Happy
Monday Everyone! Today I’m excited to have debut author Terry Catasús
Jennings
here to share about her fourth chapter book this year, Definitely Dominguita
Sherlock Dom. It sounds like a fun mystery story for younger middle graders.
I’m looking forward to reading the series.
Here’s
a blurb from Goodreads:
Judy Moody meets the Diary of a Future
President remake in this fourth story in a chapter book series
featuring a young Cuban American girl who tries to find adventure based on the
classic stories she read with her beloved abuela.
Dom is excited to join her friend, Steph, for a mini vacation. They are going
to visit Steph’s grandmother in Virginia, where Dom hopes they can continue to
have a lot of fun adventures. As soon as they arrive, they find that Gran’s
neighbors have lost their goat! There are some mysterious footprints near the
goat pen that lead to the marsh. Dom decides to use the methods of her favorite
detective, Sherlock Holmes—observing the basics, using all her senses, and
talking it through with her trusty friend—to try and bring the little goat back
home.
Follower News
Before I get to my interview with Terry, I want to share Follower News. C. Lee
McKenzie has released a new YA contemporary Shattered. Here’s a blurb: Courage put Libby Brown into
the final selection for the Olympics, but betrayal crushed her spine and her
chance at the Gold. Now she has two choices, use her courage to put her life
back together, or remain shattered forever. And here are some links. FYI the
giveaway contest ends today so hurry to enter for your chance to win. Links:
Buylink: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JYYJG7V/ref=sr_1_1
Blog: https://cleemckenziebooks.com
Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/C.-Lee-McKenzie/e/B0042M1KYW%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
Giveaway: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/68593c7622/?
Lynda Young has a nonfiction release, Cling to God 365-Day
Devotional. Here’s a blurb: This special devotional
book is a year-long journey with daily inspirational messages and uplifting
scripture to help you spend time with God. With 365 days of short Bible-based
teachings, it is faith building and thought provoking. It will encourage and refresh
with reassuring reminders of God’s love. And here are some links:
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HBMG3L8
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KN4H1RZ
Hardcover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KNCWNCV
Interview With Terry Catasús Jennings
Hi Terry! Thanks so much for joining us.
1. Tell us about
yourself and how you became a writer.
Hi Natalie, thank you
so much for having me at Literary Rambles. I was born in Cuba and I came to the
United States when I was twelve years old. I didn’t know any English, so those
first few months were a little rough, but at least my family was safe. My
father had been put in jail in Cuba during the Bay of Pigs invasion so we were
very lucky that he was freed and that we were able to come to the United States
so it wouldn’t happen again.
I have always wanted
to write, and stories have always rolled around my head, but in high school, a
creative writing teacher told me I couldn’t use the word “strident” in a story
because, since I was Cuban, it couldn’t possibly be part of my vocabulary.
Well, it just so happened that it was, in Spanish, and I got myself out of her
class and never looked at writing again. Stupid, right? But it really hurt. In
all honesty, I might not have become a writer anyway. Immigrants need good
jobs. Secure jobs. So I majored in math. But those stories kept rolling around
my head. I’d report (in my head) on things that happened to me, always making
them come out a lot better and funnier than they had actually been. I always
found the perfect come back. It wasn’t until I was fifty, that I finally was
able to give writing a try. I joined a writer’s group in Reston, Virginia, my home
town and it happened to be a writer’s group for children, but they took me in
even though I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. I wrote a story about
teaching my daughter to drive and it was published in The Washington Post.
From that point on,
for me, it was “Let’s see what else I can do.” I did some free-lancing to see
if I could get published, and I could. And then I wrote for the Smithsonian,
science stories for kids—I loved doing that. And then I started writing other
science based narrative non-fiction. Four books from Arbordale Publishers. I
did work for hire, all educational. The Definitely Dominguita series is the
first book/series I have with a major publisher, Simon and Schuster. It released
in March of this year. The last book that has been sold, Sherlock Dom, will come
out tomorrow, November 16. I hope there will be more.
