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Q & A with Frank Cottrell Boyce
Q: What inspired you to write this insanely funny and wonderful book?
A: Two things, really. People of my age, we all wanted to go to space. Fly to the moon? That was the dream. So I started with that. And then, my family went away for a year, and when we came back one of my son's friends had had a growth spurt. He was barely recognizable. His mother said something that I actually put in the book. She said, "That's not a growth spurt. That's a mutation." -
When the ALA Calls: Stead and Pinkney on Winning the Big Prize
When you win a Newbery or a Caldecott Medal, you find out in a phone call — usually very early in the morning—and then your life is instantly changed. Both Rebecca Stead and Jerry Pinkney got recently that phone call; we spoke with both of them to find out where they were when the phone rang, what their reactions were, and what came next.
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PW Talks with Gabrielle Zevin
Credit card debt plagues a modern American family in Gabrielle Zevin’s The Hole We’re In, a witty, frightening look at how we spend now.
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Fall 2009 Flying Starts: Nina LaCour
“It was a surprise for me to end up writing a YA novel, but I'm excited about it,” says Nina LaCour, author of Hold Still, the emotionally charged story of Caitlin, a teen photographer struggling to understand the suicide of Ingrid, her best friend and fellow artist.
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Fall 2009 Flying Starts: L.K. Madigan
Like many debut novelists, L.K. (the initials stand for Lisa Kay) Madigan has a day job. Unlike most, hers involves math. She works for a money manager.
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Fall 2009 Flying Starts: Lauren Kate
The 28-year-old writer known as Lauren Kate has just published her first two books. The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove (Razorbill), is about a Texas high school queen bee. Fallen (Delacorte), is the first in a four-book series about two star-crossed lovers—one of whom is a fallen angel. She also learned that Disney has optioned the movie rights to Fallen. And she moved into a new house with her new husband—and changed her last name, from Velevis to Morphew. (Her children's book nom de plume will remain Lauren Kate—her first and middle names.) Phew!
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Fall 2009 Flying Starts: Alex Beard
Alex Beard is an artist on a mission. With schools cutting arts funding and what he calls a “schism” between the fine art world and much of the population, Beard wants to encourage kids to embrace creativity in their own lives. And his first book for children, The Jungle Grapevine—a moral fable based on “telephone,” the childhood game of misunderstanding—is just one piece of the puzzle.
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Fall 2009 Flying Starts: Malinda Lo
With Ash, 35-year-old Malinda Lo makes her debut as a novelist—and Cinderella makes her debut as a lesbian.
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Q & A with Hilary McKay
Q: Do you have strong childhood memories of reading A Little Princess?
A: Oh, yes. As a child, I read the novel so many times. In fact I read it and reread it until my copy almost fell to pieces. My sister and I knew the novel so well that we could actually recite it. It became almost like theater to us. -
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.
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