AWP 2012: The Conference

The time had finally come. The reservations were made. Plane tickets printed. Suitcase packed. I dug around in my closet for anything warm, knowing that I would be flying to Chicago in the bitter cold to attend the AWP conference. AWP, or The Association of Writers and Writing Programs, is the biggest creative writing conference in the country. While I hadn't been able to go last year, I made it a point to experience this time - at least while I'm still a grad student (yay, discounts!). Yes, this year's conference was in Chicago - a place I'd never been before, but I'll save my sight-seeing adventures for my next post. This one will focus on the conference itself. 

The conference this year as sold-out, so that meant that, if you walked the streets between the Palmer House Hilton and the Chicago Hilton hotels, you'd probably see a lot of people with red tote bags and name tags. 

These two key accessories not only got you past security (a lot of hotel workers disguised as friendly, yet stern people), but they were also the best conversation starters. I'm not very social, but I ended up chatting with a bunch of fellow conference goers while waiting for a panel to start or in line for the shuttle. We exchanged a lot of laughs and complained about the weather - though I was so ecstatic about the cold that I only pretended to complain.

I attended around five panels over the course of the two days I was there. I have been to writing conferences before, so the panels, while interesting, weren't terribly new to me. It was refreshing to be sitting in a room with a bunch of eager writers and poets, hands poised to ask the first question at the end of each session. The question and answer periods are always exciting. The last thing I imagine you want to do is read a play-by-play of every panel. So this is, essentially, what I learned from all those panels in a nutshell: 

• Self-publishing is still risky business. It's a great way to get your work out there and, in a way, control your destiny. However, it's still not a medium that is well-respected within academia or the traditional publishing world (something that, yes, I'm well aware of, but there you go). What was interesting about this conversation is that it's the biggest topic this year at the conference. There were plenty of panels about self-publishing and if the panel wasn't about it, someone always found a way to bring it up. 
• Writers of crime fiction are typically male. This is upsetting to everyone (hence, a panel full of feminist ranting. Fun to listen to, but overwhelming). 
• I learned what a "cozy" crime novel  is. Cozies also bring in the most sales with thrillers coming in second. Wow. 
• To my delight, I learned that speculative fiction is growing in popularity - at a wonderfully alarming rate. New literary magazines are popping up that accept strange and whimsical stories. 
• Kate Bernheimer, one of my heroes, gave a rallying speech about the value of fairy tales. Her metaphor about the turnip and honey was very creative. 
• An editor of a new lit mag called Unstuck admitted that he loves Mervyn Peake. Yesssh. His cool points rose exponentially.
• Fiction chapbooks are becoming more popular - slowly, like a turtle, but that's great news. One of the panelists referred to fiction chapbooks as a musician's EP album. Pretty cool. 
• The YA panel I went to was fun, but it turns out that most of the panelists were poets. Surprisingly, none of them talked about verse novels (the genre I find really fascinating) and they spent a lot of time reading their own work instead of discussing writing for YA. 

After tackling the panels, I went downstairs to explore the bookfair. If you've ever been to a convention or conference before, you know what a dealer's space is like. Endless rows of booths, all surfaces cluttered with delightful things to buy. Pushing and shoving, wallets ready, plastic bags. For this bookfair, each booth was stacked with books. Literary magazines with their proud editors and staff manned the booths, setting out all kinds of books. As I wandered up and down the rows, I admired the beautiful covers (and at the same time, tried not to drift over and open my wallet. I didn't have room in my suitcase for a lot of books). There were a lot of  ugly covers too - you know, the kinds that look like textbook covers? Brrr. It's interesting to see the aesthetics of each magazine. 

The bookfair was separated into four different rooms; the air was stuffy with people and thankfully the hotel provided jugs of water on either end of the rooms. I guzzled down a lot of water. Bookfairs can be pretty intense. 

One of the booths I was excited to visit was the Fairy Tale Review. As the title implies, this literary magazine focuses on publishing fairy tale-like stories in their issues. They also have a press that occasionally publishes novels, short story collections, and poetry. When I got to the table, it was crowded with people admiring the  books. There were so many choices, and the books were printed with such high-quality - hard to tell when you're just looking at a photo of the covers online, you know? I picked up the books I had planned to buy: the Grey Issue of FTR and the newest novel, Irlanda. 