2.
That’s awesome how you started writing. Where did you get the idea for the
Definitely Dominguita series and your newest book, Sherlock Dom? Did you draw
on your own life as a Cuban-American?
Oh, Natalie, the series pretty much birthed
itself. My dad was a huge fan of Don Quijote and one day, a character showed up
in my head while I was blowing leaves. He told me his name was Don Capote, and
he was wearing a cape. That is totally uncharacteristic for me, but honestly,
that happened. Of course, when I discussed the idea with my daughter she was
scandalized. It could NOT be a boy. It had to be a girl. Thus Dominguita was
born. In the first book she goes by Dom Capote. Her quest is to prove that a girl
can be a worthy knight. Although Dom does not believe in rescuing damsels in
distress like Don Quijote did, she does do some rescues and she even fights a
windmill. All the adventures take place now, but some of the scenes are
inspired by what happened in a particular classic.
I did draw on my life as a Cuban-American. I was very friendly with the owner of the
bodega I passed every day walking to school. I patterned the shopkeepers
Dominguita befriends after that relationship. I can’t say that there is one
person in particular, but I always remember adults treating me as an equal, and
not talking down to me, and I appreciated that. My shopkeepers, my secondary
characters, are very much like that. Of
course, there is a lot of Cuban food in Dominguita. I actually use food as a
metaphor in the books—try it you’ll like it!
I invite kids to have that attitude not only toward Cuban food, but also
toward Cuban-American kids—any hyphenated kids.
3.
That’s great that your story came to you. How did you plot out your series? Did
you do it before you wrote the first book or as you wrote each one? What advice
do you have for other writers who want to write a chapter book or other middle
grade series?
I hate to say it, but I am a plotter. I
normally write the first chapter of a book, and then I know where I hope to
end, and I write the outline of what happens in the middle. For the Dominguita books, I had a little bit
different approach, while still outlining. I read and re-read the classics. I
chose the iconic scenes of the books that I wanted to include in my books. I
told you the scenes I included in The Knight of the Cape. For Captain
Dom, which is inspired by Treasure Island, I have a villain very much
patterned after Long John Silver and Dom blabs just like the Squire blabbed in Treasure
Island. It is a race to the loot between the good guys and the bad guys
just like Treasure Island. The Three
Musketeers was a little trickier. There is a lot of love, lust, betrayal
and even a beheading in that book. How can you bring that down to something
suitable for third grade protagonists? In Sherlock Dom I took The
Hound of the Baskervilles as my guide. Once I have the scenes from the
classic book, I put them in order and then I decide what kid-like adventure I
can hang on these scenes. Once the outline is written, it tends to be fairly
straight forward to get to the first draft. Then I do a revision just to
sharpen the humor. And then many more revisions before it’s ready to go.
4.
You’ve had four books in this series release this year. Yikes, that sounds like
a lot of books to write and publish so quickly. Even though chapter books are
shorter, yours are still all over 100 pages each. What is your writing process
like and how long did it take you to write each book?
Yikes is right. It was intense. I was not only
writing four books, but also while I was writing new books, I was editing the
text and the artwork for the prior books. I figured it out recently, the
four-book series is about 70,000 words, so that’s very respectable. The first
book was written and polished with my agent before the series was submitted. Before
I submitted to my agent, though I also wrote a first draft of book two to make
sure that I could do it—that is carry the voice, have fresh adventures, fresh
interactions. To make sure that book 2, Captain Dom’s Treasure, was
still interesting enough. So as soon as the series sold, I began working and
polishing Captain Dom. While my
editor, Aly Heller, had the manuscripts, I wrote the outline for All for
One, I wanted to make sure I could still make it enough like The Three
Musketeers even though I didn’t have love, lust, betrayals and beheadings.
And it was a good thing. I had to write that one in three weeks. And there
weren’t that many edits. I spent about six weeks writing Sherlock Dom.
