Church youth director, MFA, baby goats, darlings, Schuler Books, no Kirkus, and Jazz: author Beth Hollar Gier
Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI-MI. In this piece, meet author Beth Hollar Gier.
I grew up along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan in a town called Muskegon. As a kid, I loved riding bikes, playing in the school band, and camping with my family.
Playing in the school band likely fed your love of music. In fact, you studied music in college. What did you hope to do with a degree in music?
I thought I would teach, mainly, and do some freelance playing on the side. I did both of those for a time, then turned my focus to other things.
What early events fed your love of reading and writing?
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| Young Beth |
My mom read to us from the time we were very young, and my dad is a avid reader, so we had quite a few books in the house. We also made frequent trips to the library and the bookmobile made regular stops just down the street. My neighborhood friends and I sometimes sat in someone’s garage on rainy days and read books, which sounds a little strange, I know, but it’s true!
Beth Hollar Gier grew up along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. She studied music at the University of Michigan and worked with middle school and high school students for many years.
How many years did you teach? Did you prefer middle school or high school students? Were you teaching Marching Band?
I taught band and general music (no marching band) in the public schools in New Haven, CT for a short time, but the majority of my work with middle school and high school students happened while I was a church youth director for 15 years or so. It’s hard to say which age group I preferred, but middle school students are wonderful humans – so full of life and questions and goofiness!
Unlike a lot of authors, I didn't start writing stories until I was an adult. I actually studied music in college. But after working with middle school and high school students for many years, I went back to school myself, and earned an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University.
What was your epiphany? The inciting incident that brought you back to school to write?
The weekend before the COVID lock-down happened, my daughter and I – we’d dreamed of writing/illustrating a picture book together – attended a one-day class on writing for children at the Newberry Library in Chicago.
At some point during the day, our instructor, Esther Hershenhorn, mentioned that there were a couple of really good MFA programs in writing for children, and I made note of them.
Anyway – long story short – the pandemic hit, I applied to Hamline and was accepted, and that’s when I got serious about writing. Hamline’s program is life-changing – I encourage anyone thinking about an MFA in writing for kids to check it out.
As one of the more mature students, what was college life like? Specifically pursuing an MFA at Hamline U?
It was wonderful! Hamline is a low-residency program – students attend 5 residencies over the course of their 4 semesters of study. Our cohort’s first 3 residencies were held on Zoom, and then – finally – in July of 2022 we got to meet in person, and it was fabulous.
As one of the more mature students, what was college life like? Specifically pursuing an MFA at Hamline U?
It was wonderful! Hamline is a low-residency program – students attend 5 residencies over the course of their 4 semesters of study. Our cohort’s first 3 residencies were held on Zoom, and then – finally – in July of 2022 we got to meet in person, and it was fabulous.
Our cohort of 12 ranged in age from early 20s to early 60s, and we quickly became fast friends. I still talk with them regularly. I couldn’t be more grateful for the Hamline community.
As a first-time author, everything is new. How did you find an agent? How did you find a publisher for your MG novel-in-verse?
I still don’t have an agent, and I continue to query. I learned about West 44 Books – an imprint that publishes only novels-in-verse – through an NIV FB group. They accept un-agented submissions, so I sent them my materials and heard about 3 months later that they wanted to publish the story.
Some of us older writers despair at being pre-published in a younger publishing world. What effect did your age have in your journey to publishing It’s Like We Touched the Moon?
It’s hard to say. I sent out a lot of queries (for this and a couple other stories) and received a lot of rejections, but I have no way of knowing if any of those rejections had to do with my age.
As a first-time author, everything is new. How did you find an agent? How did you find a publisher for your MG novel-in-verse?
I still don’t have an agent, and I continue to query. I learned about West 44 Books – an imprint that publishes only novels-in-verse – through an NIV FB group. They accept un-agented submissions, so I sent them my materials and heard about 3 months later that they wanted to publish the story.
Some of us older writers despair at being pre-published in a younger publishing world. What effect did your age have in your journey to publishing It’s Like We Touched the Moon?
It’s hard to say. I sent out a lot of queries (for this and a couple other stories) and received a lot of rejections, but I have no way of knowing if any of those rejections had to do with my age.
West 44 Books showed no signs of being concerned about the fact that I’m older than the average age of their other authors, and they were wonderful to work with.
Among the unusual facts about yourself that you list on your website, is this: Even though I’ve always been a city dweller, I have ridden in a vehicle with a baby goat on my lap. Twice.
Okay, now you have to tell the stories.
First time: My kids went to preschool on a farm in Iowa, and I went with them on a field trip to a nearby farm in order to purchase a new goat for the school. Somehow, I ended up in the passenger seat of the van holding and trying to calm a very frightened, tiny goat named Dexter.
Second time: I visited my daughter in Uganda, where she was studying, and we stopped along the road to purchase a goat that would be presented as a gift to her host family. Like Dexter before him, the poor thing was terrified, and I did my best to reassure him.
Likewise, the goose attack. What would you want us to know about geese?
