Interview with Cindy Borgne, author of Native Shifter

Summary:

Native Shifter is a paranormal romance set in the mid 1770’s. It’s the first book in the Freedom Shifters Trilogy.

Leotie values her freedom and peaceful life with her tribe more than anything. However, the outlanders want more and more of their land. They are given the ultimatum to leave their home or die. Soon the Mahasi are going to war with an unpredictable enemy. Leotie wasn’t born to stay home and string beads. She’s a hunter and a warrior who gets a chance to defend her people, but what she doesn’t know is that a powerful shifter is watching her. He’s about to turn her world upside down.
Keme is a native young man who believes he’s a coward. He’s nothing like his father the Great War Chief. Everyone knows him as the one who ran from battle. Secretly, he trains to be a healer. He tries to warn his people that going to war with the outlanders will end in many deaths, but only a few will listen. He wants to make Leotie his life-bond, but with his reputation how can he ask her?

1. What inspired you to write Native Shifter?

Most of the time my inspiration for novels comes from a combination of ideas. Native Shifter evolved from a novelette I wrote called “TransShifter.” However, that was about an alien shifter, while Native Shifter is about werewolf shifters. I had also wanted to write a story about Native Americans. So, the two ideas combined to became “Native Shifter.”

2. Tell us a little about your main character, Leotie.

Leotie is a Native American tomboy. She doesn’t like domestic duties, and would rather be hunting. Leotie insists she should be a warrior in their next battle. She doesn’t want anything in her world to change, but unfortunately there are many forces that will make that impossible for her.

Keme (Leotie’s love interest) is also a main character. He once ran away from a battle when he was twelve and has considered himself a coward ever since. His father wants him to be a warrior, but he wants to be a healer.

3. What was unique about the setting of the book, and how did it enhance or take away from the story?

The story takes place in the mid-1770s, and most of the setting is either in the woods or at a Native American camp site. Since so many shifter books take place in modern times, it makes me wonder if readers will give it a chance. However, I think the setting enhances the story because it lets the reader visit a different world.

4. What research did you have to perform to back up your story?

There was a lot of research involving Native Americans and that time period. To help with description, I collected a lot of pictures on Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.com/cindersann0341/native-shifter/

5. Why did you choose to write Native Shifter in third person point-of-view?

I have written two novels in first person, but this time I wanted to have the view point from both Leotie and Keme. Also, I wanted to have the viewpoint of the antagonist, Markus, for the purpose of adding suspense. Hopefully it worked. 

6. Which is your favorite scene from your book?

The very last scene, which I can’t tell you about or that would be a spoiler. However, there is a scene where Leotie struggles to act like a human, even though she’s stuck in wolf form. She believes that if she rejects wolf traits, it will help find a way to be human again. It comes across as some comic relief. I always smile when I read it.

7. What do you have planned for Leotie in book 2 “Rebel Shifter?”

I’m hoping to publish Rebel Shifter about 1 or 2 months after the release of Native Shifter. Leotie starts out in the first book as a person who only knows a life with her tribe. Throughout the series, she’s pushed to go places and do things she never thought she would do.

Interview with Cindy Borgne, author of Native Shifter

Summary:

Native Shifter is a paranormal romance set in the mid 1770’s. It’s the first book in the Freedom Shifters Trilogy. 

Leotie values her freedom and peaceful life with her tribe more than anything. However, the outlanders want more and more of their land. They are given the ultimatum to leave their home or die. Soon the Mahasi are going to war with an unpredictable enemy. Leotie wasn’t born to stay home and string beads. She’s a hunter and a warrior who gets a chance to defend her people, but what she doesn’t know is that a powerful shifter is watching her. He’s about to turn her world upside down.

Keme is a native young man who believes he’s a coward. He’s nothing like his father the Great War Chief. Everyone knows him as the one who ran from battle. Secretly, he trains to be a healer. He tries to warn his people that going to war with the outlanders will end in many deaths, but only a few will listen. He wants to make Leotie his life-bond, but with his reputation how can he ask her?

1. What inspired you to write Native Shifter?

Most of the time my inspiration for novels comes from a combination of ideas. Native Shifter evolved from a novelette I wrote called “TransShifter.” However, that was about an alien shifter, while Native Shifter is about werewolf shifters. I had also wanted to write a story about Native Americans. So, the two ideas combined to became “Native Shifter.”