And then, of course, there is the re-writing. The only book that had
significant developmental edits was Captain Dom. I was bound and
determined to have the third grade equivalent of walking the plank and my
editor was bound and determined that I had to be nice. Of course, she won. And
the book is wonderful because of it.
5.
Share a challenge you’ve had in writing Sherlock Dom and how did you overcome
it?
You hit the nail on the head and we didn’t even
talk about this. I did have a big challenge in writing Sherlock Dom. The
primary characters are Dom and her two sidekicks—Pancho, a Cuban-American boy
and Steph, a US-American girl. My thought was to have Sherlock Dom be a
girl power book. Dom and Steph don’t need Pancho to solve the mystery. They can
solve the mystery on their own. Great idea, right? The threesome in the book is
very collaborative—they solve the problems together. Sometimes one person goes
off the deep end with an idea and the others reel her or him back in. Other
times someone obstinately clings to another idea and the other two have to show
that person where the logic breaks down.
Going from a group of three where, as they are trying to brainstorm and
make plans, they arrive at consensus based on the majority, to a group of just
two where it’s my idea against your idea was disastrous. It sounded like to old
women bickering. When the girls had the idea to bring Pancho in, not as an
arbiter, but so he could share in the excitement, everything began to flow
smoothly. With a third person it was easy to arrive at a consensus with humor
and without hurt. So I gave Dom a pocket in her overalls where she could keep the
phone with Pancho so he could participate and she could have her hands free.
Although the girls carried the day, he even came up with an idea or two to help
solve the mystery.
6.
Your agent is Natalie Lakosil. How did she become your agent and what was your
road to publication like?
I picked Natalie for my critique at an SCBWI
conference in New Jersey because she represented both fiction and non-fiction,
middle grade and picture books. She just seemed like the perfect fit for me
from the description. Then I I scored being her facilitator for her workshop. I
fell in love. She is so down to earth. Her workshop was dynamic and full of
information. When it came time for my critique she said send me the full and
let’s just talk. So we did. And I figured if she picked me I would be in heaven.
And she did!!! I think it was a month after I sent her the full. She was on vacation in Croatia and she sent
me an e-mail and said she’d thought about waiting till she got back but then
she decided Let’s do it! She has been
amazing.
That particular story which Natalie and I loved
so much, which was about my childhood in Cuba, didn’t do very well. We pulled
it back after two rounds and actually I’m still working on that. It is now a
novel in verse if you can imagine. Natalie’s really sweet though. When she told
me that we had to pull back the Cuba book, she coupled it with the news that
she was submitting a picture book, The Little House of Hope, which we
both liked very much. So it was bad news with a little bit of hope at the end.
Well, in a couple of hours she wrote to tell me Neal Porter was interested and
in two weeks we had an offer. So that was stupendous. That one is coming out on
May 16th. Raúl Colón is the illustrator and I couldn’t be happier
with it. Can’t wait to share it because it’s been three years in the making.
Not long after we sold The Little House, I floated the idea of a kid who
pretends to be characters in the classics and Natalie was absolutely behind it.
I wrote it, we polished it and the series sold very, very quickly. We also sold Pauli Murray, the Pioneering
Life of a Feminist and Civil Rights Activist and that is coming out on
January 4, 2022. It was pulled up from November 2022 to January, 2022.
7.
Wow! What a great story of a road to publication. I noticed on your website
that you offer workshops, assemblies, and Zoom visits. How have you reached out
to schools and what has your experience been with doing school visits in person
and on Zoom?
I love school visits in person, but I have
adapted to visits on Zoom. I attended a Zoom workshop that Kate Messner gave on
doing Zoom visits and it was invaluable. To be honest, I haven’t reached out to
schools too much. I have just been too busy writing and revising, but I have
had visits just through my website.
8.
How else have you been marketing your books? What things have you found worked
and what didn’t this year as you promoted your four books?
