Interview with a Mystery Guest

In deciding whom to interview, I wanted somebody smart, funny, and whose work I admired. I thought about a number o people before choosing today's mystery guest. Some of you may know him, too.

Tell us about your latest project, how it's coming and the amazing timeline.

My latest project is a Minnesota alphabet book based on stunning photographs of letter forms found in nature taken by Joe Rossi. I've never had an editor approach me to write about a specific subject before, and I've never worked on a picture book where the visuals have come first. The lightning-fast (by publishing standards) turnaround time is new to me as well; I was contacted about this project at the end of December, the final draft is due in March, and the book will be published in November.

November?

Yes, November 2010 is the scheduled publication date.

How are the revisions coming on your excellent middle-grade novel?

Ah! Such a different scenario than my alphabet book! This is a story I've been working on for almost ten years. It has taken me that long to find the heart of the story. Finally, in October, I was ready to send it to my editor, but alas, I have heard nothing back. I hope he doesn't take ten years to respond!

3. You are a man who enters many contests. Can you share a couple of favorite contest stories with us.

My friend Gary Nygaard and I once won a national scavenger hunt by finding such obscure items as a St. Patrick's Day card printed in German and a folding paper fan printed with a giraffe. In the "Rolaids Relief Hero" contest, I won $10,000 for nominating a woman who started an organization to match terminally-ill children with adult pen-pals (the woman I nominated won $25,000). And for describing in twenty-five-words-or-less how Healthy Choice products make me feel like a million, I won $40,000 (far more than any book advance I've ever been offered!). The most unusual contest I've won might be the five-minute video I made showing how good Senokot laxative makes me feel.

Is there any way we can see that video?

Alas, at the moment, no. Right now I only have it on video tape. Perhaps someday I can get it transfered to a CD and download it to the computer.

And how good does Senokot laxative makes you feel?

After I received my prize of a home entertainment center and a check for $10,000, Senokot laxative made me feel pretty darn good.

One last question, what is your favorite pie?

Definitely my sister's apple pie. Or French silk. Or fresh strawberry. Or Mile High Banana Cream. Or....

Who is this Mystery Guest?

A Writer on the Move

Eight years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting the author Anne Ylvisaker at the SCBWI summer conference in Los Angeles. Her first novel, DEAR PAPA was just published with Candlewick. We were both from the Midwest enjoying the sun and the ocean breezes. We got together again in Minneapolis that fall and started a wonderful writer’s group with three other writers, calling ourselves the INKSLINGERS, and meeting almost religiously every two weeks for three years. Our friendship grew deep and strong enough to withstand her move from Minnesota to Iowa. Her first novel’s deadline was completed in the midst of a move and a divorce, her second novel, LITTLE KLEIN was completed on deadline in the midst of a move and a new marriage, and now her third novel, THE LUCK OF THE BUTTONS is being written in the midst of a move from Iowa to Monterey, California. (Luckily with a great marriage still going strong!)

1. You are a Midwest girl about to be transplanted to the West Coast—not only a very different geography, but also a very different culture! Since your novels have come from the landscape of your childhood and your ancestral neighborhoods, how are you feeling about leaving the source of your writing for an indefinite period of time? How do you think your move to California is going to affect your writing?

The farther away you get from something the better you can see it—even the move to Iowa three years ago allowed me to appreciate my Minnesota heritage in a new way. I derive a lot of inspiration from old family photos—I like to imagine my own stories about the photographs, even more than the real stories I have been told. It is a nostalgic experience that has captured my imagination since my childhood—I never lived in Southern Minnesota but grew up hearing stories of my grandfather who grew up there and also from my mom and her siblings, and it continues to spark my imagination.
California smells different, the trees are different… and maybe these differences will be reflected in future stories, but for now it is the familial and physical memories that drive my creative impulse.

2. You are in the midst of writing your third middle grade novel, THE LUCK OF THE BUTTONS and you have to finish it before you move in less than two weeks- how is it working on a deadline like this?

I work better on a deadline. The closer the deadline, the more I get done. It forces me to let go of my perfectionist tendencies—in other words, I have to write fast without judging myself too harshly and thus, slow the process down. It’s kind of like living in a big house with lots of storage space as we do now versus in a smaller house with less storage as I did in St. Paul and as we will in California. It’s easy to fill excess cupboards with fluff but in a smaller space I have to make better decisions about what I actually need. Working under a tight deadline forces me to become efficient, keeping only what is essential.

