Flying Changes!! 9th August 2006 In one of The Saddle Club tv episodes (#213, “Stevie’s Bad Day”), I play a judge at a horse show at Pine Hollow. Well, guess what? I got to be a real judge at a horse show at Flying Changes Center in Topsham, Maine.   This stable is designed to help riders who have disabilities. If you’ve been able to ride horses, then you know how good you feel when you do it right. Imagine how important that is for kids with special needs. The Saddle Club book, Riding Class is about a therapeutic riding center. It’s one of my favorite Saddle Club books. Riding is fun, therapy is important. It’s like someone saying chocolate is good for you!   I went to Flying Changes the day before the show to meet the founder and director, Barbara Doughty, and see what the place was like. What it was like was busy! Everywhere I turned, someone was washing something, painting something, polishing, combing, picking, or sweeping something. It was my kind of stable: everyone pitched in! And, from the moment I walked in, I almost completely forgot words like “disability” and “therapeutic.”   The next day, I got to work bright and early. I had never been a show judge before, but I’ve been to lots of horse shows. Nothing prepared me for how wonderful this one was. The first classes were all of really young kids. When I say young, I mean it. The youngest was less than two years old! These beginners were riding on saddle pads, with a surcingle – that’s like a belt around the horse’s belly with handles on top for the rider. They’d learned to be comfortable on the horse’s back and each of them did different maneuvers, turning around, lying down flat, even kneeling on the horse. A few of them got to let go of the handles to show how good their balance was.   One thing about riding a horse is that they tell their riders what to do. If you’ve ridden, you know that you almost automatically adjust your balance with the horse’s gait. It’s a natural action, but it can be very scary for a little kid on the back of a big horse. The kids were wonderful, every one of them. And they all got ribbons for their hard work – and a high five from me.   The next classes were for older riders. They were walk-trot-and-sometimes-canter equitation classes, followed by obstacle course classes in the ring. Each of the riders had decided on specific goals they had for their classes, one might want to be sure to look ahead, another to be sure she was in charge of her horse, and another might have been concerned about keeping his hands steady. I was looking out for their goals as well. It’s never easy to say that one student is better than another, but it was helpful to know what their own goals were. I could help them know if they’d succeeded. I think the hardest classes were the ones where two or four riders were working on a pattern to music, doing a mini drill team exercise. The patterns were complicated and they were really hard to do at exactly the same speed as another rider. It was fun to watch.   In the end, I knew I’d seen a lot of students who had worked very hard to achieve every possible level of excellence while learning a lot and having a great time. I had also completely forgotten that a lot of them had disabilities. Disabilities weren’t what mattered; abilities were what the day was about. That, and fun.   Love, Writing Tip: When you are going to write about an event, as I just did about the horse show, your report has to be organized in a common sense order. What most people do -- and what I just did -- is to tell it in the order that it happened. All images and text © 2006 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller. All rights reserved. All pictures copyright Protocol Entertainment. All rights reserved.     Welcome back to my page!! 28th April 2006 Of all the things that have ever happened to me as a writer, by far the most fun, most exciting, and just plain best was visiting the set of The Saddle Club when they were filming. It was so much fun, I did it twice.   I live in New York City and the shows were being filmed near Melbourne, Australia, just about half way around the world, so the trip itself was exciting. Australia would be a great place to visit even without the filming. I arrived at the stable when they were filming the first episodes the same day I got off the plane. Can you imagine how I felt when I first saw the actresses playing Stevie, Carole, and Lisa? I’d been writing the books for a long time. I knew everything there was to know about the girls. It was all in my head, in my heart, and on the pages of the books I’d written. And then there they were, for real! Real girls, real horses, a real stable, all from my own imagination. Naturally, I hugged the actresses and then they all hugged me back! That’s us in this picture.   I got to spend a lot of time with them. It didn’t take long for me to think of them as Sophie, Keenan, and Lara because that’s who they are when they’re not on the set. We even got to spend a day together in Melbourne, along with Kia and Heli, eating, shopping, and laughing. We were sorry Lara couldn’t be with us that day, but here’s a picture of the group, after eating and shopping, and after I’d obviously had too much sun!   The absolute highlight was when I got to be in an episode. I’m not in it for long, but I’m there and you can see me. It is Episode #8, Star Quality. In the episode, someone is making a movie at Pine Hollow and I play an extra in the movie, a pioneer woman. I was late, so there weren’t very many costumes left for me to select. I never knew that pioneer women needed to use so many safety pins to fit into their dresses! What I thought was wonderful was that when the crew and the actors saw me in the costume, they all cheered for me. It’s been more wonderful than I can tell you to work with such nice people. Love, © 2006 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller. All rights reserved.   Every day when I was writing The Saddle Club, I had three friends here helping me with each word. They were Stevie, Carole, and Lisa. You can just imagine what they were saying. Carole wanted me to write about horses instead of about her. “Come on, Bonnie, let’s tell them more about Starlight. You haven’t told them what color Starlight’s socks are and how he likes a little bit of honey with his grain. . .” Stevie had different issues: “Bonnie! Are you really going to let Veronica get away with that? We have to do something to stop it! We could nail her boots to the floor, or we could make a copy of her diary and give it to that boy she’s got a crush on. Or I could lure her up to the hayloft and then ...” “Bonnie, don’t let Stevie do any of those things!” Lisa would say. “If she does, she’s going to get into trouble and you know who will have to get her out of it! Do you remember what we went through the last time she vowed revenge?” I didn’t listen to any of them, but it was nice to have their company. I’m joking, of course, but only a little. Carole, Stevie, and Lisa are the fictional