A retelling of the Brazilian version of an African folktale in which a turtle outsmarts both an elephant and a whale.
Martha Bennett Stiles lives in Lexington, KY., a hop and a skip from the Bourbon County farm where for 30 years she and her late husband bred Thoroughbred race horses (including one champion!). Martha was born in the Philippines. She grew up smoking bee hives, shearing sheep, and milking goats, around a bend in the river from Jamestown, where her first Virginia grandsire arrived as a cabin boy in 1608. Her "One Among the Indians" is the story of his two years as a hostage to Pocahontas's father.
Martha's second book for young readers was an Underground RR mystery,"The Strange House at Newburyport." In 2012, Henry Holt, Inc. will publish Martha's second Underground RR story (12th book), "Sailing to Freedom." Aboard the schooner Newburyport Beauty, 12 y.o. cook's apprentice Ray and his monkey Allie hope to win forgiveness for Allie's many crimes by foiling the bounty hunters who come seeking a runaway slave. Meanwhile the hideaway's 11 y.o. brother is attempting the same dangerous journey--South Carolina to Canada--on foot.
Martha worked a year as a telephone operator in Smithfield, Virginia, to jump-start financing college. She biked to work, up and down some unpaved clay roads. One morning she coasted down a hill so quietly that a great blue heron was so LOUDLY outraged at her appearance, she nearly fell off her bike. He made such an impression, he showed up later in 2 of her picture books--"Dougal Looks for Birds" and "Island Magic."
Martha began college at Wiliam & Mary, finished at the University of Michigan, then worked as an analytical chemist for Dupont in Richmond, Virginia, until her marriage.
Martha's 60-odd short works have appeared in periodicals ranging from "Humpty Dumpty's Magazine" and "Seventeen" to "Georgia Review," "Horsemen's Journal" and "Esquire". Her adult fiction includes the novel "Lonesome Road", and the chapbook "Landscapes" (with Bobbie Ann Mason).
Martha's third novel was the story of a Catholic Munich, Germany boy during WWII, titled "Darkness Over the Land," an ALA Notable and Horn Book Fanfare book. Martha began the research for this YA during the year her husband's Guggenheim Fellowship permitted them both to live in Munich.
Martha's next young adult novel was "The Star in the Forest," a story of war and witchcraft in France in the Dark Ages.
She followed with the middle grade readers "Tana and the Useless Monkey" (Castro Cuba) and "Sarah the Dragon Lady" (a New York fashion designer's daughter must spend a school-year in Kentucky when her parents' marriage hits a rough patch). "Sarah the Dragon Lady" was a Kentucky Bluegrass Award nominee and a Troll Bookclub selection.
Next came the young adult title "Kate of Still Waters," an exploration of a farm girl's situation as drought worsens the Farm Crisis. "Kate of Still Waters" won a Society of Children's Book Writers/Judy Blume contemporary novel award.
Martha's picture books are "Dougal Looks for Birds"; "James the Vine Puller" (an amusing Afro-Brazilian folktale about conflict resolution); and Daniel San Souci-illustrated "Island Magic." "Island Magic" was an ABA pick-of-the-list and Kentucky Bluegrass and Great Lakes Book Award nominee and winner of the Detroit Women Writers Millennium Reading Contest, children's division).
Martha has taught writing at the Universities of Louisville and Kentucky, and in schools, adult education classes, and workshops. Martha hopes you will visit her website, www.marthabennettstiles.com and will write to her at mbsparis@msn.com or 3051 Rio Dosa Drive#303, Lexington, KY 40509 For an answer via snail mail, please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