3. Do you want to share anything about THE LUCK OF THE BUTTONS?

Like DEAR PAPA and LITTLE KLEIN this novel was launched as a result of a mistake and like my first two novels it draws inspiration from old family photographs. But unlike DEAR PAPA and LITTLE KLEIN, this story includes a mystery. It’s the story of twelve year old Tugs Button. The Button family has been unlucky for generations and is resigned to their fate but when Tugs has a streak of good fortune on the Forth of July, 1929, she decides to become the first lucky Button.

4. You have become an expert in writing a novel through upheaval, is this part of your process?

Upheaval has seemed to find me in the midst of each novel and I wish I’d become expert – maybe I’d be having an easier time of it right now! What it has done for me is forced me to become more focused, not one of my strong suits. Also, each move has given me a new perspective both on the natural world and on the nature of community, and exploring the senses of place and community is what drives me to write.

5. In the three and a half years you have lived in Iowa, you have pulled together a writer’s group, The Tall Grass Writers, you have received a prominent Iowa Author’s Award and The Midwest Booksellers Choice Award. In other words, you have established yourself well as an Iowa writer. What do you think you will do to create a writing community in California?

As soon as we found out we were moving I started reading the great literature of the area – CANNERY ROW and SWEET THURSDAY by Steinbeck for starters. It made me really excited to explore the landscape and people that feeds writers there. Since writing is a solitary profession and I don’t have daily contact with peers, it is very important for me to seek out community. Writer’s groups have grown organically for me in the places I have lived. It takes time, patience, and being open to opportunities. What I have learned from moving is that my community actually keeps growing. My Tall Grass Writer’s Group will continue to include me once a month in their meetings via Skype, and I will continue to meet with Lauren via iSight, so the use of the internet has become a way to connect and embrace a broader community.

6. Anne, you are a “Foodie”. How does it feel to be moving from Iowa, “The Bread Basket of the World” to Monterey, CA, “The Salad Bowl of the World”?

It’s an exciting part of the adventure for me. My Iowa Cooking Club is giving me a final good-by with a Midwest Living themed dinner. Pork and corn are favorite local ingredients here. The lettuce in my fridge right now in Iowa comes from just a few miles from where my new home is. So I will soon be eating different ingredients locally. I look forward to learning to cook with fish and using fresh fruits and vegetables year round. My dream is to make guacamole from avocados and lemons grown in my own yard. It could happen!

You can follow Anne Ylvisaker’s travels and her books on her blog at: www.AnneYlvisaker.com

An Interview with Joni Sensel

I met Joni Sensel a few years ago when she was a group leader at our local SCBWI Great Critique. Things went so well that night, the five of us decided to continue meeting as a critique group. One member eventually dropped out, but the rest of us are going strong!

Joni is a busy gal. She has written two humorous picture books (one of which earned a 2001 Henry Bergh Children’s Book Honor from the ASPCA); a nonfiction history of Weyerhaeuser’s first 100 years; a very funny middle grade novel (Reality Leak); and, so far, three compelling fantasy titles: The Humming of Numbers (a Junior Library Guild selection), The Farwalker’s Quest (a 2009 Cybils Award finalist, now in paperback), and the forthcoming The Timekeeper’s Moon (available March 2). Joni also currently serves as Co-Regional Advisor for the Western Washington chapter of SCBWI.

In the midst of all this activity, Joni agreed to answer a few questions for our blog.

When you need a break from writing, what do you like to do?

Walk or run in the woods with my dogs. Or walk the earth in distant travels. But I rarely can resist working on a writing project for more than a few days at a time, so what I most like to do is be walking a bunch and writing a bunch on the same day.

Who/what inspired you as a kid? Now?

The first person I found really inspiring was Tina Turner. Her life story gave me a solid appreciation for determination, endurance, courage, and persistence — all traits I think writers need a lot of. Now I am inspired primarily by my travels, my experiences outdoors, my random imagination, and the general wackiness of life.

If you could time-travel through history, which era would you visit? Why?

