Madeleine said that artists, like children, are good believers. She also denied that writing for children was any different from writing for grownups (a perspective that came up recently during Children’s Book Week).

The techniques of fiction are the techniques of fiction. They hold as true for Beatrix Potter as they do for Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Characterization, style, theme, are as important in children’s books as in a novel for grownups.  — Walking on Water

At this year’s Walking on Water Conference, we’re going deeper. We’ve pulled together a panel of authors to explore how faith–their own, and/or their characters–shows up in their’ writings, and what writing “for children” means.

Joining the “Glorious Impossibles” panel are:

Moderator Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich: Olugbemisola was a student of Madeleine’s, a story you’ve got to hear her tell.  She’s also the author of 8th Grade Superzero, a Notable Book for a Global Society and Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People. She is co-author of the NAACP Image Award-nominated Two Naomis, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and its sequel, Naomis Too. Her nonfiction books include Above and Beyond: NASA’s Journey to Tomorrow, and the picture book biography Someday Is Now: Clara Luper and the 1958 Oklahoma City Sit-Ins, a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People. Olugbemisola is also the editor of The Hero Next Door, a 2019 middle grade anthology from We Need Diverse Books. Visit her online at olugbemisolabooks.com and on Instagram.

And “Glorious Impossibles” panelists:

• Ibi Zoboi: Ibi holds an MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her writing has been published in The New York Times Book Review, the Horn Book Magazine, and The Rumpus, among others. Her debut novel, American Street, was a finalist for the National Book Award and has received five starred reviews. Under the same imprint, her latest YA novel, Pride, was released last fall, and, Black Enough, a collection of stories about what it’s like to be young and black in America, made its debut in January. Her middle grade debut, My Life as an Ice-Cream Sandwich, is forthcoming in late August. You can find her online at www.ibizoboi.net.

• Veera Hiranandani: Veera is the author of The Night Diary, which received the 2019 Newbery Honor Award, the 2019 Walter Dean Myers Honor Award and the 2018 Malka Penn Award for Human Rights in Children’s Literature. The Night Diary has been featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition, is a New York Times Editor’s Choice Pick, and was chosen as a 2018 Best Children’s Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Amazon, School Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews, among others. She is also the author of The Whole Story of Half a Girl, which was named a Sydney Taylor Notable Book and a South Asian Book Award Finalist, and the chapter book series, Phoebe G. Green. A former book editor at Simon & Schuster, she now teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College’s Writing Institute and is working on her next novel. Online, you’ll find her at  www.veerahiranandani.com, on Twitter, and on Instagram.

• Karina Yan Glaser: Karina is the New York Times bestselling author of the middle-grade books
  The Vanderbeekers of 141stStreet, The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden, and The Vanderbeekers to the Rescue, due in September. Karina is a contributing editor for Book Riot. She’s at www.karinaglaser.com, on Twitter, Instagram; and Facebook.

Register now to hear this panel (and tons more) at the first Walking on Water Conference, Nov. 16. Details, registration, and news about a pre-conference retreat are all here. Early bird pricing ends August 31, so don’t wait!

Til then, looks like your reading list is filled up!

Happy reading,

~Erin F. Wasinger, for MadeleineLEngle.com.

By Judith Lindbergh

“Are you sure you want to know the future?” Madeleine asked in all seriousness and waited for my response. She sat up in her four-poster bed, draped in luxuriant covers, and I sat at the edge. She was remarkably generous, inviting so many of her students into her home, nurturing and guiding us, hungry disciples at her feet. And there I was having my turn, asking her for advice about my literary life, longing to know where it all would lead.

I was very young back then. And anxious. Madeleine knew that. Anxious about life. Anxious to succeed. The kind of young woman who works hard and expects results. From herself. From the world. But Madeleine knew better.  She had experienced the random cruelty of action and reaction. She knew that there were no guarantees – not good parenting or opportunity or wealth. Not knowing the right people or accolades for your work. That there were things far more important than writing. I didn’t know all the private details of her life, but I’d heard a few things from classmates in her writing workshop. It was only faith that had gotten her through the worst of it, and a private kind of mourning that never ends. So when she leaned forward in her bed, propped against a mountain of fat pillows, and pressed my hand with hers, “What if it’s bad?” I didn’t know what to think.