Kate Bernheimer happened to be at the booth at the time... and I quickly reverted to a five-year-old girl. I can't imagine how I sounded when I spoke with her, but in my mind's eye I was blushing and blabbering about how much I liked her books. I have two of them so far, the anthology of new fairy tales she edited called My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me and the children's book she wrote called The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum with illustrations by Nicoletta Ceccoli. Even as an author and editor, Bernheimer has also been a great fairy tale advocate. If there was anyone at this conference I was excited to meet, it was her. 

So there's me on the left and Kate Bernheimer on the right. We're both completely tired from the long conference day. Still, it was really awesome of her to take a photo with me. She was very nice in person.

So you know how I mentioned the artist Nicoletta Ceccoli? Well, it turns out that the novel Irlanda, written by Espido Freire, has a front cover that has one of Ceccoli's artwork on it. Very cool. Ceccoli is one of my favorite artists, so I knew I had to pick up that book - if only for the cover. The book itself, though, was a remarkable read. I'm going to do a mini-review on Irlanda, just to give you an idea of this novel.

The premise of Irlanda is deceptively simple: after the death of her sister, Sagrario, Natalia is sent away to spent the summer with her two cousins in a decaying country house. She'll help with repairs and get to know the cousins she remembers from childhood - Roberto and the "perfect" Irlanda. The longer she spends in the house, the more it's clear that Natalia has not gotten over her sister's death, along with being haunted by dead animals and braving Irlanda's cold attention. Natalia sees the world through the lens of fairy tales, but it doesn't take long for a sense of unease to settle upon you while you're reading this book. Something's not right. 

Here's a small excerpt so you can get a sense of the beauty of the language:

"There was a house in the middle of the field, surrounded by flowers, water, dark trees, and running children, and a grandmother with amethyst necklaces and coral cameos, and a grandfather with a silver cane. A little fairy tale cottage where the girls were dressed in long gowns and added a pearl to their necklaces each year. And they hosted balls where they slid across the marble floor, their dresses rustling, feather fans in their hands.

At least that's what the grownups who told the stories assured us, and that's what my mother said, too, bringing back from oblivion what her grandparents and their grandparents had passed on to her, long after the dresses, feathers, and laughter behind the fans had faded, because none of us, not even my mother nor my aunt, had lived through those splendid days, and you couldn't tell what really happened from what had been made up each time those stories were told." 

I think it's safe to compare Irlanda to an Edgar Allen Poe story - there's such beauty and depth to the language, but nothing is as it seems. There's some dark mysteries in this book and when you get to end, you'll probably go back to the beginning to start picking out the puzzle pieces again. If you're up for a spooky, twisted story full of lush imagery, then I completely recommend Irlanda. 

To finish off this chain of related events, I'd like to show you a picture I took while exploring the gigantic Macy's in Chicago (something I'm saving for the next post). On one of the many floors, I spied a Ceccoli piece of art on display:

You'll notice that Macy's blotted out one missing piece of this - the girl! Check it out:

I can't believe they didn't keep the girl in. Still, I had only to look at the insect in the picture to know that this was Ceccoli's work (and, yes, I have seen this one before anyway). 

So, in a walnut shell, this was my overall experience at the conference itself. The conference is huge in many respects, so I feel like everyone's experience is probably vastly different. Mine happened to be full of fairy tales and illustrations, haha. 

On Writing: Jelly, Nail Clippings, and Sad Endings

Over the past few weeks, I've gotten some more questions from you all on Formspring. *Puts on hard hat* I think it's about time I answer them. 

How do you find your inspiration? And how do you come up with such creative plots?

Like a freak lightning strike, inspiration hits me at the most random moments. Perhaps too often – sometimes I have to check my head to make sure my hair hasn't burnt to a crisp! But when I go hunting for a story, as deadlines make you do, I become a scavenger.

I cast my net as wide as it can go.

Anything weird or quirky gets caught in my net; a broken music box, an abandoned baloney sandwich, the boy in the corner who wears too many keychains, the little bottle in the bathroom with beach sand and seashells inside. My taste in music is all over the place, I read tons of YA and children’s lit, and I still have a child’s heart. Which is why I still think that Mickey Mouse is still da bomb.

When I find these ideas, they are usually fragments. Strange thoughts. Adding up to nothing. I like to combine ideas in a way that makes sense – turning the mundane magical. Making impossible ideas believable is a fun challenge.

Also, how do you continue writing? How do you finish something and move on to the next?

I’m not perfect as far as this goes; there are a few projects I started that I’ve put on hold for one reason or another. Continuing, I think, is difficult for anyone. 

