Remembering Louise Plummer

Just about everyone has somebody who's really important in their lives. Family, or people they work with, or those they’ve had the opportunity to learn from.

I’d been in Utah just long enough to get married and have a baby or two when I decided to take and Independent Study class from BYU. I wanted to be a writer and at 16 started writing short stories. This story writing happened years before when I was in Florida. 

This Independent Study was a 320 class, one that taught about writing for children. For some reason, though I'm not sure how, I knew I was a children's writer and so I gathered up the several hundred dollars it cost for the class and took it. 

I did the first few assignments. The teacher (I can’t remember her name) didn't like my writing. And after several comments about how I had no talent for writing for children, I did what any grown up would do. I stopped sending my work in. 

I was devastated.

Now here is one thing about me: I'm cheap and that's something that I have carried from my childhood. Realizing I would get an incomplete, I decided two months before the deadline to complete the work. This, I knew, would be the end of writing classes.

Afraid, I sent my work in. This time I had a new teacher. Her name was Louise Plummer and she told me, on my first packet to her, I was talented. “You can publish,” she said. 

Just like with the other teacher, I believed her. Louise encouraged me to submit my middle grade novel to the Delacorte First Young Adult Novel Contest. A.E. Cannon had already won first place with Cal Cameron by Day, Spider-Man by Night. Louise won an honorable mention with The Romantic Obsessions and Humiliations of Annie Sehlmeier. I should try the contest out, Louise said. If I remember correctly, she insisted.

So I did. While I didn’t win that contest, I did get a telephone call from editor Mary Cash. Mary told me my manuscript had been pulled out from the contest and let me know Delacorte was interested in publishing my novel. 

What would've happened if Louise hadn't been in my life? Certainly, if I had stayed with that first teacher, no matter how good her intentions were, I would not have sold that first book. Maybe I would have given up altogether – though I believe writers write even if they never publish. Louise Plummer started me on my publication journey. She believed in me.

Louise told Rick Walton about me. He reached out because of her and invited me to my first ever writer’s group. This is another push from Louise that changed my life. 

Mary Cash bought my third novel and Rick Walton, Cheri Earl, and I invited her out to a conference that we put together. I was excited to meet Mary in person and it was while we were talking about my book, The True Colors of Caitlynne Jackson, that Mary figured out what was going wrong at the end of my novel. 

While she was here in Utah, Mary, Louise, Ann, myself, and our husbands all went to dinner together. Louise had a huge personality. She was smart, funny, and such a joy to be around. To be with Ann Edwards Cannon and Louise Plummer was an honor. I loved their books. 

I sat quietly most of that evening until somehow we got to talking about childhood memories. I was encouraged to tell a story from when I was a young girl, a story my daughters hate. 

When I finished, everybody at the table went silent. It was an awkward moment. 

Then Louise said, “Oh my gosh, Carol. That is a terrible, terrible memory. I am so sorry.” She paused, took a breath and said, “May I steal it?” I gave her permission. 

Louise’s novel, The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman, is the story of a girl telling her own love story using the Romance Guide Phrase Book. I worked on a middle grade novel that released a few years later called My Angelica. This was also the story of a girl who was writing a book, however the main character is an abysmal writer.

Imagine my joy when My Angelica was compared to The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman in a review. I was so excited I could hardly stand it. Yes, my review did say that my book was crummy and that if I had known better I would have read and studied Kate Bjorkman. But to be in the same review with Louise Plummer was one of the highest nods of recognition I've ever received.

I lucked out. Early on, my mentor became my friend. We were in the same critique group for a while, went to some of the same events. She taught at WIFYR. She embraced my children. She believed in me. Always, always, Louise was a star. THE star. She wasn’t afraid to write hard things. She wasn’t afraid to love you. She wasn’t afraid to be herself.

We all meet people we love, but there are those we meet and love who change our lives in such huge ways you wonder where you would be without them. Louise was that for me. She was that for a lot of people. Oh, Louise. Thank you for seeing worth in my writing and for caring about me.

Carol Lynch Williams is the author of more than 30 books for young readers including Waiting, Messenger, and The Chosen One. She's been working with Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers since its inception. She teaches creative writing at a local university and is a mentor. The best part life are her five daughters and her incredible Baby Bubs.