"Ahoy, You Crazy Dreamers": A Conversation with John H. Ritter by Vicki Sherbert (The ALAN Review, Winter 2007)

Amidst throngs of teachers gathered outside the Opryland Governor's Ballroom, I heard someone call my name. Above a sea of faces, I saw John H. Ritter as he politely, but swiftly, moved through the crowd. We had tentatively scheduled time to sit down and talk before John was set to address the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents at the 2006 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) conference in Nashville, Tennessee. John had spent most of this November day speaking to middle and high school students in Nashville, and had just arrived.

I read my first book by John Ritter in 2004. For sixteen years I used children's literature extensively in my elementary classroom, but six years ago when I began teaching sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders, I realized that I had a lot of catching up to do if I were to become knowledgeable regarding adolescent and young adult literature. With the help of our school librarian, I began to immerse myself in literature for this age group, hoping to find titles to inspire my students to read beyond their daily assignments. I attended a workshop, Igniting a Passion for Reading, given by Dr. Steven L. Layne. One of the many books he "book-talked" was Choosing Up Sides. By the time he was finished with his review, I felt that if I failed to read that book, I no longer deserved to teach middle school! So I read the book! I book-talked it to my students one day, and from then on the book moved from student to student, rarely making it back to the shelf. My students had gained a great story, and I had gained something even more precious; my students trusted me to point them toward great books.

Ritter, whose novels include Choosing Up Sides, Over the Wall, The Boy Who Saved Baseball, and most recently Under the Baseball Moon, crafts his stories to show his young adult readers that they have choices when life throws them a curve. He uses the game of baseball, the glory of music, and the power of the written word to illustrate how young people can overcome everyday, and not-so-everyday, challenges. Each book goes beyond the story of the game, beyond the story of the problem, right to the heart of Ritter's message: What is really valuable in life? From the first page of Under the Baseball Moon, Ritter cries, "Ahoy, you crazy dreamers! Welcome to the water's edge of North America." Thus begins the tale of a young boy's search for what matters most as he pursues his dream of becoming a famous musician.

As our conversation progressed, John H. Ritter, the author, revealed how the passion, pain, and purpose of John H. Ritter, the person, has brought depth and richness to the stories he writes. He shared with frankness his feelings about the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he told me how writing stories of hope helped pull him from depression and despair.

Vicki Sherbert: John, you have had a full day already. You spent the morning with students, and I'd be interested to learn about the workshops you conducted with them.

Ritter: Everything I do in schools depends upon the audience: What is the age range, the size of the group, their background? Have they read my books? Which ones? I've done assemblies where they haven't even heard of me, and assemblies where the entire school has read one particular novel. Of course, the questions are always so much better and the discussions so much deeper when they have read my books.

This morning I spoke at a private middle school and a private high school. One thing I always try to do is give them a glimpse of what it takes to write a book. And I always start off by saying that if I could talk anyone out of becoming a writer, then I feel that I've done some good today! It's not so much that I want to talk them out of it, but that I want to make sure that when I leave, they have a much firmer grounding as to what it takes to be a writer. So many people say, "Gee, I should sit down and write a book. Hey, John, how do you get an agent?" And that's what the general population thinks. But there is no "school to become a novelist" regardless of what these MFA Creative Writing programs say. I discourage people from going into MFA programs actually because I think they can kill a good writer. I would take my chances on the street, gaining life experiences, rather than sitting down in college and learning from a barely published professor. Now, that's not always the case. I know T. C. Boyle teaches a writing class at USC. I don't know what it's like, but he doesn't qualify as the bitter professor.

But writing is still something for which there's no apprenticeship program. Every writer who comes along has to reinvent the wheel. And now, when I give writers' workshops to adults each year, when I'm talking to adults who want to become YA novelists, I try to shave off about five years of their road to becoming a published novelist with what I've learned along the way. Even then, it's probably a ten-year journey, or a ten-year apprenticeship, I usually call it. Sometimes, the apprenticeship happens in the public eye. That is, you get published too soon. I've seen that happen with writers. They have a great idea, the book is pretty well executed. Then, BAM! Success, of some degree. So they start working on book number two, and they don't have a clue. The idea's not there, they're not that strong as far as writing goes, they're just lost. So they stumble, and the sophomore jinx comes up, and that second book doesn't do very well, and by the third book, they're out of the game. So what I'm saying to students is that writing is a tough trade. Don't rush into it. In fact, learn your chops while getting some real life experience, because a writer not only has to write well, but is expected to tell us something, in story form, that we never knew before. So it's much better if you don't learn your trade in the public eye.

VS: Before you've had the seasoning time?

Ritter: Absolutely, so that you've experienced enough of life to be able to tell us a genuinely unique story with the necessary insight, compassion, and grace. And I think a writer should continually evolve with each book. That doesn't mean each book is going to be better than the one before; it can be, but your skill level should be getting better because of what you've learned. I hate to see a writer get to a certain plateau and level off, because then I believe you are undershooting your stars. There's no reason why you can't continue to be a better writer until the day you put down the pen. The writers I read and the ones I want to run with are the ones who do that. They are constantly experimenting with form or with style, with voice, and they're always getting their storytelling chops more finely honed and crafted.

VS: That is a concept I'd like to communicate to my middle school students. That you never stop growing as a writer. Reading your novels, I've been struck by how you combine so many of your passions; your passion for baseball, for music, your passion for art and writing; in each of your books. You integrate these ideas in a different way each time. Is that a conscious choice or plan as you begin each book, or is it more of a natural result of pouring yourself into the story?

Ritter: Well, I've never thought about it before. That doesn't mean it wasn't planned, it just means that . . .

VS: Maybe to you it seemed like a natural thing and we readers are the ones who are amazed at your craft!

Ritter: Well, maybe. I know that as a writer, I feel like I can do anything. I mean technically, craft-wise, I can do anything I want at the moment. And so if I want to tie together a baseball story with a Vietnam anti-war story, I can do it. I take that as a challenge. I was always one of those overactive, high-achieving kids who was bored with the everyday. But if I got the feeling that a teacher didn't think I could do something, then I was on fire, and I went for it! So that's why not only have I never written the same book twice, I've never written anything close to the same book twice. I'm constantly looking for new territory. I want to pioneer, to go there first, before it gets overridden with writers.

When I broke into fiction writing—short fiction—my stories were about abused children; this was in the early nineties. But by the time I got a book published in 1998, that subject matter was the status quo. They called them 'problem books.' "What's the problem in this book? This is the one with the alcoholic parent. This is the one with the kid who does drugs. This one is pregnant." Publishing Choosing Up Sides saved me a lot of bother, because now I can just push all that "kid versus parent" or "destructive kid versus self" stuff off my desk. None of that is going to be on my agenda because it's all being well-covered by tons of writers—even today. But I constantly want to go into territory no one has worked before. So to put all my passions—the things I really care about—into my writing is pretty natural. I mean, why else would you write?

There is also another level to this answer. That is, when I go into schools and talk about writing and being a writer, I never stop with that. I always ask the audience, "Who wants to be an artist of any sort? An actor maybe? Is anybody in drama? Does anybody sing in church? Do you play music? How many of you are athletes?" And I lump all of those categories together, athletics as well as all the fine arts, because all members of those groups are essentially fighting the same battle. For any one of them, it's going to take a miracle to make a living at it. So I want to talk in terms of practicality.

