YA Adventure
Date Published: 12-05-2024
Publisher: Empire Studies Press
Fly along with Ruby, Sarra, Isoke and other young heroines as they take to the skies to save their families.
Nine scenarios, nine heroines, nine lessons in flight.
Gia travels from Manhattan's Lower East Side to the Aleutian Islands to capture one of the most mysterious warplanes of all time - the Mitsubishi A6M Zero.
Young Yi-Tai Jo falls in love with the homely, misunderstood X-1 rocket jet. Heartbroken at X's failure to break the speed of sound, she may have a solution.
One morning, bratty Anke has a bitter spat with her sister, Romy. Yet when Romy is kidnapped, Anke is the one who can save her - using an old war-kite to glide to the villain's tower. Can she navigate gliding through the Black Forest and save Romy?
Ship-salvager's daughter Sarra defies a garrison to save Father from Rome's wrath. Can her home-made balloon win the day?
"Tom's delightful stories in The Aviation Girls span ancient ideas about flight through the Golden Age of aviation to the Age of Rocketry."
-- Anne Millbrooke, author of the award-winning “Aviation History
Interview with Tom Durwood
Have you read anything that made you think differently about fiction?
Yes, for sure --
A writer named Elfriede Jelinek, I think about her all the time. Not so much for her fiction but for her rhythm and language, which for me clears the field of expectations. She is fearless.
The same goes for a book called Blockchain Chicken Farm, by a talented young writer named Xiaowei Wang. This is writing that moves the fences for a traditional writer like me.
Also Rachel Carson. I read her whenever I can. She writes with a purpose and confidence that is off the charts, just spectacular.
As to the actual fiction elements of plot and theme, character and conflict, I am very conservative. I am constantly testing the bones of my adventure stories to see if I have done everything possible to surprise and inform my readers. So, my influences there are writers like Robert E, Howard, Louis L’Amour, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
It is imperative (as Stanly Milgram might say) that we create perfect stories.
How do you select the names of your characters?
Very carefully. I want the names to be original and distinctive, but not reach-y. The cultural roots of a character’s name mean something.
Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?
Yes. A connective element among all of my historical fiction is a shadowy group called the Navigators. These are retired seamen, and the global families and descendants of these seamen, who share lore and statistics from their travels. This body of knowledge appears at critical moments in the stories, when the story calls for a believable x-factor. The Navigators come to the fore in stories like “Salvage” and “Kites” and in the novel The Colonials. The Yunhe are the Chinese Navigators. The American Navigators die off (I’m not sure why).
Only the ideal reader would catch all this, but it makes me happy.
What was your hardest scene to write?
“The London, Paris Air Race” was the hardest story in Aviation Girls to write because it was so ambitious. The climactic race scene needed to be particularly convincing, with all of the flying procedures well thought-out. I knew that the aviation historians (whom I invited to add their comments to the stories) would be scrutinizing this.
Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
I love this question ! The answer is (of course) both.
While I need to deliver stand-alone stories for my readers, this Navigator under-structure adds great value (for me, at least). As I attack these absurdly ambitious topics – the King James Bible, the American War of Independence, the history of mathematics, breaking the sounds barrier, etc. – these coming-of-age stories are built on a single foundation.
As a writer, the epic or overarching opportunity here is to create characters and settings that move horizontally through time as well as belonging to vertical collections. That is, characters like Benin architect Isoke and Sarra, the first-century ship salvager, recur in Math Girls and Aviation Girls and the upcoming Science Girls. Readers get to see the girls develop through time and history as relationships with their families and the ideas of their eras progress.
What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them?
I am not a gifted writer, so from the start, the idea of tying my stories to timeless knowledge and genuine turning points in history made good sense. So each of my stories is intended to provide authentic conflict, an engaging plot, a surprise ending, a theme that emerges naturally -- and a rich STEM-related idea like Bayes’ Theorem as well.
As to how well I have achieved my writing goals, I would say 90%. I would not change much about The Illustrated Boatman’s Daughter. or a story like “Gia Finds a Love.” One reviewer wrote that each of my characters is in its rightful place, so that is encouraging.
I intend to revisit The Colonials and King James’ Seventh Company and generate new drafts in the coming year.
What inspired you to write The Aviation Girls?
Some time ago, I contacted a terrific aviation fiction writer named Joe Weber about a fiction series, ‘Air Command,’ which would tell the stories of aviation’s turning points. We were not able to sell a publisher on it, so the idea simmered, eventually morphing into Aviation Girls.
I was drawn to the challenge of delivering to young readers a history of aviation in nine stories. Plus, the language of aviation is very appealing (see “My Korean Sister”).
Can you tell us a little bit about the next books in the Ruby Pi series? What you have planned for the future?
On the heels of the adventures of Math Girls, Geometry Girls, and Aviation Girls comes Science Girls. Ruby returns to India and is thrust into what would become the Satyagraha movement … as well as a love triangle.
Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in these stories?
Well, all of the protagonists share certain traits – resourcefulness, courage, smarts, love of family. I try to put each of them through a moment of doubt, which I think is an important step in the heroic progression. The differences come in the personalities – Anke in “The First Manned Flight” is both a slob and a complete brat (well-tolerated by her family) while Ruby herself is quiet and hard-working.
Many of their families have problems.
THESE ARE MOST EXCELLENT QUESTIONS NANCY!! Very thoughtful.
About the Author
Tom Durwood is a teacher, writer and editor with an interest in history. Tom most recently taught English Composition and Empire and Literature at Valley Forge Military College, where he won the Teacher of the Year Award five times.
Tom’s historical fiction adventures has been promising. The stories have won nine literary awards to date. “A true pleasure … the richness of the layers of Tom’s novel is compelling,” writes Fatima Sharrafedine in her foreword to “The Illustrated Boatman’s Daughter.” The Midwest Book Review calls that same adventure “uniformly gripping and educational … pairing action and adventure with social issues.” Adds Prairie Review, “A deeply intriguing, ambitious historical fiction series.”
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3 comments:
Such a memorable cover.
Congratulations on your beautiful book.
This looks like a great read. Thanks for sharing.
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