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Happy Halloween from your friendly neighborhood INSIDE OUT gang! #insideout #disneypixar #fearless #halloween2015
This is what I’ve been up to this month. I made my dress, which was the first dress I’ve sewn, and also the Anger masks. Little kids were so happy to see Joy - it was so much fun to be her! It’s both good and bad Shannon didn’t have as easy as a time channeling Sadness. :)
What price freedom?
I have a degree in Political Science. My love of politics grew in high school after seeing Bill Clinton on the campaign trail at Notre Dame. It was all so exciting - The lights! The cameras! The stakes were so high!
My starry-eyed political campaign aspirations carried me all the way to IU’s political science department. I had some truly excellent professors, and witnessed some tumultuous politics. But it started to wear me out before I even began, and by the time my senior year rolled around, I knew I didn’t want to work on political campaigns. I was disillusioned with the whole political process after the Monica Lewinsky affair came to light. So I went to law school to help people.
If you’ve managed to stop laughing, know that I dropped out after my first year because that was disillusioning too. I had a news ban during most of W’s presidency because I valued my sanity more than being up to date on his latest buffoonery, but I got sucked back in to the process with Barrack Obama’s candidacy in 2008. After President Obama’s nearly eight years in office, my opinion of politics in America is worse than ever.
Now the political cycle for 2016 is rolling already. The news reports are all of candidates - and mass shootings. Just this summer, people have been gunned down at church, at the movies, and on live television. There was an opinion piece I retweeted awhile ago about the lack of will in America to address it’s problem with guns. The proof the author offered was the stunning lack of changes on a national level after the horrifying events at Sandy Hook. If murdering 20+ children can’t bring about change, then what can?
Certainly not murdering a prayer group.
Certainly not murdering theater goers - it’s been done before. How passé.
And certainly not murdering a television news reporter and her cameraman on live television.
That just excites the Second Amendment beast. “Look!” they say. “The violence is worse than ever! We must arm ourselves to protect ourselves. More guns! More guns will stop the violence! Do not tread on our freedom!”
Here, the political scholar in me balks. At what point, exactly, did the Second Amendment - an addendum - become more important than the Declaration of Independence and the rights enumerated therein? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are over for the 33,000+ people killed by guns so far this year.
I will admit that not all of those deaths were murder. Some were accidents, some were suicides. However, you can’t be killed by in a gun accident if you don’t own a gun. And it takes a hell of a lot longer to commit suicide when pulling a trigger isn’t an option - time that could be the difference between life and death. But when you read that more people have died from gun deaths since 1968 than in all the wars Americans have fought in (yes, including the 750,000 alone killed during the Civil War), you’d think “Surely someone wants to address this problem.” And then you remember -
Killing children at school isn’t enough.
Killing churchgoers isn’t enough.
Killing moviegoers isn’t enough.
Killing on live TV isn’t enough.
So reading that statistic some talking head at Fox News will pick apart surely isn’t enough either. More people will die from gunshots this year than car accidents. The auto industry is constantly pressured to make vehicles safer, safer, safer, but not gun manufacturers. The cynic that lives inside me fears gun deaths will have to match cancer deaths for there to be a change. Everyone has lost someone to cancer, and everyone agrees we need to cure it. 585,720 people died from cancer in the United States in 2014. Keep shooting, America. We’ll get there soon enough. Maybe then things will change.
May you live in interesting times.
Today I met one of my favorite authors, Michael Koryta. I’ve been a fan for several years, and with my literary groupie status well established, I’d felt cheated I hadn’t met him - an Indiana author - before my friend in Florida did.
He was as smart, humorous, and interesting as I’d hoped. He did a reading, took questions, and then did a signing. After revealing caves in southern Indiana played a part in his new novel, Last Words, I told him (as he signed my book) about my adventures in a private cave near Bloomington with my college roommate and her dad. Turns out he’s been to the same cave. How many people have that in common with one of their favorite authors?
So in celebration of random commonalities, here’s some things I’ve learned about meeting authors.
1. Reading, being a solitary activity, often attracts shy people. If you are shy but want to go to an author event, take comfort in the fact that there will be lots of people just like you, and if you spend the entire time silent and not making eye contact, you won’t be judged harshly as there will be others doing the exact same thing.
2. If you you want a book signed and go up to meet the author, try to remember they are a person just like you and feeling terrified isn’t necessary. In fact, you already have something in common - you both like his or her book. If all you can say is “I love your work” or “Thank you”, that’s fine, but if you want to swap stories about caves or Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, that’s good too.
3. Creative people are really my favorite. Wrestling with whatever it is that drives you to pull something into the world that has never existed before, and struggling with knowing when it isn’t up to your vision and figuring out how to get it there is something I understand.
So that’s it! Now I just need to figure out how to have a literary salon like Gertrude Stein and I’ll have achieved another life goal.
