Inspired By Park Slope

 

The Desperate Adventures of Zeno & Alya will be in bookstores in less than two weeks, and hopefully in your hands soon after that. If you look at the cover, you’ll see that Eliza Wheeler drew a Brooklyn brownstone that could be on my street. 

Certain parts of the book are straight from my imagination, but the setting is very specific to Park Slope, my neighborhood in Brooklyn. I thought it would be fun to share some pictures of the places and the birds that inspired me.

Pigeons are pretty much everywhere in New York City. Only a very few people like them. I took it as a tremendous compliment when my editor Liz Szabla told me that she’ll never think of pigeons the same way again after she read about Bunny, the noble pigeon who teaches Zeno the meaning of the word “home.”

Monk parrots are becoming more common too. Flocks have nested in many places all across the country, but mine have chosen to live in Green-Wood Cemetery, which is located about a mile from my apartment.

If you look closely, you can  see two green Monk parrots perched at the top of a pine tree. They were chattering away to their offspring who were safe inside the large nest that surrounds the tallest spire at the grand entrance to the cemetery.

This is where Zeno hoped to reside. He thought it would be fitting for such a “booful, briyant” bird like him.

 And here is where the Monk parrots forced him to take refuge––on top of this statue of an angel. The arrogant Zeno believes it is a “parrot man.”

And here is the most important location of all. This bakery is the source of the banana nut muffins. A muffin is what first lures Zeno to Alya’s window. Over the course of the novel, the muffins become much more than a delicious treat. They are—like all the favorite foods we share with friends—a little piece of home.

BLACKBERRY'S REVIEW OF THE DESPERATE ADVENTURES OF ZENO AND ALYA

 

Dear Two-legged One,

I just finished reading your new novel.

Do you realize that there is not one single cat in the book? In fact, it’s full of birds! Parrots, pigeons, cardinals and even sparrows.  As you know, I love to watch birds from the window. But I never expected to care about what happens to them. They’re birds!

And yet, I was enthralled by the adventures of Zeno the parrot. Would he ever find a banana-nut muffin? Would he really become friends with a pigeon? Would he learn the meaning of "home"? 

Would he teach the girl Alya how to try? Or would she slide into the gray corner?

They both came so close to forgetting who they were. When Zeno suffered in the cage, you described it so well. You must know the pain  of being unable to do what makes you who you are.

So why do you scold me for clawing the furniture? Cats scratch to make our mark. Cats hunt for food—even if the tuna we find is in your sandwich. We must be true to ourselves.

 I think you understand that. You showed such sympathy for the animals––for a human.

Like that other review in Publishers Weekly said, you do know something about cross-species friendship. 

Becoming a writer

I just celebrated my birthday. Since I happened to be spending some time in my childhood home, I started thinking about how Jane the writer came to be.

I grew up in a place called Fairy Chasm. Over a hundred years ago, one of the residents thought the children resembled fairies as they skipped along the paths. 

Chasm is another name for ravine, but it sounds much darker, more mysterious, like these woods right behind my house.

My bedroom was in the attic. This is a picture of the desk my dad built for me, tucked under the eaves. 

The most import part of the room were two large bookshelves, full of old books that had been treasured by generations of children. Mary Poppins, Wizard of Oz, Ivanhoe, Wuthering Heights.

But the real reason I became a writer is because of what was at the end of the lane. 

This path led to other paths. Some were only in my mind. But all eventually emerged at the shore of Lake Michigan, where there were no boundaries except some place way off in the distance, where water met sky.

Good-bye, Columbus!

Alas, I'm not that writer-in-residence at Thurber House anymore. 

It's wonderful to be back with my family and friends in Brooklyn, 

but I miss a lot about Columbus, Ohio. 

I learned so much from teaching the young writers.  

The teenage writers were so articulate and passionate about their work. 

They made me feel smarter just by talking with them.

The younger writers were so enthusiastic and creative

--even on days when they weren't wearing costumes!

I felt part of a great community of writers who had spent time in Columbus. 