It took me years to understand that life is a balance of triumphs and losses, that writing is just one part of a very complex journey.  When I sold my first novel, I thought it would change my life. And it did, but not in the way I’d expected. While I stayed home doggedly writing my next book, I was also home to raise my children. And being home with my children made me long to get out of the house. So I started teaching just once a week, sharing my love of writing with my local community.

Being a mother helped me realize something else: that creativity starts at birth, that imagination is innate, and that it absolutely must be respected and nurtured.  Watching my kids playing helped me create a creative writing curriculum that spoke to their creativity, not the expectations or requirements of adults. Together, those classes grew into The Writers Circle in New Jersey where students of all ages learn to love creative writing every day.

When I first entered the classroom, I modeled my approach on Madeleine’s, remembering all of us gathered around the old oak table holding our precious, uncertain words in our shaking hands. I remembered her generosity and gentle, supportive words, how she crafted her suggestions to suit each writer. Madeleine met each of us at our deepest need, not only as writers, but as people seeking guidance and wisdom from a woman who had touched all our hearts long before we ever met her.

I try to do the same with my students every day. At the beginning of each workshop, I welcome new writers with a short piece I wrote for Madeleine to celebrate her 80th birthday. That year our group of Madeleine-alums all wrote short pieces in her honor and handbound them into a book.  Mine reflects on the spirit that we carried from Madeleine into our own small writers group.  I encourage my students to carry on that spirit in our workshop and beyond.

Today, both my kids are teenagers, one heading off soon to college. And that new novel of mine hasn’t yet sold. So I’m polishing up another. But the rejections I’ve endured have made me a better writer and a better teacher. The struggle has given me the grit to carry on and to help others do the same.  Sometimes I remind myself that Madeleine was rejected 26 times before A Wrinkle In Time became one of the great classics of children’s literature.

If I had known the future back then, what would I have thought of what I have and haven’t achieved?  I’d have been proud of being published, that’s for sure.  But perhaps I wouldn’t have fully appreciated the most important work I do now: passing on Madeleine’s gift of guidance and sharing, of listening and accepting this long journey of writing and life every day.

Now I understand a bit better what Madeleine was telling me that day: that not knowing—either the good or the bad—is part of the mystery.

Judith Lindbergh’s debut novel, The Thrall’s Tale, about three women in the first Viking Age settlement in Greenland, released to critical acclaim in 2006. She’s the founder and director of The Writers Circle in New Jersey, facilitating creative writing for students of all ages. She traces her teaching approach to her background as a professional dancer and actress and from the lessons learned from L’Engle, with whom she studied in the early 1990s. Judith will be part of a panel at the upcoming Madeleine L’Engle Conference: Walking on Water.

Twitter and IG: @JudithLindbergh

Do you have something you’d like us to share with our blog readers? We are taking submissions for guest blog posts. Email: social [at] madeleinelengle [dot] com

By RuthAnn Deveney

Recently, I read Anne Bogel‘s upcoming release, I’d Rather Be Reading, which is a lovely collection of bookish essays. In the piece entitled, “A Reader’s Coming of Age,” Anne talks about the transition in her early twenties, when she had to go from having books chosen for her to needing to choose her own books. She walks through certain “exhibits” of books that shaped her as a reader and helped her become the reader she is now. She says,

“We make a reading life by reading, and we stumble as we figure it out, learning through trial and error not just what to read for ourselves, but how. Establishing not just that we will be readers, but determining what kind of readers we will be.”

This essay got me thinking about the formative years that shaped me into a Madeleine reader: the decade between my early teens and mid-twenties. Throughout high school, college, and early marriage, Madeleine was a constant for me.

