I hope educators will use these essays in their classrooms to talk about how place creates a vital setting for readers.

Aimée Bissonette, “Pine Needles“

John Coy, “This Place“

Loretta Ellsworth, “Traveling to Poland“

Janet Graber, “Barlow’s Bygones“

Susan Latta, “Up North“

Mary Losure, “This scene is real.”

Tracy Nelson Maurer, “Experiencing Scotland“

Maggie Moris, “Look Again“

Pat Schaffer, “Milking the Mares“

Caren Stelson, “The Moss Forest of Yakashima Island“

Stephanie Watson, “Hermitage House in St. Joseph, Minnesota“

Newcastle upon Tyne

When I was a child my passion was exploring the back-alleys and narrow passageways of my native city. One particular long-ago day when thunder rumbled across the river and rain clouds hovered over the coal barges in a thick gray shroud, I sheltered beneath the smut-grimed arches of the ancient castle walls. Rain splashed over the parapets and sluiced into the gutters. And through the gloom I spied a shabby little shop gouged out of the soot-stained stones. A weathered sign creaked in the wind. Barlow’s Bygones.

The door was warped and a rusty bell clanked dejectedly. Inside smelled of damp mold and the powdered bones of long-dead beasties. An old man stood in the shadows dressed in a long duster coat. Rimless spectacles perched on a nose almost lost under bushy eyebrows, and curls of gray hair sprouted from protruding ears.

 “Benjamin Barlow at your service.” His voice rasped. “Look around, bonnie lassie.”

Surrounding him in piles were musty books, rolled up maps, a muddle of old medals and badges, baskets of buttons. Even a rusty dagger festooned with sticky spider webs. Thrilled, I searched through the treasure trove until I discovered a wolf head’s carving, two inches long with a neat hole chiseled through the creature’s neck. Despite being whittled from bone it lay warm as a new-laid egg in the palm of my hand. I ached to possess it. Who had made it? Why? For what purpose?

“How much?” I whispered.

“Whatever you have,” wheezed the old man.

I emptied my pockets onto his worn wooden counter. A half crown. Two sixpences. One threepenny bit. Mr. Barlow smiled and hummed as he wrapped my precious prize in brown paper and tied it with string. “For you, lass. Weaver of dreams.”

Newcastle upon Tyne

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Janet Graber grew up by the sea in northern England, a magical place of fairy-tale castles, golden beaches, desolate moors, gray stone walls, and woodlands ablaze with bluebells and snowdrops. Her vivid childhood memories include imaginary games on the ancient Roman Wall, burying treasure on Holy Island, and summer holidays at Granny Drummond’s cottage in Kirk Yetholm. Although she has lived in many places all over the world since, her heart remains firmly in the land of her birth. Visit Janet’s website.

I’m working on a picture book about place like nothing I’ve done before. When I first started writing stories, I worked as a tour guide for the Minnesota Historical Society at Saint Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis. I became fascinated by the story of the only large waterfall on the Mississippi River and how it eroded upstream over twelve thousand years from what is now downtown St. Paul.

Saint Anthony Falls today (Adobe Stock)

One day, the writer Marsha Wilson Chall took a tour with a school group. Afterwards, she said, “I’m sure you’ll get a picture book out of this place.”

Twenty-three years later, we have a contract for My Mighty Journey: A Waterfall’s Story. It’s first person waterfall, a category of books that is fairly limited. Gaylord Schanilec, the artist, is working with a team of other artists on stunning illustrations. Gaylord agreed to make art for the book on two conditions: one, he and I would walk by the river over the course of a year, and two, we would not have a deadline for the project. The editor, Shannon Pennefeather, and I agreed to both.

