When I was eight years old, I came to the United States and didn’t speak English. My parents were afraid of public school because we were undocumented. So they enrolled me in a tiny parochial school called St. Mary’s. There was no ESL class in my new school, so they put me in a regular classroom while the teacher and kids spoke an indecipherable tongue. How would I ever understand anything? I wondered. I remember the despair and the enormity of the feeling. My first relief came at math class. Numbers! Numbers I recognized. I would start there and decipher things one little bit at a time.

I gave that relief of math class to Ana, my main character in LOVE IN ENGLISH, and many of the other thoughts and dreams and dreads I once had as I learned English. Ana was a poet in her native Argentina and feels like the thing that she most relied on – her voice – has gone away in her new life. She is a bit older than I was – sixteen – so her problems are different than the ones I experienced. There’s Harrison, the oh-so-cute American boy she wants to get to know but can’t understand. There’s Neo in her ESL class (the ESL class I wish I’d had!) who shares her experience of being new in the U.S. and who offers her friendship as they navigate this new language.

​So there’s a love story at the heart of LOVE IN ENGLISH, but, to me, the real love story is the one with the English language. Despite my tough start, I soon found solace in books, words revealing themselves easier than spoken language did. English could be maddening at times (why rough, bough, dough, cough?) but in its intricacies it revealed a magical cleverness, a complicated history.

I was the one kid in class absolutely absorbed when our high school English teacher played us an episode of the PBS series, The Story of English. I learned about Beowulf, the Angles, the Saxons, William the Conqueror, the church, all bringing their own languages into this crucible where English was born. That same teacher read us Chaucer in the original Middle English. She made me see language as a living thing, subject to the push and pull of conquests, the words of the kitchen vs. those of the drawing room. I devoured everything I could read. I marveled at Nabokov and his non-native speaker’s playfulness with the language, turning it over on the page like a pretty object which reveals another facet if you see if from a different angle.

​So it was this love of language I worked to bring to LOVE IN ENGLISH.  It's all one immigrant’s ode to the language that at first concealed itself and then revealed itself magically, generously. I love my native Spanish, the language of lullabies and my mother’s stories, the first tongue that springs to mind when I stub my toe. But there are the loves we’re born to and the ones we choose. And I choose English with my whole heart. I hope it shows in LOVE IN ENGLISH.

More about Maria:
Maria E. Andreu is the author of Love in English (Balzer + Bray, 2021), an Indie Next Pick and Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, as well as an upcoming book (B+B, 2022) . Her work has appeared in Literary Hub, Teen Vogue, Newsweek, The Washington Post, NJ.com, and the Newark Star Ledger.
Her debut young adult novel, The Secret Side of Empty is a Junior Library Guild Selection, a National Indie Excellence Book Award winner, an International Latino Book Awards Finalist and has been called “captivating” by School Library Journal. She lives in New Jersey.

More about Love in English:

A fresh, breakout YA novel that is layered with themes of immigration, cultural identity, and finding your voice in any language.
​
Sixteen-year-old Ana is a poet and a lover of language. Except that since she moved to New Jersey from Argentina, she can barely find the words to express how she feels.
At first Ana just wants to return home. Then she meets Harrison, the very cute, very American boy in her math class, and discovers the universal language of racing hearts. But when she begins spending time with Neo, the Greek Cypriot boy from ESL, Ana wonders how figuring out what her heart wants can be even more confusing than the grammar they’re both trying to master. After all, the rules of English may be confounding, but there are no rules when it comes to love.

Sunburns and the Power of Language
​Growing up, we spent most of our family vacations visiting relatives in rural Ohio, which always seemed exotic compared to our suburban life. (They had horses!) But one year, my parents decided to take us someplace really exotic, someplace tropical. Not a big beach person, I positioned my towel under a shady tree and read Stephen King’s The Stand for hours. My younger brother played all day in the sun, without sunscreen (oops). When his severe sunburn kept us indoors during daylight hours for the rest of the trip, he asked me to tell him about the thick book I was so absorbed in. The Stand is an epic survival story about good versus evil, and I explained to him what happened, chapter by chapter, until he begged me to finish the book faster so we could both find out how it ended.
 
I realized, then, the power of language. The joyous idea of storytelling took hold, and over time—after an English major combined with a "practical" Computer Science major, an MBA, a detour in the corporate world, and hundreds of other books read—I finally wrote and revised some of my own. 

Two of those efforts resulted in published novels: Pandemic and Black Flowers, White Lies, and several more were selected for anthologies. One of my favorite short stories that I've written is "The Third Ghost," a sibling story that was selected for the middle grade collection, Voyagers: The Third Ghost. My writing education continues today at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I'm currently working toward my MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults.

This week's links:
May is National Short Story Month! Do you have a favorite short story? I recently read an older one, Chicxulub by T. Coraghessan Boyle (published in 2004 in The New Yorker) and WOW. (Thanks to Sheela Chari for the recommendation.)

May is also American Cheese Month and National Asparagus Month, and I feel kind of bad for asparagus having to compete with cheese.

