Because of A Book with Stuart Lutz

This week I have Stuart Lutz on the blog talking about the most influential book that he has read.

Stuart Lutz has always been fascinated by the stories told by older people. Perhaps it started when he was a boy and heard his great-grandparents recount their immigrant voyage to America, their first airplane sighting, and the first time his great-grandmother could legally vote (even though she had been married four years). Also, when he was young, he was intrigued during a family trip to Charleston, South Carolina, when the tour guide pointed out the building that still housed some Confederate widows, even though the Civil War had been over for 125 years. He could not understand how that could be, until the guide explained that some young ladies married much older men who had fought in the Civil War.

Lutz’s interests in history and writing come together in The Last Leaf, an oral history book featuring the stories of almost forty survivors and eyewitnesses to historically important events. Lutz is the only person to have interviewed the last three Civil War widows (the last one died in 2008), but The Last Leaf also features the last American World War I soldier, the final living person to have flown with Amelia Earhart, the final pitcher to give up a home run to Babe Ruth in his historic 1927 season (when Ruth hit sixty home runs), the last suffragette, the final Medal of Honor winner for heroism on Pearl Harbor Day, the last person to have made design contributions to the ENIAC (the first electronic, programmable computer), the final Iwo Jima flag raiser, the last survivor of the sunken Lusitania, the final Harry Houdini stage hand, and the last employees of Thomas Edison and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Each chapter blends the narrative of the “Last Leaves” with historical background so readers can understand what occurred and the long-term importance of each event.

Lutz owns Stuart Lutz Historic Documents, Inc., a firm that sells rare letters and manuscripts (www.HistoryDocs.com). He has written for American Heritage and Civil War Times Illustrated, and appeared on National Public Radio. He has a B.A. in American History from Johns Hopkins.

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My Most Influential Book

By Stuart Lutz

About fifteen years ago, I lived in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Not only is it one of the country’s wealthiest counties, it is one of the showiest too. Everyone, it seemed to me, owned a luxury car, took exotic vacations, and shopped at the local boutiques. And frugal me was driving an old Mitsubishi Colt with 140,000 miles that required bi-monthly repairs, and living in a small apartment in a woman’s subdivided house. It was easy to wonder what I was doing wrong.
I mentioned this conundrum to my uncle, who was then a top executive for one of the country’s most prestigious financial firms. “Most Americans,” he explained to me, “are so far in credit card debt that they will never get out, or they two weeks away from living on the street [his forecast is being proven by today’s foreclosure crisis].” I was momentarily puzzled by what he said, and I responded with, “Perhaps for the little guy, but these people who drive Mercedes, they can’t be two weeks away from foreclosure.” “They frequently are,” he replied. “People who make big money usually spend big money. Or they skip contributing to their retirement funds so that they have no accumulated wealth. I read recently that the average luxury car buyer only makes something like forty or fifty thousand dollars a year. It’s hard to get ahead financially when the price of your car equals your annual salary.”
Soon thereafter, I received a package from my uncle containing The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley and William D. Danko. The book is an academic, yet easily readable, study of people who have at least a million dollars in wealth, excluding the value of their homes. The people profiled include business owners worth seven figures, or others who have frugally saved over a million dollars in their retirement accounts. Stanley and Danko emphasize several characteristics the millionaires generally share, including frugality, a desire for financial independence, self-employment, and an emphasis on saving, investing, and budgeting. The authors define “underaccumulators of wealth” and “prodigious accumulators of wealth,” and introduced me to one of my favorite phrases, “big hat, no cattle.”
The Millionaire Next Door is the most influential book I have read in the past two decades for a few reasons. First, it is my desire to be financially independent. Recent news stories state that the Social Security trust will be exhausted in 2037, about the time I can first collect. If there is not going to be Social Security, then I need to be a “prodigious accumulator of wealth” to retire.
Second, the book showed that the frugality that I learned from my parents is the lifestyle that I want to have. I am just not a Mercedes or BMW person. Instead, I am delighted to drive my seven-year old Toyota with 146,000 miles or my fifteen year old Acura with 206,000 clicks; I prefer them to the slavery of new car payments or a lease. Yet my frugality does not mean all self-denial; my wife and I have twice traveled to Hawaii and Ireland; we just do it in the off-season when rates are cheaper.
I re-read The Millionaire Next Door at least once a year for continued inspiration. But my page-flipping is only the theoretical. As for the actual practice of becoming financially independent, I think of the book once a month when I deposit my hard-earned, hard-saved check into my retirement accounts.
To conclude, I own a business that buys and sells historic documents and letters. I have a client who made a fortune on Wall Street and collects papers related to early financial history. About fifteen years ago, he bought at auction one of the first known American stock certificates for almost $40,000. Subsequently, I bought the letter that should accompany the aforementioned stock, and I sold it to him for nearly $10,000. I met this gentleman at a New England hotel to show him the letter. When we finished our business, we walked out to the parking lot, and he got into a beat-up Buick that looked like it belonged in the local demolition derby. Yet he had spent nearly $50,000 on two sheets of paper. He was living proof of the millionaire next door.