Gaylord Shanilec and John Coy at Shanilec’s studio, working on My Mighty Journey: A Waterfall’s Story

Having no deadline opened up opportunities to talk with many people. Europeans and their descendants have been here for less than three percent of the time people have lived by the Falls. We’ve been fortunate to work with Diane Wilson, Ernie Whiteman, and the team at Dream of Wild Health, a Native American farm that grows and gathers food using knowledge that’s been handed down for thousands of years. Diane and Ernie have generously shared their expertise and introduced new ways of seeing the waterfall, time, and how we live. We’re grateful to them and the Dakota and Ojibway people who have lived here for thousands of years for providing a deeper understanding of place. 

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John Coy (photo: Anna Min)

John Coy is the author of young adult novels, the 4 for 4 middle-grade series, and fiction and nonfiction picture books. He has received numerous awards for his work including a Marion Vannett Ridgway Award for best debut picture book, a Charlotte Zolotow Honor, Bank Street College Best Book of the Year, Notable Book for a Global Society, the Burr/Warzalla Award for Distinguished Achievement in Children’s Literature and the Kerlan Award in recognition of singular attainments in the creation of children’s literature. John lives in Minneapolis and visits schools around the world. Visit johncoy.com.

Milking the mares [photo credit: Pat Schaffer]

Not far from the round white felt house called a ger, the family had strung a line between two posts. About ten horses were tethered there.

 “Would you like to help with milking the mares?” the chief justice asked me.

It was the early nineties and we had been invited to Mongolia to talk with judges about Mongolia’s transition from communism. After the conference the chief justice took us to visit his family near Kharkhorin, where they lived in moveable gers and herded horses, cattle, sheep, and yaks in the old way.

We had already tasted the mare’s milk from the sack that hung by the ger door. It was slightly tangy, with an after-taste like yoghurt.

I put my arms around a long-legged little foal, only a couple of days old. His coat was fuzzy and soft. He twisted his head and wriggled with excitement at my smell, but the judge told me to keep him near his mother’s head.

 “The mares only release their milk when they can smell their foal next to them,” he explained. The mare rolled her eyes at me, then decided I was not a danger to her foal, and sighed. All her muscles seemed to relax. The woman of the family went down on one knee, an arm on each side of the mare’s hind leg, and milk hissed down into the tin pail beneath her. The woman wore a light colored del, the coat tied with a sash, that both men and women wore in the country, and high leather boots.

Beyond the horses, who were nibbling the grass and rubbing shoulders companionably together, the wide Mongolian plain stretched on, pale and open to the vast sky. In the  distance, mountains were blue.

By the ger stood a motorcycle, but horses were the favorite means of getting around. Mongolians love their horses. I got to ride one of the horses. They are small, a good size for me, but fast and tough enough to have carried the armies of Genghiz Khan all the way across Asia to Europe hundreds of years ago.

Pat Schaffer, riding a horse in Mongolia [photo credit: Pat Schaffer]

Place for me is part of the essential core of a story. When I was little, I searched for books that began “Long ago and far away…” Still today I am drawn to books that show me a new land, where people have assumptions about life different from those we take for granted in the United States. Characters only come alive when rooted in their own particular time and place, and before I write, I need to sample as much as I can of the physical details of their lives, the taste of the foods, the smell of the wind, what they see in the grass when they lie on foreign ground.

I fell in love with the land and people of Mongolia, and after I got home they would not let me go. I began to imagine a young city girl worried about the changes happening to her country and her family, and how she might feel lost on these wide plains, if her parents had to travel to America and she were thrust into this traditional life so different from the city she was used to. I could picture it all…

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Pat Schaffer is a lawyer who was raised in Montreal and is now living in Minneapolis.  She has travelled in many countries, and her experiences around the world have inspired her work. Her first published story, “There’s a Crocodile in our Bath!,” which is set in Sri Lanka, appeared in Cricket magazine.

Eleven years ago I traveled to Poland for the marriage of my son to his Polish fiancée. It was my first experience abroad, and one that has stood out in my mind in the years since. My first book The Shrouding Woman had been published a few years earlier, and I had just finished edits for my next novel the day before we left for our trip. Subsequently, I’d learned barely enough Polish to sustain a conversation.

