Visit with Suzanne Morgan Williams

Our second day of the holiday weekend will be spent visiting with author Suzanne Morgan Williams.

www.suzannemorganwilliams.com



Suzanne's debut YA novel, BULL RIDER, was just re-released in paperback by McElderry on 5/4/10!



All it takes is eight seconds . . .

Cam O'Mara, grandson and younger brother of bull-riding champions, is not interested in partaking in the family sport. Cam is a skateboarder, and perfecting his tricks—frontside flips, 360s—means everything until his older brother, Ben, comes home from Iraq, paralyzed from a brain injury.

What would make a skateboarder take a different kind of ride? And what would get him on a monstrosity of a bull named Ugly? If Cam can stay on for the requisite eight seconds, could the $15,000 prize bring hope and a future for his big brother?

A Circle of Light

In her post yesterday, Rosanne Parry asked the question, how will you mark Memorial Day? This is my answer. On September 10, 2001, our future son-in-law enlisted in the Navy. The next day everything changed. The next day, we learned what it means to be a military family. Almost nine years later, our son-in-law is still in the Navy and we are proud of him and of our daughter and grandson who have found the strength to live with the separation and uncertainty that military life can bring. Our son-in-law has been deployed but not to the Middle East. Still it’s always a possibility.

It’s easy, if you don’t have anyone in the service who is close to you, to pretend that the wars in the Middle East are far removed – over there someplace where our military personnel are doing their jobs. But over the years, according to the latest report I found, one million, seven hundred thousand men and women have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. A lot of them are teens. For their families and friends, the wars are very personal. For returning veterans, the experience of war is part of their lives. And whether we know it or not, the affects of fighting those wars comes back to our communities. That’s the message of my novel, BULL RIDER.

BULL RIDER is about nineteen year old Ben O’Mara, his fourteen year old brother Cam and how the war changes their lives. It’s about injured vets and traumatic brain injury which is the signature injury of the Middle East wars. The Department of Defense estimates that 160,000 service men and women have suffered some measure of traumatic brain injury during their deployment. We often think that soldiers either make it home or they don’t. But for thousands of veterans the reality is that during the instant of an explosion or an ambush they sacrificed part of their body or mind. They come home changed.

When I speak in schools about BULL RIDER I ask the students to remember what veterans have given – their time, proximity to their families, maybe an arm or years of memories lost to TBI. I ask teens to register and to vote. I won’t tell you what I think your politics should be, but your votes can make the difference between having programs to support injured veterans into the future or leaving them to fend on their own.

And sometimes, if I give writing workshops, I ask students to remember a happy or sad time. After my talk about Ben O’Mara’s life being changed by a fictional roadside bomb in BULL RIDER, many kids write about the soldiers they love. They write about brothers or sisters who are going to war, a father leaving for Iraq for the fourth time who already suffers from TBI headaches, an uncle who lost a leg and returned home depressed and adrift. There are so many stories – real ones. All I can do is listen and I tell those kids if they’ll give me a name I’ll offer a prayer.
I know we aren’t all praying types but most people believe in something – positive thought, light, energy, prayer.

So, Rosanne, to mark Memorial Day I suggest this. When you hear of a soldier or marine being deployed, or of one who’s returned, add them and their families to a quiet list and think of them – every Tuesday, or when you see a bus or an airplane. Use whatever cue you need to remind yourself that real people with real lives are in these wars. Together, let’s create a circle of light to lift up the men and women who have given so much because they were asked.

For more information about Traumatic Brain Injury and tangible ways to reach out to troops and veterans see www.suzannemorganwilliams.com and open Veterans.

**Thanks so much to Suzanne for visiting today, and for such a great post on remembering those currently in the military as well as Veterans. Although Memorial Day is a once-a-year holiday in the U.S., that doesn't mean we only need to remember these soldiers who fight for our freedoms only during that time!

Be sure to visit Suzanne's website (especially the section about Veterans and TBI), or you can also find her at her Blog or on Facebook. You can also email her directly at suzanne@suzannemorganwilliams.com.

She's been kind enough to offer up a copy of BULL RIDER to one lucky poster today, so let's hear it - what will YOU be doing to celebrate Memorial Day in your own way?