This also happened at the preschool in Iowa. The goose’s name was Oliver and something I did set him off, apparently. He latched on to my leg at the knee and wouldn’t let go until a car drove up and started honking its horn. I now give geese a very wide berth.
So many untold stories: While camping on the Nile, I was awakened by two large monkeys jumping on my tent.
How does one find themselves camping in Egypt? And was it monkeyshines or primate assault and battery? Seems like life keeps handing you potential middle grade novels.
My daughter and I were camping in tents overlooking the Nile near Jinja, Uganda. As the sun rose, a troop of red-tailed monkeys bounded down the bank to the river, catapulting off whatever stood in their path. At first I thought something had fallen on the tent, but what I felt was the monkeys landing and pushing off. It was a pretty cool way to wake up!
You serve as a mentor for the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. How did you get involved? What are your duties as a mentor?
I became involved with MPWW through Hamline. Six times a year, my mentee – who is a very fine and very prolific writer – sends me a packet of work, along with a letter detailing thoughts about the work, questions, etc.
Among the unusual facts about yourself that you list on your website, is this: Even though I’ve always been a city dweller, I have ridden in a vehicle with a baby goat on my lap. Twice.
Okay, now you have to tell the stories.
First time: My kids went to preschool on a farm in Iowa, and I went with them on a field trip to a nearby farm in order to purchase a new goat for the school. Somehow, I ended up in the passenger seat of the van holding and trying to calm a very frightened, tiny goat named Dexter.
Second time: I visited my daughter in Uganda, where she was studying, and we stopped along the road to purchase a goat that would be presented as a gift to her host family. Like Dexter before him, the poor thing was terrified, and I did my best to reassure him.
Likewise, the goose attack. What would you want us to know about geese?
This also happened at the preschool in Iowa. The goose’s name was Oliver and something I did set him off, apparently. He latched on to my leg at the knee and wouldn’t let go until a car drove up and started honking its horn. I now give geese a very wide berth.
So many untold stories: While camping on the Nile, I was awakened by two large monkeys jumping on my tent.
How does one find themselves camping in Egypt? And was it monkeyshines or primate assault and battery? Seems like life keeps handing you potential middle grade novels.
My daughter and I were camping in tents overlooking the Nile near Jinja, Uganda. As the sun rose, a troop of red-tailed monkeys bounded down the bank to the river, catapulting off whatever stood in their path. At first I thought something had fallen on the tent, but what I felt was the monkeys landing and pushing off. It was a pretty cool way to wake up!
You serve as a mentor for the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. How did you get involved? What are your duties as a mentor?
I became involved with MPWW through Hamline. Six times a year, my mentee – who is a very fine and very prolific writer – sends me a packet of work, along with a letter detailing thoughts about the work, questions, etc.
My job is to reply within a month of receiving the packet, with suggestions, edits, notes, and other materials that I think my mentee might find helpful. (All of this goes through MPWW staff and staff at the prison, of course.)
I really enjoy reading my mentee’s work and I am confident I’m learning more from my mentee than they are from me.
It's 1969, school's out, and 13-year-old, NASA-obsessed Grace is already uneasy about the long summer ahead. Her dad is in Vietnam, her mom is distracted by the news, and all her best friend wants to do is hang out at Lake Michigan with the popular kids. When Grace finds out that the local space camp has been designated "boys only," she is devastated. The one thing she thought might save her summer in the end―meeting an actual NASA scientist and hearing him speak―now seems out of reach. But Grace gets busy, engineering a plan that shows everyone Grace can do anything she sets her mind to.
The timing of your book is almost prescient, what with all the attention on Artemis. Where did Grace come from? What’s so special about 1969?
Hasn’t watching the Artemis mission been amazing? In doing the research for this book, I listened to newscasts and recordings of NASA engineers, read newspaper and magazine articles written about Apollo 11 at the time, and – while I think I’d be captivated by Artemis even if I hadn’t done that – I think looking at those sources helped me appreciate even more the wonder of these missions to the moon.
A lot happened in 1969! As if the lunar landing weren’t enough, it was also the year of ongoing anti-war protests, Woodstock, the Stonewall uprising, Charles Manson … the list goes on.
It's 1969, school's out, and 13-year-old, NASA-obsessed Grace is already uneasy about the long summer ahead. Her dad is in Vietnam, her mom is distracted by the news, and all her best friend wants to do is hang out at Lake Michigan with the popular kids. When Grace finds out that the local space camp has been designated "boys only," she is devastated. The one thing she thought might save her summer in the end―meeting an actual NASA scientist and hearing him speak―now seems out of reach. But Grace gets busy, engineering a plan that shows everyone Grace can do anything she sets her mind to.
The timing of your book is almost prescient, what with all the attention on Artemis. Where did Grace come from? What’s so special about 1969?
Hasn’t watching the Artemis mission been amazing? In doing the research for this book, I listened to newscasts and recordings of NASA engineers, read newspaper and magazine articles written about Apollo 11 at the time, and – while I think I’d be captivated by Artemis even if I hadn’t done that – I think looking at those sources helped me appreciate even more the wonder of these missions to the moon.
