News from Heidi

The first time my brother heard me read from the manuscript he said: "Well I guess I won't have to worry about you writing about me since you killed us off in the first chapters." Yup. He's got jokes. In any event, unlike my character Rachel, my siblings are alive and well. Here are the photos to prove it.

I heard a story on NPR this morning about a survey that found that people are more accepting of interracial marriages. Funny to think that when my parents got married people were not only not accepting of interracial marriage but it was illegal. Yes, guys, this is recent history! My parents planned to marry in South Carolina in 1965 where my father was to be stationed next. But it was illegal for blacks and whites to marry there (and in 15 other states). They married in Denmark instead. Yes, this conversation about interracial families is relatively new. I hope the book will spark more conversation about the mixed experience in all of its guises.  (I wrote a forward to a wonderful photo book of interracial couples done by Robert Kalman about this subject.  Check it out!)

In The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, the young narrator, Rachel, finds solace at the library near her high school. She is elated to read a book of poems about a girl who has a white dad and black mom. She's never read anything like that before, and is so glad to find a story similar to her own in a real book. Well, there really is a book like that --and it was awe-inspiring to me when I found it as a teenager at the North Portland Branch of the Multnomah County Library. The book, All the Colors of the Race, was written by Arnold Adoff and illustrated by John Steptoe. It's a wonderful collection of poems reflecting on biracial identity written from a young girl's perspective.  This poem, Sum People, is one of my favorites from the collection.

Sum People by Arnold Adoff

The black man
said
I was a half
breed,
but I told
him
to
check out his
math:
like
one
plus
one.

After I left my job as a corporate litigator, I worked in a few different jobs.   But the job I loved the most was my job as a Life Skills trainer for the NBA and NFL, for Zinc Sports Consulting. What does that mean? We would do skits with the players. I would do a scene with another actor that ended in conflict. We'd do a question and answer--What did he want? What did she want? What could he have said differently? The players would come up with alternative language and then we would invite one onstage to role-play with me. You can hear about the work I did (including the most dramatic moment when one player spilled the beans) on the GameFace podcast, for women who love sports. Erika Boeke has written a wonderful book on the subject--she was a wonderful interviewer and included me in the book with this interview from her book about my work too.

I wrote this book in fits and starts over the course of the last twelve years. (Yes, it took that long.) I knew that I could write the book finished when I discovered Rachel's voice. There were often times I would "hear" things she was thinking even when I wasn't working on the book. Her voice drove the writing and her voice ultimately drives the book! So I was elated to begin listening to the audio version this weekend. That's what Rachel sounds like outside of my head!  Yay!  It's a 6-CD unabridged version of the book--and you can win a copy from Highbridge--enter to win here!  You can also buy the audio version directly from Highbridge.  Enter promo code "Heidi" and get 20% off.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (Algonquin Books) is largely set in Portland, OR. Check out this interactive map of some of the places mentioned in the book. If you click on each location, you'll find an excerpt from the book that mentions the location. Have you been to any of these places too? (Zoom in to see the specific locations by pressing the "+" sign in the upper-left corner until you see 8 blue diamonds, one for each location with a different excerpt.)

Got a copy of the hardcover copy of the book today, AND a copy of the audio version (stay tuned for a giveaway next week). I don't have time to tell you more. I am jubilating and doing a happy muppet dance.

The last animal you might want to no-a-bout (read know about) before you read The Girl Who Fell From the Sky is the moa (read mo-a). The moa was a flightless bird of New Zealand that looked something like an ostrich.The moa was hunted into extinction.

Now, what do these extinct animals have to do with the book? Full disclosure: they are not characters in the book.  But they are all subjects of paintings created by the character Aunt Loretta.  My friend, the talented artist and sculptor Bethany Fancher, introduced me to these animals from her work which you can learn more about at her website and for sale here.

The quagga is an extinct species of zebra. Okay, now what the heck does the quagga or the thylacine have to do with The Girl Who Fell From the Sky?  Well, tune in tomorrow for Fun Fact 40 (I like the alliteration of that) and find out!

Maybe you've never seen a thylacine, but it will help when you read the book to know what one is: Thylacine - "the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. Virtually wiped out in the wild due to constant hunting (they were thought to be a threat to sheep and other small farm animals) and the encroachment of humans on their already limited habitat, the Thylacine was finally recognized as being in danger of becoming extinct in 1936, but much too late." The thylacine is considered extinct.