ebook release day: Loose Threads, On Pointe

Oh, happy news! Loose Threads and On Pointe are released today as ebooks! Many thanks to my agent Elizabeth Harding and my publishing house Simon & Schuster. I appreciate their work in this venture. May both books wing into the hands of just the right readers.

To recap Loose Threads:

In a household of four generations of women, Grandma Margie discloses that she has a lump in her breast. Told through forthright and perceptive poems in teenager Kay's own voice, Loose Threads reverberates with emotion and depth and will leave no reader untouched. (flap copy)

Booklist named Loose Threads a Top Ten First Novel for Youth and gave it a starred review:

"Like Virginia Euwer Wolff's free verse novels, Grover's book balances vivid emotional scenes with plenty of space between the words. Readers, especially those who know illness up close, will connect with Kay's secret worries and deep sadness, and will admire her strength."

The work was also a Washington State Book Award finalist, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, a Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year, and a Rhode Island Teen Book Award Nominee.

And to review On Pointe:

On Pointe soars with emotion as it explores what it means to reach for a dream -- and the way that dreams can change as quickly and suddenly as do our lives. Clare learns to dream and then dream again. 

On Pointe was a Girls Life Top Ten Summer Read.

"The teen's voice rings true. This finely written novel touches on contemporary themes such as body image leading to bulimia, overly ambitious parents, and aging grandparents who can no longer live alone." School Library Journal

The work was also a Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award Nominee and a Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year.

Thanks for celebrating with me today and helping to spread the news. With my love!

Loose Threads
On Pointe
Simon & Schuster, 2013, ebook release

Video Review of On Pointe!

So fun to run across a video review of On Pointe. Thank you, Bookalicious! And I love your hair. :~)

"Dance becomes physical free verse."

I received a request for an interview from a teen in the Netherlands. Rachel van Eck wanted to examine On Pointe for her IB Diploma Extended Essay. She asked me engaging questions which you can read in my former post. She has now completed the work, and I am honored she looked so closely at my novel. I was given permission to share a few excerpts here.

Rachel begins the work with this question: 

‘How does the author Lorie Ann Grover portray dance movements in the novel ‘On Pointe’ through the characters by means of style and structure?’ The process of this research was done by stylistically analyzing the novel to find how the movements were being portrayed and if they really did make the reader picture and feel the movements being described. Lorie Ann Grover did this with her special way of writing this novel.

Rachel goes on to show how literary devices convey breath, pacing, sound, and movement. It was fun to see these specific examples as many were intuitive during the writing.

Here is an example of an excerpt from On Pointe and Rachel's analysis:

We piqué turn across the floor.

Snapping our heads,

We spot

one speck

on the wall

we are moving toward.

The room blurs,

but the spot

is in focus.

Everyone moves

across the floor

toward their spot.

Just like the ‘Grand Battements’ this spinning movement is shown by the short sentences. This phrase emphasizes the spotting of the swift, repeated spinning movement. Not only does this passage mention spotting very often in just a small time, it is made up of short sentences. This indicates the movement that when the character is looking at the spot, one bit of the sentence is thought of, and then the character does another spin, with having the sentence cut off as a result, but when she’s back to her spotting she has time to think of another part of the sentence, and so it continues.

Rachel's paper concludes with this passage:

Dance movements might be hard to describe with just single words, however, through the use of free verse, anaphora, dance terminology, figurative language, sound techniques, diction, and imagery, this can be elaborated to the point that the reader is able to picture, feel, or even hear what the movements are like. Lorie Ann Grover does this “so that a reader unfamiliar with ballet could still gain an impression/feeling of that particular movement.” (Grover),,,,as if it is choreography on paper....In this novel Dance becomes physical free verse.

Thank you, Rachel! I greatly appreciate your analytical thoughts, kind words, and time. Here's to your own dance and writing. Brava!

Questions from the Netherlands: On Pointe

I just received a provocative email from a teen in the Netherlands who is writing an essay on my verse novel, On Pointe. She noticed how the literary structure itself reflects dance. I thought to share a few of her questions and my answers. How fun when readers make writers think!

Q. Did you mean for the style and structure to influence the movement of the novel?
A. Yes. If you compare On Pointe to my other works, Loose Threads and Hold Me Tight, you'll see that the entries are not titled as they are in the other two novels. By crafting the work without titled verses, my aim was to mimic the flow of one long dance.

