Pegi Deitz Shea: Threads of a Story

Travels to Thailand and Cambodia have inspired this author to weave stories kids may otherwise have never heard

Pegi Deitz Shea is an author who considers herself a rule-breaker. While she is surely capable of writing lovely, sentimental stories such as New Moon (Boyds Mills Press, 1997) and Bungalow Fungalow (Clarion Books, 1991), she is concerned with much more than just telling kids about the niceties of life. With books like The Carpet Boy's Gift (Tilbury House, 2003), The Whispering Cloth (Boyds Mills Press, 1995) and Tangled Threads (Clarion Books, 2003), Pegi Deitz Shea has begun to carve a very special niche for herself, one in which she is dedicated to opening readers' eyes to some very sophisticated content. From this stable of stories comes serious subjects such as child labor in Pakistan, life in the refugee camps of Thailand and adjusting to America as a former refugee. While her other stories are loaded with wonderful details such as daylight "the color of peach ice cream," it's Pegi Deitz Shea's latest books for children that have the tendency to reach out, grab you by the collar and give you a good shake.

The first year. From the moment she collected her $2 winnings from a poetry contest at age 10, Pegi Deitz Shea knew that she had been bitten by the writing bug. Throughout her academic career she continued to win recognition for her poetry and pick up writing awards, but convinced herself soon after graduating from college that she couldn't make living as a writer. She worked as a Director of Advertising and Public Relations in the film and video industry and later struck out on her own and started a public relations firm based in her home. After a few years, the urge to begin writing for herself and for children began to nag at her again. "I felt like all of my creative energy was just being zapped," she remembered. "And I decided that had to change."

She and her husband Tom talked it over and decided that Pegi should take a year to see if she could begin to make something out of her writing career. The year came and went and Pegi had only sold one book. "But Tom could tell how much happier 1 was, and so we made some sacrifices," she told us.

And now that she's finally gotten her start, it seems she just can't stop. "I'm always writing. I usually have anywhere from five to 10 projects out to editors at any given time, but I've gotten over 300 rejections, too," she laughed.

A thick skin. As a writer who is determined to turn the spotlight on stories and issues that other people would rather pretend don't exist, Pegi has made sure she doesn't take rejection too personally. When it came to the stories that were closest to her heart, such as The Carpet Boy's Gift, Pegi just sent out her completed manuscript again and again until finally a publisher accepted it after six years and 30 rejections. This incredible story is about a slave boy in Pakistan's rug industry and the true-life murder of 12-year-old child labor activist Iqbal Masih.

"I believe in breaking the rules. I've always been like that, much to my parents consternation," she commented. "But I realized that you just can't sit back and let editors come to you because it just does-, n't happen."

A life-altering event. While Pegi was inspired to write The Carpet Boy's Gift from a story she read in the newspaper, many of her other stories have grown out of her extensive travels. Her most prodigious material has come from a trip to Thailand and Cambodia that she and her husband took "BC and BM - Before Children and Before Mortgage." A good friend of Pegi's was working in Thailand teaching English and when she returned home for a visit, she brought Pegi a pa'ndau, or "story cloth," as a gift and pictures from a Hmong refugee camp where she had worked. Pegi and her husband decided they might never again have the opportunity to visit. The trip proved to be a "life-altering" event for Pegi. Although they were allowed to tour the camps, they were not allowed to take pictures or write anything down. "So, I just kind of remembered everything," Pegi told us. "And when we got back on the bus, I just wrote and scribbled for hours, trying to remember every little thing."

After returning home, Pegi became deeply involved with learning more about the plight of the Hmong people. She learned that they had been driven out of Laos after helping and fighting alongside American soldiers during the Vietnam War and were later placed in refugee camps. Many of these camps exist to this day and tens of thousands of refugees have been sent back to Laos against their will.

One of the ways in which the war refugees eased their feelings of displacement and sought to carry on their Hmong traditions was to tell their stories by embroidering pa'ndau. Pa'ndau, which means "flowery cloth" in Hmong, can include images of wildlife, plants or a story and was often sold to outsiders who came into the camps. The Whispering Cloth was Pegi's first book that featured the art of pa'ndau. In fact, Mai of The Whispering Cloth later appears as a 13-year-old in Pegi's first novel for children, Tangled Threads. In Tangled Threads, Mai has finally made her way out of the refugee camps only to face the hardships of adjusting to life in America.

From the needle to the page. Another one of Pegi's books that has truly been a labor of love for her is Ten Mice for Tet (Chronicle Books, 2003). Tet is the celebration of the new year in Vietnam and to the Vietnamese, it's like Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas combined. Pegi had a good friend who was working in Hanoi and who sent her a beautiful piece of embroidery. Pegi remembers seeing the embroidery for the first time and blurting out the title, "Ten Mice for Tet!" From that point, Pegi worked tirelessly on this book and even got to consult with a Vietnamese illustrator in Hanoi who created the pictures for the book and then sent them to another Vietnamese artist who lived in a remote village for embroidering. "I just flipped when I saw the samples," she said. "The details they included were just amazing. I'm so happy to have been a part of this story's creation."

With books about the building of the Statue of Liberty and Patience Wright (a wax sculptor who was also a spy during the American Revolution) on their way and her coffers full of new book ideas and projects, Pegi Deitz Shea has most definitely cemented her career as a writer. And, if everything continues to go according to plan, she is going to be enlightening kids' minds for a very long time.

LUCKY SUBSCRIBER

Linda Walsh

Tacoma, WA

BY KATHERINE PIERPONT, ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Copyright Early Years, Inc. Oct 2004
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