NOTE: This post is meant for subscribers to “Field Notes” (this blog) on Blogger. The blog is moving from Blogger to WordPress, here at my website, hence some housekeeping. But there is some good background in this post about my blogging over the years, so I’m including it here at WordPress, too. Some of y’all are already over here, on WordPress. Thanks much! It’s like old home week! xo (Anthem chapters 25 and 26 should appear below this post, in your email.) === Cheers, on this 97-degree mid-September day from Atlanta, Georgia. I bring you news about the transitioning of this Blogger blog to WordPress. The Anthem posts for Chapters 25 and 26 should appear in this email beneath this post. Three today, all in a row. I took Sunday off.
If you are an original subscriber to “One Pomegranate,” as this blog was originally called, and I know many of you are, you’ve been reading posts from me since 2007 detailing the writing life, the creation of various books, finding a new life in Atlanta after great loss, the importance of — and joy in — a family of chance and choice, and a great curiosity about how we tell our stories.
I started blogging in 2005, before blogs were a thing. You can read that blog at my website, right here. It was sent by email to a list Harcourt put together when I went on tour for Each Little Bird That Sings. It is text only, and was archived at my website.
I kept a tour journal, at Harcourt’s request, in 2007, for The Aurora County All-Stars. Harcourt set me up on Blogger and I went to town with a daily entry of the two-week tour, complete with a rasher of photographs each day.
I would sit up at midnight in whatever city and hotel I found myself in, writing about the day and realizing that what I was doing was as much for me as for anyone else, documenting my writing life, yes, but also my LIFE, like a scrapbook.
So I decided to continue blogging when I got home, but I didn’t realize I could just continue on with the tour blog, renaming it, so I started “One Pomegranate,” this blog, in 2007, which has been renamed “Field Notes” but still comes into your inbox as “One Pomegranate.”
I took a four-year hiatus from blogging and all social media, from 2015 to 2019, for various reasons, which one day I’ll go into. For now, though, I want to get you moved over to the WordPress blog, where I’ve been posting these exact same blog posts you’re getting in email.
I want you to receive them from WordPress. The blog-in-email that will come to you is beautiful, airy, easy to read, a snap to navigate, plus you can listen to the song (or whatever I might include) right in your email without having to click over to hear it at the blog, in your browser… although the blog’s homepage itself, as well as the newly-designed website, is gorgeous and worth looking at.
The other reason I want you at WordPress is I’m working toward putting everything I do online in one place that I alone own, my website. I’ll eventually move all older Blogger posts, all 700 of them, to the WordPress blog, along with the the ’07 Book Tour, and the Little Bird Tour Journal.
So. This is my very long way of saying I want you to come with me, if you want to. May I take your subscription email from Blogger and enter it into the subscription box on the WordPress blog?
If this is okay by you, you need do nothing but click on the link when an email from WordPress (via MailChimp) and Deborah Wiles comes to your inbox on October 1, confirming you want to receive “Field Notes” blog posts from WordPress now.
And you want to do that, as I’m going to quit double-posting when I get to October 1, Anthem’s publication date. The Blogger blog will be set to private and I’ll quit blogging there.
You can sub to the blog at WordPress now, yourself, if you want to, and unsub from Blogger (link at the end of this email) or you can wait until October 1 when posts will no longer be at posted at Blogger and you receive the email from WordPress.
Right now I’m publishing a daily blog post because I’m counting down to Anthem‘s publication by highlighting the song that leads off each chapter of Anthem, and giving you a look into why it was chosen, along with some background on the creation of the book, and a snippet from that chapter. These posts will all be archived on a dedicated page called #teachingAnthem1969 that you’ll be able to reach on Anthem‘s page at my website on October 1.
I don’t anticipate daily blog posts after October 1. But if you still want to receive blog posts after October 1, it will be through WordPress. (Is there a capital P in that word?)
I think this is as clear as mud. I’ll try again another time. This is a heads-up for October 1. I’m going to transfer you over and sub you to the WordPress blog then, unless you do it yourself before October 1, or you tell me you don’t want me to sub you there, which I respect and will honor. You can comment here, or email me directly at deborah@deborahwiles.com.
It’s been good to travel the road with you, all these years. Here’s to many more adventures together. Thank you for coming along!
