Author: Marsha

I write historical fiction, mostly from the perspective of young people who are thrust in the midst of war.

Meet the Professional: Rebelight Publishing

Melanie Matheson, Melinda Friesen, Suzanne Leclerc, Deborah Froese
Melanie Matheson, Melinda Friesen, Suzanne Leclerc,
Deborah Froese

Rebelight Publishing had been off my radar until this past spring when I was a juror for a book prize. Amidst the dozens of great and not so great books that I read and rated, I noticed that three good books came from one publisher – Rebelight.

What impressed me about the Rebelight books is that they seemed to be taking a risk in one way or another. For example, Larry Verstraete is well-known for his many award-winning true life adventure stories but Rebelight had published Verstraete’s Missing in Paradise, a treasure hunt mystery novel for middle grade boys. Those of us with many books under our belt know how hard it is to find publishers who let us risk breaking out of our established genres. Suzanne Costigan’s Empty Cup is another example of risky. This outstanding first novel deals with teen pregnancy and sexual abuse in a way that is breathtakingly direct.

But what really impressed me was seeing Gabriele Goldstone’s novel, Red restoneStone, land on their list. Red Stone is based on the author’s own family‘s experiences in the 1930s Soviet Union when they’re exiled to Siberia as “enemies of the people”. This is an era that is puzzlingly off the radar for most publishers despite the fact that millions of Canadians have ancestors who escaped to Canada during Stalinist times.

The following interview was done via email with Rebelight’s four person team.

What did you do before creating Rebelight Publishing Inc.?

  • Melinda Friesen was a student and continues to be a writer and mother to four children.
  • Deborah Froese explores life through stories rooted in truth and fiction.
  • Suzanne Leclerc is a treatment foster parent.
  • Melanie Matheson has been a graphic designer for 25 years and is currently the Executive Director at the Manitoba Writers’ Guild.

What made you decide to create Rebelight Publishing?

A desire to create new opportunities for writers in a changing publishing environment fueled the creation of Rebelight Publishing Inc. We saw great manuscripts overlooked and opportunities for new writers dwindling. At the same time, we found the quality on bookstore shelves declining.

How is Rebelight different from other publishers?

1) We are writers first, so we strive to treat our authors as we want to be treated. We offer fair contracts and open communication. Our authors are actively involved in the decision making processes; their opinions and ideas matter to us.

2) We have a team approach to everything we do. Although we each specialize in different areas of the business, we help each other out continuously.

3) At Rebelight, we take chances. We seek out new and talented writers and give established authors the opportunity to venture outside their established genres. Rebelight looks for good stories, well told, and is open to submissions across genres.

4) We see marketing as a partnership between author and publisher. We market books long term, continually seeking out new opportunities for each book on our list to meet readers.

What has been the response from authors, the public, readers?

We have received such wonderful feedback from everyone. Rebelight seems to be living up to its goal of publishing quality novels for youth. We are honoured by the attention we’ve received from the Manitoba Book Awards, the Canadian Children’s Book Centre Best Books for Kids and Teens Spring 2015 edition, and Manitoba Young Readers Choice Awards 2016.

We couldn’t be happier with our author line-up. One of our mandates is to publish new talent, and so far we’re meeting that goal. Forty-five percent of our novels are from first time authors. Our authors tell us they are impressed with our thorough editing process, our attention to social media and our flexibility.

What are the biggest challenges that you face?

There’s a lot of book noise out there, and it’s difficult to be heard over the clamor. This early in our company’s life, it’s challenging to get people who haven’t heard of us to take us seriously. However, reading one of our books is usually all it takes for people to realize that we’re serious about living up to our tagline, to produce “crack the spine, blow your mind” novels for young people.

What do you look for in a manuscript?

We seek well-developed and dynamic characters, plots with building momentum, and a balance between internal reflection and outward action. We love strong protagonist voices, well-developed antagonists and clean, concise writing.

Can you describe the qualities of a dream author to work with?

