[Danielle Balocca]: Hey listeners, this is Danielle. And Shelley. Shelley is a radical Dravidian and racial equity activist.
[Chelli Keshavan]: And Danielle is a community mobilizer and changemaker. And this is the Medford Bites podcast. Every two weeks, we chew on the issues facing Medford and deliver bites of information about the city by lifting the expertise of our guests.
[Danielle Balocca]: Join us in discussion about what you hope for the future of Medford. And as always, tell us where you like to eat. Hey, thank you so much for joining me today. If you don't mind just starting out by introducing yourself with your name, pronouns, and just a bit about who you are.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me. My name is Wendy Pfaffenbach. My pronouns are she, her, hers, and I am an, I guess it's 18 years now, Medford resident. My day job is I'm a geography teacher in the Concord public schools. And in a former life, I was once a journalist and a lawyer. And, you know, I've also been moonlighting a little bit as a bartender at my husband's brewery. So, so I've got lots of balls in the air these days. And of course I'm a writer.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you. Yeah. That's most of the focus for today. We're going to talk about your book a little bit later, but before we get into that, just the question that I ask every guest on the podcast is if you could share what your favorite place to eat is in Medford and what you like to eat there.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, so. I love a meat cheese pizza. So a meat cheese pizza in West Medford is just kind of the taste of home to me. You know, we get home from a long trip and we order, well, one of my daughters is a vegetarian now, so we get a large plain and then we get a large ham and black olive and the Greek salad. And you know, it is just, that's our food. We've been eating there for, You know, since before we moved to Medford, my husband used to teach at the Brook Hobs. And when he was like 24 years old, he came home and he was like, I just got the best chicken for himself. And it was a meat cheese. That's kind of our place.
[Danielle Balocca]: We like to go there in the summertime, get a pizza and some ice cream from CB Scoops. Good combo. It's classic. I asked you to come on today to talk about your book, The Fell's Fairy. If you want to just describe the book a little bit and what motivated you to write it, that'd be great.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is the story of two little girls, they're based on my daughters, and they are contacted by the Queen of the Fairies and the Queen of the Fairies of the Fells to help intervene and save the Fells from developers who are interested in developing a green mall where Wright's Tower is. And so it's the story of how these two little girls kind of find their voice and advocate on kind of two levels. I have a background in law so you know there's a legal part of it but there's also the kind of own strengths to kind of do what is best to speak for the fells and to save the fells. And so it's really about, you know, young people in a community stepping forth to care about things that they, that make the community great. And I love the fells.
[Danielle Balocca]: So is it, there's a measurement of steps in the beginning of how far your house is. Is that true? It's true.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's true. I'm not sure if we actually measured the steps from our house to the entrance to the Fells when we first bought the house, but that's where we enter the Fells, and so we have counted. I turned to my family and I was like, all right, here we go. And we walked out and we counted the steps. It might take us a few less these days because when I was writing it, the girls were a little bit younger and now they're teenagers.
[Danielle Balocca]: Smaller gate, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_03]: yeah i'm wondering like how much of it the book was sort of true or like a like about your own traditions in the fell so a lot of the things that the family does we do in the fells so the walking in the fells i'm not sure if you've ever noticed that there there actually are low growth blueberries in the fells have you ever seen them no i never noticed no Yeah, so there are low growth blueberries in the fells. And of course, you know, hiking up to Wright's Tower and looking out over 93 and then the skating on the vernal ponds. You know, it's about to be really cold this weekend. So, so I'm hoping some of those vernal ponds like in back of the high school. that they're going to freeze up and and we always used to just grab a shovel throw our skates into a bag and there are some really good vernal ponds for skating back there so a lot of it is based on our own experience with the girls you know especially when they were younger and just you know how how beautiful and how important it was to to our family and to our daughters so yeah a lot of it is based on our family. And of course the two little girls, Star and Bird, they're based on my daughters, Abe and Stella. So it was kind of a gift. I wrote it to remember my children when they were those ages and also to, you know, as a gift to my girls so they could remember that time.