3. Tell us a little about your main character, Leotie.

Leotie is a Native American tomboy. She doesn’t like domestic duties, and would rather be hunting. Leotie insists she should be a warrior in their next battle. She doesn’t want anything in her world to change, but unfortunately there are many forces that will make that impossible for her.

Keme (Leotie’s love interest) is also a main character. He once ran away from a battle when he was twelve and has considered himself a coward ever since. His father wants him to be a warrior, but he wants to be a healer.  

4. What was unique about the setting of the book, and how did it enhance or take away from the story?

The story takes place in the mid-1770s, and most of the setting is either in the woods or at a Native American camp site. Since so many shifter books take place in modern times, it makes me wonder if readers will give it a chance. However, I think the setting enhances the story because it lets the reader visit a different world.

5. What research did you have to perform to back up your story?

There was a lot of research involving Native Americans and that time period. To help with description, I collected a lot of pictures on Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.com/cindersann0341/native-shifter/

6. Why did you choose to write Native Shifter in third person point-of-view?

I have written two novels in first person, but this time I wanted to have the view point from both Leotie and Keme. Also, I wanted to have the viewpoint of the antagonist, Markus, for the purpose of adding suspense. Hopefully it worked. 

 
7. Which is your favorite scene from your book?

The very last scene, which I can’t tell you about or that would be a spoiler. However, there is a scene where Leotie struggles to act like a human, even though she’s stuck in wolf form. She believes that if she rejects wolf traits, it will help find a way to be human again. It comes across as some comic relief. I always smile when I read it.

8. What do you have planned for Leotie in book 2 “Rebel Shifter?”

I’m hoping to publish Rebel Shifter about 1 or 2 months after the release of Native Shifter. Leotie starts out in the first book as a person who only knows a life with her tribe. Throughout the series, she’s pushed to go places and do things she never thought she would do.

5 Stars for Native Shifter by Cindy Borgne

Native Shifter by Cindy Borgne

Native Shifter is Cindy Borgne’s best novel. I enjoyed her Vallar series, and her shorter novelette TransShifter, but Native Shifter brought it all together for me. Not only does Native Shifter have a great protagonist with complete three-dimensional characterization worth rooting for; it has a concise plot structure building to a climatic ending with small fiery details in-between.

The protagonist in the story, Leotie is a warrior at heart, who wants to do anything but string beads for her tribe. She is in love with a boy named Keme, her life-bond and someone who understands her dilemma, because he wants to be anything but what life has offered him. He wants to be a healer not a warrior.

Together they are perfectly matched; however, due to an increased war between the Natives and the white man they are pulled apart, and their dreams are seemingly shattered. As the plot progresses, and Borgne throws us obstacle after obstacle, death being the largest one; it seems these two are not going to be together.

Packed with interesting alternatives that lead to a twisted ending for them both, this story will keep you guessing right up until the last page. Despite continuous spell-binding plot, the pacing of this book moved like a roller coaster of small hills and a big climatic mountain at the end. The pacing would slow in the places it needed, allowing the reader to absorb the disappointments in the same way Leotie would respond to them.

You felt her sadness in a grand way and you experienced her strength with the difficult choices she had to make. She ended up being a warrior, not just because she could fight the battles outside of herself, but because she could also fight the ones inside of herself. Her inner conflicts and wins over them made her a stronger person in the end. I read Native Shifter in four days, and cannot wait to read the next book to see where Leotie’s journey will take her. Cindy Borgne’s book Native Shifter is a must read for those of us who like great characters, and a plot that keeps you guessing.

5 Stars for My Losing Season by Pat Conroy

Summary:

Pat Conroy, one of America’s premier novelists, has penned a deeply affecting coming-of-age memoir about family, love, loss, basketball—and life itself. During one unforgettable season as a Citadel cadet, Conroy becomes part of a basketball team that is ultimately destined to fail. And yet for a military kid who grew up on the move, the Bulldogs provide a sanctuary from the cold, abrasive father who dominates his life—and a crucible for becoming his own man.