That is, "How do you achieve a life that allows you to be an artist?" When I decided I was going to be a writer, the first thing I started to do was read biographies of writers. Not to find out their philosophies or secrets of writing, but I wanted to find out the answer to one question: How did you afford to be a writer? Where did you get the free time? Mark Twain married money; his father-in-law gave him a house. Jack Kerouac lived with his mom until he was 35. Both of those solutions are equal in my eyes, in the sense that they bought the authors time. They were able to find a way to give themselves time to experience life, to travel, and then to come back and write about it without having to punch a time clock, without having to worry about how much income they were bringing in. So, when I'm in schools, I'm trying to get students to start to think about what professions are available to an artist so you can pay your bills while you write. Those other possibilities are there; you marry somebody who has a more normal occupation, you marry a school teacher, and you have your summers to travel and you have an insurance program. (laughs)

VS: Ah, yes, the insurance program!

Ritter: Right. I was a contractor for many years. My wife was a secretary, and we bought two little houses in San Diego dreaming about the day when she would be a teacher and I would be a writer, which took fifteen years to achieve. I tell students that if you go to Hollywood, all your waiters and all your bartenders are actors and actresses. That's a kind of job that allows them to be flexible enough that they can show up for a ten o'clock audition three days in a row, or whatever it takes to pursue their art, rather than just saying, "Someday I'm going to do this. Someday I'm going to . . ."

And then I separate writing out and I tell them it's the one art that you can arrive at in your thirties and forties and still be considered a young artist. We expect our novelists to tell us new and important things—things we haven't thought all the way through. Kids hate to hear that, because nowadays, because of Harry Potter, they've all got a book in them; they've got three on the computer! But if you stop to analyze what these kids are writing, it's all a retelling of Eldest or Harry Potter or Inkheart. Essentially, unless they've had a unique childhood, there's really not much that they are going to discover that hasn't already been discovered and written about by others for hundreds of years.

VS: You are trying to help them understand what it takes to succeed as a writer.

Ritter: Yes. My last two books were written after 9/11 and after we started the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which just broke my heart. When I started seeing the children we were killing in Afghanistan for essentially no reason whatsoever, except that an angry, panicked, vengeful nation just decided that's what they wanted to do, it just saddened me that I was living among that many people who felt that way; and so I was really thrown off track. I was talking to Robert Lipsyte about this the other day, and I just said, "I can't write in anger. The book that would come out would not be a book anybody would want to read." And so I just kind of had to live through it.

I lost a year of creativity between Over the Wall and The Boy Who Saved Baseball because of that huge depression. It just knocked me off my feet. It literally did. I was in bed for days and days; I went weeks without going outside. And I needed something to buoy my spirits. And the solution ended up being just that-kind of a spiritual buoy. I wanted to write a book that was just packed full of joy and adventure and hope. Something that was uplifting, and I knew I didn't want it to have anything to do with a dysfunctional family, none of this crap! I wanted to have the driving force of the story to be a band of kids grouping together in order to pursue some common goal that just had to be accomplished. It was like this instant family had to form, and had to do something wonderful, something great out there, in spite of any petty little annoyances, which, of course, were inevitable between them. And that was just a direct reaction to the world I saw out my window. I wanted to let children know, let readers know, that this world that they happen to have been born into—or that they turned age nine, ten, or eleven in before realizing they were part of a bully nation that has taken on a third world country and is blowing them to bits—is not the only kind of reality or community that is possible. There is something else that you can strive for. Even in America. And maybe if just by metaphor, or by my storytelling, I could at least plant the seed of possibility into the minds of these kids, that striving for money, striving for status, striving for position and power or global oil is not the only reason to get up in the morning; in fact, getting up for that stuff is probably the wrong reason, then I would feel I'd done some good. I wanted to show a town and a family, who were content with a simple life, who did not declare development to be progress, did not declare economic one-upmanship to be progress. Rather, they saw it as being threatening and detrimental to what they valued. And what they valued was free time. In The Boy Who Saved Baseball, Doc says to Tom, "Rich people can't afford to live like us. They don't have the time." I wanted to put across that concept that there is something rich people running the rat race cannot buy. And it's very valuable. It's time, it's family, community, contentment. All the things they had in Dillontown, beyond what Tom thought about the baseball field being magical and so on, beyond that, they had a life that wasn't driving them crazy. They didn't have to jump on the freeway and join that commute every morning.

Like Maggie LaRue says in the book, "Why not live where you work or work where you live?" Save yourself this hassle. You know, if that job that you want is so far away, but you can't afford to live in that neighborhood, then wait a minute, how valuable is your life to you that you would leave this neighborhood to lose two, maybe three, hours a day commuting to work in that other neighborhood that you can't afford to live in? Maybe you haven't exhausted all the possibilities. Could you stay in your own neighborhood and do something else in life that will allow you to be close to family and meet your obligations? Or if you love what you're doing, could you move to that part of town and live in a studio and still eke out a living, while benefiting from the walks, the coffee houses, the extra time or whatever?

What kind of example do we give our children when we spend an hour on the road everyday to and from work, in horrible traffic, and the development is out of control? Although I think I've lost the parents, which is why I write for children, my idea is this: Kids, you still have a choice. So just by demonstration in my novels, I want to show that there is another way to go about life, and in Under the Baseball Moon I say it outright. Though it's an un-American suggestion in the sense that we are taught to always be striving; striving to go to the greatest college in order to get the greatest job in order to get the greatest income and live in the greatest house with the greatest blah, blah, blah; and then you come to the end of your life and see that you never had time to be yourself, you never had time to gather your thoughts in the evening or to walk in the woods, or to travel through Europe or South America, or you know spontaneously . . .

VS: To really live?

Ritter: Yeah, to really live.

VS: And your passions?

Ritter: The real passion in my life is this: Buying time! I discovered it when I was in college. I worked construction, and we worked so hard in the summer because this was the big season for this commercial contractor I worked for—their big season for out-of-town work, seven-days, fourteen-days-in-a row jobs, working twelve-hour days. And at the end of that summer, before I went off to college, I had enough in my bank account to pay for my next nine months of life. And then the next summer I did it all over again. And it occurred to me fairly early on that you could go through life like this. If you lived very simply, which I did since I also had the advantage of being a hippie—you could buy yourself time. My wife and I had a lot of roommates. In Under the Baseball Moon, Andy's parents decided they were going to do the same thing—that they were going to overstretch themselves and buy a house and have a bunch of roommates. This house payment was going to be outrageous if it was just the two of them, but by sharing the home and renting out the rooms for five or six years, finally they got to the place where the payment was more manageable—and they could wind down. Then fifteen years later, it's like they were geniuses to have done that! My wife and I did it, and I think other young artists can too.

VS: As I was reading the book, I realized I had really missed that boat toward financial freedom!

Ritter: And, that's why I wrote about it. Kids need to know. When I talk to young artists, one of the things I urge them to do is to, early on, make a decision to create a life that allows them a lot of time.