[Danielle Balocca]: It's really sweet. I did find myself like in the storyline worrying, like, when they're talking about making an access road through the fells, like, you know, getting like, there's like an element of like smog and pollution, like it did make me worry, like, is this something that is going to happen? Like, I wonder kind of, if you had any sort of hopes in terms of messaging to the community and about our environment and, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: I, you know, during the pandemic, I noticed, you know, it was wonderful to have everyone in the Fells. You know, also as someone who uses the Fells all the time, I couldn't help but notice a little bit of overuse of the Fells, which is normal. We all want to be there. So, you know, what do you do with that? How do you manage that? That's actually what the next book is about. But this book was really kind of inspired by, there's an, there's a old, I don't know if it's a hospital or if it was a hospital up by the skating rink on kind of the Melrose line. And when maybe 15 years back there was some talk about developing it and it really was a pretty big controversy in the community. And so I use that as the inspiration for the plot point of like developing an access road. And then I also kind of wanted to play with the idea of a lot of things are branded to be natural or, you know, green. But again, is it really in like, who are we as consumers to be? know, just buying something because we say it's green. So there's actually a line that one of the girls says in the book, and it's like, just because they say green doesn't mean it's good. You know, so I wanted to put a little subtle messaging in there for kids just to, you know, be kind of aware as consumers.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I like the element of like the impact of the kids and it seemed like an important message of like even though you're, you know, as children there's, you still have a voice and people are, you know, gonna listen to you, the power of them asking to collect signatures. It was cute and powerful.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I kind of imagined them when they have to go out and they collect the signatures. You know, I thought of my own kids doing things that they don't really like to do. Both of my daughters attempted to be Girl Scouts and they had a really tough time selling Girl Scout cookies. It was really hard for them to go up and ask people to buy the cookies. And so the scene where they're heading out to go get the signatures is actually based on a conversation I had with my daughters when they had to go out and sell Girl Scout cookies I was like look what what you want to do is go to the house that you think is going to be the hardest first and then once you get that over with, you know, the next house will seem so much easier. So that's what it was based on.
[Unidentified]: Oh, yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: I liked, I did like the description of sort of their different clothing. Like, you know, one of them wearing sparkles, the other one only it was like used athletic, well used athletic clothes. Yeah. It's really nice. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: They were definitely like that. And I tried to kind of also play around with kind of some of the motifs of the natural world, like the fairy dust. So my one daughter, who's no longer like this at all, but when she was younger, she was all about the bling. She was all about the sparkle. She was all, you know, about the gymnastics. And so that's the daughter that the character stars based on. And a reoccurring joke in the book is that the real world of fairies is not full of bling, right? So the fairy dust isn't very dust, it's very dirt. And I don't garden that much anymore, but at one point I was a very avid gardener. So there's a scene where one of the grumpier fairies yells at the girls and says like, you know, do for you? What does gold ever do for you? You know, this is, this is dirt, you know, this is this what everything is based on. And my mom, who's a master gardener, is very upset about that scene. And it's the only criticism she had in the book. She said, Wendy, it's not dirt, it's soil. And you know that. I was like, Mom, fairy soil doesn't sound very good.
[Danielle Balocca]: So that's awesome. Yeah. I was wondering too, like what kind of, what the experience of writing the book was like, what was fun about it? What was challenging about it?
[SPEAKER_03]: So what was super challenging about it was finding the time to write it. Cause I started writing it when my kids were, were pretty young and you know, I'm, I'm a full-time teacher and you know, just teaching all day. And then when I get home from teaching, know the day the day is done and so in order to write it i had to set my alarm super early and get up and just actually i'm in my basement right now and make a cup of coffee and come down to the basement and you know it's it's like any i i compare it to like exercising or running you know I know that after my run, I'm going to feel great. I know that if I can just open my computer and write that first sentence, something will happen. But getting to the point where I lace up my sneakers and go out running or open the computer and I start writing, that's the challenge. So just, and it never ever for me has gotten any easier. So I have to, it's just like, here you go, you're opening the computer. But I do know that now it works. So just open the computer and let it go. So that was super challenging.
