"French Ducks in Venice" author in Charlotte

Before you pick up the charming new picture book “French Ducks in Venice,” it’s helpful to know a few things.

First, the setting: It’s Venice, Calif., not Italy.

Second, the title characters: Siblings Georges and Cécile are actually cormorants, not ducks, “although I would advise against telling them that,” the book’s narrator counsels.

Also good to know: “French Ducks in Venice” (Candlewick; $16.99) recently earned a coveted starred review from Publishers Weekly, which declared that author Garret Freymann-Weyr’s storytelling gifts “are unmistakable.”

Freymann-Weyr hails partially from North Carolina. Though she grew up in New York, she graduated from UNC Chapel Hill. Since 2009, she has lived in Davidson. She’s now dividing her time between Davidson and California.

In “French Ducks,” her first picture book, Polina Panova, a dressmaker who weaves frocks with “grass, flowers, pieces of the night sky, and strawberry jam,” has been dumped by her filmmaker boyfriend.

Georges and Cécile, who live in the canal behind her house, are indignant. Georges, especially, is eager to find Polina a new boyfriend, to make her happy again.

In this story, however, unlike many children’s books, there’s no tidy happy ending. Instead, we get a nuanced lesson about loss. When Georges proposes that he find a new boyfriend for Polina, Cécile counsels that “Polina has to be sad before she can be happy again.”

Polina does eventually cheer up, but not because she finds another man. Instead, she uses a present from Georges, a golden light, to make some new, amazing dresses, “unlike anything else I have made.”

With rich illustrations by Erin McGuire, this book has the feel of an animated Disney film. It’s Freymann-Weyr’s first picture book, but she has also written five young adult novels, including “My Heartbeat,” a 2003 Printz Honor Book.

She decided to write a picture book after a visit to her sister, who lives near the canals in Venice, Calif. During walks, Freymann-Weyr spotted what she took to be classy-looking black ducks. When she asked a friend about the birds, “she said, ‘Those are cormorants, you moron.’”

And a story idea was born.

Garret Freymann-Weyr will read at 4 p.m. Jan. 23 at Morrison Regional Library, 7015 Morrison Blvd., and at 11 a.m. Jan. 28 at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road.

Charlotte Mecklenburg library services limited next week

Charlotte Mecklenburg Library services will be limited next Monday and Tuesday, Jan. 16 and 17, while the library upgrades its catalog software.

Part of the upgrade will occur on Monday, Jan. 16, while libraries are closed for Martin Luther King Day. That day, access to many remote services, including telephone renewal, online customer accounts and portions of the catalog, will be unavailable.

When the library reopens Tuesday, Jan. 17, patrons will be able to check out books and use public computers, but telephone renewal and many online services will remain unavailable until Wednesday, Jan. 18, when normal service returns. For more information: www.cmlibrary.org.

One week left to enter Rose Post nonfiction contest

Submissions to the annual Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition must be postmarked by next Monday, Jan. 16.

The N.C. Writers' Network's annual competition honors nonfiction that's outside the realm of conventional journalism and has relevance to North Carolinians. It's named for Rose Post, who died last year after working more than a half century as a reporter and columnist at the Salisbury Post.

First-, second- and third-place winners receive $300, $200 and $100, respectively. This year's judge is Anne Clinard Barnhill. Check www.ncwriters.org for complete contest guidelines.

More poems from Julie Suk

You can read about Charlotte poet Julie Suk and her new collection, "Lie Down with Me," in my story in Sunday's Observer. Here are three selections from the book, which includes new poems and works from four previous books:

Flying Through World War I

His plane was scarcely more than canvas
stretched across board.
Gunned down by a German Fokker onto no-man’s land,
my father crawled under cross-fire to a crater
and sprawled in on the dead.

Only once did he mention the maggots and stench
in a world that slammed up too soon.

That night, between the sizzle of flares,
A Yank pulled him back into a trench and left
before the swapping of names.

Long after I came and went my ways, a friend of his
passed through town, bringing with him an army pal.
Buddy, old buddy, war tales told until what do you know –
true I swear true – they found it was the stranger
who’d rescued my father.

Crying, they embraced – life is so sweet
when death is on leave.

By spring a tumor invaded my father’s brain,
taking him out, along with his wish to float
once just once again with the noiseless clouds.

I’m left replaying those summer nights
we sat on the stoop, bull-bats diving overhead,
cicadas puncturing the quiet.