VS: I loved how in Under the Baseball Moon you wrote of Glory's dependence on Andy's music while she pitched and Andy's dependence on Glory's presence to enhance his music. In the beginning, Andy viewed Glory's reappearance in his life with dread. The characters then realized that they could function alone, but that they were better together.

Ritter: Right, but then it got to the point where Andy realized that he didn't need her—that is, he was getting "rich" and so he was going to leave her behind to pursue his dream in the music world. To me, that became this critical point where he had to determine what was valuable in his life. What was important? And how important was it to be a big star if it meant living this kind of constantly irritated, constantly stressed, constantly striving lifestyle that he had to get into in order to sustain the kind of success he was having. It meant leaving this girl behind. And so he makes this choice that I don't think very many boys would make.

He had to have come from that town—Ocean Beach, California—and had to have come from that family in order for him to even consider making this sacrificial choice that he ends up making. And that was just part of my overall theme, and I tell you, it was driven by the war in Iraq. It sounds funny, but the whole idea driving this story is that sometimes we have to sacrifice something in order to make good things happen in the world. And in America, security—or in other words, fear—suddenly became very dear to us, and we began to do anything in the world to get as much of it as we could. And when that kind of thinking dominates the leadership of the nation, the media of the nation, and the consciousness of the majority of the people in the nation, oppression takes over. Becoming a vengeful nation is a very fearful act. So Baseball Moon was my way of saying this is not the kind of country I want to live in; I'd rather take great risks than to live like that. And it's not the kind of world I want to support. My goal then became trying to demonstrate something, some alternative to that value system, in such a way that didn't sound preachy, but had undertones of the message.

So I started the book off in the very first paragraph, "Ahoy, you crazy dreamers!" And then I talk about the wagon wheels of the Spanish fathers which cut across the Kumeyaay Indian migration trail and changed this land forever. It was an invasion that was parallel to a war; here we have the people with money coming to take natural resources away from people who were content and were doing very well, thank you, but were told it was for their own good. Instead it did neither one of those cultures any good. It did not bring out the best in either and it destroyed one of them. So, it was just my way of saying that what we're doing in Iraq is not a new thing; we're doing the same old thing. I carried that invasion theme throughout the book to the point that it wasn't just this town that was being invaded, it turned out the boy's mind was being invaded by this outsider. And when you lose your ability to think for yourself, as Americans did, to think critically, to compare and contrast and question the situation, and you're just going with the flow due to fear, you've lost the dearest thing in life. And that's love, for each other. And that's what drove me. Because clearly America was acting out of fear, not love.

So the book was about this whole idea that there are two different kinds of invasion. There are the aggressive armies that come in and destroy, bust through a border and destroy the land in order to occupy and control it. Then there are the immigrants—who come into this land, like the Mexican people who come across the border at great risk to their lives in order to do nothing more than to benefit our country, to benefit their families, and enrich the community in which they end up settling by doing very humble and very necessary work for low wages. And so in California the same time this war is going on, there's this immigration battle, because the nationalism of the war spilled into everything, and so the right wing hate groups had this concept that now we have to seal those borders. And they're not going to say "from those dirty Mexicans," they are going to say "from the terrorists." It was just another way to hide their racism and to push the agenda of closing off the border to those who look differently, particularly from Mexico. There has never been the cry to seal off the Canadian border. It's always the Mexican border. And I hope that this new Congress will be able to underfund that double wall that they've proposed, just let it go by the wayside, because it's insanity. Those people are not the enemy.

Anyhow, that's how I juxtapose those two different types of invasions in Under the Baseball Moon. One based on love, one based on fear. This is nothing any normal reader or any young reader needs to know, but that was how I was able to write this book and not feel like I was surrendering to fluff fiction in order to get through my depression. I still said something that was important, but I could say it in a way that I didn't have to wake up angry every morning.

VS: I appreciate the depth of story you concoct with each book, the rich characters and the tough, out-of-the-ordinary-yet-oh-so-typical dilemmas faced by adolescents today. Even though you write about incredibly serious things, there is so much fun in what you write. Is it difficult to blend the lighthearted with the heavy?

Ritter: I'm going to say "no" immediately, and I think that's the right answer. I do believe it's the proper way to go through life, to be lighthearted, even in the face of whatever natural or man-made disaster comes your way. I know serious situations arise, and you have to step up and deal with them, but you don't have to be crushed by them. It takes a real generosity of spirit to be a happy person. Depression is very selfish. I'm not saying that you can just recognize this and talk yourself out of depression, but it is a disease that feeds on selfishness, or creates a selfish person. I don't exactly know how it works. If you are going about very serious work, say in the medical fields saving lives, or on the street feeding the homeless or in school teaching children, whatever the serious work is, there is no reason you can't do it with an upbeat attitude and a joy in your heart.

Again, that's not something that I just want to stand up and tell you, because it does no good, but I would sure like to show that, and the way to do that is to prove it.

VS: In each of your books, your characters deal with some incredibly difficult things; the death of a sibling, war, a parent's depression; and yet they still are able to laugh at themselves and to find humor and relief in the midst of some pretty tough trials. I think your young adult readers need that. They, too, face some very difficult, serious things. Many carry some pretty heavy burdens. Your books allow them to connect with characters that carry some heavy loads also.

Ritter: I see it all as a part of that concept of taking time to ponder what's important in life. Hey, you may blow the SAT's, you may get turned down by three schools, two of which you thought you were dead certain to get into, or whatever, and does that crush you? Is that the end of the world? The answer is "No." But how soon do you realize it? It may be a year or several years. Usually, eventually, we learn that those are the types of things that we can shake off, those are the types of things that don't have to kill your spirit for months and years, but it's nice to know how.

VS: What does your week typically look like, or do you ever have a "typical" week? Has your working schedule changed with each successive book?

Ritter: I never have a typical week. And it was very insightful for you to ask whether my writing schedule has changed with each successive book. I'll just say that the only time you are a pure writer is before your first book is published. Once that first book comes out, you become a promoter; you've got to go out on the road, introduce your work to the audience. There are two hundred to three hundred young adult novels published each year. And most publishers have a budget of zero for a first novel. They may publish one or two dozen debut novels and essentially what they're doing is throwing them against the wall to see which ones stick. Meaning, which ones get star reviews; which ones win awards, not the major awards, but just awards in general; which ones are on the ALA Young Adult Best Book list? Maybe then they'll take an advertisement out, or put that book in a group ad. In other words, you have to show them you have earning capacity before they want to put too much more than the initial investment into your career. Eventually, I did. In my case, The Boy Who Saved Baseball was featured in a small article in People Magazine. No way could you buy that kind of publicity. And my life has never been the same since. That was unexpected; I had nothing to do with that.

But by and large, to break in, what you really need to do is be just like a musical group who has to go out and play the dive bars. You have to start with small regional conferences and introduce your work to an audience with the hope that they start to buy your book. It's like selling CDs out of your van. You then hope that by word of mouth, other people will buy the book, and over a period of time, you start to gather a following and thereby build a career.

VS: And you said you usually start out writing your novels with pen and paper instead of computer?

Ritter: Yes, I do. I feel like, originally, I'm painting the words; I'm tapping into that part of my brain where imagery flows. Really, all I'm trying to do is take that movie in my mind and somehow write it in some sort of short hand, as fast as I can dream it. I don't care about the writing craft, the skills, I don't care about the similes or literary devices. All that's easy for me. I can do that on draft number five or seven, later on down the road, but what's difficult for me is getting a good story in place—carving a good story out of this lump of clay of an idea that I have.