A dream author shares our end goal: a great reader-experience. We want readers to love Rebelight books and know that they are buying a well-written enjoyable read. A dream author is open to working through our intense editing process. We publish the best.

And now describe an author from heck.

Someone resistant to the editing process and uninvolved in the marketing efforts.

What is your manuscript selection process?

  1. We review the submission package.
  2. If we like what we see, we request the full manuscript.
  3. The full manuscript is reviewed by multiple Rebelight readers.
  4. If our readers agree that the manuscript meets Rebelight’s publishing goals, the Rebelight team discusses the manuscript and determines whether or not to move forward.

Once a manuscript is chosen, what steps come next?

We touch base with the author by phone to express our interest in the manuscript and our thoughts about it—the first step toward establishing a working relationship. If the author is open to our initial editorial vision, we offer a contract.

What do you expect from your authors, and how is that different from other publishers?

One key word: interaction. We keep in touch with authors by telephone and email throughout the editing process and beyond, and we invite them to interact with us on Twitter and Facebook. We love to hear from our authors! Rebelight is all about creating a writing community, so let’s get to know each other.

What advice do you have for a first time author?

Publication is a marathon, not a sprint. Settle in for the long haul because nothing happens fast in this business. Don’t rush. Take all the time you need to ensure your manuscript is the absolute best it can be before you submit it anywhere. Join a writers’ group and acquire some beta readers. Critique is invaluable. All serious artists seek critique on their work. Never forget that writing is an art, while publishing is a business. Rejection is not personal, it is simply a business decision.

What would be the most common problem with a manuscript you decide not to publish?

One of the biggest problems we encounter is the lack of an authentic middle grade or teen voice. The narrative sounds like the author is speaking, not the protagonist. A middle school boy should not sound like a middle-aged woman. A strong voice always stands out.

What do you see in the future of children’s publishing?

This is an exciting time in the publishing industry. No one knows where the future is headed, but we are confident that we have structured our company for flexibility within the ever-changing publishing climate.

 

Dance of the Banished selected for The White Raven 2015!

I am THRILLED that Dance of the Banished is one of three Canadian books selected for this prestigious list of 200 international books.

#WRlist2015

Here’s more:

A Selection of International Children’s and Youth Literature

English / Canada

Dance of the banished

Skrypuch, Marsha Forchuk (text)
Toronto, Ontario: Pajama Press, 2014. –
231 p.
ISBN 978-1-927485-65-1

World War I – Canada – Internment camp – Alevi Kurds – Armenian Genocide – Refugee – Fictitious diary

Renowned Ukrainian-Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch has written a number of books about Canadian internment camps. Her latest YA novel again returns to this little-known topic. Set in Anatolia and Canada from 1913 to 1917, the story follows a teenage couple who are forced to go their separate ways until they are finally reunited years later. At the beginning of World War I, Ali seizes the opportunity to seek work in Canada, but is soon thrown into an internment camp for Enemy Aliens. Zeynep is left behind in their Anatolian home village, where Christian Armenians and Alevi Kurds – both minority groups within the Ottoman Empire – live peacefully side by side. When the country is shaken by revolution and war, the young Alevi girl is determined to do her utmost to save her friends from the Armenian Genocide. Told in diary form and letters from two points of view, this story recounts the horrors of World War I, but also documents people’s great compassion and courage in dangerous times. (Age: 14+)

 

The Hunger: Franklin Street Little Library

hunger

I dropped off a few of my older books as a donation to the Franklin Street Little Library yesterday. Susan Gibson has already read The Hunger, and reviewed it:

The Hunger is local author, Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch‘s very first novel.  It intertwines the current experience of a young girl struggling with an eating disorders with the historical tragedy of the Armenian genocide.  This novel has a Brantford connection which will engage young adult readers that borrow this book from the Franklin Street Little Free Library.

The novel begins with Paula, a 15 year old student who strives for perfection and to be thinner.  She is a strong student who works hard and is helpful at home.  She is assigned a project about her family heritage and discovers that her grandmother, Pauline, has a secret history and an Armenian heritage.