With all the drama and incandescence of his bestselling fiction, Conroy re-creates his pivotal senior year as captain of the Citadel Bulldogs. He chronicles the highs and lows of that fateful 1966–67 season, his tough disciplinarian coach, the joys of winning, and the hard-won lessons of losing. Most of all, he recounts how a group of boys came together as a team, playing a sport that would become a metaphor for a man whose spirit could never be defeated.

Review: 

“I was never a good player, but the sport allowed me glimpses into the kind of man I was capable of becoming.”

Pat Conroy My Losing Season: Prologue

Conroy is speaking of the game of basketball, a sport I never found all that interesting; however, this line hooked me into reading an entire book largely to do with basketball. I wanted to know what man Conroy became especially after finding out his father verbally and physically abused him daily making him feel like he was never more than a loser. Then Conroy attended the Citadel, a military school notoriously known for its man-breaking plebe drills, and last there was Conroy’s basketball coach at the Citadel, a guy named Mel Thompson, a guy who bled his team through intimidation and fear.

Despite the weight of negativity pushing Conroy under, he found his voice, his inner team spirit. Below is a passage after the Citadel played Greensboro N.C. Conroy speaks first, then Rat, another team player for the Citadel.

“Why did Mel excuse me from his ass-kicking?” I asked.

“Because you were terrific,” Rat whispered. “You scored twenty-five points. You made nine out of thirteen shots. Hit all seven of your free throws. You were good.”

This personal win fell short for Conroy because the team lost and as team captain he felt ultimately responsible. But later, he says he wouldn’t change anything about that game that year.

“My team taught me there could be courage and dignity and humanity in loss. They taught me how to pull myself up, and hold my head high and to soldier on.”

And Conroy did soldier on becoming one of the finest writers I’ve ever read. My Losing Season is a memoir that doesn’t drown itself with exposition, instead it breaks its storytelling into excellent dialogue coupled with passages of telling. Conroy doesn’t just tell his story; he shows it bringing the reader right into his own heart.

Again, I never cared much for basketball, but after reading Conroy’s story, and playing the game through his eyes, his heart, I learned the importance of a good point-guard, an award winning pass and dribble, and how all of those things parallel to the basic universal needs to be loved and recognized. It made me reflect on myself, pull on my inner strengths, and persevere become more aware. Isn’t this what good story telling and writing combined accomplish?

Conroy’s losing season was about losing, but was equally about perseverance and strong wins. Conroy became hugely successful publishing several more books, three of which made movie deals. He died this past March, but his books and words live on in places like Hollywood, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and in the hearts of those who listen.

4 Stars for Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Summary:

Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.

Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane’s child’s-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love

Review:

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is an outstanding memoir told from a child growing up in Iran when everyday freedoms were banned. Iranians couldn’t play cards, listen to rock-n-roll, or even buy a favorite boy band poster. Unfortunate, because Satrapi’s personality embraced freedom; she often found herself in trouble with her superiors. An example would be not wearing her veil correctly exposing hair. Her father, another rebellious sort believing in freedom, once told one of Satrapi’s teachers to shave her mustache since she found hair so provocative.

Now, that is humor, and in the midst of everything Satrapi endured, watching her neighbors die, seeing relatives tortured, and wearing a veil during ninety degree heat. Sweating profusely beneath the veil was a sardonic little girl embracing her individual, and she did it with humor. The child-like drawings accented this humor in a way a straight narrative could not, but at the same time they showed a darker view, one with a man cut to pieces, and knifes dripping with blood. The darker tone of Persepolis reminded me of how The Diary of Anne Frank hit me when I read it as a young girl, the fear, the gratitude for my own freedoms, and the overwhelming need to hold onto the goodness in humanity.

Despite Anne’s shortened life, her diary felt complete. This is where I felt like Persepolis fell short for me. There should have been more. I wanted to know more about her being the great-granddaughter of an Iranian Emperor, and I would have liked to see the philosophy of Marx tied into the loss of that crown. There was a deep underlying irony between a rich life of vanity, and one Marx proposed making people labor to avoid society’s alienation. I would have liked to see this two contradicting ideas explored further.

