(View entire post here)

Ah, my favorite sport. I have been playing since 8^th grade with probably only two years off total (due to knee surgeries and one pregnancy.)

It is absolutely true that much of my personal voice as a teen became strong as a result of belonging to a team, with the reciprocal effect of feeling the strength of my athletic body back up my voice. I became strong in voice and body, and I believe that it saved my self esteem from drowning.

Volleyball requires connection. It requires learning to communicate with other team members in practice. It requires communication between players in the more stressful situation of a game. If you don't talk distinctly and with confidence on the court, the team can't play well because no other player understands your intentions and the game falls apart.

(View entire post here)

An author of fiction gets to discover characters.  (I could say "invent" characters, but I feel that they are already out there and I discover them and listen to their voice and their story.)  One of my favorite things about characters is naming them.

A name comes to me very early in the writing process.  I don't think hard about it, I just accept it, and the more I use it, the more it fits.  It is extremely rare for me to change someone's name once I find it. 

The names in the family of Anke came to me as I wrote about them, right at the beginning.  All except her father.  Very odd for me, but he didn't have a name until almost my last edit. It isn't actually used much, but in the end he needed a name as part of a statement his power. Dr. Laren Feld.

Anke's name is one I thought about early on, after writing the first ten poems and believing this could be a novel.  I love the feel of ahn-keh in my mouth. This character needed a name that was not too strong for the start of the novel, and not to plain for who she was to become.

Anke's mother was named Anne, and this name is presented mainly as a description of Anke herself.  Anke calls her mother "mom" with a small m.  I wanted to show her mother's passive role, her lack of power.

Yaicha is a name I always thought was beautiful as a kid, and it really did come from a song by the Pousette-Dart Band.  By giving Anke's sister a beautiful name (to me as the writer,) I could imbue this mean and sad sister figure with some love, and it didn't have to come directly from Anke.

(View entire post here)

Because I Am Furniture is a novel in poems.  Each poem is its own slice of time in Anke's world, each an extremely short story to make the reader think about something new and question what's next.  The poems don't portray long scenes of continuity. They are vignettes, and have to be laid out as a novel in such a way that the story comes together chronologically. 

I am a little, um, odd.  I am one of the few writers who loves the editing process even a bit more than the writing itself.  How lucky for me!  Because much of what I write is in poems. And Because I Am Furniture required probably one-fourteenth writing to thirteen-fourteenths editing.

Perhaps I exaggerate. 

Perhaps not.

At one point in my third or fourth revision, my spectacularly brilliant editor at Viking, Catherine Frank, strongly suggested I print out each poem and mix them around, trying new combinations of what could go together.  There are many ways to put together a pile of poems so that they create a story; I had one already.  She wanted me to push harder.  So I did this.  Printed them all out (at that time a poem fit on one 8 ½ x 11 page), carried them lovingly to a large circular table in the library, selected a slight stack, delicately fanned them out, and with great terror, scrambled them. 

(View entire post here)

Why write a novel in verse?

My first and most personal answer is, "Because that is how it came out of me." I tend to think in whorls of words that go together, and I have been writing poetry most of my life.

The other answer I can give is that using poetry for Because I Am Furniture allowed me to do two seemingly opposing things. I could both lighten the weight of the subject of abuse and incest with fewer words and more white space, and use denser, stronger words to portray abuse and incest that might have been overwhelming in prose.

I am fascinated to hear that "reluctant readers" and those with learning disabilities often love novels in verse. They can be read in less time than traditional prose novels. Language is simply put, but does not talk down to the reader. Words don't blanket every page visually. And poems often mimic the word-entangled patterns of thought, as opposed to the full sentences and correct grammar written prose can present.

Poetry has taken a recent turn, being in novel format. Free verse is the most common poem form used for novels. In free verse there are no rules of rhyme and meter, unless the author is making a point with them. Formality is set aside in this style of poetry, but creating a novel in verse is serious business. There are many poems to link in a coherent way. Character arcs and minor plot threads to weave throughout. Large issues to lay down with very few words. And the voice must be believable within the confines of the verse.

(View entire post here)

Writing "what you know" is simplest, truest, because hey, it's somewhat about you, right? And who knows you best?  But it becomes more difficult when your "what you know" is a not-so-pleasant past.

I wrote this novel based on my own childhood with a dysfunctional family from all angles.  The beginning poems of Because I Am Furniture are for the most part taken directly from my own history, true experiences.  In the first months of writing, when I read these poems out loud at a Critiquenic, the sheer visceral ick of that childhood flooded through and my voice trembled.

As I continued writing, however, the fifteen years or so of what was my real history had to be condensed and gathered as a novel. Many have asked me how much of the book is "true."  I tell them that situations and conversations are true, maybe up to 50% of the book, but everything has been altered, and therefore much more than 50% of the book is fiction.  An actual situation from my childhood might have been presented with a different character, a trait diminished, words given to someone new, ages altered (my real brother and sister were finished with high school years before I even got there, for instance.)  I had to show cohesion, not just put my true jumbled life on the page;  the actions, words, thoughts need to propel the story.

I can tell I have succeeded with this when a total stranger tells me how they feel about Because I Am Furniture;  they talk with their hands, clutching the space in front of their chests to show the grip the words have, how solidly they take in Anke's story.

(View entire post here)

Thalia Chaltas is our guest blogger during the week of April 13th. If you have any questions for Thalia Chaltas, add a comment to any of her posts.

Below is more information about Because I Am Furniture. Also, read an excerpt and view the reading group guide.

Anke's father is abusive. But not to her. He attacks her brother and sister, but she's just an invisible witness in a house of horrors, on the brink of disappearing altogether. Until she makes the volleyball team at school. At first just being exhausted after practice feels good, but as Anke becomes part of the team, her confidence builds. When she learns to yell "Mine!" to call a ball, she finds a voice she didn't know existed. For the first time, Anke is seen and heard. Soon, she's imagining a day that her voice will be loud enough to rescue everyone at home-including herself.

About Thalia Chaltas:

As a teenager Thalia Chaltas wanted to do everything, and she envied people who knew without question what their life goal was. Thalia did preliminary training to be a kinesiologist, a helicopter pilot, and a fire fighter, and has at times been a bus driver, a ropes course instructor, and a contralto in an a capella group. Along the way she has played lots of volleyball, written poetry, and collected children's books. And eventually, that anvil fell from the sky and she realized writing was what all this previous intensive training was for.