My advice for sticking with a story usually involves a few strategies:

1) Find a few readers you trust (Figment is great for that, haha). When you feel stuck or confused, it’s their cheerful, encouraging voices that will keep you going. Writing is, at its core, a solitary job. But it doesn’t have to be. A little support goes a long way. 

2) Take a breather. Kick your feet up and watch a favorite movie. Play golf. Order pizza. Clip your toenails. Do your laundry. Giving yourself a break will help you feel refreshed and ready to write another chapter.

3) Know your roots. Remember why you’re writing this story in the first place. Find its pulse. 

4) Do some research! If you’re writing about pirates, raid your library for books, documentaries, and movies – and go for the historic accounts (you’ll be more inspired by reality sometimes, than, for instance, Captain Jack Sparrow). If you have access to college-level databases and journals, read those too. It’s amazing what kind of interesting perspectives and ideas you can find buried within stuffy, academic articles. Immerse yourself in your idea. The more you know, the more tools you have to continue your story. 

In regards to finishing a story and moving on… 

Finishing a story is incredibly rewarding – and also gut-wrenching. When I finished Birdcage Girl, I literally had to cool off my brain. And I felt like crying a few days afterwards. It was an unexplainable sadness wrapped around the jolly pride of having finished. I think it has to do with finally reaching the goal. For most of the journey, you keep looking ahead and, chapter by chapter, the big finale keeps getting closer. But you always think, in the back of your head, that you’ll never get there.

Until you do. You’ve just written The End. 

That odd melancholy arises, I think, out of that finish line goal. When you finally reach it, it seems almost unreal. I’ve spoken with some of my writer-friends about the finishing blues and a lot of them had experienced it too. Glad I’m not the only one. I don’t cry much. Unless I’m watching an oddly touching commercial. Weird, right? 

Being able to move on to another project may be hard at first, especially if you feel like beginning revisions on your finished story (and you should, if you feel up to it). Concentrate on feeling refreshed and energized before jumping onto the front seat of another writing project. You will be able to write another – it’s just a matter of shucking off that sadness and beginning the journey again. 

What's your writing process like? (for B&B or any other novels)

Because each project has its own personality, my process tends to vary. However, every story usually starts for me with one particular image or idea. 

For Boys and Bees, I started out with the concept of love letters. Having written a love letter or two in my own time, I know how it feels when those carefully-crafted letters are ignored. But what excuse does the receiver of the letters have for not answering back? Those were the thoughts that started Boys and Bees; Hedda came first, the girl with the love letters, and Lorabeth quickly followed after with her bramble-like hair. 

The bees came about because, well, I’ve always been fascinated by them. A few years back, I saw a television special while at Disney (on the hotel’s Japanese channel) that featured beekeepers. I loved the cozy, delicate world I saw – quite unlike the scare-tactics that American shows use when featuring a beekeeper’s job. I wanted to create, alongside Lorabeth and Hedda, a bee world that wasn’t one to be feared. Love and bees seem to be going well together so far, I think, haha. 

Another question - how do you first develop and plan out your stories?

For me, developing and planning have a lot to do with tinkering. It’s about the only kind of tinkering I can do, especially since I lack the skills needed to put together IKEA furniture (despite the idiot-proof directions). 

I like to mash ideas and concepts together. Use glue to make them stick – or make sense. Say I start with a boy who has an obsession with grape jelly. So much so, that he’s sculpted a living dog out of jelly. Well, I’ll string another idea – fish don’t like cats – and another – Tuesdays are blue – and then fill in the gaps between them to make them work. And sometimes they don’t. But when they do, it makes for an exciting story to write. 

Each idea, in other words, is connected to another. Plots and subplots intertwine like threads. 

I try not to plan too much in advance because sometimes the planning itself gets overwhelming. You get bored when you have every scene, every piece of dialogue perfectly laid out. There’s no room for change or innovation. I use Microsoft OneNote for what planning I do; I have pages for each character where I put pictures and bits of information as it comes to be. And I do basic outlines, usually for the beginning of the stories – though I have a pretty concrete idea of how each story ends. 

Hi Kim! So, I am one of your ghost readers--I've only made one comment on your various brilliant stories. I'm considering coming to Figment to post my own fairy-tale-esque things. Anywho, the question: Where did you get the inspiration for writing your fa

Hello, ghost reader! I’m glad you decided to take off your bed sheet skin to send me such a nice comment. I always know a ghost reader is nearby when my laptop screen goes suddenly cold. Shhh, my new chapter is being read. 