For book one, I did a lot of Zoom events. I was
very grateful that lots of bookstores agreed to host me. It was a lot of fun
and I think it was very helpful. I reached out to lots and lots of reviewers
and blogger friends—thank God for bloggers like you—and to arc review groups. I
did give aways. One thing that I really think moved the needle was a giveaway
of 20 or 25 books to librarians. One thing that I found out is that when you
promote book one, you are really promoting the series. So the other books go on
a hope and a prayer, so thank you so much for agreeing to host me for the
release of Sherlock Dom. Since Dom wears a lot of costumes, my newest thing for
bookstores which I hope to do when kids are vaccinated is a costume party where
I’ll talk about how Dom came up with her get ups and dress several kids up in
Dom paraphernalia. I’m hoping to do that to promote the boxed set which will
come out in March.
9.
That’s a great idea to give books away to librarians. Tell us a little bit
about the picture book you have releasing in 2022 and what you’re working on
now.
Oh, Natalie, that’s a story. That picture book
was born out of discussion I had with a realtor. He told me he didn’t rent to
Latinx folks because they lived four families to a house and tore up your
property. So stay away from Latinx folks. AND HE KNEW I WAS CUBAN!!!! I stewed and I stewed and I stewed and then I
remembered that hey, when we came to the United States we lived with my uncle
and his family and so did my aunt’s brother and his family. On weekends there
were fourteen of us in the house—eight kids. And we didn’t tear up the house.
And we all went on to become citizens and good responsible members of our new
country, but none of that would have happened if we hadn’t had a place to live.
If my uncle hadn’t shared his home with us, I don’t know what would have
happened. My dad didn’t have a job. Neither did my mom, and she didn’t even
speak English. We came to the United States after Castro jailed my father for
three days and all we had to our name was $50 and one suitcase of clothes each.
That book wrote itself. It is very near and
dear to my heart.
Remember that old Cuban book? I am working on
making that into a novel in verse and I’m getting ready for the launch of the
other two books in 2022. I have one more thing in the works which may or may
not come to fruition, but there is always something in the works.
Natalie, thanks so much for hosting me. You are
so sweet to do this. I sure have enjoyed it.
Thanks for sharing all your advice, Terry. You
can find Terry at:
Website:
terrycjennings.com
Twitter:
@TerryCJennings
Insta:
@Terry.C.Jennings
Giveaway
Details
Terry has generously offered
a hardback of Definitely
Dominguita Sherlock Dom for a giveaway. To
enter, all you need to do is be a follower of my blog (via the follower
gadget, email, or bloglovin’ on the right sidebar) and leave a comment by November
27th. If your e-mail is not on
your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest.
Please be sure I have your email address.
If you mention this
contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog and/or follow me on Twitter, mention
this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry for each. You must be 13
years old or older to enter. This giveaway is U.S.
Marvelous Middle Grade Monday is hosted by Greg Pattridge.
You can find the participating blogs on his blog.
Upcoming
Interviews and Giveaways
Tuesday,
November 16th I’m participating in the In All Things Give Thanks Giveaway Hop
Monday,
November 22th I have an agent spotlight interview with
Danielle Chiotti and a query critique giveaway
Monday, November 29nd I have an interview with
debut author Nancy McConnell and a giveaway of her MG fantasy Into the Lion’s
Mouth
Wednesday, December 1st I’m participating in
the December Is Coming Giveaway Hop. I also have a guest post by debut author
Claire Winn and a giveaway of her YA fantasy City of Shattered Light and my
IWSG post
Monday, December 6th I have a guest post by
debut author Karen Pokras and a giveaway of her MG historical The Backyard Secrets of Danny Wexler
Monday, December 13th I have an agent spotlight
interview with Jemma Cooper and a query critique giveaway
Wednesday, December 15th I have an agent
spotlight interview with Stacey Kondla and a query critique giveaway
Hope
to see you tomorrow!
