Today I have Lisa Burstein here with a guest post about summer camp.
That is where DEAR CASSIE takes place so I thought it would be cool to hear
about where Lisa went to summer camp when she was a teen. Also check below for the giveaway!
Haven’t heard of DEAR CASSIE here’s some info!
DEAR CASSIE
Lisa Burstein
Release Date: March 5, 2013
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Pages:352
What if the last place you should fall in love is the first place that you do?You’d think getting sent to Turning Pines Wilderness Camp for a month-long rehabilitation “retreat” and being forced to re-live it in this journal would be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.You’d be wrong.There’s the reason I was sent to Turning Pines in the first place: I got arrested. On prom night. With my two best friends, who I haven’t talked to since and probably never will again. And then there’s the real reason I was sent here. The thing I can’t talk about with the guy I can’t even think about.What if the moment you’ve closed yourself off is the moment you start to break open?But there’s this guy here. Ben. And the more I swear he won’t—he can’t—the deeper under my skin he’s getting. After the thing that happened, I promised I’d never fall for another boy’s lies.
Now on to Lisa’s Post about camp! And we’ve included pictures!
I am supposed to
write about my summer camp experience because the "CAMP" in Dear
Cassie is absolutely based on the sleep away camp I went to from 6th grade to
my Freshman year of high school. My memories of that time are pretty great, so
when writing Dear Cassie, which is about a rehab wilderness program, I used the
skeleton of the camp I went to. I used it like a map. It was helpful to be able
to picture my camp, Camp Eagle Cove in the Adirondacks of New York
State as I wrote Dear Cassie. I thought it might be fun to share some
pictures and make a list of all the firsts of mine that happened at camp.
These didn't all happen the same year ;):
My first kiss
(not great, but the first one)
My first time
riding a horse ( which became something I loved for the rest of my life)
My first time
getting drunk (ditto as above- LOL)
My first time
crying over a boy (and second and third and fourth)
My first time
canoeing (it went better than it went for Cassie)
My first time
sleeping in a tent in the woods (it went better than it went for
Cassie)
My first time
away from my parents for more than a week (this really helped me figure out who
I was without them)
My first time
getting to a base other than first (ironically this happened in a baseball
dugout at night)
My first time
water skiing (I fell on my ass)
My first time
going after a younger man (he was the little brother of the guy who I had
first cried over, I realized my mistake and retreated quickly)
My first time
understanding what true friends are (I still know some of them)
There are so many more firsts and lasts and in-betweens that happened in my
years at sleepaway camp. And even though I was in a much different camp
situation than Cassie, I learned more about myself during
those summer weeks, than I did during the rest of the year. Like Cassie,
being in the wilderness, stripped of my real life helped turn me into who I am.
Lisa Burstein
About Lisa:
Lisa Burstein is a tea seller by day and a writer by night. She
received her MFA in Creative Writing from the Inland Northwest Center for
Writers at Eastern Washington University and is glad to finally have it be
worth more than the paper it was printed on. She lives in Portland, Oregon with
her very patient husband, a neurotic dog and two cats.
She wrote her first story when she was in second grade. It was a
Thanksgiving tale from the point of view of the turkey from freezer to oven to
plate. It was scandalous.
PRETTY
AMY May 2012 Entangled Publishing THE NEXT FOREVER January 2013 Entangled
Publishing DEAR CASSIE March 2013 Entangled Publishing
Where you can find her:
