Midsouth Writers Conference

Conferences are so much fun cuz you get to hang out with people who have similiar interests. The SCBWI Midsouth Writers Conference took place in Nashville, Tennessee at the Embassy Suites Hotel September 25th, 26th, and 27th. There was a lot of talent packed in that building! Caroline B. Cooney, author of 75 suspense, mystery, and romance YA novels was there. She gave a very interesting talk about how the process of writing is for her. I was amazed and inspired. Cheryl Klein, senior editor at Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, attended. She was impressive as well. First pages were read and then critiqued in front of all of us. Cheryl really knew how to zoom in on things! Literary agent, Chris Richman, critiqued the first eight pages of my manuscript (writers can pay for that at conferences) and I was given some desperately needed guidance. It's like he opened the floodgates -- the ideas are flowing. I'm so grateful. And in addition to all that, I got to visit with two of my very talented SCBWI pals from Evansville--Kristi Valiant and Christi Atherton. Sometimes a person has to travel a great distance to see the people that live right next door.

Description of Matthew's Research

My son, Matthew, is in the PhD program for physics at Brandeis University in Boston. I know there are some relatives out there wondering what he is up to so I thought I'd get the scoop from him and write something up in this blog. Hmmmm... where to begin? It's pretty complicated. Oh bother. I'm just going to quote him. Here it is:

"I'm studying part of the assembly process of bacteriophage MS2 (a bacterial virus). MS2 is made up of 180 "dimers" with 90 of them being what I'll call type "A" and 90 being type "B". They form a protective protein shell (made of "dimers") around the viral genetic code, a strand of RNA. A "dimer" is just two proteins (called "monomers"), and a protein is just a large molecule (made up of around 2,000 atoms). Viruses typically take milliseconds to seconds to form once all their parts are present. However, this is a very long time for computer simulations that use straightforward algorithms; in fact, it would take thousands of processors at least a lifetime to simulate problems of interest. This means that it's necessary to use special tricks to figure out what's going on during assembly. Experimentalists have the opposite problem. Often, experiments cannot capture the specifics of what's happening because it occurs so quickly.

An added complication to this process is that the "dimers" switch types during formation (remember there are 90 of each type "A" and "B" in the MS2 virus). The fact that they switch types is an important part of their formation allowing the virus to assemble much more quickly. Some experimentalists believe that RNA binding to the "dimer" drives this switching process, but this is based off of indirect evidence. The goal of my research is to see how the presence/absence of RNA binding to the "dimer" affects its ability to switch types. This will hopefully lead to predictions that can be measured by experimentalists. This research is important because relatively little is known about the assembly process of viruses, and a better understanding of this process could lead to the development of antiviral drugs that target this stage of infection. The antiviral treatments that have the most effect are the ones that target multiple stages of the virus's assembly."

Cool, ha? He's like a super hero or something saving us from the evil viruses.

Family Literacy Day was celebrated at Washington Square Mall on September 19, 2009. Those that attended this event with their children were very happy. There was musical entertainment, hands on activities for the kids and book signings by author Margaret McMullan and illustrator Andy Herbertz.

Remember how cool it was to meet a real live author and artist when you were a kid? Margaret and Andy have created a series of books starring Napoleon Peacock. These books feature areas in Evansville making it exciting for both local parents and children to read. The goal is not only to create enthusiasm for reading in the children, but also make an impact on parents' perception and attitude toward reading.

Family Literacy Day 2009 was sponsored by Evansville Literacy Coalition, Toyota, and Early Childhood Development Coalition. There were eleven different agencies represented each offering crafts, activities or games. I will be writing more about this event on the Altrusa blog (http://altrusa6.blogspot.com)soon.

RAG DOLLS 2 LOVE

A few years ago, I read an article in TidingsThe Newspaper of the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis, about people sewing dolls for war torn children. I like to sew for relaxation so I looked up the website published in the newspaper and discovered I could get the pattern for the dolls right off the internet. Mary Page Jones began Rag Dolls 2 Love, Inc. a few years ago after a trip to the Middle East. Her heart went out to the children who were suffering from the effects of war. They needed more than food and clothes. They needed comfort. Many had lost family members and seen horrific things. Visit her website www.ragdolls2love.org to hear her story and to get the pattern. The dolls in the picture are my latest batch ready to be shipped off.

The Philharmonic

Bruce and I always get season tickets to the classical series performed by the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra. I love where we sit. Not only is it great for hearing and viewing what's happening on stage, but every now and then a composer will end up sitting in the seat next to me. That happened Saturday. The man who wrote the first piece, Fucocoso(Fiery), sat right next to me. Mr. Plog said he has three children, lives in Germany and writes when he can. He tries to write every day. Some days are more productive than other days. He plays the trumpet and knows Tim Zifer, the principle trumpet player in our orchestra. I wonder what it's like listening with an audience to something you wrote yourself? He said he felt the orchestra played his piece well.