I did bring copies of The Shrouding Woman with me as gifts, even though it was printed in English. My small, and what I thought an insignificant gift, was met with tears of gratitude, and a great deal of hugging. We ended up traveling with some of the guests throughout Poland, and their insight into the culture and scenery were priceless.

Solotgad, in Poland

From the sparkling waters of the Baltic coastal cities of Sopot and Gdansk, to the market square of Krakow and the Tatra Mountains of the South, we discovered how colorful and diverse this country was, with breathtaking medieval architecture as well as the emotional sites of Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Torun, in Poland

In Torun, where the wedding took place, we visited the birthplace of Copernicus, and saw traditional gingerbread being made. We climbed the countless stairs to the top of the church where our son was married to appreciate a view of the city that it has offered since the twelfth century.

Mark Twain wrote that travel is “fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” Like James Joyce in Paris, F. Scott Fitzgerald in Switzerland, and Ernest Hemingway in Spain, I found that the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and the fact that I didn’t hear English for two weeks, fueled my creativity in ways that I could never anticipate, and also made for friendships that still exist today.

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Loretta Ellsworth is a former Spanish teacher and the author of four young adult novels: The Shrouding Woman, In Search of Mockingbird, In a Heartbeat, and Unforgettable. Her debut adult novel, Stars Over Clear Lake (May, 2017, St. Martin’s Press) is set in Clear Lake, Iowa. Loretta received her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University and lives with her husband and children in Lakeville, Minnesota. When she’s not reading or writing, she’s usually playing tennis. Learn more at lorettaellsworth.com.

I am the sole parent of a seven-year-old girl who is the most spirited, magical person I have ever met. She is also the noisiest person I’ve ever met, and has the most questions and observations. Know when peanuts were invented? 1871! When a color is kind of pink and kind of purple and kind of fuchsia, you can just call it Patricia. Your armpits smell like burnt Christmas cookies. Can you lick my elbow?

The questions and observations never end. I don’t want them to end, but I do need a break sometimes. I need space to hear myself think, and to let my own questions and observations drift to the surface. This is true in general, but especially true when we’re talking about writing. When a fiction project needs a sustained burst of attention and time, I call the nuns at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota, and I reserve the hermitage house.

The tiny log cabin sits on the edge of campus, near the cornfield and the long tunnel of trees leading to the woods. The house is just big enough for a twin-sized bed, a small desk, a soft chair for reading and a hard chair for writing. There’s also a small bathroom and a mini kitchen. The scale makes everything feel intensely simple. In the simplicity and quiet, I can easily hear myself think. And after thoughts have the chance to rise, they can then settle, like the contents of a snow globe. I spend a lot of time at the hermitage not thinking. Just slicing potatoes. Oiling up a pan of asparagus. Memorizing the knots in the exposed rafter beams. Taking another hot shower. I sometimes take three hot showers in a day, just because I can.

When I wake up each morning, I make a giant pot of green tea, I write until I’m tired, take a nap, wake up, drink more tea, write again. The rhythm is my own, not syncopated by anyone else. When I’ve spent my creative courage for the day, I walk down the fairytale lane of trees, into the woods. I don’t intentionally think of my story but it might reveal itself to me on its own terms, like a wild rabbit. I hold very still and feel grateful for any glimpse I receive. At night, I cook and listen to audiobooks, nourishing myself with both good food and good words.

In the tiny house, rain on the roof is louder than at home, and night is darker. The flat fields reveal sunrises and moonrises I never see in Minneapolis. Here, I feel very alive and I sense magic. Sometimes I write good things and sometimes I write less-than-good things. That’s always the way it goes. I return to the Twin Cities and to my Rainbow Tornado feeling recharged and ready to reunite with the magic that awaits me at home. I’m ready to listen to observations such as: When the sun shines, it’s the sun opening its mouth. Everybody has to go grocery shopping except zombies. Did you know that Frog and Toad are old people?

