Dr. Mary Ann Cappiello is a Professor of Language and Literacy at Lesley University. She has received two Highlights Foundation Scholarships: the James Cross Giblin Scholarship for Nonfiction Writers and the Kay Yoder Scholarship for History Writers, as well as mentoring. These scholarships were instrumental in finishing her YA biography PORTRAITS OF ELEANOR: MEDIEVAL WARRIOR QUEEN, which will pub in Spring 2027!!

PORTRAITS OF ELEANOR explores the myths and misinformation surrounding medieval queen Eleanor of Aquitaine.

For Mary Ann, the project was first conceived as a picture book biography. However, the format didn’t seem like the right fit, and early drafts were “too complicated or dull and lifeless.” One early reader, nonfiction author Candy Fleming, encouraged Mary Ann to explore different formats.Mary Ann shared details about her scholarship experiences with us and how this project came together recently:

A Full-Circle Moment

When I was offered the James Cross Giblin Scholarship for Nonfiction in February 2020, I shared the good news with [Candy], and she revealed to me that James Cross Giblin was her first mentor at Highlights, when it was still at Chautauqua. I planned to use the scholarship for the “Telling It True” Highlights workshop, focused on longform nonfiction. When it got cancelled due to COVID, Candy reached out and offered to mentor me through the initial process, to pay it forward in honor of Jim’s support of her work.

Given all that was going on in my life during that time, I don’t think I would have started writing the young adult version if Candy hadn’t offered to read my first pages. That simple offer made all the difference, and I began to build the book, page by page, chapter by chapter. The book also offered an escape from COVID. Very little of what comprised those early chapters remains in the book right now. But without that offer of mentorship, I don’t know where I would be!  She helped me get my young adult nonfiction “sea legs,” so to speak.

Finding that “Highlights State of Mind”

“[When I was on deadline for my first draft] the Kay Yoder Scholarship allowed me to spend four nights, five days at Highlights and it was absolutely transformative for my draft. [The time] was critical to my ability to have a good first draft ready to submit to my editor by the end of May. Without the time at Highlights, it’s hard to figure out how I would have done that. As I’ve said to my family, I stayed in a “Highlights State of Mind” for the rest of April.”

“I just pretended that other than meals, my job was stay at my desk and write and stay in that fully-focused, constantly drafting state of mind. Time alone, on retreat, with space and time to write and no household or work-related tasks is essential for getting through critical points in a manuscript. You can’t capture the focus that gets generated at Highlights anywhere else.”

Any tips on how you stayed motivated and cultivated that creative flow state?

“I’m going to answer this question as if you asked the opposite. I knew I had to have a good first draft by May 31st and there’s no better motivator than a deadline! So, I was overly motivated. Adrenaline was flowing! My fingers weren’t keeping up with my brain! I even considered bringing food back to my room to avoid disrupting my flow. But one of the best things about being at Highlights are those meals. Such good food! So many interesting people! Such interesting conversations! Taking those brain and body breaks were invaluable. Taking the time to catch up with others, get out of my head, and enjoy a leisurely meal allowed me to go back to my cabin and disappear into the 12th century re-energized.

How would you describe the personal retreat experience for someone who might be considering a visit/personal retreat scholarship?

“Heaven! The time to focus on your craft is invaluable. I always say that I get more done in three days at Highlights than three months at home. This may be a little hyperbolic, but the experience is always transformative. You’re alone in a cabin or a room with yourself and your book. I think it’s probably best to be targeted with your visit – go when you have a clear writing task, whether that’s a certain number of new chapters or a set of specific revisions. Being at Highlights to play with new ideas sounds delightful, I’ve just never done it. With colleagues, I also coauthor books for educators, and I keep saying we need to come to Highlights as a group! Individuals and teams should know that Highlights is an ideal place for collaborative as well as solitary work.”

What are your hopes with this project in sharing Eleanor’s story? Any tips on writing nonfiction for YA audiences?

When it comes out in Spring 2027, I hope that tween and teen readers will disappear into the dramatic and compelling events of Eleanor’s life in the 12th century, and despite the differences across time and place, see their own lives reflected in hers. It’s about female leadership and the fear of female leadership in a society in which extraordinary economic inequality is the norm. It’s about disinformation and misinformation across centuries. But it’s also a book about families, about sibling rivalry, parent-child relationships, and familial power dynamics.

I hope my readers finish the book wanting to know more about other female leaders in the near and distant past, people they haven’t learned about in school but who shaped our history, nonetheless. I want them to know that by understanding the past more deeply, they can understand the present more deeply. The more I wrote Eleanor, the more I could feel in my bones the contemporary relevance of her story, and that, in turn, shaped my writing. For anyone else writing YA nonfiction or biography about the past, keeping today’s tween and teen readers in mind, and centering those connections, is important. The writing must be compelling – well-paced, suspenseful, a good narrative. You can’t announce those connections. That breaks the spell. You need to create the space within the narrative to illuminate those connections. At least, that’s what I’ve tried to do.

Anything else you’d like to share about the experience and/or this project?

I’m revising the manuscript right now, and I’m admittedly homesick for Highlights! My heart aches for more. I carry such deep gratitude to The Highlights Foundation for its support of PORTRAITS OF ELEANOR over the years, first through a James Cross Giblin Scholarship, and then through the Kay Yoder Scholarship for History Writing. I don’t think I would have reached this point without my 2024 and 2025 writing retreats.