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About The Millionaire Next Door:  The bestselling The Millionaire Next Door identifies seven common traits that show up again and again among those who have accumulated wealth. Most of the truly wealthy in this country don't live in Beverly Hills or on Park Avenue-they live next door. This new edition, the first since 1998, includes a new foreword for the twenty-first century by Dr. Thomas J. Stanley.



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About The Last Leaf:  When we read about famous historical events, we may wonder about the firsthand experiences of the people directly involved. What insights could be gained if we could talk to someone who remembered the Civil War, or the battle to win the vote for women, or Thomas Edison's struggles to create the first electric light bulb? Amazingly, many of these experiences are still preserved in living memory by the final survivors of important, world-changing events.
In this unique oral history book, author and historic document specialist Stuart Lutz records the stories told to him personally by people who witnessed many of history's most famous events. Among many others, Lutz interviewed:

-the final three Civil War widows (one Union and two Confederate)
-the final pitcher to surrender a home run to Babe Ruth
-the last suffragette
-the last living person to fly with Amelia Earhart
-the final American World War I soldier
-the last surviving employees of Thomas Edison, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Harry Houdini.

The wide-ranging stories involve humor (the 1920 Olympic medalist who stole the original Olympic flag), tragedy (the last survivor of the 1915 Lusitania sinking), heroism (the final Medal of Honor recipient for actions on Pearl Harbor Day), and eyewitnesses to great events (one of the last scientists at the first nuclear chain reaction, and the final Iwo Jima flag raiser).
In more than three-dozen chapters, Lutz blends background information in a lively narrative with the words of the interviewees, so that readers not familiar with the historical episodes described can understand what occurred and the long-term significance of the events.

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Because of A Book with Hannah Daniel

Today's Because of A Book guest is a blogger.  Please help me welcome Hannah Daniel to the blog!  Here is a little about her:

Hannah Daniel read everything she could get her hands on as soon as she learned how at age five, and she hasn’t stopped since. She continued her love of reading and writing with a journalism degree from The University of Texas. Now she writes for a company that helps people find an affordable dental insurance alternative and manages the 1Dental blog.

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One of my favorite books growing up was “The Phantom Tollbooth,” by Norton Juster, published in 1961. It’s a fairy tale of the most peculiar kind, beginning when a little boy named Milo is bored and comes home from school to find a large package addressed to him. It contains a magical tollbooth, and as soon as he drives through it in his toy car, he’s off on an adventure.

Rather than running into your average dragon or evil stepmother, he faces foes like the Senses Taker and the very short Officer Shrift. His faithful companion is a “watchdog” named Tock with a large timepiece in his side. He must travel from Dictionopolis to Digitopolis and rescue the princesses Rhyme and Reason before discord and disharmony take over the Kingdom of Wisdom.

They run into many unusual characters along the way like the Dodecahedron, who has 12 faces, each with a different emotion. Many of his situations come from taking English idioms literally. For example, when he makes an assumption early in the trip, he is whisked over to the Island of Conclusions. He learns why it’s important not to jump there again, because it can get you into trouble.

The play on words is even more brilliant for adults than it is for children, who may just find it an interesting adventure story. I loved to read as a child, and my mother took the time to explain the plays on words to me. I reread it several times and got something new out of it every time. To this day, I love all the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the English language. I owe that love largely to this book.

I love words, and I really enjoy writing – it’s part of my profession. The Phantom Tollbooth introduced me to the vast world of language, and how it is much bigger than it seems at first glance.

The pictures are some of the most charming I’ve ever seen, but this is no mere picture book. If you have any love whatsoever for letters or numbers and their nuances, the small novel will enchant you from page one.