VS: So, what's in the works? What can we look forward to?

Ritter: Well, you know, when I come to a national conference like this, my editor, Michel Green, and I generally meet. We met yesterday at the hotel for a few hours over this next book. Michael has a degree in psychology and he studied screenwriting, which to me are the perfect qualifications to be an editor. He's not bogged down in literature; he's not an English major! By being a psych major, he understands character motivation. By studying screenwriting, he understands story, which is a weakness in most writers. Most writers love to write, but they're not very good storytellers. And the good storytellers tend not to be such great writers; however, they are on the bestseller lists! Which speaks to the fact that we want stories. I don't care how high-minded we think we are, we really want stories. So now I'm working on a prequel to The Boy Who Saved Baseball. I've gone back to the California Gold Rush days, but it really has to do with that moment in history when major league baseball made the ugly, and quiet, decision to become a white man's sport. Billy the Kid is in the story, but he's a good guy. He was loved by the Mexicans and spoke fluent Spanish in fact. So he's going to play baseball for a few weeks of his life, and he's going to come to Dillontown to do it. That's what I'm working on now.

VS:. Thank you, John, for giving me your story here today. My students and I will eagerly await your next book.

That afternoon in Opryland, John H. Ritter wove his way through a crowd of people and called my name. In each of his books, John H. Ritter weaves his way through the difficulties and hardships that can crowd in and cause us to lose sight of what matters most. "Ahoy, you crazy dreamers!" he calls to his readers. He's calling to you. He's calling to me. He's calling to us all.

To learn more about the works of John H. Ritter, or to find reviews, a reader's guide and teaching guides, please visit his website at www.johnhritter.com.

Dr. Vicki Sherbert teaches 6th, 7th, and 8th grade language arts at Wakefield Schools in Wakefield, Kansas. She previously taught 2nd and 3rd grades at Lincoln Elementary School in Clay Center, Kansas. She served as a Teacher Consultant for the Flint Hills Writing Project and earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Adolescent and Young Adult Literature at Kansas State University.

"Baseball's Life Lessons" by Holly Atkins (St. Petersburg Times, November 2003)

Books spill from their mountainous stack on my nightstand onto the floor next to my bed. "So many books, so little time" isn't just a T-shirt slogan--it's a statement about my life.

Lately, one author's work can be found on my nightstand, in my school tote bag and in my car CD player: John H. Ritter. So much more than a baseball writer, Ritter's work resonates with themes that touch us all: the power of the human spirit, the ugliness of discrimination, the struggle to come to know and believe in who you are.

Recently I corresponded with him by e-mail to chat about books, baseball and why young adult novels are not for teens only.

Atkins: You describe your novels as "pyramids." What do you mean?

Ritter: By that I mean you can take my stories at face value, like viewing a pyramid from afar, or if you're so inclined, you can go deeper into the text, searching for hidden treasures, double or triple metaphors, say, or hidden passages linking one section of the story to a seemingly unconnected part. For example, in Choosing Up Sides, I linked the apple that Eve gave to Adam with the mayapples that Luke throws at the tree to the old sports term "apple" which refers to a baseball to the Appleton Eagle newspaper which let the world know that Luke had given in to temptation.

Atkins: Why baseball? You even describe yourself as a "baseball writer" on your web site.

Ritter: Baseball is a thinking person's game, and I love to think. It's also the most literary-friendly of all sports, lending itself to drama and metaphor, such as the angst and heroics of a bottom-of-the-ninth comeback attempt. And since a pro athlete's career can last much longer in baseball than in any other team sport, thinking—or brainpower—becomes a genuine asset. Ballplayers are rewarded for their accumulated knowledge and wiles—not simply for height, weight, or brute strength. In fact, there is so much to learn in baseball that most great pitchers and hitters don't reach their prime until they're into their thirties and they can excel well past age forty. Kind of like great writers, actually.

Atkins: In "A Note from the Author" at the end of Choosing Up Sides you write about where the idea for this novel originated. So although on one level this is a novel about a left-handed future baseball star, it's really about the larger issue of discrimination?

Ritter: Yes—and religious-based discrimination, to be specific. That's the hardest prejudice to defeat, since it is delivered bearing a religious righteousness. I remember, as a boy, hearing segregation and racism being justified from the pulpit and I could not comprehend this glaring hypocrisy, totally contrary to what Jesus taught. Only later did I realize that the Bible often gets interpreted and reinterpreted in such a way as to reinforce one's own bigotry and social bias. I think it's important for children to recognize this practice as soon as possible and apply their critical thinking skills to it, since it certainly continues today.

Atkins: Last year the Children's Book Council included Choosing Up Sides on its adult crossover list "Not Just For Children Anymore." Good writers always keep in mind their audience, right? So who exactly is your audience?

Ritter: My audience has always been the whole family, not just children. I remember my dad at bedtime reading us Robinson Crusoe, lying on his back with the book in the air. That's the scene I imagine as I wrap up my novels. Young and old readers sharing the book. The best animation, the best stories of Twain or Bradbury or Lois Lowry, operate on multiple levels for a wide audience—some parts aimed at children, some crafted especially for adults, but always driven by a strongly entertaining story that will stand on its own with both audiences.

Atkins: Over the Wall begins with this quote by Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates: "If you have an opportunity to make things better, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." How does your job as a writer tie into this philosophy?

Ritter: It's the same. In Over the Wall, which is essentially a modern day retelling of the Good Samaritan story, the Dog-Man at the National Mall reminds the crowd that when you see a fallen man, "You don't walk by," he says. "You stop and help." Well, like Tyler in the book, as a teen right out of church confirmation class, I saw plenty of pain and suffering in this world, much of it caused by me or by my own countrymen, and now, as a writer, I do have the opportunity to make things better, instead of wasting my time on earth. So I aim for that.

Atkins: Even though it takes place in the late 1990's, Over the Wall, like Choosing Up Sides is very historical in many ways. Near the end of the book, Coach says, "Underneath the scab and scar of what we think Vietnam was or wasn't, something in there is still festering. In a lot of us." Would you comment on this?

Ritter: Most wars never end. Tyler comes to see this when he reads the plaque on the Civil War monument in New York City dedicated only to soldiers and sailors of the North—not those on the other side for which his ancestors fought. Then, with a bit of critical thinking, he connects that to the one-sided Vietnam War Memorial wall in D.C. and his artistic brain makes a quantum leap. He sees what Coach Trioli calls, "the big picture." Vietnam was a murky war fought for murky reasons, causing a lot of 18, 19, and 20 year old kids to do things they will never talk about with family and friends. These memories then become wounds that never heal. In fact, they fester, even today.

Atkins: In your novels, the "helpers" each main character meets dispense such sage advice. One of my favorite lines comes from Rachel in The Boy Who Saved Baseball: "I just believe that when good people do things with good intentions, good things happen. But when we do stuff out of fear, bad things happen." Learning to not "do stuff out of fear" is a lesson many adults and children must come to know. Why have you included this theme in your stories?