Oh, you should! And please let me know what your username is so I can take a look at your stories. Gads, the question got cut off on Formspring. I wonder what you meant to ask. Well, since you were talking about fairy tales, did you mean to ask where I got my inspiration for my fairy tale stories? I’m going out on a limb here, haha. A phantom limb. 

Fairy tales are very much a part of me. Their stories race through my blood (or something equally poetic). Ever since I was a child, I soaked up any kind of fairy tale. Mythology too. With each retelling – whether picture book or film – the stories only got better. I felt like I was a part of one big secret: after all, fairy tales have a lot of human truth to them. I guess I sensed it. 

My mom says she used to play Disney’s The Little Mermaid for me every day – and as far as I’m concerned, I’ve suffered no delusions. It didn't take long to get my grubby little hands on the Anderson version, but it wasn't a smooth transition. My parents rented me an anime version and sat me down in the basement to watch it by myself. It was - and is - a beautiful adaptation. But I didn't see the tragic ending coming. When the little mermaid burst into sea foam (with, I might add, an eerie, warbling backtrack), I burst into violent tears. I cried so loud that my parents rushed downstairs. They couldn't quite comfort me. I had to get over the sad ending on my own. I had connected the mermaid's death with the passing of a dear family member... and I think, to this day, the whole event reflects how real these tales are. How there's always a way to relate. On a lighter note, it was probably at this point that I developed a taste for happy endings. Yeah. 

So I'm not sure how to answer how fairy tales influence and inspire what I write. They kind of go together. The enchanted bears, wise women, poison apples, mirrors, dresses of sun and moon, a tinderbox with saucer-eyed dogs. After reading so many fairy tales and myths, the oddness of life isn't so surprising. 

Lorabeth and Hedda

Where did you get your inspiration for Lorabeth and Hedda and how did you choose their names?

Wow, my first Formspring question! Thank you for asking, dear anonymous reader! I'm excited to answer. For anyone who reads my blog, and not so much my Figment work, this question is in regards to my newest project on Figment, a serial novel called Boys and Bees.

Lorabeth Frisch 

When I'm writing about Lorabeth, I do imagine her looking something like actress Hailee Steinfeld. There's a wildness about her hair (looks like it could hold twigs) and an unconventional kind of beauty about her.

Even though the first chapter of my serial novel, Boys and Bees, starts off with the angle of examining Hedda, the story began when I created my true main character, Lorabeth. I've always had a love for mori girls, a kind of woodland-inspired fashion trend created in Japan. To me, my main character had to be a little wild, untamed, but still lovable. I looked at a lot of old vintage photos of little girls with snarled hair and rumbled dresses and was, in part, inspired by the description of the little girl in one of William Wordsworth's poems called "We Are Seven." He writes:

"She had a rustic, woodland air,

And she was wildly clad;

Her eyes were fair, and very fair,

Her beauty made me glad."

Usually my characters are pretty straight-laced, always doing their homework and making sure they're on time for appointments. So I wanted to do something different with Lorabeth by trying to make her a slacker, haha. Lorabeth is a very determined girl but has a one-track mind: training her bees is what matters to her the most and anything that gets in her way is nothing more than a useless distraction. In that way, she's a oddball for sure, but it makes writing about her a very fun and interesting experience. 

Lorabeth's relations with her parents - the lion-tamer father and gardener mother - will come about later in the story and will hopefully shed some light on where she picked up on some of those traits, haha. 

Finding a name for Lorabeth was tough. I didn't want to give her name that sounded too dreamy or feminine. I usually search through popular names starting from the Victorian Era and on - rarely do I pick names that are popular now - unless they happened to show up in other lists, as most names do. I happened upon a website that listed popular nicknames for boys and girls, and that's how I found, buried in the L's, the name Lorabeth. 

There is no actually name meaning for Lorabeth, but it is a combination of two existing ones: Lora means "laurel" and Beth means "house." It will be interesting to see how these two meanings will collide or if, perhaps, she develops a preference for one of them. 

Hedda Sparling

Dakota Fanning is, in a way, how I imagine Hedda to look. Hedda is a pale beauty with a round face and luminous eyes. I think Dakota, especially in this photo, embodies that kind of energy :)

The story of Boys and Bees begins with love letters - and someone had to read them. Hedda was born from this need. However, she quickly stood on her own as a mysterious and alluring girl... with something to hide. Well, it took me a while to find out what that secret was. I couldn't pry it from her. "Okay," I had thought. "This girl has a secret. Fine. I'll let her have it."