PS - It was Erin Morgenstern that I swapped Steven Tyler stories with. Sometimes I still can’t believe that Night Circus weekend happened, it was so truly magical.
Blue Lily, Lily Blue playlist
I’m kind of obsessed with The Raven Cycle books by Maggie Stiefvater. My friend Shannon introduced me to them right after The Dream Thieves had come out. I took her advice and read The Raven Boys, liked it a lot, and moved onto The Dream Thieves. That was the book I’d been unknowingly waiting all my years to read, so that was when the real obsession began: buying both books in hardcover, following Maggie on Twitter and Tumblr, listening to both of the audiobooks from the library. Repeat as needed until the next book comes out.
So when Blue Lily, Lily Blue came out last fall, Shannon and I had brunch and went and bought the book. I think I read it in a day, then turned around and read it again. There was a moment when a new character was introduced that felt a little Stranger Than Fiction when I saw my name in the book. Then I got the audiobook from the library and listened to that. I made my 3/4 scale raven puppet Chainsaw. And started waiting for the last book.
Anyone who follows Maggie even casually realizes that music is deeply important to her, so when I made my soundtrack for The Dream Thieves, I tried to be very thoughtful. Hopefully the thoughtfulness shows again on this new playlist (available on YouTube HERE) for Blue Lily, Lily Blue.
Since the theme of mirrors is very strong throughout the book, I found songs that connected with more than one character or moment for me.
Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones. This song sets the overall tone of the book for me. They’re teetering on the brink of disaster throughout the book. They don’t quite fall over, but it’s just a matter of time. Check out the lyrics.
Lucky Man - The Verve. A song for Gansey, Adam, Ronan, and Mr. Gray.
Dearly Departed - Shakey Graves. A song for Noah and Jesse Ditley.
Ocean Size - Jane’s Addiction. A song for Blue, Maura, Gwenllian, and Calla. They are women of action. Lyrics.
From Eden - Hozier. Obviously this is a love song for the Greenmantles. I remember the first time I heard this song, I thought it was so pretty, then I really listened to the lyrics and was like, “What the fuck?!”
Inside Out - Spoon. A song for Bluesey and Pynch.
Electric Love - Børns. Another song for the lovers of Henrietta. This one makes me think of Mr. Gray and Maura because it has a slightly 70′s vibe I think Mr. Gray would appreciate.
From This Valley - The Civil Wars. I feel like this verse was written about Adam and Ronan -
“Oh the outcast dreams of acceptance Just to find pure love's embrace Like an orphan longs for its mother May you hold me in your grace”
And this one was written for Blue (and Maura in the cave) -
“Oh the caged bird dreams of a strong wind That will flow beneath her wings Like a voice longs for a melody Oh Jesus, carry me”
And the longing, revival quality of the song makes me think of Jesse Ditley. Not to mention the title of the song refers to Henrietta. So, yeah, kind of the perfect TRC song.
Blackout Days - Phantogram. The first time I heard this song, I immediately thought of Gwenllian. The swirling chaos of the song also calls Piper Greenmantle at the end of BL,LB to mind.
Dust Radio - Chris Whitley. A song for Persephone and Adam. That scene at the gas station. . .
Called Out in the Dark - Snow Patrol. For everyone looking for Glendower.
“Show me now, show me the arms aloft Every eye trained on a different star This magic This drunken semaphore And I We are listening And we're not blind This is your life This is your time”
I am America
Today is the 4th of July, and it’s a good day to reflect on the country I call home.
I was born here in 1975, just a year before the bicentennial. I’m the opposite of a world traveler, having never gotten farther than Mexico (and there only across the border) but as I’ve aged and seen the world through my friends’ eyes, I’ve come to realize how amazingly young my country is. But back when I was a kid, the idea that my country was over 200 years old seemed amazing.
My roots are as American as they come, with a family tree that has some giant roots and some barely longer than my lifetime. My mom and biological father married because she was pregnant and that’s what you did in 1975 in the small town where I was born, but divorced just two years later. Then in 1979 my mom married my dad. My biological father wasn’t a part of my life from when I was 15-39, so the only ancestry I knew was my mom and dad’s. On mom’s side, I was Swedish and Danish, and dad’s people came from Germany, but he didn’t really know or care too much, and I didn’t worry too much about it either, as I was immersed in Scandinavian traditions thanks to my mom.
My mom told me my biological father had Native American ancestry, likely Cherokee and Potawatomi, and some English and whatnot, but I didn’t think about it much because he just wasn’t around. I made my peace with his absence when I was 22, but never reached out to him because I had my dad.
