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BY SARAH BRICAULT

In print | April 10, 2008

“If I was going to jump off a roof, I would put on some pants before I did,” said Holly Black as she read from her upcoming novel, “The White Cat,” on Tuesday, April 8 in the Scheuer Room. Black is a well-known fantasy author who was on campus to decide and announce the winners of the William Plumer Potter awards. In addition to reading from her novel, Black also gave a short speech on the craft of writing, and earlier in the day participated in a Question and Answer session with interested students.

Holly Black is the author of “Tithe,” “Valiant” and “Ironside,” three modern faerie tales for young adults. She is perhaps most well-known for being the co-creator of the popular series “The Spiderwick Chronicles,” which has recently been turned into a feature film.

Black, with red highlights giving her dark hair a personality of its own, stepped up to the mike with a wide smile that invited the audience to share in the fun. She began by reading part of the first chapter of her aforementioned newest work, which begins with a boy on a roof in his boxers. After this intriguing beginning, we learn that he has no notion as to how he ended up on the roof, only that it seemed to involve a dream in which a cat literally bit out his tongue and ran away with it.

“I didn’t know how I had gotten up and that was a problem, because I was going to have to get down again, ideally in a way that didn’t involve dying,” Black read, evoking both the inherent humor and danger of the situation in a way that left the audience anxious to hear the next chapter. This novel, however, is far from finished and immediately after completing the reading, Black informed the audience of several aspects of it that she had already decided to change.

“How many of you are writers?” Black asked the audience. This began a series of questions about the frustrations and satisfaction that accompany writing to which most of the audience responded to by raising their hands. Black finished with the question, “How many of you, after reading a paragraph aloud to a room full of people, want to go and hide under a table?” and hands went up again, some sheepishly, some proudly and most accompanied by smiles of relief that other writers feel the same way.

After using these questions to establish a connection with the audience, Black went on to give a short speech about the purpose and value of writing. “The only audience we will ever really know are ourselves,” Black said, encouraging audience members to write works that they would want to read and could find joy in reading. Black described how the joy of reading is “the marrow of the bones in our stories,” something to hold onto even if all else fails.

Black concluded by announcing the winners of the contest. Lauren Rile Smith ’08 won first place, Sarah Peterson ’09 won second place and Olatokunbo Adegboro ’09 won third place.

In contrast, the 45 minute Q&A session that occurred earlier in the day was a much more informal event. Attended by a small group, the informal format of this session allowed the discussion to flow from topic to topic, guided by questions but not constrained by the strict Q&A format.

Black began by discussing the development of her writing and how she began by writing poetry and then decided to write fiction instead. She described her initial difficulties with plot, and how she had to “argue [her] whole way through it.”

In fact, Black has her own self-described “insane” plot diagram that she uses for stories. It ties together the plot of the story with what she calls the “personal plot.” “The personal stuff actually creates more tension because you never really believe the main character is going to die,” Black said. The intersection of the action of the play with the development of the character action is what makes a story so interesting for her, Black said.

The fantastic has always been an integral part of this author’s life. “My mom absolutely believed in ghosts,” Black said, adding “I have read fantasy my whole life.” Because the fantastic was such a large part of her childhood, she has never had the sense that fantasy is necessarily separate from reality. “made some of my Barbie dolls into vampires to protect myself against other vampires,” Black said with a laugh.

When writing her first novel, Black decided to try something contemporary because she thought it would be “simpler” than writing high fantasy. The contemporary setting was “something I hadn’t seen much of in fantasy” Black explained. “Six years later, I realized it wasn’t that simple,” Black said with a laugh. The contemporary fantasy that came out of this six-year process was “Tithe,” a book well worth the wait.

Though Black writes young adult novels, the issues she addresses are far from childish. She uses the fantasy setting to explore elements of her characters. She examines the psychological impacts of being a changeling, of growing up believing yourself to be human and then learning that you come from another world. She delves into the concept of addiction through a tantalizing magical drug. All her characters are strongly rooted in reality, and the fantasy setting helps them come alive in her stories.

To college students who might be interested in getting their works published, Black had some advice to give. “Find a book that you like that’s been written in the last five years and look at the acknowledgements page. If the author has thanked their agent, then you can query them. If they didn’t thank their agent, then you don’t want to work with them anyways.” Before you query an agent, however, Black cautioned that you “need a book that you’re really happy with.”

When asked about the most surprising thing she had learned about writing, Black replied “I didn’t think I could ever write for a living.” Black’s success in capturing readers’ imaginations with her dark, alluring, Victorian style fantasy proves quite the contrary.

The Scent of Her Flowers

The following excerpt is taken from the opening of “The Scent of Her Flowers,” the short story by Lauren Rile Smith ’08 that won first place in the 2008 William Plumer Potter fiction competition.

"At midnight I bike to the bakery, and I work until seven, taking cigarette breaks to watch the sunrise stripe the buildings around us orange and purple. Crossing my arms in the chilly morning air. Fog patterns the bakery windows. Inside, the air smells like flour and butter. The scent of baking bread—clean and greasy at the same time—clings to my clothes and skin, even to the chain I wear around my neck, long after I shower.

The dough starts out sticky. I add handfuls of flour at a time, and it gains shape in my hands. I pound the dough like clay against the wooden butcher block until, fleshy, it springs back under my fingers. The sky grays out, gets brighter; sunrise comes earlier every morning, now that it’s spring. I nurse my cup of free coffee, mostly milk. Risen loaves exhale—paf—and deflate under my fist. I stretch and pull them, get them ready for their second rise, twining my fingers in the ropy, developed dough.

At twenty to 7:00, it’s like a scene change. The morning retail workers start to trickle in the door as we lift the cooling loaves onto the shelves besides the front counter. All of the retail staff is white. None of us bakers really talk to them. One girl, standing behind the counter, arranges muffins on their wire stand. Gives me a nod. Red hair in long pigtails, delicate freckles. A tiny river of silver hoops trickles down her ear. She’s young—I’d say high school, but it’s Wednesday morning. Maybe a dropout. Maybe another dyke, making overtures. I return a stiff smile."

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