Well, it’s August, and we’ve made it as far as Ruby in Summer Reading, hahaha. Lord it has been a busy time. I’m declaring Summer Reading can go into fall and even winter — I won’t abandon it. I hope you stay tuned. In the meantime, there is this:
from the research trip and getaway I made last week to Maine, to Rachel Carson’s cabin by the sea. More on this soon. I’m juggling (delightedly, gratefully) a particularly rich time in my writing life right now. Here is just yesterday’s work: I finished researching niggling details and sent in final revisions, author’s note, acknowledgements, dedication, etc etc, to a picture book I’ve written about Rachel Carson that publishes next fall (Random House), art by the stupendously talented Daniel Miyares — all very exciting. I sent in a revision of the galley letter that will go in front of all KENT STATE galleys — which will be here very soon. That book publishes (Scholastic Press) in April 2020. Also exciting. We have an amazing cover for this book that I can’t wait to share when the time is right. I prepared for Scholastic’s sales conference in NYC next week, where I’ll be speaking about KENT STATE to sales reps from across the country. I’m scripting myself for this 5-8 minute talk, and selecting some slides. I spoke with my agent about illustrators for a picture book I’ve worked on for many years that may be sold soon. The editor in question wants to take it to acquisitions with an illustrator and vision in mind. Very exciting! So many books take me such a long time to figure out. I worked back-and-forth with Scholastic audio on listening to auditions and selecting a reader to be Molly for the audiobook of ANTHEM. Also very exciting! We’ve been bouncing this around for some time — we have decided on Norman, and we have our narrator, and we were trying to get Molly just right. I think yesterday we found her. I corresponded with my uber-talented and patient webmistress about moving A LONG LINE OF CAKES off its prominent “new book” position on my home page and moving ANTHEM into its place, and I set up a training time with her, so I can make these changes myself in time. I answered a backlog of email. When I showed up mid-afternoon to get my hair cut, here is what I heard: “Your hair is very emotional today!” hahahahaha. Yeah. It’s an emotional time. And so very busy. I know how lucky I am. I got mostly off the road late last year, which has given me the opportunity to write more and have days like I had yesterday, and like I hope to have more of going forward. I’ve been writing professionally for 35 years now, in one capacity or another, and working in this book business for a little over 20 years now, publishing books since 2001, and this is the first time I’ve had TIME stretching out ahead of me. Part of it is age, and stage, part of it is getting off the road, and part of it is finishing up major projects, like the Sixties Trilogy (which I sold in 2008) followed immediately by KENT STATE. It’s also the first time in 11 years I haven’t woken to a publishing deadline. Everything is turned in, finished. It’s luscious. I don’t want to give up that feeling! But I have work to do. So — what now? I have two proposals to write, both for big writing projects. I spoke with my agent this week about those. I have picture books to go back to. A bunch of other writing and home projects I’m eager to paddle around with, in what’s left of this summer. Also, there is housekeeping. I have a new website! Is it not GORGEOUS? Thank you, Cyndi Craven! We are still tweaking, and having fun with it, and I am ever grateful for such a professional looking site. I hadn’t updated my website design in 9 years, since COUNTDOWN was published. Ulp. Check out the BOOKS page, so lovely, and see how each book’s page (click on REVOLUTION for an example) now has excellent information for readers, teachers, librarians, parents, and more. I see this new website as a beautiful workhorse for me into this next part of my writing life. I’ll have to do a separate blog post about it at some point. I’m moving this Blogger blog to my WordPress website soon, just fyi. It’s already there, actually, and you can go sub there soon as well, although I won’t be completely away from Blogger for some time yet, so no worries if you want to hang out here on Blogger with me while we transition everything. My idea is to “own my own content” and eventually be off social media platforms and have everything about me at my website. I was off social media for four years, and it did me good. I’m trying to figure out a way to return that works for me. Hence, having all content in one place. More on that as we transition. In the meantime, I am once again (mostly against my will, hahaha) at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (you’ll find me here most often because I like the visual storytelling, and it feels less nekkid-making).
And I’m at Pinterest, never left Pinterest, as this is where I catalog resources for my work in progress, so it’s a work tool, it’s messy, but it’s process, and maybe useful to readers… it’s certainly useful to me, and I love this tool for that reason. And I’m here, once again, at the blog, and very happy about that. Thanks for hanging out with me. xoxo Debbie
MFA in Writing, Vermont College, I have taught teachers at Towson University (“Writing Techniques for Teachers,” ECED 422), and have taught in the MFA programs at Lesley University and Vermont College.
Pioneer of the Documentary Novel containing scrapbooks with primary source documents — photographs, song lyrics, newspaper clippings, etc., and opinionated biographies alongside the story/narrative, mixing fiction, non-fiction, and biography in one book/story in a trilogy about the 1960s. COUNTDOWN 1962; REVOLUTION 1964; and ANTHEM 1969 (to be published fall 2019)
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I’m a Southerner born in Mobile, Alabama, where I lived until I was five years old. My parents were Mississippi born and bred, and I spent most of my childhood summers there and grew up in Mississippi and all around the world as an Air Force dependent.
I’ve lived in:
Mobile, Alabama Jasper County, Mississippi Honolulu, Hawaii Washington, D.C. Prince Georges County, Maryland Charleston, South Carolina Clark Air Base, Philippines Northern Virginia Cherry Point, North Carolina Millington, Tennessee Frederick, Maryland Atlanta, Georgia
After living in the Washington, D.C. area (Frederick, MD) for 25 years, where I raised a family, I moved to Atlanta 14 years ago, and now live in a little house with a purple door in a little woods. I married musician/composer Jim Pearce 12 years ago. You can hear Jim profiled by Susan Stamberg at NPR right here.
Where to find me online:
I use Pinterest as a visual resource for my books. You’ll find primary source material for my books archived here, including playlists for COUNTDOWN and REVOLUTION.