See, he pointed, there – there! scorpion,
fish, ram and lyre, wheeling across a sky
threatened by hunter and bear.

Hiding my face on his arm, it was hard to connect
myth with the lap I nestled in.

And still no clue
from a heaven seemingly preoccupied.

Tracers that stutter around us
briefly illuminate our lives,

what I forgot to say, what I forgot to give
to the living, bringing me down to a fragment
of you, my derring-do father who flew.

The Dead

The dead sift through us

without flesh, bone, hair,

or whatever else the stars concoct

for us to touch.

Reaching for the velvet muzzle

of a horse, their hands pass on through

never feeling the warm breath in their palms.

Try catching wind as it runs over wheat

leaving it in shocked repose.

Cruel – to see the one you love

and realize neither tongue nor limb.

Desire is an unattached shadow.

Dashing without thought against the day,

we complain at the slightest wound.

The dead drift by longing for a bruise.

What We Know Is Not What We Feel

which explains why we shiver

when the heedless stars swing by.

Come see,

says my son,

the lens of his telescope

momentarily focused

beyond

what I want to believe –

that the earth is not

the last place we touch,

our song whisper rant

not drifting off

without route or shore.

I trace lines but find

no discernible shape for Vesta

Omega Aquarius Cetus

no trail marked

THIS IS THE WAY,

nothing

of anger sorrow love

or the foolish wishes

we wept and fought for

not knowing they seldom

come true, hope

the most savage lie.

And there in the lower sky,

Venus –

no, a night flight

flashing through the trees

and beyond,

and I'm not aboard,

am left, you could say,

like the aura of a burned-out star,

the body,

that incorrigible flirt,

still leading me on.

Upcoming: A writing contest, class and anniversary

News from the book beat:

• The N.C. Writers' Network is accepting submissions for its 2012 Doris Betts Fiction Prize. The competition is open to any legal resident of North Carolina or member of the N.C. Writers' Network. It's for short stories of up to 6,000 words. The first-prize winner receives $250 and publication in the North Carolina Literary Review. Last year's winner was Thomas Wolf of Chapel Hill for his story "Boundaries." Details: www.ncwriters.org.

• The Charlotte Writers' Club is sponsoring its annual course, "Recalling Memories for Your Family or the Public." Margaret Bigger will teach the course 2-4 p.m. Wednesday Jan. 18-Feb. 15 at Christ Episcopal Church, 1412 Providence Road. Details or to register: 704-364-1788.

• The Charlotte Writers' Club marks its 90th anniversary this year. The club will celebrate at 7 p.m. Jan. 17 with a reception and program featuring readings by selected members. Note new location: Queens College Conference Center, 2229 Tyvola Road.
  

Salon profiles two Carolinas booksellers doubling as publishers

Two Carolinas booksellers -- Asheville's Malaprop's Bookstore and Spartanburg, S.C.'s Hub City Books -- are profiled in a new Salon article about independent booksellers getting into the publishing game.

The two bookstores are among what Salon calls "a heartening trend in the brave new world of publishing" -- indie bookstores that are "taking a page from Amazon and producing titles themselves."

Actually, Hub City began as a publisher that expanded into a bookstore.The Spartanburg store grew out of the Hub City Writers Project, launched 15 years ago to support local writers. The press has published about 50 titles.

Malaprop's recently revived Burning Bush Press, its publishing arm, with a soon-to-be-released title, "Naked Came the Leaf Peeper." The serial novel has chapters written by 12 N.C. writers, including Fred Chappell and Tony Early.

Queens University MFA program hosts readings

Elissa Schappell ("Blueprints for Building Better Girls") will be among four Queens University faculty members giving free readings this month as part of the school's low-residency MFA program in creative writing.

The New York Times says Schappell's "Blueprints for Building Better Girls," a collection of linked stories, "crackles with the blunt, cynical humor wielded by people chronically on the defense. Her women are caustic and witty, even in the face of sorrow."

She'll read at 8:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 13, at Ketner Auditorium in the Sykes Learning Center. Also reading that night will be Pushcart Prize winner James McKean, author of two books of poems and an essay collection, "Home Stand: Growing Up in Sports."

Queens will also hold a reading 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 8, in Ketner Auditorium featuring Davidson College graduate Ashley Warlick, author of three novels, including "Seek the Living," and poet Sally Keith, author of "Design."