Karen Cushman

Karen Cushman

Newbery award-winning children’s book author

Facebook
blusky
Contact
Karen Cushman

Uncategorized

On Fantasy: Karen Cushman

by

Karen CushmanFor a few weeks, in celebration of my new fantasy novel, Grayling’s Song, this blog is featuring a few of my favorite fantasy authors answering four questions about their own writing. Today, it’s my turn. Grayling’s Song is available at your favorite library and bookseller today. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know.

Q: What was (is) the hardest aspect of building a fantasy world for you?

A: Ahh, the magic. What in this imaginary place was normal and what magical and how did it work?

Q: What do you feel is different for you, particularly, as a writer about creating a fantasy novel rather than writing a realistic or historical novel?

bk_grayling_180pxA: I discovered that a fantasy world has as much history, as many rules and boundaries and limitations, as historical fiction, but I had to invent them. I seem to like boundaries that are given to me, and so I found the fantasy harder going.

Q: Did you read fantasy novels before you wrote your book? If so, what’s your favorite fantasy novel and why?

I read several fantasy novels in preparation for writing Grayling’s Song. Two of my favorites are the beautifully written Seraphina for the world building, the way complex elements came together, and the striking visuals —I love the image of the dragon scales on her arm–and the fantasy/horror novel, Something Red, for its marvelously evocative, creepy, oppressive, menacing atmosphere.

Q: Is there a character in one of your fantasy novels that you wish you could invite over for dinner? What would you talk about?

A: I’m tempted to say Pook the shape-shifting mouse, for obvious reasons, but I would so like to see Desdemona Cork the enchantress with her cloud of hair and the blue tattoos on her face. I look forward to being enchanted.

 

Favorite Museums Series #4

by

The Cloisters, New York: A branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art that displays medieval art and objects in remnants of actual European abbeys disassembled and shipped to New York City, Wow!

The Cloisters, New York City

The Cloisters, New York City

 

Meanwhile, at a school for gladiators in Pompeii

by

Curses and SmokeCurses and Smoke by Vicky Alvear Schecter introduces us to Lucia, the daughter of the owner of a gladiatorial school in Pompeii, and her childhood friend, Tag, a slave who tends to the wounds of injured gladiators. Lucia is unwillingly betrothed to an older man who will invest in her father’s school, and Tag hopes to become a gladiator and buy his freedom. Mount Etna however  has other plans for them. The historical setting is compelling and the story suspenseful. I’d especially recommend it for young readers not familiar with the tragedy of Pompeii.

Picker of Fleas and Maggots and Burrs

by

Professor Nancy Roser, of the University of Texas at Austin, shaped a poem from her children’s literature seminar students’ resonant phrases after they read Catherine, Called Birdy. Prof. Rosen framed the poem with a page from the original manuscript, which she studied at the Kerlan Collection of the University of Minnesota, where my working materials are housed. Thank you to Nancy and her students! This is a toast I will always cherish.

Tribute to Catherine

Cooking for Lords and Ladies

by

Medieval Cookbook and Fabulous FeastsIf you have a craving for Stuffed Swan’s Neck, Porpoise Pudding, or Live Frog and Turtle Pie, those and other yummy-sounding medieval recipes can be found in The Medieval Cookbook by Maggie Black or Fabulous Feasts by Madeleine Pelner Cosman. Or see medievalcookery.com or godecookery.com for links to lots of others. 

When it’s autumn, I think apples—from a cookbook of 1290 called The Forme of Cury, a recipe for apple tart: 

Tak gode Applys and gode Spyces and Figys al reysons and Perys and wan they are well ybrayed (ground) coulerd with Safron well and do yt in a cofyn and do yt forth to bake wel.

P.S. A cofyn is a crust, not a coffin, and was made to hold the tart but not be eaten.

Bambi’s Mother?

by

 

pregnant deerWe have had daily visits from a very pregnant deer. I can’t get a better picture for she runs away if I get too close, but I can see the knobs and angles of a fawn inside. The deer on the island can be destructive to plants and flowers, but I won’t shoo this one away. Let her eat all the grass and tender new shoots she wants and make a beautiful, sturdy spotted fawn.

Late Bloomers!

by

Leo the Late BloomerNot yet traditionally published? Over 50? SCBWI members can apply next year for a Work-in-Progress grant and have your manuscript considered for the Karen and Philip Cushman Late Bloomer Award, $500 and a scholarship to one SCBWI conference. This award was established to encourage and celebrate late bloomers like me, who didn’t start to write until age fifty. But then I bloomed, and I’d love to see others do so as well.

Keep Vashon Weird

by

Bicycle TreeI am often—well, sometimes—asked if there is really a bicycle grown into a tree on Vashon Island. Yup, there is, and here is my photo to prove it. My shoes got muddy but it was worth it. There is a bogus story around about a boy leaving his bike in the woods and going off to fight and die in World War One, but actually the bike dates from the 1950s and the kid who left it leaning on a tree went on to be a King County Sheriff’s deputy. Or so it is said. We may never know.

 

 

 

 

  

Outdoor Gym

And here is our outdoor health club overlooking Puget Sound. Eleven working exercise bikes were there for years. Last year they disappeared but were replaced quickly, anonymously and under cover of darkness.

 

Karen in the Big Easy

by

I have been on a school visit to New Orleans. My favorite parts of that terrific city? The bright, curious girls of the Academy of the Sacred Heart:

Academy of the Sacred Heart

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the amazingly beautiful, enormous, somewhat spooky live oak trees:

live oak tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and beignets and chicory coffee at Café du Monde, of course:

chicory coffee et beignet