In junior high school, my teacher would have us get ready to go home ten minutes early. Then we’d sit in our desks as she read to us from The Outsiders, the novel written by high schooler S. E. Hinton and published in 1967.
That was the only time my class would truly quiet down. We all wanted to hear the story of troubled Ponyboy Curtis and his friends trying to make their way in a world where they’re have-nots.
The book woke me to what I’d never contemplated before, that while I’d always thought of myself as quiet and boring, I was lucky. I had parents who loved me and expected me to go to college. Our family had enough money to live in a nice home and go on vacations.
The thought that other kids might not have that love and support seemed like a radical idea. But then I began to watch kids around me with a keener eye. I began to see hints of darker realities: the girl and her sister up the street who lived with their mother with no mention of a father; the large family down the street where the kids dressed shabbily and lived in a house almost bare of furniture. When I got to high school, I saw kids who were high almost every day, their eyes red and mouths relaxed into checked-out smiles. They were usually smart, witty kids, which made me wonder why they didn’t try harder to do better.
Only when I began to write Winter Light did Mary Donahue, the protagonist, show me she and her kind are not weak and lazy, but instead just trying to deal with the daily burdens they carry. I owe a lot to Mary for opening my eyes.
And maybe that’s why coming-of-age stories hold such a special place in people’s hearts, because they remind us of when our eyes first opened — really opened — to the harder truths of the world and people around us.
For readers: If you read Winter Light and enjoy it, please leave a review on GoodReads, Amazon or your favorite review sites.
For Ellesea: Thank you for inviting me to visit and share my journey with your community.
For aspiring writers: Here’s a parting note of encouragement: keep at it! I worked on Winter Light for 10 years, endured a wrong-minded professional edit and queried 187 agents until finally submitting directly to small publishers, where the story got snapped up. If a story sticks with you for that long and through that much rejection, that’s a story worth telling. Hang in there!
Winter Light by Martha Engber
Though a smart, beautiful kid, she’s a motherless girl raised by an uneducated, alcoholic father within an extended family of alcoholics and addicts. Aware that she’s sinking, she’s desperate to save herself and so reaches out to an unlikely source, Kathleen, a nice, normal kid from English class.
But when the real storm hits, the full force of a harsh adult world almost buries Mary. Only then does she learn that the only difference between life and death is knowing when to grasp an extended hand.
Website: http://marthaengber.com
Facebook author page (Martha Engber’s Creatives): https://www.facebook.com/MarthasCreatives/
Facebook timeline: https://www.facebook.com/martha.engber.1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/marthaengber
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marthaengber/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martha-engber-a2a429a/
GoodReads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/674291.Martha_Engber
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/marthae0023/
*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome. Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below. The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.
