I've just sent a revision of my complete manuscript, THREADS, to my new agent, Erzsi Deak, of Hen and Ink Literary. Here's an encapsulated description of this upper middle grade/lower YA novel:
In 1909 during the industrial revolution in North Carolina, a powerless 14-year-old girl has little more to hope for than work in a factory under manipulative mill bosses. But Trilby King, with a voice like a nightingale, has dreams: dreams of going to music school, of teaching others to sing, of leading choirs. When fate disables her parents, Trilby must somehow keep the family afloat. How can she possibly make her dreams come true now? THREADS is a story of determination, family love and conflict, and budding romance. Ultimately, it is the story of how one girl conquers the odds stacked against her and literally finds her voice.
At the beginning of each chapter, I include a stanza from a southern poem from the late 1800's/early 1900's. Here are the lines from Chapter One from a poem, The Grapevine Swing, written in 1892 by an Alabama poet, Samuel Minturn Peck:
Swinging in the grapevine swing,
Laughing where the wild birds sing,
I dream and sigh
For the days gone by,
Swinging in the grapevine swing.
I love the past. I love to read about it and research it. I dream up interesting characters and place them in very particular circumstances, in places and time periods that highlight the significance of that slice of history not only for my characters, then, but for us, now.
I have loved swings all my life, especially the one my father made in the backyard of my childhood home. Constructed of tall steel pipes and thick metal chains, I could swing so high, I felt part of the trees at the top of the arc. The one in my yard today is not as exciting, but it's a great place to curl up with a good book...and it does have a vine growing over it!
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