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Stephanie Watson is the author of the middle-grade novels Elvis and Olive and Elvis and Olive: Super Detectives, both Junior Library Guild selections. Her picture books include Behold! A Baby (2016 MN Book Award finalist, illustrated by Joy Ang), The Wee Hours (illustrated by Mary GrandPré), and the forthcoming Best Friends in the Universe (illustrated by LeUyen Pham, 2018). Stephanie enjoys teaching writing workshops to kids and adults at schools, libraries, and the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. Learn more at stephanie-watson.com.

Step into Yakashima’s Moss Forest and you will be wrapped in green velvet. Let your heart slow to the splash of waterfalls and the drip of tears slipping from tips of ferns. Somewhere in the canopy of thousand-year-old cedars a monkey howls, a Japanese bush warbler whistles. Stand still and breathe in the moist air of the rainforest. Breathe out hurry and worry. I did just that while hiking in Yakashima’s World Heritage forest located on one of Japan’s most southern islands. Hiking in the Moss Forest was like drifting through a meditation. Ideas came to me, shimmered, soften, then took a seat in the back of my mind. Pristine moss protected me from the intrusion of my mental “mugwomp” that always rides on my writer’s shoulder. My personal “mugwomp” has matted fur, large vocal cords, and a discouraging vocabulary that makes me feel small, incompetent, a failure. In the Moss Forest, my “mugwomp” shrank to a thumb size. A slight breeze swept in and brushed the thing to the ground. My steps lightened. In the Moss Forest, a peacefulness sprouted in my heart. Ideas bloomed possibility. Slowly, I followed the rocky, rooted trail, pacing myself, placing one foot in front of the other. I’ve taken trails like these before. The writer’s path is always rocky and rooted, branching in every direction. Writers are left to follow a path to the summit relying on gut and instinct more than a map. That day in the Moss Forest, it didn’t matter how much my ankles twisted or my calves ached. I was fully alive, wrapped in living greenery. Now I’m back at home at my writing desk. If I close my eyes and bring back the image of walking through the velvet Moss Forest, who knows what ideas will bloom at the keyboard.

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Caren Stelson is the author of Sachiko: A Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivor’s Story and other works for children and young adults. To write Sachiko, Caren traveled to Nagasaki five times to interview Sachiko Yasui and research her story. Caren has had a long career in education, as a teacher, writer-in-residence, and freelance writer. After receiving her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Hamline University in 2009, Caren decided it was time to write the stories that needed her attention. Caren and her husband Kim have two grown children. They split their time between home in Minneapolis and the small town of Lanesboro. carenstelson.com

Viv and her dad

Five-Mile Wood

For twenty years, my Scottish friend, Viv, and I talked about traveling to her home country. We finally bought airfare and made the journey this October, just as the autumn leaves reached their colorful crescendo. Swaths of vivid yellow larch and birches contrasted with hilly stands of deep green pines. Ocher moors wedged between mossy green mountains. In the Highlands, bright white waterfalls tumbled down stony ravines. I took picture after picture.

I journaled as we traveled, too. I noted what we saw and where we saw it. The scenery! The history! The astounding reverence for their writers! Sir Walter Scott, the “inventor” of the historical novel, is honored in Edinburgh with the world’s tallest monument to a writer.

Sir Walter Scott’s home today

We stayed in the historic home where he lived; I drank coffee looking out the same window where this literary legend once did. (!!)

Other writing-related highlights included visiting the Writer’s Museum and the International Storytelling Festival. We drank lattes at the Elephant Café where J.K. Rowling could glance out to the Edinburgh Castle while she wrote. We ventured to the viaduct where the Hogwarts Express churned toward the wizarding school. And everywhere, I took photos—about 400 of them in just 10 days.

