Book Birthday Blog With Wendy BooydeGraaff

 

Welcome to SCBWI-MI's Book Birthday Blog!

Where we celebrate new books from Michigan's authors, illustrators and translators.

 

Congratulations to Wendy BooydeGraaff on the release of The Haunted States of America

 

You are a contributing author to the book. Tell us about the submission process for the anthology.

SCBWI put out a call for submissions for a middle grade anthology of spooky stories, one from each state in the United States, to be published in collaboration with Henry Holt/Godwin Books. This sounded fun to me—I love both horror and middle grade, and the idea of putting them together—well, I got to work. I wrote, revised, brought the story to my critique group, revised again, had a few more readers look at it, and then I submitted it.
 
I tried to forget about it. I worked on other things. A year and two months passed before I received the email informing me that my story was chosen to represent Michigan.   

What was the inspiration for your story? 

First, I remember hearing about The Bermuda Triangle as a child, and being completely entranced with the idea of a mysterious place where ships and planes disappear.
 
Michigan, too, has such a place. The Michigan Triangle is found over the deepest part of Lake Michigan where all sorts of spooky happenings have taken place since the 1800s. Ships have vanished, blocks of ice have fallen from the sky, a flight over the lake disappeared—all without wreckage or evidence. Not until recently have aerial photos and deep-sea dives provided proof of over 1500 shipwrecks in Lake Michigan. I wanted to write about that.
 
Second, I had gone with my family on a vacation to Ludington, where we visited Big Sable Point Lighthouse, which is said to be haunted by one of its keepers. I knew the story had to be rooted in a specific place and time, and I decided on a summer vacation in Ludington.
 
Third, I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books as a child, and had been thinking about writing in that style. So the story came to me in second person. I had a lot of fun with it! 

Salad Pie, a picture book, was your first published book. You also write short fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction which has been published in magazines and literary journals. Tell us more about your creative process and if you have a favorite genre.

My creative process is messy! Also, moody. When I sit down to write, I usually have a form in mind, based on the character or setting I intend to explore. I get down whatever it is, fairly quickly. The longer I write, the messier it is, and by that I mean, it’s filled with fragments and placeholder words and dashes. I usually do my first drafts on my laptop.
 
I try to stay with one project long enough so I can see its final shape in my mind’s eye, because when I pick it up again, I want to remember what I was trying to do initially, while also letting it sit for long enough so that I can revise clearly. The first drafts are a haze, while my revision process is honed and precise.
 
I really love poetry, fiction, nonfiction, each of them in their own way, and I read widely. If you really pressed me, I’d say fiction is where I’m most at home, with the short story form being one of my favourite spaces to spend time. But I can’t live in one literary world; I crave all of it.

What are your marketing plans for the book and where can we find it?

Because anthologies have more than one author, events usually have a few contributors. There will be several events around the country, and I am in the process of organizing a few bookstore and panel events with contributors in adjacent states. I’ll be joining Shanna Heath, who wrote the Ohio story, in Kalamazoo’s Book Bug on July 9. You can follow @mackidsbooks on Twitter, Instagram, and/or TikTok, and you can check the news and events sections of my website where I post any signings, panels, or readings. We’ve begun a Spotify playlist for the book too.

What's next for you?

I have a few poems coming out in literary journals, and I’m collaborating on a middle grade project with a fellow writer and friend. The Haunted States of America will be out July 9, 2024, but it's available for preorder now!

More about the book . . .

From the publisher: Fifty two different stories. Fifty two different Authors. Endless fright for all ages.

Every state has an urban legend that evokes fear and curiosity in equal parts, and we've chronicled all of these logic-defying horrors here in The Haunted States of America anthology.

From the Jersey Devil to La Llorona, each story included introduces a new chill inducing, stomach churning monster, spectre, or poltergeist certain to keep you up at night. A broad ranging collection of authors, including seasoned veterans and some first timers making a fright-tastic debut, have all united to unearth the scariest lore from each state in the US, as well as D.C. and Puerto Rico. Make sure to strap in for this spooky cross country tour, but be extra careful not to let any of these terrors follow you home. 

Publisher: Godwin Books/Henry Holt

More about the author . . .

Wendy BooydeGraaff is the author of Salad Pie (Chicago Review Press/Ripple Grove Press, 2016), and her middle grade short story will be included in the upcoming SCBWI-edited anthology The Haunted States of America (Henry Holt, 2024). Her short fiction, poems, and essays have been included in Crow Toes Quarterly (a middle grade magazine), Phoebe, The Worcester Review, the Not Very Quiet anthology (Recent Work Press), and the Under Her Eye anthology (Black Spot Books). She is the SCBWI-Michigan Critique Carousel Coordinator for 2024.

@BooyTweets

https://www.wendybooydegraaff.com/