Flash forward to 2014. My son was getting older, and I was starting to wonder if and or when I should tell him about my biological father. In the meantime, my biological father was yearning to be part of my life. He had made some inroads over the past few years, but nothing that necessitated explaining things to my son, and nothing that made me feel a connection to that side of the family. As I said, I was fortunate to already have a dad - there was no emptiness inside me. But there was no lingering resentment that my biological father hadn’t been a “dad” to me either, so when he reached out to my mom to coordinate a meeting, I said yes. When I told my son who we were going to meet, he was curious, but it didn’t shatter his worldview or anything. His grandparent situation was already pretty complex (a Nana and PopPop who were divorced and single, a Gran and step-grandpa, and a Grandpa who got married to Mimi in 2013 and had him be the ring bearer), so this new addition was interesting, but not scary.
I also talked to my dad about it, and got his blessing because his feelings mattered deeply to me. While I wasn’t worried I would get hurt going forward, I worried he would. He’s not a man of many words, so the fact he was willing to have a deep heart-to-heart about our relationship showed me as much as his words did that I’m his daughter and always will be.
Brian was always on board to support me in whatever way I needed. He was there when I had my big catharsis at 22 that my biological father was just a man, not a monster, and I cried out 22 years of anger and sadness. He hadn’t been scared then, and he wasn’t scared 17 years later. My mom came along too because even though it was her ex-husband, she was on the friendliest terms with him at that time and he was nervous, so she’d be a familiar face. So we all went out to dinner and had pizza, and it was weird and nice and surprising and good. He didn’t want to take my dad’s spot. He just wanted to be in my life, and know me.
Looking back on it now, I think his timing was perfect. 39 was a year of change for me, though it was pretty much all on the inside. With the death of my friend Jim, I felt my own mortality for the first time. I realized I wanted to live wide. I’d been in kind of a cocoon for a few years, and it had gotten to the point it felt confining rather than comforting. My biological father’s re-entry into my life fit right in to the new landscape I was opening myself up to.
So we started talking on the phone. He brought his wife down to meet everyone, and she’s wonderful and loving. He kept calling. They visited some more. We had Christmas together. They took Brian and I out to dinner for our birthdays. And then he asked me if I’d like to come to a family get together. His family has shrunk over the years, but it’s still pretty big. I said yes to continue my quest to live wide, and we found ourselves driving through farmland up near West Lafayette. We pulled up to a small farm in a teeny, tiny, town and were surrounded by people in overalls and Carhartt. What had I gotten myself into?But then I started talking to everyone and realized that these were my people. My uncle the prankster who loved to laugh. My uncle the patriarch who meticulously restores old tractors and keeps the family genealogy, and in his research requires each fact to have at least two sources. My tiny, fierce aunt who gave me a hug that can only be described as ferocious. When she told me she’d pray for me, I felt like I had a lioness in my corner. They were funny. Smart. Loving. Just like me.
So my curiosity was finally piqued about this side of my family. I took what info I’d gotten from my uncle and ran with it, and while I didn’t find that Potawatomi and Cherokee my mom said was there (which is not to say it isn’t - it’s a BIG tree), I found that those root stretch back to America as a colony and even before thanks to Powhatan and Catawba Indian roots. There’s English, Welsh, Scottish, and even a dab of French. There are ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, and there are ancestors whose entire culture was destroyed by that war and the subsequent cry to “Manifest Destiny”. There are ancestors who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War and tried to tear the United States apart to continue the abomination of slavery. And there are relatives who dug coal in Kentucky and finally left to build a better life in Indiana, just as their ancestors had left England, Wales, France, and Scotland 300 years before to come to start a new life in the colonies.
So my American roots date from pre-1600 to 1910 when my Danish great-grandparents immigrated through Ellis Island. It’s a history that’s complicated and contradictory, filled with hope and despair. New lives were built while the old world was destroyed, along with the people who lived here first. The fight for freedom in 1776 was followed by a fight to ensure slavery less than 100 years later. I’m glad my Revolutionary War ancestors prevailed and my Civil War ancestors failed. I wish all of them had done a better job valuing all people - native, African-American and women. I wish I knew why my Swedish and Danish ancestors left their countries when they did, and why especially my Grandmother’s Danish relatives seem to have disappeared into thin air. But that’s the thing about America - it’s a big place. You can get lose yourself in it, or weave yourself into the patchwork quilt we’ve patched together and named the United States. Doing so requires facing a challenging, diverse history. But by acknowledging and making peace with that history, we open ourselves up to the reinvention and expansive optimism America is known for. My country inspired me to take those same steps in my own life, and I’m glad I did.
Recently- I painted a picture.
The thing that lead to so many other things.