 Hedda's secret, within a chapter or two of writing, finally became clear; I can't wait to fill you in on it when the time comes in the story.

Again, like with Lorabeth, I hadn't yet written about a popular girl. I like teen school movies as much as the next person (Mean Girls being my favorite), but I never created my own set of Plastics before. Nor did I do it here. I fleshed Hedda's character out and realized that she'd never be flat like that - her father's influence, along with her secret, plus those constant love letters from boys, created a potent character that has a lot more layers than I first expected. Hedda Sparling may be the popular girl, but she's not happy with what that actually means. 

She teams up with Lorabeth because she shares a deep love for the school - and I'm sure, along the way, she'll reveal more of herself to the readers. 

When it came to her name, I didn't think about meaning. I came across "Hedda" and it stuck. Simple as that. For the purpose of answering the question fully, I looked up the meaning: "contention" or "strife." Wow. How perfect, haha. 

Questions For You...

How do you imagine Lorabeth and Hedda when you read Boys and Bees? When it comes to naming characters, what is your process?

Tidbits: February Edition

Picture / Photo Find

A Writer Thing

I wish this month was as sugary pink as advertised on television. For the first time, I'm ridiculously busy early in the semester. That means that when I make it past this month, March should be, in theory, a little enjoyable. 

This Thursday, I'll be participating in my university's first creative writing conference; it's nice to be at home for one of these giant celebrations. The conference is called Blank Pages, a two-day marathon full of panels and readings from all genres. The panel I'm directing, and presenting on, is called "Young Adult Literature Not Just For Young Adults" and that'll be happening early on the first day. I'm excited to be speaking about YA literature, though it's easy to feel butterflies during preparation, you know? My part of the panel will focus fairy tale retellings in particular - why are they so popular, from a reader and writer's perspective. 

There's a grad and undergrad reading happening that night called 6x6; I'll be on my tip-toes in front of the mic, reading a story about a girl who's in a long distance relationship with an alien. 

Well, it is the month of love, isn't it?

Also, I've gotten some great questions on Formspring regarding my writing on Figment, and I'm looking forward to answering them. Some of my blog posts will be answers to those questions, a nice change and, perhaps, a good way to stay on track with my blogging. So much writing! 

Song I Can't Stop Repeating

"Like a Song" - Lenka

For a more melancholy, haunted love song, I turn to Lenka. She's one of my favorite musicians ever, and I can never get enough of her music. This song in particular is so soft and sad with a music box melody:

I can't forget you when you're gone 

Your like a song 

That goes around in my head 

And how I regret 

It's been so long 

Oh what went wrong 

Could it be something I said 

Time, 

Make it go faster 

Or just decide 

To come back to my happy heart. 

Video I Watched Too Many Times

Oh yeah, Buster Keaton. This clip is from one of his lesser known talkies called Parlour, Bedroom, and Bath. While most of the movie is pretty slow, the interacts that Buster has with the various women (most of them fairly mean) are hilarious. In this montage, he takes the advice the first woman gave him with the lines he yells and the body movements. 

Not gonna lie - I'd love to hear 'em, no matter how corny. My darling, I love you madly! You must leave leave! I cannot live without you! 

Yay, Valentine's Day. 

Award News: Figment, Flamingos, and Skeletons

Third time's the charm, right? I entered another Figment contest. There's a pattern here, I believe. I can't help but be drawn into the natural challenge of the prompts; for this contest, I simply couldn't ignore it. Why? Well, the theme was magical realism - it was a call to writing that I couldn't ignore. Like a hunting horn, or something, haha. 

Officially called "The Probability of Miracles" contest, the rules were simple:

Inspired by the magical realism in The Probability of Miracles, write a story in which something magical happens in an otherwise realistic world. (Bonus points for throwing in a plastic flamingo). Stories should be fewer than 1,200 words.

The idea for my contest entry didn't come so easily though. I spent some time racking my brain for ideas, trying to find some story that still managed to delicately handle the tricky rules of magical realism. It was a fun challenge, despite the headache, and eventually my fascination with skeletons (of the tap-dancing kind) bloomed into a story about a lonely, fireball of a girl and a science room skeleton. 

Wendy Wunder, the author of The Probability of Miracles, judged the contest. I'm happy that my story, "Skeleton Friend," met her rubric :)

The Story

"Skeleton Friend" is a short story about a girl named Cordelia who moved to a frigid, unfriendly town; her sunny demeanor doesn't attract the equally chilly student body at the local high school. She forms an odd friendship with a discarded skeleton... you can read the whole story here. 

