsen.org 
If you’d like to organize a Gay-Straight Alliance at your high school, GLSEN can help you get started. Go to GLSEN.org and click on “What We Do > Gay-Straight Alliances. 
-Secular Student Alliance: http://www.secularstudents.org/hsaffiliatesThe mission of the Secular Student Alliance is to organize, unite, educate, and serve students and student communities that promote the ideals of scientific and critical inquiry, democracy, secularism, and human-based ethics. We envision a future in which non-theistic students are respected voices in public discourse and vital partners in the secular movement's charge against irrationality and dogma.

Aaron with his dogs Charlie (black) and Brahms (golden). Used with permission.

Aaron, Thank you for sharing with my readers.  I wept when reading the lines about how much you appreciate librarians. Thank you for your kind words to us all.

Readers: Everyone should visit the other interviews with Hartzler at The Pirate Tree and Salon. I especially liked the Salon article where he talks about how he feels today when his mother tells him that she is praying for him. Both articles add depth to this interview. In addition, I want to encourage all teens to read Hartzler's book, Rapture Practice: gay, straight, Christian, non-Christian, preppy, nerds, all. The book, in its distilled state, is about growing up and becoming your own person. That is a message we all need to hear.

Rapture Practice is the only memoir on the BSD 2014 Mock Printz list.

Disclosure: All interview questions and answers were generated by me and Aaron Hartzler between the dates of October 12-16, 2013. Similarities to questions and answers from other interviews published in other sources was unintentional and coincidental.