Let the evidence show:

Exhibit A: A Wind in the Door. Age 11, grade 6. Paperback eventually stolen from my sister’s bookshelf. I’d read A Wrinkle in Time, and I liked it, yes, but this! This weird and wonderful tale of science and interconnectedness sang to me. Meg’s prickly nature and Charles Wallace’s precociousness were hugely appealing to me, and I relished the words that Madeleine used, both real and made-up: Mitochondria! Farandolae! Metron Ariston! For a school project, I drew a picture of Sporos, which I copied from the cover of the paperback. I remember concentrating very hard on his eyes, which had to shine “like moonstones.”

Exhibit B: Dragons in the Waters. Age 16, grade 10. New trade paperback. Back in the day, messenger-style shoulder bags were all the rage for teen girls, and I carried around a small-ish one during the school day. It wasn’t large enough for my textbooks, but it was just the right size for my day planner and a paperback, and really, what more did I need? On this particular day, I was working a table for student council during a lunch period, probably selling dance tickets or carnation flower grams as a fundraiser, or something. Business was slow, so I took out my book to read while I ate. Dragons in the Waters is one of the “Poly books,” as I call them, which are about Meg’s children, especially her oldest daughter, Polyhymnia. I was engrossed in the story of Poly and Simon in South America when, abruptly, an upperclassman girl walked by and asked scornfully, “Isn’t that a kids’ book?” I looked up, shrugged, and said, “It’s good. Have you read it?” She hadn’t, and she flounced off. I went back to reading, unconcerned. Funny, I still have that interaction as an adult.

Exhibit C: A Severed Wasp. Age 18, grade 12. Library book with a purple paisley cover. In high school, I steadily worked my way through any Madeleine books I could find disregarding whether they were part of a series or remotely connected to anything I’d read before. To my delight, I found a whole shelf of them in my school library! I conscientiously worked my way through the titles. Midway through A Severed Wasp, after I had read about death, intimations of torture in concentration camps, and very unconventional family relationships, I paused. “Hmm,” I thought, “I don’t think this is a book for teens.” There were no plucky nerds saving the universe, no telepathic dolphins, no time-traveling unicorns. Just hard stuff and people working through it. And yet, I was compelled to read it. I didn’t stop to consider whether I liked it, I just knew it was good. Occasionally, I found some familiar names (Canon Tallis! Suzy Austin!), and when I checked the Chronos/Kairos “family tree” that’s in the beginning of my editions of the Time Series, I saw their names. I was in the same universe. And yet, I was reading a totally different kind of book. It was my first “adult” novel, and I’m so glad I didn’t know it when I started.

Exhibit D: Two-Part Invention. Age 21, junior year of college. Used paperback, new to me. I had read Two-Part Invention in high school, and I already knew it was important to me. This memoir about Madeleine’s marriage to Hugh Franklin opened my eyes to her nonfiction, and it gave me language to think about marriage. Now, I was dating this guy, and I was pretty sure that I was going to marry him, which really freaked me out. Was I settling down too soon? Opposites attract, and there were a lot of differences between my boyfriend and me, but I knew that we had to be on the same page about marriage, if we were indeed going to be married. So, I asked him to read Two-Part Invention, because it had shaped my views so significantly. It was hard not to put a lot of pressure on that reading. “If he doesn’t like it, it’s okay,” I told myself. But was it? I wasn’t sure. I held back from asking him how far he’d gotten or what he thought so far. Better to get it over with all at once, I resolved. Finally, he returned my copy. “I liked it,” he said simply. “I feel like I know you a lot better now.” (Spoiler: we got married!)