I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to go backward, unless I can get a gender switch while we’re at it; otherwise, I would probably get myself burned at the stake or stoned or something equally unpleasant. So I’d like to move forward about 100 years — far enough that I won’t be here otherwise, but near enough that I might still recognize things. Or maybe not, but I’d like to find out!

I know you like to travel. Where is the coolest place you’ve ever spent time?

The Sahara, so far. (Well, it was quite hot, actually, but we’ll talk metaphorically.) I love deserts and I’ve been to several in this country and in Niger and Namibia. For me, the emptiness makes it easier to think, to gain perspective, to relax, and, if this doesn’t sound too corny, to feel the presence of the divine. And there’s so little sensory input, relatively, that everything that IS there to see or hear or smell gains brilliance. I find being in a desert cleansing and remarkably life-affirming.

Please complete this sentence: “The best part of being an author is…”

... being part of a close-knit community of other authors, both published and unpublished. I LOVE to see the work of people working toward publication and then look on (or even help) as they make progress and contacts, sign with agents, submit to publishers, and sell books. It allows me to enjoy all the excitement of succeeding with my own projects, without any of the revisions, insecurities, long waits, or headaches! As for the already-published writers, it’s great fun to feel like they’re kinda-sorta peers and that we have things in common. I think this tribal vibe is stronger with childrens’ writers than in any other genre or category, and I really appreciate that.

For those who want to learn more about Joni and her books, you can check out her website, www.jonisensel.com. She also blogs on the Jacketflap site.

Thanks, Joni!

Illustrators and Earthquakes

Nancy Hayashi is the illustrator of many children’s books, including Bunny Bungalow, by Cynthia Rylant, My Two Grandmothers, by Eileen Spinelli, and I Can Do It Myself, by Diane Adams (who happens to be me).

She lives in Los Angeles, but grew up in Bucyrus, Ohio, (don't ask me how to pronounce that - I can't remember), and graduated from Dennison University and The Cleveland Art Institute before beginning her first career as an art director for an advertising company.

In looking back over her high school yearbook recently, Nancy commented that she had written that she wanted to be a children’s book illustrator when she grew up. She has no recollection of writing that, but is glad that her words foretold her future.

Nancy broke into illustration after submitting a book that she had written and illustrated to Harcourt. They did not buy the book, but they did hire her to illustrate Cynthia Rylant's Bunny Bungalow. Not a bad start!

Some of her favorite children’s book illustrators are William Steig, Marc Simont, Marjorie Priceman, and Olof Landstrom. She loves their their mastery with watercolor, (her medium also), as well as their unique senses of humor.

By the end of our short interview, our talk turned to earthquakes, as we both live in Southern California and have experienced recent jolts. Her advice is to lay down next to a large object, such as a bed or couch in order to create a triangle of survival. (This is an update from standing under a door jamb.)

If nothing else, I hope this interview saves some lives, and gives you some talented illustrators to look up on the web.

An Interview with Bonnie Doerr

I have the pleasure of interviewing Bonnie J. Doerr, whose tween novel Island Sting (Leap Books) was released on January 6, 2010. Bonnie and I were first drawn together by our similar backgrounds in south Florida, Maryland, and North Carolina and by the fact that we now both live in historic log cabins! When we met in person last September, we formed an instant friendship that I’m sure will continue for many years.

1. Bonnie, tell us about your book.

Thanks for the opportunity, Edie.
Island Sting follows fifteen-year-old Kenzie Ryan’s dramatic transition from a New York City, girls’ academy life style to that of a casual, island existence in a Florida Keys wildlife refuge. Needless to say, Kenzie is nowhere near ready for the culture shock, but when she meets sixteen-year-old island native Angelo Sanchez, things begin to look much more appealing. As the two become more involved in an undercover operation to save the endangered Florida Key deer, more than the investigation heats up.

Reading Island Sting is like taking a vacation to the beautiful, fragile Florida Keys. It’s a tour of land and sea through the eyes of a first time visitor with the best tour guide possible— a savvy local who shares all the inside scoop.
Island Sting is classified as a “tween” book by Leap Books as it is appropriate for readers 10-14 or older.

2. The setting of Island Sting took me right back to my own childhood roots in tropical south Florida. Please tell us what you liked best about your life in the Florida Keys.