Paula discovers scant information on the Armenian genocide and as she researches the starvation, massacres and horrendous abuse, she becomes emaciated and her own life becomes at risk.  The two stories collide as Paula experiences her own health crisis.  She begins to understand more about her grandmother’s life as she fights for her own.

This is a great historical novel that should be part of the curriculum for senior elementary school students.  In her first novel, Skyrpuch has educated the reader about this little known piece of history through a expertly woven tale much like her subsequent novels like Stolen Child, Dance of the Banished and Making Bombs for Hitler.

I personally love to read novels with local references and happened to attend both Agnes Hodge School and Ryerson School many years ago.  Being local, it was easy to imagine Paula running up the former library stairs (now Laurier Brantford) and spending time in the Brantford General Hospital.  It is engaging to visualize the locations that are referenced in the book.  Don’t think that this novel is ONLY for young adults, although it is a quick read for an adult (one evening) it is a story that is difficult to put down!

I would like to thank Marsha for donating this book (and others to be reviewed in future posts) to the Franklin Street Little Free Library and invite others to borrow it and comment below after reading it.

 

Dance of the Banished BookDragon review

DanceOfTheBanished_HR_RGB1This review made my day!

The year is 1913. Zeynap and Ali are teenage lovers in Anatolia (once Asia Minor, now modern Turkey) who part with a lingering sense of bitterness: Ali’s impending departure breaks their promise of escaping their village together. Feeling betrayed, Zeynap turns away: “I refuse to be your betrothed, never knowing when, or even if, you’ll come back.”

Ali will not give up hope of reunion: before he leaves, Ali presents Zeynap with identical journals: “While we are apart, keep this journal for me and I’ll write in the other for you … That way, we will still be together.” In return, Zeynap places her blue evil-eye bead over his head, a cherished momentum that has kept her safe since she was a baby. “I’ll always love you, but I will not wait for you,” she adds.

The Great War arrives in 1914, further separating the lovers. In Canada, Ali is sent to a prison camp for enemy aliens; Canada and Turkey are on opposite sides of the conflagration, and Anatolia is claimed by Turkey. At home in Anatolia, Zeynap bears witnesses to the genocide that obliterates over a million Armenian lives; her humanity and ingenuity make her an unlikely hero; her journal intended for Ali becomes a historical document of international importance.

Although the story is fictional, “it is based on real historical events,” award-winning Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch writes in her ending “Author’s Note.” What happens to the lovers, their families, their homeland, demands and deserves far more attention. Both Zeynap and Ali are Alevi Kurds, an ethnic minority about which is little known in the West. They are Kurdish, not Turkish; they are not Muslim, they are Alevi, “a 6,000 year-old religion that originated in Anatolia. Over the centuries Alevism has incorporated aspects of other religions,” Skrypuch explains.

Already the author of five titles “set during the Armenian Genocide,” Skrypuch elucidates how “in all that writing and research, [she] completely missed an outstanding instance of bravery: the rescue of 40,000 Armenians by the Alevi Kurds of the Dersim Mountains.” Five years earlier, Skrypuch learned about a hundred “enemy aliens” living in her hometown of Brantford, Ontario, who were rounded up in the middle of the night on false charges, jailed, and sent to prison camps.

“These men were victims of shameful wartime hysteria directed at foreigners, yet they had come to Canada because of its reputation for freedom and tolerance.” Listed as Turkish, the men turned out to be Alevi Kurds. And so Skrypuch’s Dance began. The result is an eye-opening, significant literary and historical gift to readers, young and old.

Georgetown Boys images now available online

It is thrilling to see that the United Church of Canada has digitized 128 photographic images of the Georgetown Boys. It can be accessed here.

Not familiar with the Georgetown Boys?After the Armenian Genocide of 1915, Canadian churches and the Armenian Canadian community collected donations and purchased Cedarvale Farm in Georgetown Ontario and transformed it into a home for 109 orphaned Armenian boys.

I wrote two books on this topic, Aram’s Choice and Call Me Aram.