Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All

M. T. Anderson has written a wide variety of titles, including works of fantasy and satire for a range of ages. Anderson grew up outside of Boston, Massachusetts. He was educated in English literature at Harvard University and Cambridge University, and went on to receive his MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University.M. T. Anderson is the author of a number of celebrated books including the Thrilling Tales series, as well as The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1, The Pox Party, which won the National Book Award and a Printz Honor, and The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves, which also won a Printz Honor. Feed was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the L.A. Times Book Award for YA fiction in 2003 and was a finalist for the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award. M. T. Anderson currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Candace Fleming is the prolific and versatile award-winning author of many books for children and young adults. Her most recent title, The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh, received six starred reviews, was a Kirkus, PW, Booklist, and SLJ Best Book of the Year, and was hailed by the Wall Street Journal as a “fascinating chronicle.” Candace’s The Family Romanov also received six starred reviews and won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Nonfiction and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was recognized as a Sibert Nonfiction Honor Book. Amelia Lost received four starred reviews and won the Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction. Her many acclaimed picture books include Giant Squid, a Sibert Honor Book. Visit her on the web at candacefleming.com.

Because in her journals, letters, and fiction, Sylvia un-bandages wounds and wonders that most people don’t want to admit exist. Because she tells dangerous truths. “This is what it is like to be complete. It is horrible.” Sylvia forges through the crests and the crashes of self-examination for us on her pages. Her writing binds me to her, close, under her skull and skin. And I think that may be one of the primary things great writing can do– become your companion.And what an insightful companion she is! Tossing off lines like “The courage of a shut mouth, in spite of artillery!” When I read, “It was a place of force—the wind gagging my mouth with my own blown hair,” her expression of my own experiences seemed uncanny. I have lived in that boxed space of being in a relationship with someone by choice and yet feeling that I had no choice but to stay, as I had willingly put myself in that cage. And yet when I wrote about this, my own words did not express my feelings as well as Sylvia had. She understood me, and said it best. Sylvia even writes with clarity about not being able to write. In some sense almost everyone has experienced the dreadful blank page, the cursor blinking on an empty document, the e-mail that you just don’t know how to begin. Fingers drum the keyboard, but can’t depress any letters. Sylvia’s journals keep me company when this happens. She too, even though she wrote voluminously, struggled with feeling empty and unable to push a pen across paper. And when she couldn’t write, like me, she turned to baked goods! Sylvia created them, while I only consume them, but still I feel we have this in common. So why did I write this book, now? Others have already written Sylvia’s biography. Sylvia’s own daughter has expressed the opinion that people should leave the story of hermother’s life alone. How then could I justify writing this book? Why should I convey how I see Sylvia’s life? Honestly, part of writing Your Own, Sylvia was a willful denial on my part of what I was undertaking. How could I possibly write a whole book of poems about Sylvia Plath? They would never hold up under the weight of her talent. But somehow I let that go. I thought about the first time I came to Plath in the classroom. I knew little about her life, not much beyond the fact that she killed herself. And although I admired her writing, I could not initially see its depth. Sylvia’s work seemed difficult, purposely obtuse, and so I dismissed pieces of hers as remote and even cold. But learning about her life helped me to unpack various themes and metaphors that would otherwise have remained closed to me. Instead of being cold, I saw that Sylvia’s writing borders on frenzy at times. She holds her work close to her and you feel its heat and impact. I don’t think it always follows that knowing a writer’s biography is essential to understanding their work, but the knowledge I gained about Sylvia’s life as I researched and wrote this book enhanced my experience of her writing. I had always loved her poems’ fabulous opening lines, such as: “Viciousness in the kitchen,”-Lesbos ;“Stasis in darkness,”-Ariel; and “Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts”-Poppies in October. When I found out what was going on in Sylvia’s life at the time she penned each of these lines, the words resonated with even greater impact. My book offers a window into Sylvia’s life in the hopes of helping readers appreciate her writing more fully.Sylvia published her first poem at eight and wrote until her last days, creating astonishing work whether she was serene, joyful, or in crisis. Her writing captivates and inspires me. She is a friend that is always there on the bookshelf when I need her, with a great line, a brilliant sentence, to pull me through. I wish that her own words could have done the same for her. And I hope my book leads you to her.

Lisa Ann Sandell is the author, most recently, of A Map of the Known World, which Publishers Weekly called “poetic” in a starred review; Song of the Sparrow; and The Weight of the Sky, called “lovely” and “poignant” by Kirkus Reviews. She is also an editor of children’s books. She lives in New York City. Visit Lisa Ann Sandell on the Web at lisaannsandell.com.

Jennifer Donnelly is the author of the adult novels The Tea Rose, The Winter Rose, and The Wild Rose, as well as the young adult novels These Shallow Graves, Revolution, and A Northern Light, winner of Britain’s prestigious Carnegie Medal, the LA Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature, and a Michael L. Printz Honor Book Award. She lives and writes full-time in Upstate New York. You can visit her at jenniferdonnelly.com or follow @JenWritesBooks on Twitter.

Linda Sue Park was born and raised in Illinois. The daughter of Korean immigrants, she has been writing poems and stories since she was four years old. Park was first published when she was nine years old—she was paid one dollar for a haiku that ran in a children’s magazine.   During elementary and high school, Park had several more poems published in magazines for children and young people. She studied English at Stanford University and then she took a job as a public-relations writer for a major oil company. This was not exactly the kind of writing she wanted to do, but it did teach her to present her work professionally and that an interested writer can make any subject fascinating. Somewhere between living in Ireland, England, and the United States; teaching English as a second language and working as a food journalist; and starting a family; Park finally realized that what she really wanted to do was to write books for children. Park lives in upstate New York with her husband, their two children, a dog, a hamster, and eight tadpoles.  For more information on Linda Sue Park, visit her at www.lindasuepark.com

Deborah Hopkinson is the author of award-winning books for children and teens including Sky Boys, The Great Trouble, A Bandit’s Tale, and A Letter to My Teacher. She visits schools across the country and lives in Oregon.