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Fall 2002 Flying Starts: Heather McCutchen
Don't be surprised to find Heather McCutchen signing her debut novel, LightLand (Scholastic/Orchard), while comfortably attired in her protagonist Lottie's favorite fashion statement: pajamas. Entire schools have held pajama days in honor of her visits. "I love meeting with kids; they're so enthusiastic," McCutchen says. "They really are more fun than adult audiences. I quoted one in the back of my book--one of the first readers out of Norwich, Vt., who said she loved this book 'because it could really happen.' " The child's belief that a magic portal through an expanding "StoryBox" could open to Lightland, a world where an evil NightKing roams and steals memories, thrills the author.
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Fall 2002 Flying Starts: Tim Johnston
As an undergraduate at the University of Iowa, aspiring author Tim Johnston happily availed himself of offerings from the school's prestigious Writers' Workshop. When it came time to pursue a graduate degree, however, "I didn't think of applying there," Johnston says.
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Fall 2002 Flying Starts: Shirin Yim Bridges
Shirin Yim Bridges listened with special interest when her grandmother started to tell her how she dreamed of going to university in an era when most Chinese girls looked forward only to marriage. Bridges was already writing children's books, and she felt her grandmother's tale was full of possibilities. The story of the girl who loved to learn became Ruby's Wish (Chronicle, Sept.).
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Fall 2002 Flying Starts: Ross MacDonald
MacDonald needed Jack's superhuman stamina in his early years, when he began his illustration career in his native Canada. He had moderate success in selling his linocuts and woodcuts to magazines, but he also painted houses to make ends meet. In 1985, he became a full-time illustrator; two years later he moved from Toronto to New York City. Today, he works out of his own printing studio, Brightworks Press, behind his home in Newtown, Conn.
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Bestseller Down Under
A seven-book series for young readers that creates a nationalsensation, winning literary prizes never before awarded to children's fiction, with new installments catapulting to the top of bestseller lists? No, not Harry Potter. It's the series that launched in author John Marsden's native Australia with Tomorrow, When the War Began (1994), about a group of teenagers who return from camping in the bush to discover that their country has been overtaken by a hostile nation. The final volume is The Other Side of Dawn (Houghton Mifflin).
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PW Talks with Ann M. Martin
PW: What inspired you to write A Corner of the Universe?
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Spring 2002 Flying Starts: Kevin Brooks
If you cross two of Kevin Brooks's favorite authors—J.D. Salinger and Raymond Chandler—you might approximate the hardboiled humor of the British author's first novel, Martyn Pig (Scholastic/Chicken House). The eponymous narrator, a hapless and motherless teenager, spends his Christmas vacation coping with the corpse of his alcoholic and abusive father, in a plot that gets thicker (and funnier) with every twist. British and American reviewers have praised the book for its edgy wit and intelligence.
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Spring 2002 Flying Starts: Rachel Cohn
Rachel Cohn remembers how the rich and rebellious narrator of her novel Gingerbread (Simon & Schuster), was born. A friend named Rob Coffman sent her a card he'd drawn: "[It] had a picture of this weird-looking girl on it with a doll trailing from her, and she had these combat boots on," Cohn says. She kept seeing the image during her morning walk through the hills of San Francisco's affluent Pacific Heights neighborhood, and the misfit girl—named Cyd Charisse after the famous actress and dancer—living among the huge houses came alive to her.
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Spring 2002 Flying Starts: Janet Lawson
"Persistence pays off." The adage trips readily off the tongue of author/illustrator Janet Lawson, who shares a spunk and steadfastness with her debut book's character, Audrey. While her young heroine's tenacity pays off in an entertaining adventure to India with her cynical cat, Lawson's has resulted in the publication of her humorous picture book, Audrey and Barbara (Atheneum).
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Spring 2002 Flying Starts: Heather Henson
By her own admission, Heather Henson backed into the world of children's books. She never meant to start a career editing them, and she certainly never meant to write one. But somehow, at the age of 35, she has ended up doing both.
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PW Talks with Katharine Holabird
Back in 1983, Angelina Mouseling, a feisty young ballet enthusiast, pirouetted into the children's book world as the heroine of Angelina Ballerina, a picture book by Katharine Holabird, illustrated by Helen Craig. Holabird, an American-born mother and former nursery school teacher living in England, and British artist Craig became a fine-tuned team, creating a series of nine Angelina adventures.
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PW Talks with Daniel Handler
Daniel Handler, as the official representative of Lemony Snicket (author of the A Series of Unfortunate Events books) in all legal, literary and social matters, often appears in place of Snicket at author appearances.
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PW Talks with Caroline Kennedy
PW: Your new book, Profiles in Courage for Our Time, offers portraits of recipients of the Profiles in Courage Award. What led your family to create an award based on the kind of moral and political courage your father discussed in his book?
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PW Talks with James Cross Giblin
Giblin, author of more than 20 books for young readers, was publisher of Clarion Books until taking early retirement in 1989 (he continues to edit a few of his long-time authors). His newest work is The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler.
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PW Talks with Coleen Salley
Salley, storyteller and professor emerita of children's literature at the University of New Orleans, has written her first book, a retelling of the Three Billy Goats Gruff, set on the banks of the Mississippi.
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PW Talks with Raffi
Raffi, one of the most successful artists in the children's recording world and recognized as a tireless children's advocate, recently celebrated 25 years in the children's music industry.
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PW Talks with Allen Say
Say, the Caldecott-winning creator of Grandfather's Journey, was born in Japan in 1937 and moved with his family to the United States in 1953. In July 2000, when his own work was honored with an exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, he had an opportunity to view the museum's exhibition on the WWII internment camps in the U.
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Fall 2001 Flying Starts: Alex Sanchez
Though Alex Sanchez wrote a picture book while in college, he says he didn't have an audience in mind when he started writing Rainbow Boys (S&S), his novel about three gay teens who deal with everything from coming out to parents to an AIDS scare and even hate crimes.
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Fall 2001 Flying Starts: Heather Solomon
Webster defines the word clever as "marked by wit and ingenuity," a description many would agree befits debut artist Heather Solomon's artwork in the picture book Clever Beatrice by Margaret Willey (Atheneum). "I use a bit of everything," Solomon says of the technique she used to create the uniquely vibrant and intricate scenes for Willey's spunky tall tale. "I'm primarily a watercolorist, because I initially learned to paint in watercolor," she explains. "But I use other media [collage, acrylics, oils] to make up for what watercolor lacks: bright colors and texture."
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Fall 2001 Flying Starts: Cathryn Clinton
"God and faith tend to be taboo subjects for YA fiction," says Cathryn Clinton, whose debut novel, The Calling (Candlewick), introduces a heroine who is not only a firm believer in God but has a calling: Esta Lea, a 12-year-old Southerner, comes from a long line of preachers and discovers that she herself can use faith to heal others. The novel has been praised for its rich, Southern-style storytelling, its supportive but non-preachy approach to religion and its humor. Fans impressed by Clinton's imagination might be startled to hear her say that most of the episodes in the novel, from the miraculous restoration of a blind girl's vision to an offbeat funeral scene, are true or composites of real events.
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