That’s an easy answer—the sheer, stunning beauty of sky and water. I had a one half hour drive to work each day filled with views that fed my soul, and my home sat a few yards off a quiet bay with the white heron refuge beyond. Osprey hunted outside my windows, dolphins danced, sharks swam, herons fed. I never knew what I’d see in the water next. And the sky! The colors and clouds and rainbows… awesome. Sun and moon rising and setting. It was all breath taking. And I had the time of my life fishing in both the back country (near waters off the Gulf of Mexico) and beyond the reef in open water. I could go on and on…

3. It’s obvious to me in your writing and in your life that you are dedicated to the environment. What are some ways that your teen readers can get involved in environmental issues, even if they don’t live right next to a wildlife refuge like Kenzie does?

It’s my belief that before one becomes involved in environmental issues, an individual must have experienced quality time outdoors. Today’s children, through little fault of their own, often spend their days inside a series of unnatural boxes. It is difficult to feel any sensitivity for mother Earth and her creation when one is completely separated from her gifts. So, first I say, get outside. Even if it must be in a city park or a vacant lot. Learn to see small wonders—worms, spiders, the incredible variety of plants—as well as the more obvious marvels. Look through a magnifying glass or binoculars. Visit zoos and aquariums if you can’t observe creatures in the wild. Once you begin to experience the connection between all living things, the sharing of air and water, the source of all life, then the caring begins.

Thankfully, each day more teens are becoming environmentalists. And it’s not all hard work. Swap parties are fun ways to lessen our footprint on the earth. Teens bring gently worn clothes to the party and trade for “new” clothing. After the swap, attendees can produce fashion shows to display their new looks. Super creative teens are deconstructing clothing and combining the pieces into brand new articles.

A simple thing to do is not to wear clothing that needs to be dry cleaned since most cleaners have not yet converted to green solvents.

As for Kenzie’s fury at all the trash marring the beauty of her new island home I’m pretty sure I know what she’d tell readers, “It may not seem like much but setting a good example without preaching is the best habit of all. If you see litter, pick it up. No matter who dropped it. It’s like you toss a pebble into the water. You make a ripple and it spreads and grows and maybe soon it’ll make a wave.” She’d tell you to keep a litter bag in your car for when you can’t find a trash can. Carry garbage bags to parties where friends don’t recycle. Encourage the partiers to stash their cans and bottles in the bag so you can haul it to a recycle bin.

Green Teen organizations are springing up everywhere. Google them, join them, start a group of your own. Be the change you envision.

Thank you, Bonnie! To learn more about Bonnie and her book, Island Sting, visit her website at http://www.bonniedoerrbooks.com/index.htm and follow her blog at http://bonnieblogsgreen.blogspot.com/.

Virgina Euwer Wolff's BAT 6

Where and how I got the idea: Usually, I try to walk away from this question. But in the case of this book it’s really quite interesting. (I think.)

Sometime in 1993, Donald R. Gallo (a champion of teen lit and compiler of several anthologies for teens) sent me a postcard inviting me to submit a sports story for a new anthology. I went upstairs in my brain and asked, “What do I know about sports?”

In my mind I suddenly saw a big crowd of people (maybe about 20) of all ages, shouting loudly all in a bunch, and, just to my right of them, spring sunshine came gleaming through maple trees. I knew that down on the ground, underneath the yelling crowd, was first base on the playground of my childhood elementary school. I’d never seen such a crowd scene there, and I began to ask it questions. Because a huge answer would be overwhelming and I wouldn’t be able to cope with it, I made the questions small ones. And I asked them very quickly, so the answers would come fast, without pondering time. (I’d never done this kind of thing before.) I asked:

Happy or unhappy yelling?
Answer: Unhappy.

Why unhappy? I guessed the obvious: Someone has been hurt at first base.

By accident or on purpose?
Answer: On purpose.

And at this point I left the scene. I would have nothing to do with a vicious, cruel incident on the sanctified ground of my childhood first base. But within days (maybe within hours?) I came back. What kind of crazy person would hurt somebody at first base?

Not getting any answer to that, I began to ask: Who saw it happen? Answer: The pitcher, the catcher, second baseman, probably the shortstop, the left fielder.... Lots of people saw it. Just as in a car accident, everyone sees it from his/her unique vantage point and may report it slightly differently from everyone else.