[Danielle Balocca]: For exercising, it doesn't feel good when you're like, you know, always when you're getting ready to do it, but it's always gratifying.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. And it's, I wish I could train my brain so that my brain would be like, remember the last three days when you were writing and it felt fantastic. But no, I, I, the alarm goes off and I'm like, what am I doing? So, so I'd say like the time and just the, the consistency is the tough part. And then, you know, the best part is just writing a scene and not really knowing where that scene came from. And then, um, feeling so pleased afterwards and, and You know, just watching just all the various parts of life and imagination go into something. It's really rewarding.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Do you have any advice for anybody who is thinking of writing a book themselves?
[SPEAKER_03]: Get up, open your computer, start, like, start writing. I'm a geography teacher now. I used to be an English teacher, so I run a lot of the creative writing classes at my school. There's a children's game called Obstacles. Have you ever played it? It's so much fun. It's actually a cooperative learning game and you pick an obstacle and then every single person gets something random that they have to get over the obstacle with. And I often find that if I'm stuck, it's fun to play obstacles with my characters. So I'll just, I'll throw an obstacle in front of the character and I'll be like, well, what's going to happen? And even if it doesn't stay in the book, it'll kind of, get me over that, get me over that hump there. So, but one, open your computer, start writing to, you know, play games like, yeah. you know, don't ask what's going to happen next, ask what obstacle needs to be overcome next.
[Danielle Balocca]: It sounds like you also like that idea of like, I think sometimes people feel like if I can't do it right now, then maybe like they get discouraged. It sounds like this is something that you've been working on for a while. So that sort of like persistence and enjoyment is important.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, absolutely. And also having people in your life who really believe in you and support you. So in my case, it's my husband, Max. He just, you know, I truly believe you only, you need one, just find one, find one cheerleader, find one supporter. And then that person can really kind of help you. I do think you need one though. It's hard to do alone.
[Danielle Balocca]: Sure. Yeah. It sounds like you two have similar interests in the writing field. So I'm sure that helps. It could be competitive maybe, but it sounds like a supportive relationship there. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it's actually kind of great because he's a poet and I can't write poetry to save my life. And I write kind of playful prose and he doesn't.
[Danielle Balocca]: Good compliment. Great. And so you did mention thoughts of a sequel or that you're working on a sequel. Anything you want to share about that?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. So the sequel, I'm about, I don't know, 35, maybe 40 pages into it. And the sequel is kind of the, the thing about these books is they're, they're playful and they're full of fantasy, but I try to put a good amount of, you know, this is, this is what, life and preservation and human environmental interaction is actually like. And so, so the sequel is about the girls realizing that all these different people are using the fells for all these different reasons. So there are all these different stakeholders. And even though everyone kind of loves the fells and wants the best for the fells, the stakeholders have to learn how to live and work together. So, and the Green Corporation is in it again and the Green Corporation is cynically playing it as a zero-sum game when in fact the parties should be working together.
[Unidentified]: So, I don't know if that tells you what it's about. That's the idea behind it. I'll look forward to reading that, yeah. Do you want to share what people can get your book?
[SPEAKER_03]: So right now the book is for sale at Bookends in Winchester. The former owner has been a great supporter and the new owners are really wonderful supporters of local writers. So right now you can get it there and hopefully I will have it in a couple more local bookstores within, you know, within a month or two.
[Danielle Balocca]: Right. I did buy it at bookends. They were really helpful. And I think they had just sold out of them and they were able to get more and they're really like easy to work with. So it's a great place. I hadn't gotten the chance to go there before that. So it was great.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a really great place.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Great. Well, anything else you want to mention before we wrap up for today?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I'm just, I'm just so thankful that you had me on this podcast and thank you so much for recognizing that Medford is such a vibrant place full of people who are creating really great things and for giving us a voice. So thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. The Medford Bites podcast is produced and moderated by Danielle Balacca and Shelly Keshaman. Music is made by Hendrik Giedonis. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast. You can reach out to us by email at medfordpod at gmail.com, or you can rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Never Bites. Never Bites. Good job.