2012 - 07/2012 Meeting

Page Created: 07/27/12. Last Updated: 09/21/12.

POLLY SHULMAN

Author's Website: http://www.pollyshulman.com/

Books:

Enthusiasm

The Grimm Legacy

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: July 12, 2012.

Meeting Site: Barnes & Noble, The Shops at Riverside, Hackensack, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 23.

Meeting Program: Talk by YA/Middle Grade Fantasy Writer.

Notes:

Newsletter Account

The General Meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held on Saturday, July 14, 2012 at Barnes & Noble at The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack, New Jersey. Young Adult writer Polly Shulman was our speaker.

Polly Shulman had loved reading fantasy growing up. Favoirte writers included Lewis Carroll, Diana Wynne Jones, C S Lewis, George MacDonald, William Shakespeare and J R R Tolkien.

Besides loving fantasy, our guest also enjoyed mathematics and science. (She wrote a proof for a high school math class in the form of a sonnet.) After graduating college she became a non fiction writer, doing articles for ARCHAEOLOGY, NEWSDAY, THE NEW YORK TIMES., Salon.com, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Slate.COM, THE VILLAGE VOICE and other publications. Her current day job is a science editor at Discover.

While she was working as a non fiction writer and editor, Ms Shulman started a number of books but never got past the first chapter. A few were fantasy, but most of them were mainstream. She was getting started during the Harry Potter craze and felt too intimidated to seriously attack fantasy.

Our speaker was between editorial positions when she decided now was the time to get serious about writing. She printed out the opening chapter of what became her first book ENTHUSIASM, a contemporary YA novel about two teenaged girls, one shy and studious, the other brash and boisterous, and their relationship with Jane Austen.

Now lots of teenaged girls read Jane Austen. When Julie Lekowitz (the shy one) introduces her best friend, Ashleigh Marie Rossi, to the works of Austen, she forgets that Ashleigh is an Enthusiast. Her friend never does anything halfway. Ashleigh becomes a Jane Austn LARPer, altering her dress and diction and begins searching for a proper gentleman suitor.

It took a year before Ms Shulman had a strong enough manuscript to begin the agent query process. Agent Irene Skolnick took her on as a client and interested three editors in the work. One editor felt the book was perfect as it was. A second editor wanted it made darker and edgier. A third felt that the concept and approach were good, but that certain aspects needed tweaking. Our guest went with the third editor, Nancy Paulsen, because even though she had not offered the highest advance (though the agent subsequently got her to match the high bid), she seemed to have the best insight into the work.

When the rewrite of ENTHUSIASM had been completed, the author decided to risk tackling a YA fantasy. She had to create this one from scratch as her old computer had died, taking with it all the first chapters she had started over the years. So Polly drew on her personal experience as a Page at the New York City Public Library. The book became THE GRIMM LEGACY and dealt with a secret collection of magic artifacts in the sub basement of the library.

Ms Shulman had envisioned the book as a YA, but the sales and marketing people congratulated her on having written a terrific Middle Grade book. So "ass" got changed to "butt" and the conversion was accomplished.

This recap will be completed on the meeting's Page on the SFABC website.