From Two Continents, to Vermont! Meet the Authors of the Jaguar Stones ...

J&P Voelkel co-write and illustrate The Jaguar Stones books, an adventure series for 10-14 year-olds, set in the jungles of the Maya. Jon grew up in Latin America, while Pamela grew up in England. They met while working at an advertising agency in London, and now live in Vermont with their three children.

The Jaguar Stones series was inspired by their children's favorite bedtime story - which was, in turn, inspired by Jon's exciting real-life childhood. There are currently three books in the series: Book One: Middleworld, Book Two: The End of the World Club, and Book Three: The River of No Return. J&P are currently writing the fourth and final book (as yet untitled) which will be published in 2014.

The story begins when Boston teenager Max Murphy arrives in the Central American country of San Xavier to search for his archaeologist parents. He soon teams up with Lola, a modern-day Maya girl, who teaches him how to survive in the perilous rainforest. But deadly snakes and spiders are soon the least of their worries as they struggle to outwit the villains of the Maya underworld. For fate has delivered a challenge of epic proportions to Max and Lola: only they can solve the mystery of the Jaguar Stones and save the planet (and Max's parents) from the evil Lords of Death.

To research the Jaguar Stones series, J&P (and their intrepid children) have visited over forty Maya sites across Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico. They’ve canoed underground rivers, tracked howler monkeys in the jungle, talked to contemporary Maya people, and met with leading Maya archaeologists. The result is a rip-roaring adventure, and an accurate portrayal of an incredible civilization.

To keep up the fun between books, readers are invited to join the Jaguar Stones Club for quizzes, news, and giveaways. A cross-curricular lesson plan CD on the Maya and the rainforest is available free to teachers from www.jaguarstones.com

Bring On the Marionettes!

Be kind to your yew trees, friends, or yew'll be in trouble! In Wright's latest mystery, Broken Strings, failed actress Fay Hubbard goes into shock when she finds a puppeteer friend dead of poisoned yew and the friend's sister hung like a marionette from a bathtub rod. So Fay carries on the troupe with the help of foster kids Chance, Apple and Beets. Set on a goat farm in Branbury, Vermont, the novel's cast of characters also includes a feisty octogenarian, an absentminded psychic, a shy signmaker who drives a veggie oil mobile, a fractious jailbird on parole, and a drop-dead French teacher. Fay herself walked out of the author's earlier dairy farm series, and seems happy with her new role as puppeteer sleuth.  Burlington-based Very Merry Theatre will present a marionette show at Phoenix Books June 13 to launch the novel. -- Nancy Means Wright

VT's 1st Mobile Book Launch

From author J.P. Choquette:

"When are you going to have a launch party?"

Several friends and Facebook acquaintances asked this question soon after my first book, 'Epidemic,' was released in March. At first, I thought, "Sure! Absolutely. Real authors have launch parties. I'll do that."

But when I took a step back to see if a launch party fit into my marketing plan, I discovered, it didn't. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. One of my goals as an author is to take some risks and do things a little outside the box. For a former color-within-the-lines girl, this can be somewhat of a challenge. Luckily, I have a streak, just as strong, that encourages individuality. While this can make for a Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde complex at times, it also keeps my life from ever being dull!

So, I decided, I would have a launch party. . .but one that I took to the streets.



Vermont's 1st Mobile Book Launch

There's so much noise in the publishing world, so much pressure to be "connected" all the time in ways that, sadly, involve sitting behind our computer screens. I wanted to do something that would get me right in front of real people. A big, fat float in the St. Albans Maple Festival, I thought, would do just that.

The parade, an hour and a half affair that hundreds (thousands?) attended was a lot of fun. It was also hot, especially for my poor volunteers who were wearing head-to-toe chemical suits and running to keep up with our "mobile hospital" complete with cots and patients.

But fun? Absolutely. And just one step of many I hope, on a long, unusual, author adventure.

Spring and the Writing Life: From Author Beth Kanell

The weather is bigger than all of us -- that's what I say all winter, when I commit to events and deadlines. If there's an ice storm or a serious blizzard, plans will be rearranged.