Edinburgh monument to Sir Walter Scott

Now that I’m home again, I’ve looked at the images and re-read my journal. Together, they conjure memories of more sensory details: the peppery taste and paste-like consistency of haggis; the joyful bark of the sheepdog herding the flock on the hillside outside Viv’s parents’ home; the salty breeze off the Atlantic at Applecross. This trip to Scotland, so full of memories for my friend and so ripe with writing connections for me, inspires me to translate the experiences into words beyond a matter-of-fact record. Perhaps that is what truly special places do.

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Tracy Nelson Maurer has written more than 100 books for children and young adults, mostly nonfiction titles. She loves to travel almost as much as she loves to read and write. tracymaurerwriter.com

About five years ago, we purchased a 1947 cabin. Surrounded by ghostly birch trees, sturdy maples, and towering eastern white pines, the cabin is perched on a bluff overlooking Ossawinnamakee Lake. Bald eagles swoop overhead and cause crazy warning calls from the loons floating in the bay. Our first summer, a tiny black bear cub scuttled up the maple near the deck. He heard us exclaim and darted away. We never saw his mama, but we knew she was close by, watching.

Inside, the wood paneled cabin holds three teeny tiny bedrooms, a one-person kitchen, and a gathering spot just big enough for a sofa and stone fireplace.

As I sat at the table that first breakfast, I noticed the milk in my cereal bowl tilting toward the lake. The table must be uneven, I thought, and peeked underneath it. No, it seemed sturdy. And then I realized it wasn’t the table but the cabin itself. With a slight sense of vertigo, we spent the next few summers pouring a new foundation. The building is now level yet I often catch myself leaning toward the water.

The cabin faces east and if you want to see the sunrise, you can either watch it outside from the deck or look through the cracks in the wall from the inside. Yes, the light shines right through the wall. A toasty fireplace is no match for the uninvited November winds.

Eventually we built a new cabin next door. But the little green cabin, now reserved for the summer, is still here, and still loved. Whether or not I am writing about the north woods, the loony calls, or the clear water, the little green cabin (or the new cabin with a dishwasher and real heat) is where I will come.

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Susan Latta holds an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Hamline University. She is the author of Bold Women of Medicine: 21 Stories of Astounding Discoveries, Daring Surgeries, and Healing Breakthroughs, Chicago Review Press, 2017. She has written on history, biography, and geography topics for Appleseeds and Faces magazines and contributed freelance projects to Heinemann Leveled Books and ABDO Publishing. She is the recipient of the Loft Literary Center’s Shabo Award for Children’s Picture Book Writers. She lives in Edina, Minnesota, with her husband and two golden retrievers, Stan and Hobbes.Website: susanlatta.com Twitter: @lattasusan

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Imagine a graveyard at the top of a hill. A path leads through the tombstones to a stone house. Go up the steps and let yourself in the front door. Climb the stairs. The hall at the top opens on a small, book-filled room. Outside the window looms a dark stone church. Imagine, now, that beneath the church lies a vault where the mother (and two older sisters) of four young children are buried.

This scene is real, though.

In this small room, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne Brontë would gather to read to each other, knowing that just outside their door were the buried coffins of their mother and sisters. In this room, the four children began inventing a country where if someone died, four powerful genies could bring them back to life. It was a secret world, known only to them. They wrote about it in tiny books, in print too small for grownup eyes.

I’ve been to the stone house, now called the Brontë Parsonage Museum. I’ve walked through the tombstones, gazed at the entrance to the vault. I’ve hiked the wild moorlands that lie just behind the parsonage. And although I don’t believe in ghosts, at night the village seemed haunted.

Now, the scenes are in my mind as I work to recreate this lost-but-once-real scene in a book I’m writing about Charlotte. It’s what I like best about being an author of non-fiction. You can read about a real place, you can imagine how it must look, you can find out everything you can about it. And then—you can go see it, in real life. If you’re lucky, you can discover things you never knew before about the story unfolding in your mind.

Things you could never have imagined.

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Mary Losure searches the past for true stories with real children as the heroes. If she could be granted one wish, it would be to find a time machine in the basement of her house in Saint, Paul, Minnesota. Visit her website, marylosure.com.