Ritter: Because fearfulness leads to all the wrongdoing in this world. It was Pa's fear of Luke's left-handedness that caused him to treat his son so harshly. It was Tyler's fear of being shown up and losing face that caused him to go to such violent lengths to avoid embarrassment. And it was the Dillontown team's fear of losing, the fear of development's effect on their town, that drove their thinking—until Rachel spoke up. She got to the core of the matter. The only antidote for fear is love. It's not more pride, more boasting, or fear-based thinking. The characters here learn that it's not so much what they do that counts, but the motivation behind what they do. Is it of love? Or of fear? I say if the current administration is brought down over Iraq, for example, it will not be because of the war, but rather the motivation—or agenda—behind the war. It's not appearing to have been an act of love.

Atkins: Nature is such a powerful presence in your books. In The Boy Who Saved Baseball, Tom wonders: "Could thought, then, be the wind of the mind? Could wind, therefore, be the thought of the earth?" In what way does this reflect your own personal philosophy?

Ritter: I have a strong personal belief that the farther removed we are from the earth, the less loving, caring, and nurturing we are toward each other. When we view the land and its resources as products, as a way to boost our personal wealth, we cut ourselves off from nature, God, and humanity. That trend is increasing and it's sad, because it's so unnecessary. This earth certainly provides enough to go around, but sharing has always lagged behind accumulation, which is driven by fear, not necessity.

Atkins: Walls also appear as important metaphors in your books. The Vietnam War Memorial, Del Gato's wall, the baseball field wall. Why?

Ritter: The fact that the Vietnam War Memorial is referred to as The Wall is very revealing of our national consciousness. I've always hated that reference. Walls separate people and they're such symbols of fear. In my lifetime I've seen the Berlin Wall go up and down—and which was better? I've seen the international border wall at the San Diego/Tijuana crossing become fortified—leading to thousands of deaths in the California/Arizona deserts, but no difference in the number of border crossers. So, who benefits? In the National Mall, there are no Vietnamese names on that wall, even though over three million died. It's as if their lives didn't matter, though many of them fought right alongside the Americans, died for the Americans, and were killed by the Americans. The monument seems to say, "We only want you to remember us." We ignore the fact that every wall, like every war, has two sides, and standing on either obstructs one's view of the other. As Tyler learns, we only get "the big picture" when we stand back and rise above.

Holly Atkins teaches seventh-grade language arts at Southside Fundamental Middle School in St.Petersburg.

Read an insightful and revealing interview about John's Philosophy on Writing and Life with the folks at Baker and Taylor (nationwide wholesale book distributors) for their Librarian's Newsletter, October 2006

Question: You write with a unique rhythm and style that are quite commendable. What would you attribute this to, i.e., writing classes, reading specific authors, listening to jazz while writing, etc?

John: It's funny, but no jazz, no rock when I work. Probably because I grew up on Kumeyaay land and I'm part Blackfoot, but I listen to Carlos Nakai's Native American flute music exclusively when I write. In The Boy Who Saved Baseball, I even had Cruz de la Cruz ride in "on the lonesome trill of an elderberry flute." Of course, as with any artist, my influences are huge and widespread. My literary heroes have always been Dylan, Twain, Steinbeck, and Kerouac, pretty much in that order. Today I would add Cormac McCarthy and most recently, Leif Enger.

In the case of Baseball Moon and the jazzy voice I use, it first came to me as I walked the streets of New Orleans in the spring of '03 and sketched out the original story. But it probably originated way back in my younger years. When I was 15, the same age as Andy and Glory, the Bob Dylan Songbook fell into my hands and changed my life forever. I found it to be an amazing book-full of crazy characters, of sadness and love, of desperation and revolution, of insight, and morality, and even humor.

I stood in my garage and tore the baffle off my electric organ, cranked up the tiny Sears and Roebuck mail order amp, and sang that book from cover to cover, memorizing beat street lyrics, adopting the wail of a moaning man of constant sorrow, a tambourine man, a weather man, only a pawn, only a hobo, but one more is gone, and on and on. I began carrying around a spiral notebook in my back pocket, cover torn, metal rings flattened from school desk seats, pages bent, half-ripped, but all filled with blue pen lines scribbled out, fast paced, double-spaced, full of civil rightist, war protest love songs. And that experience gave me my emotional material for Over the Wall and a prose rhythm I still dip into, as you can see. Under the Baseball Moon simply became the right vehicle—with the right characters—to tap into that songwriting background.

Glory Martinez, she is a handful. It seems like she stepped out of a Joyce Carol Oates novel. Can you elaborate on why she had such a tough upbringing and still comes across with charm and drive? She is one of the more intriguing characters I've come across in recent YA literature.

LOL. I don't know what Joyce would say, but I love Glory. It's amazing how many girls write and tell me the same thing. As for her charm, I see it as being hard-won through a conscious decision she made a few years before the book begins. As a small child, her wild costumes and the creation of her "woman on a flying horse" fantasy, which she tells Andy about, pulled her through scary situations, but the effect didn't last. So I see her development into a loving and charming teen as being part of that same survival mechanism, step two. I know from personal experience how hard it is to grow up happy and somewhat normal in a single parent home when that parent is an alcoholic. As you get older, though, you have a choice, and it can go one of two ways. Either you become your antagonistic, anti-social parent and repeat his mistakes or, by watching and suffering through his failures, you become the opposite. Of those two choices, Glory made the healthy one, which, as you say, is quite unusual in YA literature. But kids in Glory's situation do occasionally develop a desire to dream big coupled with the drive to succeed, and I find this rare character far more fun and interesting to write about than the typical.

Are the main characters in your books based on real people or situations, or is the majority of your writing purely fiction based on your imagination?

The situation comes first, and it's always imaginary. But as for the characters who people my stories, I do sometimes pull from real life. Dante Del Gato, for example, the hard scrabble reclusive former Major League MVP in The Boy Who Saved Baseball, was partially based on the real life tragic hero, Ken Caminiti, who was a big league MVP and batting champ in the '90s, but struggled with addictions, leaving the game under a cloud, and was dead by age 41. In Baseball Moon, I used San Diego's "magical, organical beachtown" of Ocean Beach, because it's so full of colorful, eccentric people and places, which I wanted to capture before they disappeared. I based the Holy Jokester, for instance, on the late, strange-but-lovable OB Spaceman, who wandered the streets of town selling seats on a rocket ship to another planet.

What characters in Under the Baseball Moon do you most identify with? And are there any in your other books?

Andy, the main character in Baseball Moon, is fairly autobiographical. I wrote tons of songs and dreamed of making it big in the rock world from age 15 to 22. His father, though, is closer to who I am today in his approach to life and his view of the entertainment industry's customary habit of reining in and "branding the maverick" of talented rising stars whom they deem as being too far out creatively. Tyler, in Over the Wall, is really me, a 13 year old kid who argued with his minister over whether a true Christian could ever go to war.

What inspired you to be a YA author?

The Complete Bob Dylan Songbook. Dylan's work fits my description of good writing perfectly. That is, every word is well chosen and every line is surprising in its direction and imagery, making the piece constantly forward-moving and entertaining. And the truth is, his songs are real close to hip-hop and rap. He also started out writing to the same audience I write to—adults and young people who ask questions and think for themselves. Beyond that, Kerouac's On the Road was in my hip pocket in the 70s as I hitch-hiked up and down the California coast more times than I can remember—so that book has to be included for the same reasons.