A quick excerpt, of course, just because, haha:

On a cold, February day, Cordelia found a science room abandoned. She wiped her damp, citrus-stained hands on her sweater and snuck inside. The room smelled like sawdust and rainforest. Test tubes dried on the pegs, burners were unplugged, and the eyewash center looked thankfully unused. There was also a tank of muddy toads by the teacher’s desk, but Cordelia was drawn to a pile of cardboard boxes.

The top box was large enough to house a decent-sized television. When she peeked inside, she found an old, dusty skeleton. It caved in on itself, knees to chin, plastic hands twisted. She poked around, finding his flexible vertebral column, numbered bones, and muscle maps. On the back of his neck, the words “Mr. Thrifty” were printed.

“Mr. Thrifty,” she said, tasting the name. “What’s your first name?”

“Sam,” the skeleton said. 

While the voting was going on, two wonderful Figgies made covers for my story. I've never had anyone make me covers before, so I was honestly bashful and so happy to see them. So I'd like to show you all on here:

This lovely cover was made by Jasmine Everdeen. What's amazing about this is that the photo she found matches up with a scene from the story, as well as showing the skeleton's real size (unlike the photo I found, which is of the mini skeleton. That caused some confusion, haha). Thank you, Jasmine! *claps*

And Anna Browne made two different covers; I like the humor in the first one, this kind of dark fusion of some elements of the story, along with the friendship aspect. I also think the font on the second one is really cool - I liked the image so much that I didn't want to type onto it, but Anna really made it work. *Claps*

Thank you both so much!

The Prize

I anxiously awaited The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder, my prize for winning the contest. It was pretty exciting to open the package and see the hot pink cover screaming, "read me now!"

Isn't that cover something? And here's a good, quick summary from Amazon, explaining the basics of this book:

Dry, sarcastic, sixteen-year-old Cam Cooper has spent the last seven years in and out hospitals. The last thing she wants to do in the short life she has left is move 1,500 miles away to Promise, Maine - a place known for the miraculous events that occur there. But it's undeniable that strange things happen in Promise: everlasting sunsets; purple dandelions; flamingoes in the frigid Atlantic; an elusive boy named Asher; and finally, a mysterious envelope containing a list of things for Cam to do before she dies. As Cam checks each item off the list, she finally learns to believe - in love, in herself, and even in miracles.

When I cracked open the book and began to read, I grinned when I found out that Cam grew up in Disney World; her parents worked at the Polynesian Hotel. Cam is a very sarcastic character (which makes sense, considering her condition), but I had a tough time getting used to her pokes at Disney. It's kind of ironic that I happen to be a huge Disney fan and somehow found my way to this book - after all, the descriptions say nothing about Disney, haha. I enjoyed the elements of magical realism like Cam's car, Vapor, which took on some of its namesake's characteristics, and the path beyond Dunkin' Donuts had led to the hidden town of Promise, Maine.  

The quirky characters were endearing, though I mostly connected to Cam's mother and sister. Cam herself was a bit too sarcastic for me, even though I tried to like her throughout the book. I felt for Asher, though I wish I could have connected with him more, and, when I reached the end of the book, it was honestly him who I could have cried for. His gloomy, death-wracked past left me concerned for his future, even after I shut the book. I wasn't quite convinced that he would be fine with another loss. 

Also, as an avid Disney fan, I found some of the facts to be a bit... skewed, even for fiction. The one that stuck out to me the most what the part where Cam and her friends stay in Cinderella's Castle for the night, via the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Maybe I'm the only one who can say this... but I did, in fact, stay in that room (That's another story, for sure). We were informed by cast members that the room in the castle can't be booked in any way, but could only be won - so that the room technically remained a gift. I don't know if the rules have been changed since then, but I was there for the Year of a Million Dreams when my cousin happened to sit in the lucky seat on Soarin' - and I was lucky enough to go along for the ride. 

Yep, one of the beds. It was hard to get one shot of the room, haha.

I don't usually tend to pick up books that deal with such a sad topic as cancer, let alone anything that's labeled with the word "tragic" (synonyms count!); even though Cam's story played out in such an amazing way, the very natural, expected ending still left me feeling unsettled. However, I think this is a personal thing, you know? I don't do weepy endings. It's an Achilles heel of mine. Still, this book has a lot to offer and it's worth reading if you like a good journey where characters grow and hope is found.