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| Paul Beier and Celia with F7, May 1989 |
“The Next Big Thing” or Blog-o-sphere Project, is a fun way for writers all over the world to connect and share information about their current writing project or upcoming book. One of the writers I tagged to participate in Blog-o-sphere is a dear friend of mine from Southern California, Nina Kidd. I'm most familiar with Nina's fiction writing (which is fabulous) so am excited to learn more about her current project, a work of nonfiction, and to post it here. Thanks, Nina!
Nina Kidd
In the Blog-o-sphere Project, one writer tags another writer who answers a set of interview questions and then tags five more writers. I was tagged by a Renaissance woman: poet and actor, teacher and visual artist as well as generous friend, Julie Williams. I used a bit from Julie’s wonderful YA novel in verse Escaping Tornado Season, to illustrate Vividly Visual writing for my writing MFA lecture at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Julie has been kind enough to allow me to guest blog my answers on her blog site. Thank you so much, Julie!
Here it is. . .
What is the working title of your book?
Paul Beier: A Scientist Speaks Up
Where did the idea come from for the book?
As I began nosing around about what was wrong with the group of mountain lions that live in the Santa Monica Mountains in Los Angeles, repeatedly people sent me to one mountain lion expert. I soon found out that Dr. Paul Beier is more than a mountain lion man. By the time I met him Dr. Beier had became a world expert on wild lands conservation. Even better, he is a master at partnering with and persuading stake holders across the board to take positive action to save threatened wild species by conserving their travel routes, mile by mile. His strategies for building and conserving wildlife corridors have given a hopeful face to 21st century wildlife conservation worldwide.
I had to tell Beier’s story to kids for its adventure and grit, but also in hopes they will eagerly join in the adventure of exploring the wild and helping it survive wherever they are.
What genre does your book fall under?
Narrative nonfiction for readers 9 to 12.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie version?
Hmmm… Bearded, sinewy, with shifting colors of: the wide eyed idealist, cornball charmer, the Sherlock Holmes logician, Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird in the courtroom, but with a spitball streak of devilment: Ewan MacGregor, or Aussie Simon Baker (plays Patrick Jane, in TV’s The Mentalist)
What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
Again and again the important people shoved biologist Paul Beier aside when he explained how to save the mountain lions and other animals slowly dying in the shrinking wild lands among California’s suburbs; but Paul’s idea was more powerful than any of the big guys and now it is saving struggling species around the world.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’ll represent myself to trade publishers, starting with the editor who suggested it.
How long will it take you to write the first draft?
I should have a first draft done by the end of this year.
What titles would you name for a comparison to yours?
Pamela Turner’s A Life in the Wild: George Schaller’s Struggle to Save the Last Great Beasts; Charles and Emma by Deborah Heiligman; The Elephant Scientist by Caitlin O’Connell, Donna M. Jackson and Timothy Rodwell
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
An idea: Instead of the old Conservationists Fighting Builders and Developers scenario, wildlife corridors for animals, birds, insects (and even plants) is a proactive specific plan that local communities can put into action with the assistance of scientists. Paul Beier’s plans are showing us that humans and the wild can be good and respectful neighbors. We can slow, even stop many of the animal extinctions that we are causing. Once young readers catch on they can look at their own hometowns in a new way. Kids can see animals, and even plants, on the move beyond their own back fences or even in their own garden. As Paul Beier says of finding and preserving wildlife corridors, “It’s exciting because it connects people to the land.”
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Mountain lions! How can a mountain lion, the size of a St. Bernard dog, kill a moose -- an animal five times its size? How does a scientist find one and put on a radio collar to follow it? What do you think of a person who crawls on his belly in thick underbrush, alone and unarmed, to reach a female mountain lion and examine her newborn kittens?
I’m tagging ---