Under the Baseball Moon, and previous books you've written, include a love of baseball. How does this play into your life? Do you love baseball as your characters do?

Baseball is a thinking person's game, and I love to think. It's also the most literary-friendly of all sports, lending itself to drama and metaphor, such as the angst and heroics of a bottom-of-the-ninth comeback attempt. And since a pro athlete's career can last much longer in baseball than in any other team sport, thinking—or brainpower—becomes a genuine asset. Baseball players are rewarded for their accumulated knowledge and wiles, not simply for height, weight, or brute strength. In fact, there is so much to learn in baseball that most great pitchers and hitters don't reach their prime until they're into their thirties and they can excel well past age forty. Kind of like great novelists, actually.

What are you working on now for children or teens?

I'm writing a prequel to The Boy Who Saved Baseball, going back over a hundred years to the early days of Dillontown. We meet the crusty old ballplayers and characters only mentioned in The Boy, such as Blackjack Buck and Long John Dillon, as well as Cruz de la Cruz (in some form) and Billy the Kid. It's going to be a wild story, but with a twist, as I love to do. To quote from the opening, these people are "fist-fighting misfits and cattle rustlers, gold-digging drunkards and cardshark hustlers. And that's just the women. The men are all that, plus they smell bad."

Read an interview by Chris Crowe, Professor of English, Brigham Young University for The ALAN Review, Spring/Summer 2000

With his baseball novel Choosing Up Sides (Philomel 1998), rookie YA author John H. Ritter landed a spot on the All Star team. Awards for his first YA novel included the 1999 International Reading Association's Children's Book Award, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults notation, and a 1999 Blue Ribbon Book citation from The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books.

Ritter's second at bat, Over the Wall (Philomel 2000), will secure him a regular spot in the line up of notable authors writing about sports for young adults. Ritter's baseball books are more than just sports novels. They have plenty of lively and realistic baseball action, but the play-by-play is only a small part of the stories.

Instead of focusing on on-the-field action, Ritter's books are coming-of-age stories of young men who happen to be athletes. With his novels, Ritter joins popular YA authors like Chris Crutcher, Will Weaver, Carl Deuker, Rich Wallace, and a handful of others who write what I call sportlerroman (after the German term kunstlerroman, a coming of age story of an artist). These books pack the appeal of a sports story with the added depth of the emotional or personal development of a central character. Both of Ritter's novels fit nicely into this classification of YA sports literature.

Set in 1921, Choosing Up Sides is the story of thirteen year old Luke Bledsoe, the left-handed son of an itinerant preacher who constantly reminds Luke, "The left side has always been the side of Satan, contrary to God. ...And baseball itself is nothing but the Devil's playground." As a diligent son, Luke works hard to overcome his left-handedness, but when he discovers he possesses prodigious ability to pitch a baseball--left-handed--the temptation is too much to resist. His desire to use his talent and to fit in with the town kids who play baseball set him against his overbearing and stubborn father.

In Over the Wall, Tyler Waltern is a talented but temperamental thirteen year old shortstop. While spending the summer with cousins in New York City, he hopes to land a position on the local all star team. Unfortunately, his hot temper alienates him from the coaches who will ultimately make the all star choices. Tyler eventually faces up to his temper and its root causes: his unhappiness over his father's inability to deal with the accidental death of Tyler's sister compounded by a vow his father made when his own father was killed in the Vietnam War.

Though Tyler doesn't realize all his baseball dreams, he comes away with something more valuable: a new perspective on the "other guy," which manifests itself in a symbolic demonstration at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that helps him deal with his own anger and confused emotions.

I recently had a chance to sit down and talk with John H. Ritter about his life, his books, his views on sports literature, and a variety of other subjects. Here are excerpts of our conversation that might interest the readers of The ALAN Review:

Chris Crowe: John, tell us a little about your life. You've written a book set in rural Ohio and one set in New York City. Where did you grow up?

Ritter: Neither of those places, actually. My parents were natives of Ashtabula, Ohio, up around Cleveland. But before I was born, my dad landed a job out west as a sports writer, so I grew up in the rural hills of San Diego County. In the 1920s, the time frame of Choosing Up Sides, my family was scattered all through the Ohio and West Virginia region. So that setting was a natural. And Over the Wall is about a modern day California boy going to New York, which was loosely based on personal experience.

CC: What kinds of writing did you do in school? Did you have any influential teachers? What kind of student were you?

JHR: A wild student, I'll say that first. A rabble rouser and a contrarian. I was constantly searching for the exception to every rule. But I was always a high achiever. The problem was, I had this dual personality. I could be extremely focused and responsible one day, then get tossed out of class the next. As proof, in high school I was voted both the Senior Class President and the Senior Class Clown.

CC: So when did you work on your writing? In college?

JHR: Well, yes and no. In high school I wrote plays and wrote for the school paper. By the time I got to UC San Diego, I was writing tons of songs, hoping to be the next Bob Dylan or something. I carried around a little notebook, constantly jotting down riffs and phrases. But by my second year in college, I was anxious to get on with my life. And for the vision I had in mind, college didn't have much to offer me. I knew I had to walk the streets, touch life, embrace life, gain experience. I didn't trust professors to guide my career. I wanted to discover books and writers on my own, not be told what to read and certainly not what to write. I wanted to hit the road like Kerouac, Dylan, and Twain. To have something real to write about.

CC: What happened?

JHR: One fine spring day, I walked right past my sociology class, straight into the dean's office, filled out a withdrawal card, and kept on walking. I got a job as a painter's apprentice with a commercial contractor I'd worked for in the summer. This was the early seventies, and we all lived so cheaply I could earn enough in three or four months to write and travel the rest of the year. I did that for several years until I got married, had a baby, and bought a house. Then I had to work for nine months a year! Bummer.

CC: So when did you learn your craft? Did you ever study with a writing teacher?

JHR: Yeah, eventually. Like I say, I preach this to kids all the time now. That raw talent--whether it's on the ball field or in music or on stage--will only get you so far. At some point you have to admit you really know nothing at all about the fine points. That you need a coach, a mentor, someone who'll teach you discipline and point the way.

CC: When did that come for you?

JHR: It started about twelve years ago. I began going to a fiction writing group twice a month. It was comprised of about eight unpublished writers led by a YA novelist named Joan Oppenheimer. We'd bring in our stories or chapters and read them out loud and sit trembling while everybody else responded. But Joan was great. She said, "You're the author. Just listen to the feedback and take consensus. Then if you think the comments have merit, consider making the changes."

But even so, it took me ten years to sell my first book. I left that group, took some extension classes, formed a new writers group, and kept writing story after story, each one a little bit better than the last.

CC: Baseball plays a role in both Choosing Up Sides and Over the Wall. Why?

JHR: Well, let me start by saying I was the middle son in a pretty close family of three boys and an older sister living way out in the sticks. We were pulled even closer when our mom died of breast cancer. I was only four, and my dad had a real rough road raising four small children on a journalist's salary. But we were also a sports family, and Dad always impressed upon us the idea of teamwork and pulling together. In fact, when he remarried six years later, two more sisters came along, and, to me, that just made the team that much stronger.

