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Q & A with Sharon Robinson
Q: What was the actual event that inspired this book?
A: In 1955, my parents moved our family from New York City to Stamford, Connecticut, and on our property was a lake that was a source of all kinds of pleasure for us throughout the seasons. The first winter we lived there, my siblings and I wanted to go ice-skating and my mother said we could - as long as my father tested the ice first to make sure it was safe. He agreed to do that - with reluctance. You see, he couldn't swim. -
Q & A with Elizabeth Partridge
Q: Had you been contemplating a book on the Civil Rights Movement before you saw photographer Matt Herron’s photos? You credit him with jumpstarting the book.
A: No, I had not had the least inkling to do a book on the Civil Rights Movement. And then I ran into Matt’s Web site. I fell in love with his photos, 100 percent in love with what he had done on the march, and I just wanted to get those photos out there. -
Q & A with Patrick Ness
Q: Your first two books were written for adults. What made you decide to write YA fiction, and how is it different from writing adult fiction?
A: I was playing around with an idea for a long time. It didn’t originally start as a young adult novel. The voice was an adolescent voice, though, and I thought, "Well, that's interesting." I tried to let the material tell me what it was, rather than forcing it to be something. I found it really liberating, actually. -
The Monday Interview: 'The Gates'
An interview with John Connolly, whose new novel, The Gates, will be published by Atria.
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Q & A with Katherine Paterson
Q: What inspired you to write this book?
A: This is the first time in my long life as a writer when somebody has suggested a story to me and I’ve taken the suggestion. Some years ago, our church sponsored a refugee family from Kosovo, and a good friend of mine said you should write the Haxhuis’ story. And so I went over there... -
Children's Authors Sparkle at MBA
The children’s book and author breakfast, which traditionally kicks off the trade show portion of the Midwest Booksellers Association’s annual gathering, is usually a literary-star studded affair, and this year was no exception. Nearly 200 groggy booksellers straggled into St. Paul’s RiverCentre last Saturday morning to hear an A-list of children’s authors: Loren Long, M.T. Anderson, Catherine Gilbert Murdock and Neil Gaiman...
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Q & A with Richard Peck
Q: When you wrote the short story 'Shotgun Cheatham’s Last Night Above Ground' years ago, did you have any inkling that it would grow into three entire novels?
A: No, I didn’t. I was asked by Harry Mazer to contribute something to a collection of stories about guns and I thought, "He’s going to get too many guy stories, so I’m going to think up a female character." That’s how Grandma Dowdel was born. -
PW Talks With Maggie Anton: Romance Meets Talmudic Scholarship
Maggie Anton is the author of the Rashi’s Daughters trilogy (Penguin/Plume), which includes Book I: Joheved (2007), Book II: Miriam (2007) and, most recently, Book III: Rachel. RBL caught up with Anton at her California home, just before she was headed to the airport to go on tour and just in time for the Jewish High Holidays.
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Q & A with Julia Donaldson
Q: In 'Stick Man,' you introduce a humble stick that is taken far from home and almost becomes kindling. How did you invent this unusual hero? A: It was two things coming together. In my book 'The Gruffalo’s Child,' the child drags a stick doll everywhere, and that must have sparked it. And I fully remember my own children, 20-odd years ago, loving sticks. When we would go out for a walk, they would find a stick, and it wouldn’t always become a weapon. A stick could be anything to anyone.
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Q & A with Shannon Hale
Q: What made you decide to write Forest Born? A: I really just go where the story takes me. It’s funny—with every one of the Bayern books, I thought each one was a stand-alone. The character of Enna was so different from Ani in Goose Girl, and after writing about Ani who was so quiet, the idea of writing about a character so fiery, so outspoken and dangerous was what attracted me to Enna Burning.
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Q & A with Loren Long
Q: Your new picture book, Otis, has a classic, playful feel. What inspired the look of this art?
A: Well, to back up a bit, The Little Engine That Could marked a new direction for me, from the standpoint that this was the first book where I was obviously digging into a tried and true classic. I’m very proud of the books I did beforehand, but The Little Engine That Could opened up a new world for me. -
Q & A with Jane Smiley
Q: You obviously love horses. Is this the kind of book that you would have liked to have read as a child?
A: Well, it's more or less the kind of book I did read. When I was a child in 1960 - I was 10 and 11 that year - there were plenty of horse book series. I loved them all and read them all. I read the Black Stallion series, and other Walter Farley books. I also read Nancy Drew and other series. That was what kids' literature was back then. -
Q & A with Gennifer Choldenko
Q: When you finished writing Al Capone Does My Shirts, did you think Moose’s story wasn’t finished? How did this second book come about?
A: Actually, while I was working on the first book, there was so much material and I tried to shove it all in the first book. But honestly, it was so challenging to write the first book. So when I finished the first one, I did not want to do a second one. I knew there was a lot more to Moose’s story, but I needed time away from it. -
'Ranger’s Apprentice' Hits the Road
Having toured the U.S. last year, Australian author John Flanagan isn’t coming stateside for the release of The Siege of Macindaw (Philomel, Sept.), the sixth book in his Ranger’s Apprentice series. Soon readers in 27 U.S. cities will be able to see a theatrical performance entitled “Escape to Araluen,” based on the first Ranger’s Apprentice book, The Ruins of Gorlan, thanks to a national bus tour Penguin has put together.
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Q & A with Jerry Pinkney
Q: You’ve illustrated so many classic tales, including The Ugly Duckling, Little Red Riding Hood and Aesop’s Fables. What is it that draws you to these timeless stories?
A: A while back I started to think about those stories that have stayed with me over the years. I don’t remember when I first heard these stories that were read to me when I was growing up in the 1940s, but they have been coursing through my veins for all these years. -
Q & A with Patricia Reilly Giff
Q: How did you come to set this story in the world of horse racing?
A: So many things inspired this novel. For years, my family and I lived in Elmont on Long Island, the town where Belmont Racetrack is located. I don’t mention the track by name in Wild Girl, because I wanted to leave myself a little wiggle room in terms of the details. When kids read books and find things that aren’t perfectly accurate, they point a finger and let me know! -
Q & A with Elizabeth Bluemle
Formerly editorial director of a small press, creative director of a book packager and a school librarian, and currently a bookseller, author and blogger, Elizabeth Bluemle knows publishing from the inside out. Bookshelf managed to catch her at a rare quiet moment, to ask her about juggling her various book-related pursuits and about her third picture book.
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Q & A with Michael Grant
Michael Grant has written over 150 books, most notably the Animorphs and Everworld series (which he co-authored with his wife, Katherine Applegate). The Gone books, his first solo novels, feature a distinctive hook: everyone over the age of 14 in the small California town of Perdido Beach has gone missing. To make matters worse for the children, there’s an impenetrable forcefield around the town and some of the kids are starting to develop strange powers.
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Q & A with Sharon M. Draper
Sharon M. Draper has been busy of late, with her new Sassy series for tween girls from Scholastic, as well as the release of Just Another Hero (Atheneum), the final book in her Jericho trilogy. The former teacher now writes fulltime, and does school visits and appearances. PW caught up with the author to talk about her writing life.
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Spring 2009 Flying Starts: Thalia Chaltas
Writing came easily for Thalia Chaltas as a child, but it wasn’t until she was in her 30s that she seriously considered being an author. “Reading was my escape as a kid, but I never thought of it as a career path,” says Chaltas, whose novel-in-verse, Because I Am Furniture (Viking) is narrated by teenager Anke, whose father is abusing her siblings.
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