From: Megan Schliesman <Schliesman>
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 13:06:25 -0500

Dianne Hess at Scholastic has sent the following message from Arnold Adoff, Virginia Hamilton's husband (and writer/poet/book creator), to the CCBC-Net community:


dear megan, karen, ginny, kathleen....and all of you

in our ccbc community....only a few words from the o/zone alert which is ohio this day.....(i remember all the years of traveling, alone and with virginia.....going to the baggage carousel...and there was this same woman waiting for the steel crates of picture books to come crashing down so we all could appear some place to talk and read and talk...and even listen........so hi, ginny....my love to you.....)

dianne hess at scholastic has kindly sent your words along to me....i know virginia was linked with ccbc and her web site......but this digitally-challenged old poet is still trying to find out what a list serve is....and how can i "listen" to you all ...all of the time........

of course "thanks" is far too inadequate a word to send to all of you.....for the years of my own learning....and for your intelligent kindnesses so many times.........there is too much more i want to say and so all the words are now crowding together trying to get through and they are jamming up the door say....maybe for me: digital refers to the tips of my fingers moving onto plastic keys in semblance of communication.............i am holding emotion at bay with words and work

here......and beginning to realize that i need to share once in a while......

you all are at the beginning of the process of the recognition of each new book.....so i talk a bit to the choir.....but i want to mention the "final" novel: time pieces: the book of times.....out in november....completed really just before christmas.....and i also want to trumpet the....tada....entrance into our world of one former rocker: jaime adoff....affectionately called by me adoff the younger as i marvel at his fresh and powerful work.....the genuine voice......the book is: the song shoots out of my mouth....a celebration of various music(s) in a collection of his older poetry......(i am his probono (is there ever an antibono.....)agent and we kid about my "fantasy fifteen percent"(sorry to shelly and marilyn.....)this is his first publication but is the first of five mss under contract.......jaime is many things...especially

smarter" than me.....the dualities of the gene pool so interesting here....that he is hard at work on a n o v e l for young adults...............of course i am so proud.......

in the putnam preview magazine they put out for the fall list.....he has 3 of his poems and also talks about working with mom............

do u mind if i go on..........is there a limit to space.............jaime and i each have a piece in the cricket book: 911: the book of help......and i am especially happy with my poem because of the realization of its complexities this past january...martin luther king's birthday....and virginia in the hospital for what would be a fifty day stay.........

(you should know her web site will remain up and soon expanded and all of that good webmasterly stuff.......and there are 4 more books in the pipeline...two of them illustrated already....a new hamilton each fall for the next 4 years.........and after that:

i am in her office full of work that will be published over the coming years...................on paper, on hard drives..........i am organizing a kind of hamilton publishing program for the coming years.........

we always talked about how you fictionalize from the realities of her beloved "rememory" to synthesize into........the known, the remembered and the imagined.....and she always said she could not really do an autobiographical book because that was the core of her being...and the core of the fictive process.......after the cat scan on 1 august of last year......she began to add some of those core elements to the time pieces manuscript......it was the kind of sign from her to me that she was on the irrevocable course......(she completed 15 books during the last ten years of her life....the time of first diagnosis and struggle with breast cancer......it is a long story for another time but u should be aware that the breast cancer.....first in cyst on the outside of the sternum...then in lungs.....and liver.....never entered her breasts..........but each time the same damn breast cancer cells....it will be hard long battle with this disease....)

there is a complete bibliography at the back of time pieces......and it will help you realize that there is a great body of literature here accomplished....(we are so proud that the library of congress has invited us to give them all of her papers and manuscripts`....)

and you know that she was really on a mission......over struggle and victories and stone walls and the warmth of loving acceptance.....there was a unity of vision and purpose.....that we both worked hard at presenting to this changing america...........

but the love remains and the beauty of the truth.....and we all work together and enjoy together....and revel in the singing prose and how to get all of that into the ears and souls of the kids we work with.........

whew....and enough..........(and i could never begin to share all of this if i didn't know how among friends i am with you all....)

feel free to be in touch...........and of course my thanks for this september focus on the woman and the work........(for those in the east there will be a memorial at brooklyn public library on 19 november......)(and those who know me know i could never promise to be shorter-winded next time.......)

all best and stay strong.........best love and xxxxx's...............arnold
Received on Wed 11 Sep 2002 01:06:25 PM CDT