Plumbing

On Thursday, I innocently put a load of clothes in the washing machine. Little did I know the trouble that domestic act would cause. Bruce, as luck would have it, came home from work at the exact moment the machine hit the spin cycle and the toilet began to resemble Niagra Falls. It overflowed big time. Poor guy and he'd had a good day too! After stopping the washer and cleaning up the mess,we found when we flushed the toilet, water came up the kitchen sink. Not good. We hated to do it, but we called a plumber. I always imagined plumbers to charge for their labor and parts like car mechanics do. You know how it is with a car, one little scratch and it's a thousand dollars. The plumber had to go under the house and then later he hefted a machine into the bathroom (to "stir things up").I could only imagine how much it was going to cost. I pretended to read a book and glanced up from it now and then to see what they were up to. Thankfully, Bruce stayed home from work to supervise the whole ordeal. I'm very glad he did because it is embarrassing to me to have people messing around in the bathroom. What did they see down that hole anyway? What did they bring up? I could hardly look at them. When the machine stopped, the men started talking again. I strained to hear what they were saying and then I was sorry I did because the shorter of the two turned to my husband and said, "Well, that's one thing women can't blame us for." Where could I run and hide? In the end, they were only here for an hour and we were charged approximately $150.00.

Indiana University Newspaper

Indiana University made a very wise decision when they hired my daughter Suzanne to write articles for them for their newspaper. I know I'm sort of biased, but honestly she's a great writer and living in Santiago, Chile where she will find new and interesting things to write about. She's even going to interview someone for me. I'm writing for Altrusa International of Evansville. There are Altrusans in Chile... You can see where I'm going with this. She speaks spanish and can talk to people I can not.

Unbelievable

I had the most amazing experience yesterday. It began with my husband asking me if I wanted to canoe on the Wabash river; a relatively tame river near us. I assured him that was a wonderful idea. There's nothing better than being out in nature, right? We're both from Minnesota and have been camping and fishing all our lives. We bought the canoe because we enjoy the Boundary Waters Canoe area between Canada and the United States. We're the "outdoorsy" type one might say.

We were on the water by 8:00 a.m. breathing the clean air and appreciating the still day "Sigh" So lovely... just quietly gliding through the water when, with absolutely no warning whatsoever, a fish (I'm guessing 8 lbs) flew out of the river and into the canoe right at my feet. Talk about almost peeing my pants! It flopped all around and bled everywhere. I screamed as my husband stared wide eyed,his mouth open. Thankfully,the fish danced its way into the center of the canoe.

After everyone calmed down (including the fish) my husband took a picture of it and then bravely picked it up and threw it back in the river. We continued our journey. I sat in the front of the canoe with fish slime all over me, my adrenaline pumping,and holding my paddle tight-- basically on red alert. I noted every bubble, every ripple, and tiny wave on the water. Another fish could attack after all. Maybe they've decided to fight back?

We saw other fish jump here and there on the river as normal fish will do. We would have thought nothing of it before our little meeting with Mr. Slimy. However,after that fish decided to greet us up close and personal, we viewed anything with scales above the water as quite threatening.

Just when our nerves were beginning to settle,we entered water with a lot of ripples on the surface. There was fish activity under the surface I just knew it. My adrenaline surged again along with my imagination. I was positive there were hundreds of those huge fish under the water stirring things up. In fact, I was in the process of telling my husband that we should get the heck out of there when, and I am not kidding you, a small school of very large fish (equally as large as the one that jumped in our canoe) breached way out of the water together like synchronized swimmers and flew through the air right next to our canoe. The water was in motion and so were we! You should have seen us paddle!

I was told later by a local fisherman that the fish are called Asian Carp. The one we saw up close in our canoe didn't look like what I think carp look like. It didn't have ugly sucker lips. It was actually quite attractive as far as fish go. Later when we were shopping in the town near by, I met a lady that lives on the Wabash River. She said there was never a problem with these fish until about three years ago. Her husband is an avid fisherman and she used to go out with him all the time, but not anymore. She's been afraid to ever since a friend was hit in the head by one of those fish and nearly fell out of his boat. Sooooo- if you want a taste of nature, paddle down the Wabash river in a canoe. It's quite the adventure!

Body Farm

My second manuscript turned out to be a middle grade novel called Murder on Sprinkle Lake. When I first started writing this, I thought it was going to be a YA novel and had an older audience in mind. In that story there is a murder; a character is hit on the head with a heavy object. I wanted to know what the result of the hit would be like as far as blood and stuff goes. I also had questions about the condition the body would be in if found several hours later. My questions took me to the University of Tennessee where my cousin works in the Forensic Anthropology Dpt. She gave me a very interesting tour (including a room filled with boxes of skeletons all neatly organized). She told me that she could tell an awful lot just by looking at the bones. She used to assist in autopsies and explained about that. Basically, I found out that the character in my story would have been a bloody mess. When the tour inside the college was over, she took us (my husband and two of my adult children were with me) to the Body Farm. Yup the very Body Farm Patricia Cornwell went to when she was writing her book, Body Farm. If you haven't read it, you should. I happen to like her writing in general--keeps you on the edge of your seat. Anyway, the Body Farm is as creepy as it sounds. Interesting though. My cousin is doing research on what sorts of animals munch on the bodies. She wasn't the only one doing research, the FBI had a garbage can with a body in it. They were studying the decomposition rate with the lid closed being they find a lot of bodies in garbage cans I guess. Most of the bodies were pretty decomposed. I guess a gossip magazine got in there once and took pics of the bodies and put them on the internet. Nearly closed the place down. So--now the bodies are covered until they are pretty far along in decomposition. In the end I didn't use much of what I learned that day. It is tucked away in my head, however, and may come out in another story. Maybe the one I'm writing now, who knows? My current writing is for a YA audience. An agent at a conference in Ohio told me that if my protagonist is less that twelve years of age, it is a middle grade novel. This time my protagonist is sixteen.