On Thursday, April 11, celebrated children’s book author Margi Preus visited Swanville Elementary School to give a talk about her writing process and inspirations. The Duluth resident spoke to the audience of students and teachers in the school’s auditorium.
Preus is best known for her historical fiction middle grade novels featuring real-life protagonists, including the 2010 novel “Heart of a Samurai” about Manjiro Nakahama, one of the first Japanese people to come to America after being shipwrecked; 2012’s “Shadow on the Mountain” about Norwegian resistance fighter Erling Storrusten and his efforts against the Nazis in World War II; and 2014’s “West of the Moon” about a Norwegian girl who immigrates to America in the late 19th century.
Preus started by involving the students in a reading of “Lily Leads the Way,” a children’s book written by her and illustrated by Matt Myers about a small but sturdy sailboat who goes on an adventure to save other, bigger boats from crashing into a lowered bridge. As Preus read the book, student participants held up cardboard cutouts of boats, the bridge and other significant symbols of the story to bring Lily’s journey to life.
During her talk, Preus described how she finds inspiration from the real-life stories of historical figures, though the process of researching and writing about them is long and arduous. She showed the students stacks of drafts that she goes through for each book, comparing it to the gallons of maple sap that have to be boiled down to make syrup. Preus also emphasized the importance of persistence, writing a little bit every day. She told the audience she doesn’t consider herself a naturally gifted writer, but a good rewriter.
“What I’ve learned, I learned from writing about real people that their lives have ups and downs, fortune and misfortune. But the real reason I wanted to write about real people is I thought it would be easy. But it wasn’t,” Preus said. “When I look at that big pile of papers that I write, I think that’s my sap. And this (holding up one of her books) is my syrup. And it just takes me that much writing to get some. So how do I go about writing a book? I just start writing. And I write a little bit every day. I have a little writing house that I use some of the time. I like to write on paper with a pen, so my first draft looks like that, and then I type it up and print it out. And I write out some more. And I do that over and over again. And I think my writing gets better and better and better.”
To demonstrate the ups and downs of plot and engage the students, Preus led an interactive storytelling game. She started a story with alternating “fortunately” and “unfortunately” clauses, and had the students raise their hands to contribute to the next event. The silly story brought much laughter as the protagonist encountered increasingly absurd obstacles and solutions on his journey. Despite falling into empty pools from airplanes, narrowly escaping grass spikes and other misadventures, he eventually found a trampoline that bounced him all the rest of the way from New York to California in order to see his friend.
At the end, Preus opened up the floor for a question and answer session. Students asked a range of questions about her writing process, her inspirations and more. One student asked how she conducts research about events long ago, to which Preus explained historians and archivists are able to find documents and primary sources that shed light on the past.
Overall, the visiting author was warmly received by the students, who were able to learn directly from a successful writer about the effort it takes to research, draft and publish historical fiction novels. Preus encouraged them to read broadly, write constantly and not be afraid to revise their work to make it the best it can be. Her passion for bringing unknown stories to life was evident, and hopefully many students left inspired to pick up a book or pen of their own.
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