Mental Floss has an article about the benefits of reading every day, in case you had any doubt. :)

Today's blog features a guest post from Jennifer Adams, who shares the inspiration behind her latest picture book, I Am a Kindness Hero. Welcome, Jennifer!

I Am a Kindness Hero: Guest post by Jennifer Adams

I wrote I Am a Warrior Goddess three years ago as a response to the #MeToo movement and to celebrate strength and leadership in girls. Right away, people started asking "Where's the book for boys?" 
 
I Am a Kindness Hero is the answer to that question. This picture book follows the adventures of a young boy as he practices kindness throughout his day, from standing up to bullies to helping his little sister tie her shoe. Kindness comes in many forms, which we see throughout the book, including listening to others and taking care of animals, insects, and the Earth. 
 
I'm happy to partner again with Carme Lemniscates as the illustrator of I Am a Kindness Hero. She brings her bright color palette and captures the joy and exuberance of children in her beautiful art.
 
In a world in which gentleness and vulnerability are not always cultivated or celebrated in boys, I hope to share the idea that true strength and leadership come from treating those around you with kindness, love, and respect.
​
Buy from SoundsTrue and receive a free activity kit
Other buy links: BookShop.org | B&N | Amazon

More about Jennifer Adams
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Jennifer Adams is the author of 50 books for kids, including How Do I Love Thee?, the My Little Cities series, and the BabyLit board books, which introduce small children to the world of classic literature and have sold 2 million copies worldwide. Her books have been translated into nine languages and her work has been featured in Parents magazine, Wired, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times.
​

​IWSG Blog Hop:
Every month, the Insecure Writers Support Group poses an optional question that members can answer in their blog posts. Special thanks to Alex Cavanaugh for founding IWSG, and to this month’s helpful blog hop co-hosts: Erika Beebe, Pat Garcia, Tonja Drecker, Sadira Stone, and Cathrina Constantine.

This month is the anniversary of Pandemic's publication in 2014! One surprise, I suppose, is that people have continued to enjoy reading about a fictional pandemic even as we actually lived through one.

In honor of my debut novel's anniversary, I'm sharing a deleted scene. ​At one point in my writing process, this was Pandemic’s opening. It shows a glimpse of Lil’s friendships before the outbreak.

Five months earlier:
Lockers slammed as the usual Friday afternoon joy filled the school. Kayla and Megs walked down the hallway in front of me. I caught up, slipped between them, and linked my arms through theirs.
“Hey, Lil,” Kayla said.
The loudspeaker interrupted with Mr. Fryman’s last announcements of the week. “Don’t forget that Monday is Spirit Day, so please show your school pride by wearing red and white,” he said. “Congratulations on donating over 200 pounds of non-perishable food for the Thanksgiving drive! This season, I’m thankful for all of you! Don’t forget, charity begins at home. And success is a journey, not a destination!”
“Principal Cliché is at it again,” Megs said. “Will he ever stop?”
“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” I said.
Megs laughed, but Kayla moved away from us and stood straighter, head up, chest out. At first I thought we’d annoyed her again. Then she did the head tilt, which meant an attractive guy had entered her orbit. As I glanced around for the usual suspects, I almost walked straight into the English teacher who helped me coordinate the food drive in between his debate team coaching.
“Hey, Mr. B,” Kayla said, all white-teeth smile.
“Happy Friday, ladies,” he said. “Liliana, let’s meet in the parking lot in five minutes. I have directions to the food pantry and—”
“Debate team practice on Tuesday?” Kayla interrupted. “I’ve been working on a new speech for Original Oratory, Myths about Love.”
“Sounds good. I can’t wait to hear it.”
She beamed after him as he continued toward his classroom, greeting students and making small talk as he went. Mr. B had convinced the other English teachers to exchange homework passes for food donations, which greatly increased our collection size.
“He’s like the school mayor,” I said.
“The mayor of hotness,” Kayla said. “That dark wavy hair, those brown eyes. Mr. B is bee-you-ti-ful.”
“Oh stop,” I said. “He’s at least thirty.”
“So?” Kayla said. “I’m mature for my age.” She’d spent all of last year crushing on him. It looked like our sophomore year would be more of the same.
“Gross.” Megs scowled. “And illegal.”
Kayla flipped her hair back, ready to argue. 
“Are you nervous about the next debate?” I asked, hoping to derail their fight.
“No,” Kayla said. “I just envision people naked. I have a vivid imagination.”
I shook my head, leaving Megs to deal with her as I left to meet Mr. B.
Later, I would face evil in the form of a deadly virus. But I didn’t know then that evil could come in many forms. It could even masquerade as a caring teacher.
That afternoon would change everything.

This week's links:

An older post, but a good one about writer's envy. The Writer's Poison by Joelle Fraser. 

A Word tech hack that I love: Create your own Text Expander. 

Productivity and the art of doing nothing but thinking: How to boost your creativity with a 'non-time' secret used by Steve Jobs, Einstein, and other neuroscientists

 According to Francine Jay, "Surfaces are not for storage. Rather, surfaces are for activity, and should be kept clear at all other times."
​What do you think?