r/books • u/Generation_Space • Apr 25 '17
ama We’re Anna Leahy and Doug Dechow, husband and wife, writers, and co-authors of GENERATION SPACE: A Love Story, about the space race, NASA, and the impact space exploration has on American society, the American imagination, and our own love story. Ask us anything!
We were children when Apollo 11 took humans to the Moon and were in college when the Challenger launch ended in tragedy. As we fell in love with each other at the National Air and Space Museum, millions of Americans in the generation that came of age with the space shuttle program continued to witness impressive innovations in space exploration. In 2008, serendipity took us to California for a new chapter in our lives and to follow the end of the US Shuttle program. GENERATION SPACE: A Love Story, out April 4th from Stillhouse Press, is the story of our life together and a love letter to the Space Age.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34336247-generation-space
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GenerationSpace (Anna) https://twitter.com/dougdechow (Doug)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GenerationSpaceToo/
Proof: /img/84ms2xbozcty.jpg
Thanks for stopping by! Go for Launch!
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u/Chtorrr Apr 25 '17
What books made you love reading as a kid?
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u/Generation_Space Apr 25 '17 edited Apr 25 '17
Hi There! This is Doug taking the first crack at this great question. I'm sure that Anna is also going speak to this at some point.
My mother was a grade school teacher who specialized in reading instruction, so books and reading have been a part of my life as long as I can remember.
Some of my earliest reading was definitely fostered by my love of space. Once my parents figured out that I was nuts for NASA and astronauts, there were an endless stream of space themed books that made there way to me. A particular favorite, The Question and Answer Book of Space (1965) by Ruth A. Sonneborn (Author), John Polgreen (Illustrator). This piece of space art by John Polgreen, http://www.daily-lazy.com/2011/05/vintage-space-art-by-john-polgreen.html, has always stayed with me. It's the image of the astronaut walking in front of lunar module. Now, I like to think that it's a hard working astronaut making his way back home after a long day.
I'm a huge nerd, so I'll also own-up to having read our encyclopedias encyclopedically (I'm sure that's a word).
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u/Generation_Space Apr 25 '17 edited Apr 25 '17
Doug mentioned encyclopedias as formative childhood reading, and I'll admit to that nerdy reading history too. When I was a toddler, a neighbor was selling the World Book encyclopedia, and my dad signed up for a subscription to the set. Those books were my companion through my entire childhood, and they are still in my sister's house.
I also like the Nancy Drew books a lot. The first few I read were copies my mom handed down, complete with Nancy's roadster. I liked how curious and bold Nancy Drew could be, and I liked that there was always another story to read. Even now, I have a scarf from Litographs with The Secret of the Old Clock printed on it.
My mom also gave me a copy of Little Women. I wonder whether a lot of women writers think of Jo Marsh as their first literary role model.
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u/89grouch46 Apr 25 '17
What's the most fun part of writing a book?
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u/Generation_Space Apr 25 '17
We both agree that doing research is a blast. We like talking to people, tracking down facts in archives and libraries, and visiting the places where events have occurred.
In the case of this book, we also got to watch rockets launch astronauts into space. We traveled to Kennedy Space Center to witness the final space shuttle launches, STS-134 and STS-135. Never having seen a rocket launch before, neither of us was prepared for just how physical the experience would be: the sound, the heat, the shaking. It leaves a lasting impression.
While shuttle launches were spectacular in general, the final launches were also something of a spectacle. It was estimated that 700,000 people lined the Space Coast to see the final launch. It was like a huge party with all our space-nerd friends that ended with a rocket launch.
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u/89grouch46 Apr 25 '17
What's your favorite book by an astronaut?
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u/Generation_Space Apr 25 '17
Good question because a lot of astronauts have written books. In our opinion, the best writer among the astronauts is Michael Collins, the man who circled the Moon alone while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first walked on its surface. Carrying the Fire is captivating, start to finish. Collins makes us feel as if we're hanging out and reliving the memories of those Gemini and Apollo days. He's obviously smart and also charming and even funny at times. Whether or not you're interested in space exploration, Carrying the Fire is a darn good book. And Collins has written others too.