We ended up playing a lot of baseball growing up, boys and girls, and I went on to coach my daughter's softball team as my dad had coached for us. And even though my dad was a newspaper columnist, and I loved to write, as a kid my greatest hopes and dreams were attached to baseball. In fact, in my mid-teens, some people thought I had a shot at playing pro ball one day. But remember the times. The sixties. And I was a kid who believed in teamwork, in doing what I could to help other people.

Then the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War came along and threw all my dreams off track. That's why even going to college lost its worth to me. What happened was, real life and the cruelties I saw being practiced in or by my own country took precedence over my dreams. Now in later years, when it became time to pick subject matter for my coming-of-age stories, baseball leapt at me. Aside from my love for the game, it also lends itself so easily to literary metaphor. Our whole lexicon is filled with examples. "Three strikes and you're out." "Life threw me a curve." "You sure hit a homer with that idea." "He really went to bat for us," and so on.

CC: You mention coming-of-age stories, sometimes referred to as "bildungsroman." And from that we get spin-off genres, such as "kunstlerroman," the coming-of-age of an artist. Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a common example. Both of your novels could be what I call "sportlerroman," a coming-of-age story of an athlete. Were you ever tempted to make them simple sports novels, stories that focused just on the game?

JHR: I never intended them to be play-by-play sports novels, which I find boring. I'm more interested in using baseball scenes as metaphor, or for challenges to character, or to advance the story. I could as easily set the stories in the world of ballet, were I as knowledgeable in that arena. But the thrust would be the same. Kids dealing with hard choices. To me, that's the definition of YA lit. They're stories about that first time in life when one has to stand on one's own two feet, make a life-altering decision, then live with the consequences of that choice. If it happens on the ball field, fine. But usually it doesn't. It's just that events on the ball field may lead up to that moment and help shape the kid so that one day he can take his stand.

CC: In both your novels, the narrators are alienated from their fathers. Where does that come from? From your experience as a son? As a father? Or is it a plot device you like?

JHR: It's pure plot device. My dad never struck me, was not particularly religious, and was actually quite involved in my life--that is, considering he was the father of six kids. But beyond that, I wanted to explore a specific father/son dynamic. So in both novels I asked, what if this "problem" father is loving and well-meaning? What if he only wants the best for his son? Then how does the boy view the father's harsh treatment? In the end, both books are about a boy trying to save his father. Why would an alienated kid do that? The answer, I think, is what Tyler finds out in Over the Wall. It comes down to discovering what he really believes, then having the courage to act on it.

CC: You mentioned once that writing was in some ways like anthropological research. How so?

JHR: I was referring to all of the cultural research that goes into a novel. For Choosing Up Sides, set in Southern Ohio in the 1920s, I did tons of research on religious movements, on characteristics of left-handers, and the Appalachian dialect. But I also had to visit the region and interview people who lived there to get an idea of their culture and customs. Luckily I still had living relatives who could help.

But the same method applied to my modern-day story, Over the Wall, which is set in New York City. I became an anthropologist. I interviewed the shopkeepers, the residents, the ballplayers. Do I need to say that I found cultures there that were vastly different from my own? And I'm not satisfied with noting obvious differences. What I look for is nuance. Like the social code of the elevator attendants. Or the constant search for one's own quiet spot.

CC: How do you write? Explain your process, such as where do you get your ideas. How do you revise? Do you have an audience in mind?

JHR: The driving force behind all my stories comes primarily from finding something that really bugs me. And so far, it tends to be some sort of injustice.

Once I have the basic idea, I begin to research the book's general domain extensively. It might be ancient religious beliefs or earthquakes or Roberto Clemente. I dig up all the facts I can find, the weirder and more obscure, the better.

Finally I start to write. Always in longhand. As Graham Greene said, "My fingers on a typewriter are never connected to my brain. My hand on a pen always is." It's like I'm painting the words--I don't know how else to describe it. But the part of my brain that I engage so heavily in dreaming up the first draft does not engage in the same way at the keyboard. The second draft, however, goes into the computer. But all line editing and new scenes are done by hand on notepaper or the printed hardcopy.

From that printout I hack out a third draft which I polish as much as I can. That one goes to my writing group. Out of their feedback comes the direction for a fourth draft. I hack that out, then polish it and that becomes the fifth draft, which is the first one my editor ever sees.

I'll repeat that process two more times essentially. I'll show my work to various readers--teachers and teenagers, for example--then get editorial feedback every fourth or fifth draft. So I usually end up with fifteen drafts or so. All depends. But if my editor didn't stop me, I'd revise forever. Nervous habit. So by the time I get the galleys, which I read aloud for rhythm and voice, I can usually say that every word I use, I use on purpose.

As for audience, the only one I think about is my editor, Michael Green, at Philomel. He's a big sports fan whose only flaw is that he roots for the Mets. But he's a perceptive guy and such a kid at heart that I figure if I write stuff I imagine him liking, then I'm confident the kids will like it, too.

CC: What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

JHR: So much depends upon motivation. Just like in a good story. I'd say you have to join a writers group. Next, build your resume. Anywhere. Local newspapers, magazines, writing contests. It's so important. For example, one of my earliest novels won the Judy Blume Award for a work in progress offered by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. When I look back, that was probably my biggest break. The award opened doors for me, and the book caught my editor's eye which led to his buying my second novel.

But most importantly, learn the craft of storytelling. Learn how to grab a reader's interest, hold on to it, and keep it until the very last page.

CC: In both novels, religion plays an important role, though it's more obvious in Choosing Up Sides than in Over the Wall. What do you see as the role of religion--or religious faith--in your stories?

JHR: I don't come from a religious family, but for some reason, I was a religious boy. In fact, I was an altar boy! I think it came from searching for answers to lots of existential questions that hounded my life, including the death of my mom.

Anyway, it was quite natural for me to write about a boy who prays, a conscientious boy who has high standards--or at least he shoots for high standards. But I also know that religious beliefs can be at the root of bigotry and prejudice. For example, throughout our history, slavery and war have been justified from the pulpit. I have a cousin who's a well-published biblical scholar, and my father-in-law is a minister. So I've had many late night discussions on what they call the "paradoxes" of religious beliefs. That is, how in one part of the Bible a certain action is justified, and in another part it's condemned. War, for instance. How can a man who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus go to war, pick up a rifle, and kill another man? Because to me, that's not a paradox, that's hypocrisy.

But I saw that terrain as being fairly untrodden, especially in children's lit. And I believe writers need to go into uncharted territory. Especially if they have existential questions--questions that involve the meaning of life.

CC: Both your novels deal with history. Why?

JHR: I believe every novel is historical fiction, regardless of the time and place. Telling a story is like building a house. You don't start with the roof. First you build your foundation. And history, whether cultural or political, oral or written, is at the foundation of every story told, from science fiction to romance novels to the parables of Jesus. How can I write about the problems and prejudices of today if I ignore the historical perspective?

CC: Your stories can be enjoyed by readers as young as 10 or 11 at face value. But older readers with more life experience, including adults, will see multiple layers and deeper symbolism in your work. Your metaphors often do double and triple duty. What leads you to write this way?

