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READ LIKE A WRITER, a teaching blog

10 TIPS FOR TURNING NONFICTION INTO A NOVEL

by Dandi Daley Mackall

I grew up on my parents’ amazing true war stories—how Mom joined the Army as a nurse when WWII broke out and Dad signed up to report to the Army the day after he got his medical degree. Even as a kid,  Read More 

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CHAMORRO JOURNALIST CELEBRATES GUAM’S LIBERATION

By Zita Y. Taitano

The date July 21, 1944 is a time Chamorros—the indigenous people of the island of Guam—can never forget. On this particular day, United States Armed Forces set foot on Guam to liberate the Chamorros from two-and-a-half years of occupation by the Japanese Empire.

Many of the native islanders suffered greatly  Read More 

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PTSD IN FICTION CONNECTS WITH READERS

Some people, such my dad, will not read fiction. To them, fiction is not true. I disagree. Nonfiction may be factual, but fiction can often show truths in ways mere facts cannot. What fiction can do, especially in middle grade and young adult novels, is to hold up a mirror in which readers can  Read More 

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AUTHOR HONORS DEATHBED PROMISE TO WRITE ABOUT WWII LEBENSBORN PROGRAM

My guest today is the prolific award-winning author Marsha Skrypuch. MAKING BOMBS FOR HITLER was selected as the Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice winner for 2014. Marsha is a master at writing war literature and it’s an honor to have her write this article about something very personal that prompted her to write STOLEN  Read More 

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PUTTING MY COVER IN PERSPECTIVE

When my Merit Press editor Jackie Mitchard e-mailed me the cover of NO SURRENDER SOLDIER, without hesitation I e-mailed back, “I love it!” What I loved about the cover is the perspective. I don’t know who is the illustrator of my cover, but he or she understood both the duel perspective—two alternate  Read More 

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AN AUTHOR INTERVIEW ABOUT NO SURRENDER SOLDIER

NO SURRENDER SOLDIER, Merit Press/Adams Media, Jan. 18, 2014

This blog article is a reprint of an interview Beth Fehlbaum did of me and posted July 31, 2013.

What's your book about?

In NO SURRENDER SOLDIER, it’s 1972 and a 15-year-old Chamorro boy, Kiko, discovers that his mother had been raped by a Japanese soldier during the WWII Japanese occupation of Guam. What he doesn’ Read More 

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eXtreme X-overs

I bought pictures books for my dad for his birthday this year. He is in his late 80s. Why would I buy picture books (PB) for anyone over the age of eight? Because some PBs are what I call extreme cross-overs. They have high quality artwork. They have topics of interest to older men. ( Read More 

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NONFICTION, THE BEDROCK OF FICTION

News articles and book used in researching my novel NO SURRENDER SOLDIER

Some writers say they prefer to write fiction rather than nonfiction so that they can make up the facts and not have to do any research. Unless their story is fantastical and they have made up completely different Otherworld rules, then all fiction is based in nonfiction, i.e. facts. Even in science fiction,  Read More 

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EUREKA! A NOVEL IDEA

NO SURRENDER SOLDIER will be published by Merit Press Sept. - Oct. 2014.

It's official! I signed a contract with Merit Press (F+W Media) for my novel, NO SURRENDER SOLDIER. My editor is Jacquelyn Mitchard. The release date is Jan. 2014.

In keeping true to the intent of this blog I will continue to give teaching tips for  Read More 

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