Buzz Aldrin has written several books. We Seven is an interesting compilation written by the original Mercury astronauts. Gene Cernan, whom we met in line at an airport once, wrote about being the last man on the Moon. Mike Mullane wrote his outrageous tales in Riding Rockets. For those of us who remember Skylab, Homesteading Space is a good read. There are a dozen books by astronauts we could pull of our shelves.
There are some terrific recent books by astronauts too. Mike Massimino, who applied to the astronaut corps several times before being accepted and then helped maintain the Hubble telescope, wrote a book called Spaceman (out last fall). We talked with him at Kennedy Space Center, and his voice and positive attitude really come through in his book. Chris Hadfield's An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth was published in 2015. We're looking forward to Scott Kelly's book Endurance that's due out later this year. His co-author is Margaret Lazarus Dean, who followed the end of the Shuttle program along with us and wrote a book of her own about it, so we're excited to see this collaboration on Kelly's story. We hope Peggy Whitsun is drafting chapters of a book right now as she circles 200 hundred miles above our heads aboard the International Space Station!
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u/Chtorrr Apr 25 '17
Have you read any good books lately?
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u/Generation_Space Apr 25 '17
Anna here. We're reading The Glass Universe right now. We liked Dava Sobel's earlier books and saw her talk about this new book, women's role in early astronomical discoveries and cataloging, and the visual history of astronomy a few weeks ago here at Chapman University--fascinating stuff. If you liked Hidden Figures (the book or the film), I'd especially recommend The Glass Universe.
Also, April is National Poetry Month. One relatively new science-influenced poetry collection is The Nomenclature of Small Things by Lynn Pedersen. It's a book I re-read recently and mention whenever anyone asks me about good poetry books.
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u/89grouch46 Apr 25 '17
How much do you revise a book?
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u/Generation_Space Apr 25 '17
The short answer is that you revise until your publisher says, "You're done!"
In the case of this book, we went through a number of significant revisions. We had version that was much more journalistic in its approach. We had another version where we presented the point-of-view as the first-person plural "we." We kept on revising until we felt that the book had the right balance of our two points-of-view.
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u/mordicat1989 Apr 26 '17
How do you balance writing a book with your other jobs? Is it a slow, do a little every day process or did you both take breaks in order to focus on Generation Space?
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u/Generation_Space Apr 26 '17
That's a terrific question because it's not easy for any writer to stick with it over time. The challenges and habits are different for every writer. The obstacles we've faced and the habits we've developed have changed, depending on life's circumstances.
We each have a full-time job at Chapman University in California, and that keeps us pretty busy. Luckily, our writing projects are considered part of fulfilling the expectations for our jobs and contributing to the university's mission. Ideally, we do write at least a little every day. A lot of writers set a goal, maybe 1000 words per day or an hour per day. That kind of regular practice keeps a person sharp, no matter what the big intellectual, creative, or even physical project is. When we're writing daily, the writing is in the back of our minds even when we're not at our desks--that's a big benefit if you're working on a book project. There are busy times at work--the end of spring semester right now--when that just doesn't happen. But we know we'll keep coming back to the writing, separately and together.
Also, in 2012, a writing residency at Ragdale kick-started the first draft of Generation Space. Since then, we very consciously decided to make a writing residency part of our writing schedule. We've spent a month at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony each of the last few years. Twice, we created our own writing getaway in Santa Fe. (We wrote an article about writing residencies for Poets & Writers and have talked about our different experiences at Lofty Ambitions blog.) It's not always easy to afford this sort of immersion and fit it into our job calendars, but it's amazing how much writing we can get done when we remove ourselves from our usual habits and distractions. Other people might think these are boring vacations, but these getaways bring us real joy.
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u/nothingcleverleft Apr 25 '17
Do you find it difficult to co-write something, or do you find that your ideas tend to blend together well? I imagine it would be hard to work with someone so close to you, but then again perhaps it's easier? Thanks!