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About The Phantom Tollbooth:  This ingenious fantasy centeres around Milo, a bored ten-year-old who comes home to find a large toy tollbooth sitting in his room. Joining forces with a watchdog named Tock, Milo drives through the tollbooth's gates and begins a memorable journey. He meets such characters as the foolish, yet lovable Humbug, the Mathemagician, and the not-so-wicked "Which," Faintly Macabre, who gives Milo the "impossible" mission of returning two princesses to the Kingdom of Wisdom... 

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Fiona Ingram interviews Danika Dinsmore

I am currently out of town, at a conference, so Fiona Ingram was gracious enough to post in my absence.  Thank you for this great interview, Fiona!

About Fiona Ingram: Fiona Ingram (B.A., Hons. (Natal), M.A., (Wits)) was born and educated in South Africa. Her interest in ancient history, mystery, and legends, and her enjoyment of travel has resulted in The Secret of the Sacred Scarab, the first in her exciting children’s adventure series—Chronicles of the Stone. The first book was inspired by an actual trip the author took to Egypt with her two young nephews (then aged 10 and 12). The Secret of the Sacred Scarab was a Finalist in the Children’s/Juvenile Fiction category of the 2009 USA Next Generation Indie Book Awards; Finalist in the Children’s Fiction section of the USA National Best Books 2009 Awards.

It was also a Winner in the Preteen category of the 2009 Readers’ Favorites 2009 Awards. The book was nominated Number 2 in the Top 10 Favourite Books of 2009 for Kids, Tweens and Teens in The Children’s & Teens Book Connection. It has also won a Silver medal in the Teen Fiction category of the 2010 Nautilus Book Awards. The book was a Finalist in the 2010 International Book Awards

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Escape to an Enchanted World with Brigitta of the White Forest

My guest today is Danika Dinsmore, an award-winning writer, spoken word artist, and educator. Danika has been working with children of all ages for 18 years. Faerie Tales from the White Forest is her first novel series. Brigitta of the White Forest is Book One of Faerie Tales from the White Forest.

Danika grew up in Northern California. She earned her MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics (founded by Allen Ginsberg). Her early writing career was built on experimental poetry and collaborative spoken word performances. While living in Seattle, she organized and performed with the 12-person Word Orchestra as well as the performance group FourWord FourTete. Her inspired performances earned her the Washington Poets Association award for Performance Poetry. After moving to British Columbia she turned her attention to film, television, and new media. She has worked as an artist-in-the-schools and media literacy educator for Learning Through the Arts and has taught screenwriting courses in the Writing Department at Vancouver Film School and at Capilano University. She blogs about her multi-disciplined writing life as The Accidental Novelist. She currently lives with her husband and their spoiled cat in Vancouver.

Let’s take a look at Brigitta of the White Forest. Brigitta is a young Water Faerie from the village-nest of Tiragarrow. She’s anxious about going through The Change, as she doesn’t see how destiny markings on her wings should determine her life’s path. A few days before the annual Festival of the Elements, Brigitta is flying an errand with her tag-a-long sister when a mysterious curse turns everyone in the White Forest to stone, except for the two of them. They have no idea why they were not cursed, but they do know if they don’t turn everyone back in time for the festival rituals, the Hourglass of Protection will run out and so will its protective field around the forest. With no one in their forest left to help them, they must leave the protected realm to seek an exiled faerie they have only heard about in ancient tales.

Q&A with Danika

Fiona: Your two main characters are sisters. Is your book specifically aimed at girls?

Danika: I don't know the exact stats for publishing, but it seems to be a collective agreement that young girls read more than young boys. You always hear of people looking for ways to get young boys to read, at least in North America. I'm not sure if it's the same thing in other parts of the world. After I wrote the novel, a few people did ask if I could make one of the sisters a boy (Brigitta and Himalette are the main characters, Himmy is the younger sister). But really it would have been impossible to change either of them. They have a sisterly relationship. The relationship between sisters and brothers is a completely different dynamic. I know, I had two brothers.

Fiona: You wear two hats being in both publishing and films. What are your observations on the boy: girl ratio of viewers and heroes/heroines?