A lot happened in 1969! As if the lunar landing weren’t enough, it was also the year of ongoing anti-war protests, Woodstock, the Stonewall uprising, Charles Manson … the list goes on.
As far as this story goes, though, I wanted to center it on humankind’s first walk on the moon, so it had to be set in 1969. I was younger than Grace is in 1969, so while I do remember just a little about Apollo 11, I really enjoyed filling in some of the gaps in my knowledge by doing the research for this book.
I think about the wish
I made with Dad
a long time ago.
‘It’s like we touched the moon,’
I murmur. (147)
You wrote the story as a novel-in-verse. Why did you choose that format? What were some of the other versions?
I wanted to write Grace’s story in verse because I felt I had more freedom to convey Grace’s experience and emotions organically. (I also really enjoy poetry.)
I think about the wish
I made with Dad
a long time ago.
‘It’s like we touched the moon,’
I murmur. (147)
You wrote the story as a novel-in-verse. Why did you choose that format? What were some of the other versions?
I wanted to write Grace’s story in verse because I felt I had more freedom to convey Grace’s experience and emotions organically. (I also really enjoy poetry.)
The first version of this story was also in verse, but much longer – close to 25K words. All of the novels-in-verse published by West 44 Books are high/low readers (high interest/low reading level) and they all adhere to certain guidelines. For their middle grade books, the maximum word count is 7000, and the books are written at a 2nd/3rd grade level.
So working with West 44 meant cutting A LOT of words, and it was very challenging. I wanted to be sure the heart of the story was still there when I finished, so I had to choose very carefully which “darlings” to kill.
So working with West 44 meant cutting A LOT of words, and it was very challenging. I wanted to be sure the heart of the story was still there when I finished, so I had to choose very carefully which “darlings” to kill.
The process was painful, at times, but I learned so much while doing it, because each time I had to ask myself, “Can the story survive without this? If I take this out, will the essence of the story change?”
I’m not suggesting we should all cut our manuscripts by 2/3, but for me, asking those questions while working on any story helps me get rid of the extraneous info that the reader doesn’t need to know in order to understand the story.
The book’s main character Grace is praised as one of the reviewer’s “favorite strong resilient girls in literature.” Considering how the rights of women have changed drastically in our lifetime, how brave was Grace to try to bust the boy’s club of Space Camp?
The book’s main character Grace is praised as one of the reviewer’s “favorite strong resilient girls in literature.” Considering how the rights of women have changed drastically in our lifetime, how brave was Grace to try to bust the boy’s club of Space Camp?
In the small-ish, conservative-ish town where Grace lived, she had to be brave in order to challenge the status quo. I give her lots of credit for doing so.
Your book title: It’s Like We Touched the Moon, is all over google. How did you optimize your SEO?
Honestly, I really don’t know! Somehow posts by the publisher, Hamline, my local library, local Indie bookstores, along with a handful of reviews seem to have helped with this
And now what? What are you doing for marketing? Book launches? School visits?
Schuler Books in Ann Arbor hosted my book launch back in September, and it was so much fun! I’m working on setting up school visits for next fall. I am somewhat active on social media, and my kid lit friends are quick to share posts, which I appreciate.
Speaking of marketing, how did you manage to snag so many reviews for your book, including Kirkus?
Interestingly, Google’s AI seems to be hyping my book by spreading misinformation about its reviews. Kirkus didn’t review my book, although I certainly wish they had, but AI persists in saying they gave it a starred review – it’s very strange!
Your book title: It’s Like We Touched the Moon, is all over google. How did you optimize your SEO?
Honestly, I really don’t know! Somehow posts by the publisher, Hamline, my local library, local Indie bookstores, along with a handful of reviews seem to have helped with this
And now what? What are you doing for marketing? Book launches? School visits?
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| Book launch |
Schuler Books in Ann Arbor hosted my book launch back in September, and it was so much fun! I’m working on setting up school visits for next fall. I am somewhat active on social media, and my kid lit friends are quick to share posts, which I appreciate.
Speaking of marketing, how did you manage to snag so many reviews for your book, including Kirkus?
Interestingly, Google’s AI seems to be hyping my book by spreading misinformation about its reviews. Kirkus didn’t review my book, although I certainly wish they had, but AI persists in saying they gave it a starred review – it’s very strange!
The reviews I did get came thanks to the marketing folks at West 44, a small but mighty group, getting the book out there.
What’s next for Beth?
I’m working on a quirky middle grade mystery called (for now) Iris Jones and All That Jazz. I have a draft finished – the revision is going slowly. I’m also working on a handful of picture books and querying a couple of those.
Please list the social media you wish to share:
Instagram: @bethhgier
Website: www.bethgier.com
What’s next for Beth?
I’m working on a quirky middle grade mystery called (for now) Iris Jones and All That Jazz. I have a draft finished – the revision is going slowly. I’m also working on a handful of picture books and querying a couple of those.
Please list the social media you wish to share:
Instagram: @bethhgier
Website: www.bethgier.com
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