However, wanting more in the Persepolis, only meant the less given was brilliant. The simple drawings, simple questioning of a young girl, and finally the simple conclusions drawn by her in this turbulent time of her life worked to ignite passion for the little freedoms  I enjoy in my life, not wearing a veil is definitely one for me. Vainly, I love my hair, and while I move toward the age of fifty (in the short years to come) I don’t think its especially provocative, but it is mine and it is my freedom to do with it as I like. I recommend Persepolis to anyone who wants to appreciate freedom, and especially to younger people who are still searching for the freedoms designed to make them who they are as individuals.

4 Stars for My Life with the Walter Boys by Ali Novak

Summary:

My Life with the Walter Boys centers on the prim, proper, and always perfect Jackie Howard. When her world is turned upside down by tragedy, Jackie must learn to cut loose and be part of a family again.

Jackie does not like surprises. Chaos is the enemy! The best way to get her successful, busy parents to notice her is to be perfect. The perfect look, the perfect grades-the perfect daughter. And then...

Surprise #1: Jackie's family dies in a freak car accident.

Surprise #2: Jackie has to move cross-country to live with the Walters-her new guardians.

Surprise #3: The Walters have twelve sons. (Well, eleven, but Parker acts like a boy anyway)

Now Jackie must trade in her Type A personality and New York City apartment for a Colorado ranch and all the wild Walter boys who come with it. Jackie is surrounded by the enemy-loud, dirty, annoying boys who have no concept of personal space. Okay, several of the oldest guys are flat-out gorgeous. But still annoying. She's not stuck-up or boring-no matter what they say. But proving it is another matter. How can she fit in and move on when she needs to keep her parents' memory alive by living up to the promise of perfect?

Review:

Ali Novak started My Life with the Walter Boys at the age S.E. Hinton wrote The Outsiders. Now, by drawing these two books together I’m not saying they are the same. I’m pointing out two very convincing reasons to read both books. One: They tell a good, clean story about love and loss. Two: They both convincingly mimic the teenage voice of their time allowing positive inward reflection. The stories have teenagers that make poor choices, but also rewarding ones. The choices of Jackie in My Life with the Walter Boys were a bit more cliché, but so were the choices of Ponyboy and Johnny in The Outsiders – with the exception of Johnny’s choice with the church fire. That was unexpected given Johnny’s character up until that point.

My Life with the Walter Boys did not have that kind of unexpected twist. A book that contains these predictable clichés should not be cast aside for that reason alone. My Life with the Walter Boys is an excellent book for teenagers. It bothers me that someone would rate this story poorly based on the amount of clichés it contains. That is shallow and unacceptable. Especially, when The Outsiders is loaded with quotes like:

“Kid, you scared the devil outa me the other day. I thought I killed you.”

“If I ever did that my mom would die of shock.”

And my favorite…

“So stood there like a bump on a log while they surrounded me.”

Generally, it is not good to use clichés, often their predictability makes reading them like a boring manual, and doesn’t give the necessary details to the reader. My favorite example for detail is the ‘Jack of all trades’ example, because it still begs the question of what Jack can do.

Again, Novak’s book is predictable, but it is also free of the unnecessary sex and cursing you find in books like The Vampire Academy. I’m not saying you can avoid the often real world of teenagers where the f-bomb is common, and sex is on the page of many restless hormonal urges. But, with  all this commonality, it is refreshing to meet a girl like Jackie, Novak’s main teenager, a virgin who intends to stay that way at least until she can figure out her own emotions. Bravo to Novak for writing something I wouldn’t mind my own teenage daughter reading, a book that says its okay to feel sexual but not to dive into the cesspool of it all. And mostly, its okay to make mistakes, because they can make you stronger.

The second reason Novak’s clichés didn’t bother me was her writing. Structurally, her sentences blended passive and active verbs moving the reader effortlessly through the text. Sentence lengths varied. None of that Melville ‘Call me Ahab’, followed my a lengthy sentence a paragraph long. And, gosh, I’m not knocking Melville, Moby Dick is a classic, for obvious reasons that explore deep philosophical reasons on our relationship to the world, to God. There are other reasons, but that is the one that made me read it. With that said, there is a reason folks put off reading it, if they do at all. Sentence and active and passive verbs balance cater to the reader, and without the reader why write.