One thing that did flash across the screen of my memory was the return of the Japanese kids from the Internment Camps when I was little, and the vagueness of all that, the silences, the mystery, the grownups hushing us up.... There had been some hatred, but the kindly parents in our community wouldn’t talk about it in front of us kids; adults stopped their whispered conversations when we asked what they were talking about; mothers cried; fathers went about with that tight-lipped thing men do when they’re concealing something.

So I started with only the Where, and I had some good clues about the When. I had only the faintest idea of the Who. The Why was foggy but real, and the What was my task to invent. What had actually happened? (In A Separate Peace, what does actually happen up there on that tree limb? Can anybody say for absolute sure?)

I began by letting some of the nearby softball players tell what they’d seen. As they talked, I began to get a general image of the victim, and a much more filmy, indefinite outline of the perpetrator. I was also finding out that that one moment on a ball field was radiating outward, reaching way far into places I hadn’t expected.

The pieces came together slowly (I’m always slow), but with enough tension so that I felt it was worth continuing with.

Until that first morning, looking at Don Gallo’s postcard and lifting the lid on my brain, I’d had no idea that upstairs in my brain is a constant cineplex, movies always running. I had simply checked into the sports theatre that morning. (I’m not an athlete, so the sports films up there are limited.) Now, after all that, when I ask students about the movie theatre in their minds, many of them know exactly what I’m talking about. Some do not. I’ve learned to trust that cineplex up there, but I also know not to try to exploit it beyond reason. It’s there, but I must not loot it rashly.

For Don Gallo’s sports anthology I ended up writing a mediocre story about Scuba diving (one of the very few sports I’ve ever taken part in).

What I didn’t know until a few years after the book had been published: My granddaughter I were watching the lovely old movie National Velvet (Elizabeth Taylor, 1944). Just watching. Suddenly, someone fell off a horse in the bright sunshine and a huge crowd gathered round, a hubbub began.... Oh, good heavens: That was the source of my original scene of a crowd shouting in the sunshine, in reaction to something in a sporting event. I had loved that movie as a kid, and apparently that scene had stayed upstairs in my brain all these years. But that was a small discovery, compared to one I made about three years later:

The bigger discovery: Bat 6 had been out for about a decade when I was invited to see a group of 5th graders at an alternative school perform Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology (1914). I was glad to be asked, remembering vaguely that I had read the book years before with genuine literary pleasure. The shock that afternoon: In watching the kids in their noisy, sweaty auditorium, I realized that I had borrowed the entire form of Bat 6 from this very book. As you’ll recall, the Spoon River residents all speak from the graveyard, recalling their lives and their deaths. I had simply lifted the plan of having an entire community speak, as in readers’ theatre (one of my favorite forms). And I’d done it all unconsciously. During the 4 years that I’d worked on Bat 6, Spoon River Anthology had stood silently in its alphabetical position in the very room where I was working. Not once had I glanced at it on the shelf, not once had I had the decency to notice what I was lifting by whole cloth. Imagine my surprise, the humiliation.... At the very least, I should have mentioned Edgar Lee Masters in the Acknowledgments. By then it was too late.
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Worst parts (hardest parts) of writing it?

Several worst parts. The structure, of course, but I worked on that by making charts & graphs, moving little pieces of cardboard around.... The very worst part was trying to get inside Shazam. I know what troubles her, but because I’ve never been a sociopath I always felt I was feeling the elephant the wrong way round. But Mark Twain had never been a runaway boy on a raft; Natalie Babbitt had never met a villainous man in a yellow suit.... It’s my job to find character, burrow inside, and stop complaining about the task. My editor was not satisfied that Aki could be so “phlegmatic” (my editor’s word); I had to explain and explain and explain to her the way the Japanese-American girls (Issei, Nisei, Sansei) were, until some years after that time, brought up never to make waves.... I don’t know how I could have forced Aki to behave in a way that she was, culturally, not equipped for. She could not retaliate, she could not.... So: My editor wasn’t catching on to what I was trying to tell (because the early draft she saw was nearly as chaotic as the end of the softball game is in the book), couldn’t understand what the book was about, couldn’t understand why Aki was the way she was, and could not see clearly into Shazam’s mind-- And she kept asking me questions I felt ill-equipped to answer. For instance: Was the book about war or was it about softball? As I struggled to make the story ever clearer, the answer emerged, slowly and beautifully in my editor’s eventual decision to have a partial book jacket showing softball, the hardcover underneath showing war, and endpapers that focused on the Home Front, all coming together to illustrate the complex nature of the story. These aren’t visible in the paperback edition. Against these awful problems, the miles and months of library research were easy. (I was not yet using the Internet, and I’m kind of glad I wasn’t. I think the process should not have been efficient; I think I had to follow tortuous paths, some of them wrong ones and all of them putting tiny pieces in the mosaic.)

