Welcome for the first Creator’s Roulette for April 2020! Half of this month, and every month until July at least, you will meet lots of members of the writing community and I am super excited to start off with Ben Gartner. Ben is the writer of The Eye of Ra, a Middle Grade novel. It has been a long while since I have read Middle Grade so we will catch a bit about that too! Ben also writes thrillers for adults and is an associate member of the International Thriller Writers.
I hope you are excited to learn about what reading means to him, how it has evolved for him and how he has cultivated reading in his kids.
Welcome to Creator’s Roulette, Ben! Tell us about your love for reading. What’s your earliest memory of a book?
Thank you for having me, Kriti! I think it’s great what you’re doing with this blog. Thank you so much for including me.
My earliest memory of really reading—really getting sucked fully into a different world via my mind’s eye—was probably around third grade. I remember reading James and the Giant Peach and for some reason that story just transported me. It was magical and exciting and FUN.
Why do you read?
I read to learn, to have fun, and to expand my sense of the world. I’ve often said the day I stop learning is the day I die. And, yes, that includes facts and trivia (I’m a proud Word Nerd), but I also mean learning about myself and how people handle situations presented to them. I can’t magically travel to ancient Egypt, but if I did how would I react? How do other people react in that predicament? I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that my imagination has a way of taking hold of my senses.
When I’m absorbed in a good book, I can see and hear and smell the scene just as vividly as I can (sometimes more!) the real world around me. Whatever chemical in the brain makes that happen, I’ve got plenty of it. And I think exercising it gives you more of that power.
How has reading evolved for you as you have grown older? Are there certain genres that you gravitated towards at certain points in your life?
Throughout my life, I tend to gravitate toward the fantastical. Those are my favorite—books that ignore the bounds or expectations of “reality” and push us to imagine something different. This doesn’t necessarily mean goblins and laser blasters (though those can be fun); I especially enjoy the books that seem like they could be realistic. They may deal in fantastical situations, but the characters and the circumstances make you think that maybe, just maybe, it could actually happen. Even true stories can give me that sense if they’re removed enough from my own personal day-to-day life. That’s a thread that’s remained consistent in my reading throughout life. I like books that challenge my sense of possibility.
As a father, what are some ways you have helped develop the love for reading in your kids?
We’ve read to our kids since they were born. It’s still one of my favorite things to do, to sit with your child snuggled up and to paint a mental picture with words that you are both imagining separately, together. It stirs conversation and bonding and it’s wonderful. All the science backs me up here. As our kids have grown older, they’ve naturally taken up the reins. We still read together, but they also read a lot by themselves too. We limit screen time, but there’s no limit on books time. Fortunately, they’re also big lovers of the outdoors. Play outside and get tired out, then snuggle in bed and read. Sounds like a good way to live, right?!
The Eye of Ra, which I am reading with my brother at the moment, is a middle grade book. What inspired you to write it?
That’s awesome! First of all, thank you so much for your support. That’s fun you’re reading it together. That’s a great thing about books: It’s fun to discuss them and see how people interpreted certain scenes or certain character’s emotions. You still have room for interpretation with movies, of course, but with books even more so—pretty much everything is open to interpretation if it’s not spelled out. Discussing those assumptions and visualizations can be revealing about the person describing it. It’s especially fun to hear those discoveries from the mouths of children!
The inspiration for this book came from my sons. I was working on an adult thriller and when I brought it up at the dinner table, the boys asked to read it. It’s not really for kids, so I suggested we come up with a different story together. Then, many nights at bedtime, we’d plot and pitch ideas around and I’d take notes. I dedicate the book to them because their input was truly invaluable in making this a book perfect for middle graders (ages 8-12). Even key plot points were their wonderful ideas that I embellished and worked into the arc of the story. It was a ton of fun. They’re helping do the same for book two, though I must acknowledge that I’m trying to use their involvement sparingly.
As you know, writing a book is a lot of work and you have to hear your own story many, many times, which can dull the excitement. For that reason, I’m trying to be judicious about asking for their opinions or reading chunks of text, so I don’t burn them out on the process, and so I leave a little mystery for them to uncover in the final product. It’s more fun to just brainstorm and kick ideas around than it is to subject them to the drudgeries of rewriting and editing. They’re my idea guys.
Age categorization of books (Middle grade, Children, Young Adult, Adult) are often intermixed with genres like fantasy, science fiction, literary fiction, etc. How important in your mind are these two aspects of books?
First, I’ll comment on the “middle grade” nomenclature. I don’t love it. Often, people will think that means middle school, like ages 12-14. But middle grade is ages 8-12, about grades three through fifth or sixth (depending on the kid). This is a sweet spot for me. I’ve been told that even adults have truly enjoyed my book and the lessons it conveys, but my true audience is that pre-teen. There are many reasons for that about which we’ll have to save for another post. The alternative naming you’ll see is Juvenile Fiction, but I don’t especially like that either since it implies immaturity. I’ve suggested that we all just settle on “the awesome years.”
As for the genres, I think they’re useful so people have an easy way of communicating with each other. For my book though, you raise a good point and one that has come up in places like figuring out the best Amazon categories to list. As one specific example, Time Travel is a category listed under Science Fiction and not Fantasy. I think this is probably a matter of debate. And whether Sci-Fi and Fantasy should be so often lumped together is probably another point of debate.
My book also aims to be factually accurate about ancient Egypt and thus can live in Historical Fiction as well. But for ease of bucketing, I typically describe it as a “middle grade time travel adventure.”
That’s all my questions for now, Ben! Glad you could take some time out for me.
This has been fun! Thanks for having me on the blog, Kriti. It is appreciated.
Want to connect with Ben? Here are ways to find him – Website, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. His book The Eye of Ra is currently available for free (last day today) on Amazon that you can get from here.
Thank you so much for having me, Kriti. And for the awesome graphic. 🙂
It was a pleasure, Ben! 🙂