Getting a beautiful picture here is ridiculously easy.
hi <333 i was wondering, did you put off the romance in trc for so long on purpose? when i first read the series, i was surprised that blue and gansey didn't even become a thing until bllb, and you spent so much more time on adam and gansey's relationship. i get that a few months isn't a lot of time for people to get together, but with the way the series is paced, it feels like forever. was there a reason for that? xoxo
Dear minty-minho,
Deep in my black heart, I always dreamed of a day when I would write a series full of non-romantic friendships with as much tension — nay, more — than the romantic relationships. Where readers would gasp and clutch their pillow in suspense … not over whether or not A and B would kiss, but rather if C and D would still be friends in a month.
Not to discount romance or kissing in the slightest, of course. Rather to lift up and point at the Healing Power of All-Consuming Best Friendship.
A reader asked me at a signing if Calla and Persephone had been sleeping together — if that was why Calla was destroyed by the events of book 3. I don’t recall what I said at the time — probably I just opened my mouth and words poured out in a grammatical fashion — but I was thinking how strange I felt about the idea that a platonic or asexual relationship was considered to be a subordinate thing to a sexual relationship; that passion in the sack equaled passion in one’s heart. Love is love. I am ferocious about my best friends; I reckon that is what I’m trying to say in The Raven Cycle.
Does that make the answer “yes”? I think it does. Yes. There was a reason.
urs,
Stiefvater
ETA: I forgot to mention that when I wrote The Raven Boys, I had a sticky note affixed to my computer that read: Remember that the worst thing that can happen is that they can stop being friends.
This may just be me being old and crumudgeony, but I feel like when I was a teenager, my idea of romantic love was that it was so much greater than friendship love or familial love. I don't think that way anymore. I think I quit thinking that way when I was 21 and my grand romance was left in ruins, then I realized my friend Brian, who was "just" a friend, was kind of awesome. That was 19 years ago, so yeah, give me friendship over romance any day.
I make a lot of my passwords "TheRavenBoys1" now because I love TRC and it's long and no one would guess it >:)
Dear ther0adhome,
I recommend changing your passwords now.
urs,
Stiefvater
I have several passwords that incorporate "Chainsaw", but I'm not giving all the details. 😈
Photos from the night of the Project Home Indy Speakeasy. Rumor has it the theme was so well received we’re going to use the same one next year and make it even bigger and better. My friend Lakshmi, director of PHI, knows I have some awesome cocktail ideas ready to go! If we have it at The Indiana Landmarks Center again, I look forward to revisiting their dressing room to get ready, as it had the most flattering lighting I’ve ever experienced.
So, as you all know, I’m a big fan of The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. So much so that I had my Night Circus Christmas, and Night Circus 40th Birthday party. So you can imagine my delight when I got a text from my BFF Missy back in February (as the wheels were already in motion for my 40th birthday party) that The Night Circus was the selection for One Book, One Michiana, aka South Bend, aka my hometown and where Missy still lives. They had tons of amazing events planned throughout the spring, culminating with a visit from Erin herself on May 1 and 2. Was I free to come up for the events? YES, PLEASE! So after Missy came down to celebrate my birthday with my Night Circus party, I went up to celebrate her 40th birthday with another Night Circus party. Erin did a talk and signing Friday night, and she was even funnier, smarter, and more gracious than I could have imagined. I gave her a card I made that showed some of the decor from my birthday, and thanked her for inspiring me. Then Saturday she led a writing workshop based on her Flax Golden Tales , and I wrote a 10 sentence story about a photo my Great Aunt Lily took of a dog probably 100 years ago, but that’s for another post. Then Saturday night, South Bend had it’s own Night Circus, complete with a contortionist, magician and his lovely assistance, Madame Padva, and Mr. Alexander, a tarot card reader, and Erin herself. She and her husband mingled and chatted with the guests, and it was an absolute pleasure to talk to her about everything from creativity to Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. I also made friends with The KnottyBits Sideshow performers because of course I did. Sylver, the magician’s assistant, (who’s a fire eater and acrobat but didn’t get to do any of that this particular evening) even read my palm when the tarot card reader was booked. It was a night like no other, and I was so happy to have shared it with everyone who was there, especially my best friend.
I made a super-fancy paper flower to decorate our classroom basket for the silent auction at our school spring carnival. My partner in crime/co-room parent/my Shannon was the happy recipient of our hot beverage themed basket, thanks to her awesome mom, who bought it for her as a birthday gift.
I made fancy chalkboard labels for the bottles we used as centerpieces at the Project Home Indy speakeasy, then took an atmospheric picture of them.
I decorated my dining room light with Magical Ponies, as one does.
I made these peacock feather hair clips for the speakeasy themed event I helped plan to raise money for my favorite charity, Project Home Indy. They're a home for homeless teenage girls who have a baby either on the way or here already. The work they're doing to break the cycle of poverty is so important, and so inspiring. I'm glad I was asked to join their events committee. It's the perfect intersection of my desire to entertain with grand events and get people to give money to PHI.
