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Deborah Clark Vance

Goodreads Author

Born

Chicago, Illinois, The United States

Website

https://deborahclarkvance.com

Twitter

@deb1nski

Genre

Fiction, Contemporary, History

Member Since

July 2014

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When I was 11, my big brother accused me of being shallow. But I assured him I had a rich inner life and could prove it.
Here’s how: As far back as I remember, I filled sketchbooks with picture narratives of animal characters romping at the beach, playing ball, having picnics. No doubt I was inspired by the books our mom read us every day, ones with animal characters – The Wind in the Willows, Dr. Dolittle, Just So Stories and 101 Dalmatians.
By second grade I drew groundhog families living an alternative lifestyle in underground homes where they used cleverly crafted acorn-cap cups and oak leaf plates. When my classmates badgered me for copies, I figured out how to use carbon paper to create more than one at a time. That was also the year I When I was 11, my big brother accused me of being shallow. But I assured him I had a rich inner life and could prove it.
Here’s how: As far back as I remember, I filled sketchbooks with picture narratives of animal characters romping at the beach, playing ball, having picnics. No doubt I was inspired by the books our mom read us every day, ones with animal characters – The Wind in the Willows, Dr. Dolittle, Just So Stories and 101 Dalmatians.
By second grade I drew groundhog families living an alternative lifestyle in underground homes where they used cleverly crafted acorn-cap cups and oak leaf plates. When my classmates badgered me for copies, I figured out how to use carbon paper to create more than one at a time. That was also the year I penned – penciled, actually – “The Lonely Easter Bunny”, a rhythmic rhyming poem that I recited for my class.
In sixth grade, my budding concern for social issues showed in my “Ban the Litterbug,” a story about a cop who invented a tool he could aim at litter on the ground, zap and disintegrate it. Then there was the character I named Rhea Barton, “a business woman,” an idea that fascinated me (obvious by how often I refer to her as “a business woman”) as I lived in a suburb full of housewives back then.
My brother still meted out harsh criticism of the fanciful stories I was writing in 7th grade while he was reading the works of Freud and Alan Watts’ books on eastern religions. I plowed on, despite his naysaying.
My high school English teacher invited me into her special Creative Writing class. Those were stressful times when I wrote an existential story that depresses me even now. But as graduation approached I wrote something fun, “The Best for Last”, about a little boy alone all day in an apartment. (I knew no one who lived in apartments and left their kid home alone). Even on his birthday his mom went to work and while she was out he received a series of three mysterious packages: Out of the first one popped the Mumblecrum, a chaotic and disruptive creature. The second contained the obsessive-compulsive Twitchnickety. And the final one — the best for last — was a little boy just like himself who was perfect company. The next year, a friend in art school in New York said she’d illustrate it, and we’d get it published. I never saw her again.
In all these stories, oddballs did extraordinary things in places I only imagined. I wanted to do those things and visit those places and set out to do so.
Now I present “Sylvie Denied,” a coming of age story about someone who goes to all the wrong places and meets all the wrong people as she struggles to find where she fits. She shares a lot in common with me.
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Deborah Clark Vance’s books

Average rating: 4.41 · 22 ratings · 16 reviews · 1 distinct work

Sylvie Denied

4.41 avg rating — 22 ratings — published 2021 — 2 editions

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Deborah Clark Vance's Blog

From Crop Failure to a Harvest of Friendship

When we lived in a house with its own yard, I reigned. But when we downsized to a condo townhouse, I only ruled a patio and had access to the homeowners association’s modest garden plot that had lain fallow for years under layers of nearly indestructible hardwood chips.

Since no one else was interested, the entire garden space became mine. I raked out eight bushels of those chips and shoveled in co

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Sylvie Denied

by Deborah Clark Vance (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Deborah Vance said: " Set in the 1960-1970s, Sylvie Denied traces a young woman's quest fo find the truth about herself and the world as she comes of age in confusing times. Her journey takes her across the Atlantic and the American continent and into a tumultuous marriag ...more "

Feb 20, 2021 12:02PM · see review

Deborah’s Quotes

“Noble have I created thee, yet thou hast abased thyself. Rise then unto that for which thou wast created.”
― Bahá'u'lláh

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“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.”
― Gustave Le Bon, سيكولوجية الجماهير

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