Exhibit E: Walking on Water. Age 25. New hardcover. My husband gave me this copy when we were in college as part of a cheering-up surprise package that we affectionately called “dorm storm!” (Mine usually included Cup Noodles and Swedish fish) I read it as a student, and it broadened my Madeleine horizons even more. Here was writing about faith in a way that was simultaneously comforting and familiar (oh, it’s Aunt Madeleine again) but also startling and confusing (what is she talking about?). Her ideas settled in my brain as seeds waiting to take root. In the years right after college, my husband and I did a lot of work to build a faith that was our own. In our travels, we made friends with other young couples, and I found myself referring to Walking on Water all the time. In it, Madeleine asks, What is good art? She asserts that there’s no such thing as secular or sacred art; instead, “good” art simply tells the truth. These ideas spurred a lot of conversations (er, debates) in this formative time of life, and even if I didn’t agree with Madeleine all the time, she certainly made me think. At one point, I lent Walking on Water to a friend, and when he gave it back to me, he said, “That Madeleine, she’s kind of wacky!”

Yes, yes, she is, and she made me into the reader I am today. As Anne put it in a section about authors who feel like friends:

“Madeleine L’Engle is Madeleine to me, because I feel like we understand each other.”

RuthAnn Deveney works in corporate learning and development and loves walking around her small town of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.  She lives there with her husband, dog, and a huge collection of Madeleine L’Engle books, including her most prized volume: a signed copy of A Swiftly Tilting Planet, which a friend gave to her in high school after finding it at a yard sale for fifty cents! You can read more Madeleine musings at RuthAnn’s blog or follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

This piece was originally published on RuthAnn’s blog. Do you have something you’d like us to share with our blog readers? We are taking submissions for guest blog posts. Email: social [at] madeleinelengle [dot] com

“This question of the meaning of being, and dying and being, is behind the telling of stories around tribal fires at night; behind the drawing of animals on the walls of caves; the singing of melodies of love in spring, and of the death of green in autumn. It is part of the deepest longing of the human psyche, a recurrent ache in the hearts of all God’s creatures.”

— Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“Recurrent ache” is the only way to describe what I felt in my bones as I read and processed Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art.

The book was published in 1972, but it didn’t find its way into my life until 2017. I was years-deep in my love for Madeleine, fueled mostly by the Time series and The Crosswicks Journals. In Madeleine I’d found a kindred spirit and a mentor. Someone who thought deeply about her faith in Jesus and wasn’t afraid to wrestle with it. Someone who saw compassion and empathy as powerful. Still today, whenever I read something she wrote, I experience what C.S. Lewis describes as friendship being born: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”

I don’t remember how Walking on Water landed in my lap. Did I buy it myself? Maybe someone sent it to me? Regardless, it changed my life. I’m not an artist, but I am a creator, and this book helped me understand that. As Madeleine says, “What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint or clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living.” And later: “God is constantly creating, in us, through us, with us, and to co-create with God is our human calling.”

I can’t tell you how much I needed to hear that.

And after hearing it, I needed even more—that’s where that recurrent ache came in—to tell people about it. Specifically, my people.

I’m a church administrator. My husband and I have been attending this church since its first service in 2006, and I came on staff almost 11 years ago. Being part of our church has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. The people with whom I share these pews are my family. And some members of that family are struggling to find meaning in their daily work; to figure out why their work matters; and to understand what the heck they are even doing here in the first place.

Madeleine also says this in Walking on Water: “Stories are able to help us become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos.”

I found myself needing to Name these friends, to bring some cosmos to the chaos they were feeling. I needed to Name their work as good.

So I gave into the impulse that Madeleine talks about. I gave in and told stories about my friends to my friends. Through a series of letters I noticed for them ways in which they are co-creators with their Maker—how they, too, are bringing cosmos to chaos in their daily work.

You can read the letters here: Cosmos to Chaos | Letters About Work. It’s my hope that in reading their stories you’ll find echoes of your own…and leave feeling a bit more whole.

Valerie Catrow is a church administrator, wife, mother, and friend who lives in Richmond, Virginia. She reads often and writes a bit. You can read some of her writing at val.catrow.net. Twitter and IG: @valeriecatrow

Do you have something you’d like us to share with our blog readers? We are taking submissions for guest blog posts. Email: social [at] madeleinelengle [dot] com