Spring weather can be almost as demanding: The yard needs raking, the garden needs digging and planting. But I also have books that need writing! So I try for a balance -- do an hour of editing or research, then take twenty minutes to rake. Write a chapter (even if it's a rough draft), then turn over the soil in the main garden, or weed one of the raised beds. I keep the window open next to the desk, and listen to the birds courting.

The distractions of spring are also pushing me toward late-night desk work, when I can try to interpret the cries of peepfrogs as cheering me onward to the next page.

I'm drafting one of my books longhand this time ("Charlie's Place," with co-author Sue Tester), keeping another entirely online, and moving into the final chapters of the teen sleuth mystery I've been writing in public on Wattpad for a year now: All That Glitters (http://www.wattpad.com/story/1067854-all-that-glitters-chapter-1). When spring threatens again, and again, to pull me away from the desk, at least I can plan the next plot twist while planting the peas!

Welcome to Debut Suspense Author J.P. Choquette and EPIDEMIC

With her new medical-terror thriller EPIDEMIC, set in St. Albans, J.P. Choquette has launched her writing career this spring. As you'll discover when you meet her at her book events, the author of this fast-paced book of Vermont suspense might have had a tough time using her "real name" on her books -- "Joy" would have been quite a contrast to the mystery genre that she has chosen!

Her blog often features information and decisions about the rapidly changing world of writing and publishing (she chose to self-publish EPIDEMIC) and is a good read: http://www.scaredecat.com. Her April 28 "Mobile Book Launch" stakes out new terrain and sounds like a lot of fun!

For more on EPIDEMIC, check the review here. And come meet J.P. Choquette at this year's Vermont Book Shelf author events, as well as the ones she lists on her own website.

Vermont Book Shelf authors Nancy Means Wright, J.P. (Joy) Choquette, and Beth Kanell

Eyes on the Writer: David Stahler Jr. and the Owl

Recently, author David Stahler Jr. posted photos and a description of his writing space (click here to see!) -- and a few days later he had this wonderful visitor return:

The owl friend I referenced in my "Where I Write" post for The Vermont Bookshelf came back this afternoon. Was able to steal a pic from my writing desk.

Something especially beautiful and alien about this species. I can see why they were associated with magic... -- David Stahler Jr.

VERMONT, from author Liz Rosenberg

            It's a pleasure today to welcome guest author Liz Rosenberg -- an author with powerful connections to Vermont.

           Whenever I need a calm and beautiful place to go, I travel in memory to beneath an old apple tree on The Commons at Bennington College.  In spring the branches were wild with white blossoms; in winter, dense with sprays of snow. Red apples clung to the tree, small and wrinkled and vivid as Chinese lanterns.

            The first published story I  wrote began with a description of that tree.  My first novel was set in a fictional Bennington, disguised as a high school of music. Vermont got into my blood early, and stayed a long time.

            The first time I set foot in the state, it was late May. Lilacs were in bloom, and that made Vermont smell like home. (Our own backyard on Long Island was tiny, but full of lilacs.) I promptly bought a Vermont calendar, subscribed to Vermont Life and applied to only one college, gambling that I’d get in.

            We students lived in boxy white New England-style dorm houses with green shutters, like elderly children playing at house.  It was in Bennington, at five in the morning, that my first husband came to me at dawn and told me he loved me. I remember reeling out onto that same Commons lawn in a white nightgown, trying to take it in.

            Of course, not all my memories of Vermont are so pastoral. For years after, I suffered recurring nightmares about skidding on black ice—an indescribable and unforgettable experience of falling out of control in slow motion. I remember mud season. Houseflies bumping against window panes, heavy as coins. But most of all, I still remember that lone apple tree, its wet bark shining, those shriveled red apples hanging suspended as planets against the sky. It was the first time I consciously lived in a beautiful place, and perhaps that is one of the purposes of beauty—to give us always a place to come home to.  

Liz Rosenberg went to Bennington College, where she met her first husband, the late novelist John Gardner. She now lives and works in upstate New York. Her newest novel, THE LAWS OF GRAVITY, will be out this May from the new Amazon Publishers.