Q. Why use this way of portraying the movements the way you did, rather than using more imagery?
A. The structure of the verses imitates ballet steps (pages 126-127) so that a reader unfamiliar with ballet can still gain an impression/feeling of various movements. I definitely didn't want to descend into particulars of steps and lose the non-ballet reader.

Q. Are there any particular sections in the novel that you wanted to convey the movement more than other parts of the novel, and if that were so, which parts would those be?
A. Here are a few examples, at least. I believe I have used repetition of words on page 99 to convey the endless repetition of the preparation needed in order to master the ballet art form. I think of the short lines beginning on page 51 that run onto 52 talking about doing a split. The terseness mimics how Clare is split, cut thin by her situation. Generally, descriptive passages, like those on page 17, have the freedom to meander and run longer, like Clare's life outside of dance. Ballet passages tend to be tighter, more controlled like the art demands. And finally, on pages 4-6, I meant to reflect the long leg of a dancer on pointe.

Q. Is there a particular reason you chose to write this novel in free-verse rather than prose?
A. Yes, I believe the story works well in free verse as the format carries heavy emotion easily. It is difficult to write a work wherein the protagonist does not achieve her goals/dreams. I knew verse would allow the reader to dip in and out of the pain more easily. The white space allows the reader room to breath. And as you've discovered, verse can mimic dance. 

Here's to critical thinking! 

Photo Friday: On Pointe Visual Reflection

Lorie Ann Grover, 2010

Here's my visual interpretation of my novel On Pointe. I really like the little blood speckles. Yep.

Brushing Mom's Hair: Andrea Cheng

Sometimes a book will rest in your palm, and you know you've found a kindred spirit. That happened to me recently when Andrea Cheng's Brushing Mom's Hair crossed my path.

This special work teeters between a novel in poems and a verse novel. Each entry is titled, and the majority could stand alone as individual poems. Yet, united they tell a beautiful story about Ann, coping with her mother's recent breast cancer, mastectomy, and treatments. It is through Ann's art and dance that she finds moments of peace and control. The reader joins her as she moves through worry, embarrassment, a diminished appetite, the waiting, and finally joy.

Andrea Cheng's attention to detail brings rich life to the collection: beans, a fluorescent smiley face, warm bricks, and striped leg warmers. Each grounds the poems and makes tangible connections to the reader. Andrea bravely relays the truth of the breast cancer experience.

Nicole Wong has contributed delicate pen and ink and wash drawings and spot illustrations to every page. The line mimics the tenuous state of the characters at times and then the rising hope at other moments. There's a beautiful dance between line, text, and negative space on each spread. It is a welcome aid to the reader working through the difficult subject matter.

Personally, I feel close to this work as it seems to dance between my own novels Loose Threads and On Pointe.



Brushing Mom's Hair is accessible to tweens, teens and adults. Share it with your loved one upon its release in September. Give it to another this October for Breast Cancer Month.

Brushing Mom's Hair
by Andrea Cheng
illustrated by Nicole Wong
Wordsong, September, 2009

Margaret Peterson Haddix, Oh My!

So how cool when a bestie's sister just happens to work with MARGARET PETERSON HADDIX??? And THEN the sister sends you a note that says:

"Margaret Peterson Haddix read your book & really liked it....it made her CRY!"

She read ON POINTE!

I love these floaty, happy moments in life. *sigh* Here's to Margaret and her AMAZING body of work, bestie friends, sweet sisters, and kind encouragements.

Novel Confirmations

Sometimes as an author you wonder if your books are really out there. Is anyone hearing your voice? Of course blogging helps, but still. Your novels. Are they being read?

And then confirmation flies in when you don't expect it. This last time it was from two people in one week.



Book Chic in Washington D.C. was sweet enough to write:

"So I'm now volunteering at my local public library and I'm at the front desk taking in checked out materials and guess what I saw today? Someone brought in On Pointe! I had no idea my library even had that book of yours, so I'll definitely have to check it out sometime."

Ha! Fantastic!

And then the wonderful author Melissa Walker sent me these photos from her phone! She ran across On Pointe in a tiny library in Vermont.















And the copy had been donated in memory of a dear love.















Okay. That's enough to warm my heart. My whispers are being heard. How nice is that? Thanks, BC and Melissa!

A New Beginning!

So the rgz divas are hounding me to start my own blog. One outside of MySpace. Here I am world! Thanks for making a moment for me. I hope to stay on point!

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Lorie Ann Grover, co-founder of rgz/author