Giveaway and 5Ws with Marthe Jocelyn

Welcome and hello! Thank you for joining me for the first day of the “Scribbling Women” Blog Tour! Have you come from The Book Tree, another participant in the tour? It’s so fun to be here on the first day! There’s going to be a week of fun introducing readers to author Marthe Jocelyn and the eleven scribbling women she wants you to know.

Scribbling Women: True Tales from Astonishing Lives

Author: Marthe Jocelyn

Hardcover: 208 pages

Publisher: Tundra Books(March 22, 2011)

Synposis:

Scribbling Women is a Young Adult book(but even though I’m far from a Young Adult I enjoyed it) about eleven female writers living in times and places where women weren’t encouraged to write, or do anything besides…well…keep house and take care of babies. Joceylen’s choices span the globe and time: from China to Siberia to the Deep South, from the 9th century to the Victorian Age to the 1950s. If you thought you had it tough trying to squeeze writing time in between a day job and driving your kids to soccer practice try doing it while hunting whales or carrying wounded soldiers on your back!

Each chapter features a different woman, complete with photographs. For the most part the photographs are formal, “sitting pretty in a studio in my best dress” portraits. These photographs make the stories even more amazing, representing how society saw these women instead of the career women, explorers, even criminals that they were.

Review:

At first glance I only knew one of the authors Jocelyn wrote about, Nellie Bly. Who were these women? If asked, I suspect most of these women would answer that they were nobody special. But looking back through the magnifying glass of time it’s fascinating to see how they accomplished things that we take for granted: careers, travel, freedom. While many women were accepting the status quo and doing “what was expected of them” these women forged their own path. And we owe all our knowledge about their accomplishments to these women. They were the ones who took time to record the story of their life.

Reading the stories of these previously unknown women I not only learned about interesting lives but I also gained a new way to look at my own life. I found myself wondering what I would do if I found myself in their situations. Would I have their strength? Resourcefulness? Bravery? Or would I have just stayed home embroidering samplers?

Scribbling Women also made me give myself a shake and approach my own writing goals with a new enthusiasm. If you are a reader who enjoys women’s history or a writer who needs encouragement this book is for you.

5Ws with Marthe Jocelyn

WHEN
When did you first begin writing? When was your first book published?

MARTHE: I occasionally wrote stories or brief travel journals when I was younger, but I was certainly not driven as a writer.

I started to create little one-of-a-kind books when my kids were little, about their adventures, with collaged illustrations from photos and scraps. As they got older, I made up stories and eventually wrote them down. My first book, The Invisible Day, was published in 1997 when I was 41.

WHY
Why do you write so many different types of books? You’ve written picture books, middle readers, YA books, historical books, nonfiction. Do you have a favorite among your books? A favorite genre?

MARTHE:I made a pledge to myself when I started that I would write a book in every children’s book genre before I was done. I think I’m about half way there, but unfortunately I’ve left some of the hardest until last, like fantasy and the easy-reader.

My favourite among my books is an impossible question! I have particular reasons for feeling great affection for almost all of them, even though I’m very aware of the flaws. The obvious comparison is to children, but it’s not too appropriate. An author has way more control over what a book turns out to be than a parent has over a child.

I usually say my favourite genre is whatever I’m not working on at the moment. While writing and re-writing Scribbling Women, for instance, I couldn’t wait to be in the middle of a book where I could just make stuff up! Now that I’m writing fiction again, I remember the terrible ordeal of puzzling out a plot.

WHAT
What would you be if you weren’t a writer?

MARTHE: Before I was a writer I was a designer of toys and clothing for kids. If I hadn’t started making books, I’d probably still be doing something related to that. Since becoming a published writer, I’ve had the chance to do quite a bit of teaching, both in writing and in collage. I can imagine being a teacher – but only in small doses. It is truly the most noble profession

WHERE
Where did you learn about all the fascinating authors in Scribbling Women? Did you already know about them before you thought of the idea for the book or research them after you got the idea?

MARTHE: Some of the writers I’d known about since I was a kid, like Nellie Bly and Harriet Jacobs I’d also cherished an early edition of Daisy Ashford’s book, The Young Visiters. But I gathered many more women through reading and suggestions from friends and librarians. A couple of them I found accidentally. Mary Hayden Russell, for instance, I discovered at the Nantucket Historical Society when I was researching a different person altogether. The entire cast of characters required a LOT of reading!

WHO
Who do you most admire as a “scribbling woman”?

MARTHE: I admire so many writers that I always try to duck under this question. The books I love the most are the ones that make my heart flip over in surprise so that I say,“OH! How did she do that?!?!”

For more information, please visit the Tundra Books website or get your own copy here

Tundra Books is also hosting a huge giveaway for this blog tour. And that’s HUGE with a capital H-U-G-E. You can enter to win a copy of Marthe Jocelyn’s books. And Marthe’s been busy as a bee. She has 28 books ranging from toddlers to young adults in her collection! All you have to do is leave a comment below! For more information and synopses of each of the books, visit Tundra Books. And if you visit the other blogs on the tour you can also enter at each of those blogs for a total of 30 entries!

The contest starts Monday, March 28 and closes on Sunday, April 10. One winner will be randomly selected and announced on Monday, April 11, 2011 to receive the prize.