JHR: Just for fun. I mean, first and foremost, it's important for me to be sure I reach younger readers. But I have this mind that constantly scans for puns. Double and triple meanings come easy to me. And, when you think about it, that's all a metaphor is. A literary pun. So somewhere in the revision process this weird part of my brain kicks in. For example, the apple in Choosing Up Sides. The same fruit that got Adam and Eve into trouble also gets Luke in trouble. Then it lures the poor rabbit into the snare. Which also suggests Luke and the trap he's in. Then I realize that "apple" is old time slang for a baseball. It all connects, on and on. But it's so subconscious. I rarely plot out a metaphor. I discover most of them in the work, sometimes long after the book is done. In this case, the spark was a story my dad always told about a buddy of his tossing crab apples at a telephone pole by the hour and turning into a great pitcher. I just let that thought bounce around in my mind, and every apple I ever knew got worked into the story.

Chris Crowe, a regular contributor to The ALAN Review, is a member of the English Department faculty at Brigham Young University and a former BYU football player. He's currently editor of the Young Adult Literature column of English Journal.

Listen in on an Interview with Dr. Teri Lesesne, President of ALAN (Teacher Librarian Magazine, March 2001)

In January 2001, John sat down with Dr. Teri Lesesne, the current President of ALAN (the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English) and Book Editor for the NCTE publication, Voices in the Middle, for a quick chat. Listen in as John talks about his source for ideas, the benefits of his Writer-in-Residence program, and what he hears from his readers.

Teri Lesesne: Someone once compared writing to the way an oyster creates a pearl. It begins with a tiny piece of sand, an irritant that the oyster strives to cover over with layer after layer. What is the sand in the oyster for you? What starts the story working? Is your work character driven or theme driven? Is there some other genesis?

John H. Ritter: I don't believe in choosing between character- and plot-driven novels. To me, the greatest stories are a finely woven blend of both. That's what I shoot for. Of the two, character comes easier for me, so I fret more about my plots. That becomes the sand in the oyster--or the ointment--for me. What if a left-handed boy is forced to be right-handed? What's the best thing that could happen? What's the worst? Or what steps, what events, would lead an angry and bitter kid to learn to embrace his enemies as a way of freeing himself from the prison of his emotions? How does one get over that wall? These kinds of questions nag at me until I can answer them. That's how my books begin.

TL: How does being a writer in residence, someone who is in daily contact with kids, affect your writing? I imagine there are some concrete results you see from this as well as some more ethereal consequences?

JHR: Yeah, no doubt. For two years I spent one day a week at a school on the Camp Pendleton Marine Base where I typically worked with three or four classes on various aspects of the writing process. I'd give mini-lessons on story ideas, revision, plotting, whatever the teachers asked me to address, then come back in a few weeks and do follow-up.

It helped me develop my presentation skills, it helped the teachers learn the techniques of a professional writer, and the kids really got excited about their own writing projects.

In one class the teacher asked me to model interviewing techniques, and the students went home and interviewed family members on their history. A lot of them came from other countries, so the stories became dramatic memoirs, recorded now for the first time. Such as the boy who wrote about his father's boat trip out of Vietnam and how the boat people had to survive a pirate attack on the open seas.

In another class a boy wrote about being both nervous and excited about the summer. In August his dad was being released from prison after four years, and the boy didn't know what he would say to him. That started a lesson on letter writing. We talked about how putting our thoughts on paper helps us to organize them, and that often we can say things more articulately--and more personally--on paper than we can face-to-face.

So to me, that contact with the kids was the real pay-off. Aside from being constantly reminded of their energy and emotions, the social structures of childhood, and the wide variety of character and cultural types in a typical school these days, I also benefited from hearing their stories. The fact that I was able to assist them in recording those stories was an "ethereal consequence" that I felt not only resonating through me, but through the whole community.

TL: What do your readers write you? What do they want to know more about?

JHR: It's funny, but I get an amazing amount of letters from kids who love the similes and metaphors in my work. That, of course, I attribute to good teaching and the fact that more teachers these days are asking kids to respond to literature using higher levels of thinking. But the kids love "becoming detectives," as I call it, and searching for deeper meaning in the text.

Recently, the letter that made the most impact on me came from a boy who posted his message on my Web site's bulletin board. He drew a direct connection between Tyler's problem in Over the Wall and the two fathers in MA last July who were in a fatal fist fight at a youth hockey practice. He grasped the whole concept of "saving face" that forces men and nations alike to fight rather than walk away if their pride is at stake. A "text-to-society" connection, I think one teacher called it.

But that's one reason why I wrote the book. I mean, what can we expect? As long as our culture continues to glorify fighters and warriors, we will always have fights and wars. And letters like his show that the kids are making the connections.

Beyond that, I get many letters from readers who personally identify with my characters. Adults will tell me about being forcefully switched from their natural left-hand orientation. Old and young will write about the abuses they've suffered from rigidly religious parents. For Over the Wall, I get letters from former soldiers who talk about the sadness of war and the crying need for more civility in today's highly rude, angry, and violent world.

TL: Winning a major award for your first novel, Choosing Up Sides, must have been rewarding and a bit terrifying. How did you react to the news?

JHR: I was ecstatic. Since my wife, a school teacher, had been a longtime member of IRA, the significance of being recognized by that distinguished organization was not lost on me. But rather than being terrified, I actually felt a sense of relief. After being worried for months as to how Choosing Up Sides would be received, then to know that a diversified national committee had selected it as the YA book of the year, it was like this huge burden had been lifted. And I cried. I just did. Man, you don't know. This is a scary business. And any recognition, large or small, goes a long way, believe me.

TL: What wisdom/advice can you offer teachers who want to connect kids to books and reading?

JHR: Read out loud, number one. It's amazing how children respond to read-alouds. But that alone is not enough. A teacher has to sense the opportunities to stop the story and open up discussion on what's taking place. What did the author mean by a certain line? Is there a secondary meaning to a certain word or phrase? What are the characters thinking at this point? Eventually the kids will pick up on that. As I say, they love being detectives and spotting symbolism and metaphors once the concept is introduced.

I'd hope that the classroom experience would turn into something that might fill the void of those dinnertime discussions that families never seem to have anymore. Let it be a Socratic experience, full of questions and ponder. Then you'll see the higher levels of thinking kick in.

Plus, hearing the text out loud turns kids on to the rhythms and musicality of language. Soon they'll not only be grabbing the books for themselves, but they'll be writing in that same fashion.

TL: Whose writing inspires you as a reader and as a writer?

JHR: I keep several novels near my desk and I'll pick them up and thumb through from time to time. At the moment you'll find The Grapes of Wrath, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Francisco Jimenez's The Circuit, Richard Peck's A Long Way from Chicago, and several by Chris Crutcher.

I'll pick them up some days just to get my juices flowing. Along with the language, what I look for is rhythm and nuance. Steinbeck was a master at painting a scene with characterization. So was Twain. That inspires me. In Jimenez and Peck, I look for subtleties and mannerisms. And with Crutcher, I just like to bound along in the whitewater of his prose.

But I find inspiration anywhere. In song, in poetry, in conversations at a shopping mall. And that's what writing is to me. It's a conversation I'm having with my invisible audience as we walk across America. Laughing. Singing. And a little bit in love.