Danika: In the film and TV industry, it's quite the opposite to books where girls are the main readership. The largest movie-going audience is boys age 15-25 (interestingly enough, the 2nd largest movie going audience is women over 50). But, there are a lot of us who think this statistic was created by the industry because of the type of films that are made and marketed. It was self-fulfilling. I used to be on the board of directors of Women in Film and Television Vancouver. The statistics for women in "above the line" positions (i.e. those who have creative control over films) is staggeringly low. Until this most recent Oscars, no woman had ever won best director for a motion picture. 84 years! And, due to the preponderance of males in "above the line" positions, the trickledown effect is that there are a low percentage of female protagonists in films. Last summer I was looking at the marquees for the three leading theatres in town and NOT ONE film had a female protagonist. Not even the animated ones. Remember the animated film "Up"? There were no females in that movie except the protag's wife... who died.

Fiona: You started out originally in film. How has this influenced your writing?

Danika: This novel was originally a screenplay. I'm a screenwriter turned novelist. We always hear about novels becoming screenplays, but not much the other way around. And almost all my screenplays have strong female leads. It's been very important to me to write female heroes and to not use female stereotypes (well, I stay away from stereotypes in general anyway). So, yes, I had purposefully written this with female leads because I feel strongly about strong female leads in films.

Then I wrote the screenplay as a novel. I'd never written a novel before. I decided to do so because I thought there was so much more to this story. More than I could develop in a screenplay format. Screenplays are quite economic. When a novelist tries to write a screenplay, it's probably quite painful, because it's so minimalistic in comparison. You only write what you see (and hear) on screen. And even then, you don't describe anything too much because that's the set decorator's job. Also, I was concerned about rights. I knew I had something with Brigitta. I had written several screenplays, but instinctively I knew there was something special about this one.

Fiona: Who will read your book and why?

Danika: Even though my demographic will probably be marketed as girls aged 9-14, there have been men in their 40s that have read and enjoyed this book. That's because it's a real adventure story. This isn't a Disney fairy tale. This isn't Tinkerbell. This is a "hero's journey" into a dark and frightening place. Sure, there is comedy relief, but there are some quite scary moments. And the second book is even darker than the first. I think that's what happens when you delve deeper into something, it naturally gets darker.

It's also a coming-of-age for a girl who doesn't quite believe in herself. And the theme of "what is destiny?" runs through it. Are we in control of our destiny, or do things have an unalterable course?

Fiona: Did you ever think you’d write a novel?

Danika: When I was 15 I thought I wanted to be a novelist. I kept starting to write books and never finishing them. Then I discovered the magic of poetry, so that's the direction I went in. I even got my MFA in Writing and Poetics. And poetry is really my first love. I went from poetry to screenwriting, which isn't as much of a leap as one might think. They are both about economy of words, beats/rhythm, and imagery. To me, both are about what you SEE, and what is not said.

To answer your question, No, I never thought I'd actually write a novel. It seemed like such a daunting task. Too many words! Too much responsibility! But then I realized how wonderfully liberating it was! I'd been writing in such a restricted format. I became the director, cinematographer; set decorator, stunt coordinator, actor ... everything! It was so wonderful to be able to go into a character's head. So wonderful to describe things I didn't have the room to do so in the script. I got to add scenes! It became a richer, deeper, darker story.

Fiona: Now that you’ve gone and done it, how do you feel?

Danika: I'm excited that I can finally share it with the world. It scares me, though, because now I've created this entirely new world and I want to keep exploring it, so I hope people like it enough for me to continue on. That's what's really unique about this series. This imaginary world in which all the stories take place. It’s a place no one's gone before! That's what tickles me about it.

Fiona: What’s next after you finish Faerie Tales from the White Forest?

Danika: I don’t know what will happen after I finish this series, but I'd love to write a YA novel, something a bit more realistic. Perhaps a little magical realism? And I want to write some books about writing and teaching writing, because I have a lot to say about that. I've been teaching creative writing for 20 years.

Fiona: Thanks for being my guest today, Danika. Readers who’d like to know more about Danika’s work can visit her book website. Danika’s poetry Every Day Angels & Other Near-Death Experiences is also available on Amazon.

Visit Danika's worlds:
http://thewhiteforest.com
http://theaccidentalnovelist.wordpress.com


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Brigitta link http://entheospress.com/index.php?page=brigitta

Danika’s poetry http://www.amazon.com/Every-Angels-Other-Near-Death-Experiences/dp/0975404202/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

Another good interview that focuses on the book and makes an interesting link is http://www.examiner.com/x-7597-Childrens-Books-Examiner~y2010m4d21-You-can-accidentally-become-a-novelist An interview by Lori Calabrese, National Children’s Book Examiner.