characters I created and wrote about. It’s important for writers to know their characters really well. You need to know everything or your readers will never know anything. As a result, these girls came to seem like friends to me and I hope you feel they are your friends, too. The other friends I have had with me every day I’ve worked on The Saddle Club are my readers. Many, many girls and boys sent me photographs or drawings of themselves and their horses and I posted them up on the wall over my computer. That way, I could never forget the single most question thing for any writer: Who are you writing for? My readers are always my best inspiration. I’m always writing for you and the pictures by my computer help me remember that every day. Now, I’m getting to write to you on this website. It’s a way you can hear from me and maybe the people who run it can figure out a way to make it a two-way conversation through a chatroom sometime. I’d like that. I’ll ask if they can do it. For now, I’m going to write to you about the things I do and the things I think and the places I’ve traveled. I’ll write about writing because we’re all writers, aren’t we? I’ll write about reading because that’s an important part of writing and we’re all readers, too. Because of The Saddle Club I’ve had a chance to meet kids in many countries. I was on the set of The Saddle Club in Australia and I was even in two episodes. Do you know which ones? I was just in Guatemala speaking at two schools and soon I’m going to the United Kingdom traveling and I’m definitely going to tell you about it and the young friends I’ve made all over the world. I don’t know what else I might write about, but whatever it is, it’s just for you. Love, © 2006 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller. All rights reserved.     Every day when I was writing The Saddle Club, I had three friends here helping me with each word. They were Stevie, Carole, and Lisa. You can just imagine what they were saying. Carole wanted me to write about horses instead of about her. “Come on, Bonnie, let’s tell them more about Starlight. You haven’t told them what color Starlight’s socks are and how he likes a little bit of honey with his grain. . .” Stevie had different issues: “Bonnie! Are you really going to let Veronica get away with that? We have to do something to stop it! We could nail her boots to the floor, or we could make a copy of her diary and give it to that boy she’s got a crush on. Or I could lure her up to the hayloft and then ...” “Bonnie, don’t let Stevie do any of those things!” Lisa would say. “If she does, she’s going to get into trouble and you know who will have to get her out of it! Do you remember what we went through the last time she vowed revenge?” I didn’t listen to any of them, but it was nice to have their company. I’m joking, of course, but only a little. Carole, Stevie, and Lisa are the fictional characters I created and wrote about. It’s important for writers to know their characters really well. You need to know everything or your readers will never know anything. As a result, these girls came to seem like friends to me and I hope you feel they are your friends, too. The other friends I have had with me every day I’ve worked on The Saddle Club are my readers. Many, many girls and boys sent me photographs or drawings of themselves and their horses and I posted them up on the wall over my computer. That way, I could never forget the single most question thing for any writer: Who are you writing for? My readers are always my best inspiration. I’m always writing for you and the pictures by my computer help me remember that every day. Now, I’m getting to write to you on this website. It’s a way you can hear from me and maybe the people who run it can figure out a way to make it a two-way conversation through a chatroom sometime. I’d like that. I’ll ask if they can do it. For now, I’m going to write to you about the things I do and the things I think and the places I’ve traveled. I’ll write about writing because we’re all writers, aren’t we? I’ll write about reading because that’s an important part of writing and we’re all readers, too. Because of The Saddle Club I’ve had a chance to meet kids in many countries. I was on the set of The Saddle Club in Australia and I was even in two episodes. Do you know which ones? I was just in Guatemala speaking at two schools and soon I’m going to the United Kingdom traveling and I’m definitely going to tell you about it and the young friends I’ve made all over the world. I don’t know what else I might write about, but whatever it is, it’s just for you. Love, © 2006 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller. All rights reserved.     Here I am with some new friends. I spoke at Colegio Maya and Colegio Americana in Guatemala City. I have fans all over the world! Bonnie Bryant began writing The Saddle Club in 1986. Horse Crazy, the first book, which introduced the threesome of Stevie, Lisa, and Carole, was published in 1988 and the series which began as a modest four-book concept, has grown to include 111 titles, plus two  spin-off series, Pony Tails and Pine Hollow, bringing the total to 144! Ms Bryant was born and raised in New York City - a hard place to learn much about horses. When she was a little girl, she spent summers in Massachusetts, next to a field of horses, where her interest and knowledge began. After graduating from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, Ms Bryant returned to New York and began working in the field of children's book publishing, first as an assistant to a literary agent and ultimately as the Director of Rights & Permissions at Scholastic, Inc. She began writing books in 1983 while still at Scholastic. Early titles included multiple ending stories in Scholastic's Pick-a-Path line and then novelizations of such movies as The Karate Kid, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Big and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. She also wrote a number of novels in Scholastic's series The Girls of Canby Hall and Junior High. She is the author of Rent a Third Grader, a classroom favourite. All of these were written under her married name, B.B. Hiller. Bantam (now part of Random House Children's Books) approached Ms Bryant in 1986, asking her to write four books "about girls and horses." Her early experiences with the horses next door and her voracious young girl's reading habits had prepared her well. Thus, The Saddle Club was born. And has thrived. In 1972, Ms Bryant married her college sweetheart, Neil W. Hiller. They had two sons who are now grown up. Her husband died of cancer in 1989, living long enough to see the successful launch of The Saddle Club. Ms Bryant still lives in New York and still spends her summers in a house in Massachusetts, just down the street from that now overgrown horse field. She spends more time writing than riding these days and, in any event, claims that Stevie, Lisa, and Carole are much better riders than she is!