A third reason Novak’s writing worked was showing not telling. The main character, Jackie, has a one-million-dollar reason for staying in her head, her family died. Novak could have wallowed in that. I mean, look at Bella in Twilight, a story that was published because it was an interesting twist on  Vampires. However, there was way too much time with Bella wallowing over Edward, and not near enough reasons for examining the idea of living forever. Even when Jackie was inside her own thoughts, she examined her own faults, and virtues to make sense of her place in the world.

But as said, there was not a lot of wallowing in Novak’s story, because showed, let her characters do, and moved the plot along. Novak did a fine job of this without ever forgetting Jackie lost her family.

My final thoughts are this: let your teenage daughter read My Life with the Walter Boys, not a new premise, but an old one done well, and cleanly. It started on a site called Wattpad.

Building Strong Writers

Building Strong Writers in Middle School by authors Deb and Jim Delisle is a self-examination of the adolescent. It contains twenty-four lesson plans that support core standards. In the introduction the writers say, "Self-examination is an important part of growing up, and it is the heart of this book." This book strongly urges the student to express themselves. 

For example, lesson ten - It Gives Me... ask the students what gives them hope, joy, pride and last pause in their lives. Some students responded deeply saying it gives me pause to think about the universe and my place in it. Others said it gives me pause when I lose my homework. One of the hope ones really touched me, the student said it gives me hope when my mom says "see you later." 

A second example is lesson eight: A Pyramid of Personal Qualities. Students here had to examine their self and translate that to what they want to later become. The authors say in their notes: "This activity is not meant to focus on any specific goal or goals of students, but rather on their goals in general - the person they want to become.

A third example is lesson twenty-two, I Got the English Class Blues. Hooking the students with a blues song remade by Beyonce' the web is set. Students then paired up to look up music like John Lee Hooker, Jelly Roll, and Robert Johnson and figure out what the songs mean. The next day students are reading poetry from Langston Hughes like The Weary Blues. Afterwards students are to write their own blues poem serious or whimsical. They are giving titles they can choose from like The Intolerance Blues, or The No Allowance this Week Blues. One of the student examples I really liked was Best Friend Blues starts out "My Best Friend has replaced me with someone I know." Last, I liked the extended lesson for this that invited kids to record and add music to their poem.

Basically all of the twenty-four lessons in this book invite students to self-examine, some less, and some more. I tried to include the ones that really probed at the heart of what this book was about - self-examination with core standards. 

Building Strong Writers in Middle School is loaded with creative, self-examining lessons to get the student to write better, grander, and more precisely. One of my favorite lessons, lesson eleven happened to be lesson eleven's extension. First lesson eleven invited students to tell their story of someone who was only in their life for a short time but impacted them greatly. This lesson provides a great example of a young boy named Roger who gets a big brother named Jim for about six months. Jim gives Roger the encouragement he needs at a time he really needs it. This lesson is a lot of writing, so the extension exercise pulls only parts of the student essays that are written well and post them under a topic titled: Yes, Middle School Students Write Well. 

Some of these pulled-out sentences were beautifully, and thoughtfully written, and together made a huge impact.

These were some of them:

• I never told anyone the following story, except God in my good-night prayers.

• The turn, the evil turn i had been anticipating, had arrived.

And last, my favorite:

• I will never return to my old, gray, lethargic lifestyle because I have gained so much by living a life filled with color.

First, that last one is so not J. Alfred Prufrock, and second, a middle school student knowing the word lethargic, and using it correctly. And last, the beautiful contrast in a perfect parallel of adjectives. This is amazing! This book made me want to listen to the words and voices of students. Reading student examples was my favorite part of reading this book. 

Another student example that amazed me wasn't because it was fabulously well-written, but because of the distinct beat of a heart-felt response. It was from lesson thirteen: Help, Hope, Hurray. This student was one of hope where he wrote to someone with Asperger's.

"Dear Nick,

We'd like to thank you very much for speaking to our class last Wednesday. For that 30-minute period, you brought us into your life and taught us about Asperger's Syndrome in a way no textbook or teacher could ever do. You brought upon us a new wave of understanding, and we thank you."

In short, there were other great student examples, but these were some of my favorites.