How badly did I want to quit? And why I didn’t quit?

Quitting really did seem like an option, and on many, many days it looked like a good one. My editor found the manuscript nearly impossible, and she took an unconscionably long time to get back to me at every stage but the last. I felt she didn’t understand the book. (See above.) I felt enormously alone, out on my ice floe left to starve.... But I could always have applied for a job at McDonald’s; nobody was forcing me to do this work. My literary agent very wisely said, “If you don’t finish this book, you’ll always wonder.” So true, so true. I had several reasons for not quitting. One was to prove to my editor that I could make the story happen. Another was the ferocious loyalty I was developing toward the girls and their well-meaning communities. During the writing of that book, school violence across America was increasing, with students and teachers lying dead because some terribly troubled kid had a gun. I thought the book might possibly help, somehow, somewhere. (Of course I’ve never found out, and am not likely to.) And a third reason was that I had really no idea what was going to happen after the horrible scene at first base. Finding out how to end the book, finding one girl who could actually do something heroic that none of the other girls would dare to do: That was agonizing, but, in the end, thrilling, because I did find the right girl, and struggled with her to bring the story to resolution.

Addendum:

Another of the things that helped me not quit writing Bat 6 was a Faith Ringgold quilt I saw in the High Art Museum in Atlanta. You can see a poster of it online. It’s called Church Picnic. I remember standing in the museum, reading every bit of the small print story that goes around the quilt. On the top layer, the story is of a nice church picnic, everybody dressed up with pretty food and all the cozy stuff we like on picnics. The underneath layer tells a quite different story: of sadness, hurt, rivalry, meanness of spirit....

And I realized that that was exactly what I was trying to do with the novel: Small town, pretty on top, ugly underneath. It was so encouraging to see that quilt.

I don’t know if I ever mentioned it to my editor, but I’ve told about it in speeches, sometimes toting along with me the great big poster to show. Often, the questions from the audience don’t even begin to get there; I’ve carried the poster hundreds of miles in my car and sometimes not shown it at all.

Yay! for Lisa Yee!

I first met Lisa through her hilarious middle grade novel, Milicent Min, Girl Genius, winner of the SCBWI Sid Fleischman humor award. When I had the opportunity to meet Lisa in person at the LA SCBWI conference, I was delighted to discover that she was not only funny, but also friendly, thoughtful, and down-to-earth. She's the kind of person you'd like to have for a friend, and I'm honored that she is one of mine. If you want to be entertained, check out Lisa's blog, but first, here are her answers to a few interview questions:

* Your books are known for their humor. Do you have any special strategies you use when writing humor for young people?

Be true to your characters. I don't tell jokes, but rather let the humor unfold within the story. What is funny for one character to say or do, should be unique to him or her. I strive for poignancy when I write, and then use humor to diffuse intense or tragic circumstances. And sometimes I write about farts.

*Along with being a talented writer, you are a wizard at promotion. What is one of the most helpful things you have done to promote your books?

Well, I travel with a Peep. Her name is Peepy, and she's a yellow plush bunny. I blog twice a week and never run out of things to talk about because Peepy is such a diva. She's been photographed with celebrities like Julie Andrews, and a whole slew of famous authors and illustrators .

Peepy is desperate to have her epic memoir/fashion tips published, and I've chronicled her journey including meetings with well-known editors and agents. In fact, she once followed agent Ginger Knowlton into the bathroom and slipped a manuscript under the stall .

Recently, I heard from Just Born, the company that manufactures Peeps. At first I thought that maybe I was in trouble, but quite the contrary. They had been following my blog and Peepy and I received a VIP invitation to the grand opening of the first Peeps store .

* What question would you like someone to ask you in an interview, and what would the answer be?

The question would be: "Would you rather have Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy or Johnny Depp as your personal assistant?"
The answer would be: "Yes, please."