Map
The Broad Ripple Gazette
Vol. 9 No. 22
Including the Cultural Districts and Midtown: Meridian-Kessler, Butler-Tarkington, and Meridian St.
page 18
In This
Sudoku page 10
Oct 26 - Nov 8, 2012
ISSUE - 55th reunion Pg. 2 ‑ Gallery Tour Pg. 21 ‑ BRVA election Pg. 24
photo courtesy of Barbara Shoup
Barbara Shoup - Glick Award recipient By Mario Morone
mario@broadripplegazette.com Barbara Shoup is one of Indiana’s most prolific writers. Her young adult fiction novels captivate readers and have won numerous accolades. The title of her new book, An American Tune, was inspired by one of the country’s great songwriters. “I had a friend in college who became involved in radical politics that changed her life pretty drastically. I’ve always been interested in how somebody believes in something passionately and then commits illegal acts that changes the course of her life forever. I’m interested in the idea of secrets and keeping them from the people you love. The books takes place in the run up to the Iraq war and seeing how many parallels there were to the Vietnam War and the secrets the character suppressed for a very long time. The character went underground in the 1960s and never told her family how things really were. It was different then because people my age were more innocent because we believed we could make a change. The title is from a Paul Simon song and all of the chapters have song titles. It’s got a lot to do with the feel of that sense of that period of time,” she recalled. Released in September, An American Tune can be found on amazon.com and at Indy Reads Books downtown. “I started the book in 2002 and it was published 10 years later. I did a lot of revisions and put it away. Books evolve when you put away a draft and see all kinds of things that need to be done. It is published by Indiana University Press from Breakaway Books,” Ms. Shoup said. Dan Wakefield, author of Going All The Way, praised her recent book: “Barb Shoup’s new novel, An American Tune brings to life an important time in our history that young people don’t know and older people would rather forget – the idealism and protests of ‘sixties youth against the war in Vietnam and the shadow it casts in today’s world.” She writes short fiction, poetry, essays and conducts interviews. Her young adult novels, Wish You Were Here and Stranded in Harmony were selected by the American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults. Vermeer’s Daughter was a School Library Journal Best Adult Book for Young Adults. She also has written a travel article about visiting Edith Wharton’s grave in France. Ms. Shoup mentioned a creative grant she recently received: “I won the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Regional Indiana Author Award for 2012 in September. The nice part of it was receiving a $2,500 grant to give to my favorite library (Indianapolis Marion County Public Library branch) at 4180 North College Avenue.” Her calling to write began at a young age. “I started writing as soon as I could write, but I had a funny experience when I wrote my first novel when I was 11 years old. It was about an African American girl who was escaping through the Underground Railroad – like escaping on a subway with dining cars. I submitted it to a publisher, but was rejected. I was so embarrassed that I just stopped writing and didn’t start again until my late 20s,” she recalled. “When I was a kid, I received books from my grandparents in London. My mom was a war bride (in the Royal Air Force) who met my father during World War II. My novel, Faithful Women, draws upon this period of time, although it is set in contemporary time,” she added. A renewed interest in writing began a new chapter in her life. “I took my first class at the Writers’ Center in 1979. It was originally part of the free university in Broad Ripple in the 1970s and later became a non-profit organization. I’ve always been involved in it and later became Executive Director of it. I always loved novels and 5 Random Rippling Aristocr.
1 Construction photo
6 BR Brewpub Quiz
2 Random Rippling 1957
7 Local Contacts
3 Calendar
loved to read them. I just write what is interesting to me. There are certain things that interest you in the way that you look at a story. I think that writers in general see the complexity of a situation that other people don’t see. As a teacher, I was always interested in finding those writers who didn’t think they were very good. I’ve stayed in touch with many of my students. That is a very rewarding kind of thing. I love to teach and I miss it when I’m not doing it,” she noted. Teaching students may have been a prelude to Ms. Shoup’s writing for them. “The young adult market (teens and twenties) was a market that I kind of got into accidentally. I taught writing at Broad Ripple High School in the Center for Humanities and Performing Arts for 20 years and was interested in high school kids. I wrote a novel, Wish You Were Here that was set in Broad Ripple Village and released in 1994 that had a high school student as a main character. I tried writing Stranded in Harmony as an adult book, but couldn’t get it to work, so I took an adult character from it and shifted them to a young adult book with his story. Some
9 Poetic Thoughts
See SHOUP pg. 3 13 Random Rippling music
17 Business Directory / Maps
10 Where in the Village?
14 BR Music Fest pics
21 Fall Gallery Tour pics
10 Hidden History
15 Historic Ad
22 Gettin’ Ripped in Ripple
8 Classified Ads
10 Sudoku
15 Mistakes winner
23 Right in my Own Backyard
4 Buzzing Around Town
8 Public Notices
11 Random Rippling fence
15 Crossword
23 From the BRMHS anncmts
5 Wine Scene Jill A. Ditmire
9 Monon Trail update
12 BR Farmers Market
16 Howling at the Moon
24 BRVA election
INDEX
1 Barbara Shoup
Broad Ripple commercial photographer Mark Dickhaus recently sent in some great shots of the parking structure construction at Westfield and College. All of his submitted images are at www.broadripplegazette.com