I was honored to autograph the wall after my appearance 

at Cover to Cover, an amazing independent bookstore. 

The city itself was so beautiful. 

I loved being able to walk or ride my bike along the Scioto River. 

This Topiary Park was just a few blocks from Thurber's House. 

Seeing the familiar from a new perspective inspired me 

whenever I walked among these figures based on 

Seurat's painting of A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. 

I'm grateful to everyone at Thurber House 

for making me feel so welcome

 and always being willing to laugh with me. 

I miss everything about my month in Columbus.  

Did I mention the ice cream?

Looking for the ghost

Staying at the Thurber House has been very inspirational. Some of the stories James Thurber wrote were based on things that actually happened in this house—including “The Night The Ghost Got In.”  Many people who have worked here have had their own ghost encounter. Since my second novel is about a haunted house, I expected that I would too.

But I didn’t. I slept undisturbed. I heard no thumps. I felt no brush of cobwebs. Now as a writer I've learned that you can’t always wait for inspiration to pay you a visit. Sometimes you must be brave and go look for it. Especially if it is something disturbing.

So one night, that’s what I did.

I waited until dark. I turned off all the lights. With only the faint glow of my cell phone, I crept down the same stairs where James Thurber had heard the thumps almost a hundred years ago. All my senses were alert. But I didn’t see or feel anything. And then, as I turned the corner and stood upon the bottom step, I saw something glowing beneath the dining room floorboards.

I gasped and grabbed the newel post. I seemed to see the light pulse. Or maybe I was the one who was trembling.

When I leaned closer to take this photograph, I realized what it was. Someone had left the light on in the basement.

There was a logical explanation. And yet nothing could have persuaded me to go down there to turn off that light.

"Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast"

I’m staying in James Thurber’s house in Columbus, Ohio.  I’m honored to be this year’s Thurber House Children’s Writer in Residence. I can’t believe a week has already passed since I arrived. Everyone here is so welcoming, and rightfully proud of how much their city has to offer. I’ve only started to go exploring, because I've been busy writing my new novel.

I’ve already done some great work here – how could I help it with this as a writing space?

Okay, I’m kidding. That’s the desk in James Thurber’s bedroom.

This is a picture of my own. Even if I'm not actually able to sit at his desk, it’s so inspiring to be here.  I feel connected not just to Thurber, but to all the dozens of other writers who have stayed in the attic. Who've heard the ghostly creak of the stairs. Who've watched the storm clouds cross the Ohio sky from the garret window. Who've left a bit of themselves behind on the bookshelf. Thank you all for keeping me company!

This past week, I’ve given workshops to five different groups and met nearly one hundred young writers. I envy their imaginations and I'm impressed by how bravely they worked. Some had never written a story before. I'm sure some others have already written more books than I have.

After giving a workshop at the Worthington Library, I got the chance to share some tea in the children's section with another favorite literary figure of mine. 



That reminded me of something the Queen tells Alice in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. "Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Staying here in James Thurber's house makes it easy to believe impossible things!

After The Storm

"SANDY REMIX"

I'm standing in "Sandy Remix"
(photo by Katherine Koch)

I wasn’t in New York City when Hurricane Sandy hit last October. But when I returned to my park soon after, I was shocked to see how many trees had fallen. There were mountains of broken branches and trunks. Eventually most were chipped into mulch and so returned to the earth. But a few lucky bits of wood were used by the tree-house architect, Roderick Wolgamott Romero, to build "Sandy Remix."

You can go in it, as I did the other day, when you visit the Brooklyn Botanic garden. It’s amazing. Who could resist climbing up to stand in what feels like a giant bird’s nest?  Especially on a beautiful spring day, when flowers are unfolding everywhere.

One tree house can’t compensate for all the destruction, but it’s important to find what good we can in any disaster. When I was a kid, somehow I figured out that almost any ordeal could be easier to endure by thinking what a great story it would make afterwards.

In that way, my bout with cancer became part of my new novel about a parrot and a girl who’s forgotten how to try.

Life goes on. And trees toppled by a hurricane become a new vantage point from which to appreciate nature.