As
I was growing up in Minnesota, I liked ice skating, swimming, and
Saturday matinee movies, but books always provided the greatest
source of pleasure.
Some
stories that I was especially fond of were Black
Beauty, Heidi, Lassie, Come Home, and The Secret Garden. I liked books
that were full of drama and emotion. I liked books that made me
cry.
In
the sixth grade, I read a novel called Katrinka by Helen Eggleston Haskell that I have remembered all my life. It's
the story of the plight of a Russian girl long ago, whose parents
were taken away by the cruel czar's soldiers. While she continues
to search for them, Katrinka grows up to become a great ballerina
who one day dances before the czar and throws herself at his mercy.
At the story's end, she is reunited with her family. I used to imagine
myself a brave peasant girl in Russia, the country of my ancestors.
The
following year I wrote my first "novel." I had just come
under the spell of the Nancy Drew series. My book was about a sixteen-year-old
girl (how I aspired to become a glamorous teenager!) who solved a
murder aboard an ocean liner on which she was a stowaway. That was
my first and last mystery. I concentrated on writing stories that
were closer to my heart - the kind that would make a young girl weep.
In junior high I became a newspaper reader. I was also influenced
by a series of children's books about a young woman reporter. A female
journalist was a rarity in those days. Sometimes she was called a
"sob sister," but that didn't keep her from her work, which
sounded very exciting to me. So I decided that would be the life for
me when I grew up. I joined the newspaper staffs in high school and
at the University of Minnesota, where I majored in journalism. Later
I spent some time at newspaper and magazine writing and then editing
at a publishing house in New York City. But I ventured down an entirely
new path in my writing career after I married, moved to California,
and became the mother of two sons. I began to write books for children.
In one way I surprised myself because this was something I never planned,
but in another way, perhaps it was no surprise at all, since I've
always loved children and children's literature.
Writing
for young readers was the most joyful and challenging work I have ever
done. I write both fiction and nonfiction. Sometimes I was asked which
I like best, and my answer was always, "Both." In fiction,
it is rewarding to find that I can draw readers into caring about
my characters and connecting with what they are experiencing and feeling.
I enjoy researching and writing nonfiction because when something
particularly interests me, such as an historical event or a person's
biography, I have a strong urge to share the story.
Following four decades working on children's literature, I closed that chapter of my life to care for my husband who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. It was during those many years that I wrote this book for adults, MOMENTS OF DAWN: A POETIC MEMOIR OF LOVE & FAMILY, AFFLICTION & AFFIRMATION.
I wrote this book over a period of ten years, writing the story as my husband and I were living it. As a writer of history, historical fiction, and biography for young readers, I was unable to continue researching and working in that genre while meeting his full-time needs. But writing scenes of life at home in the kitchen or bedroom, at movie and music outings, family time at Dodger games and mini-golf, mishaps in the car and at the mall, scenes both sad and funny - allowed me not only to express my feelings, but also to satisfy a writer's need or "itch" to write.
Since the publication of MOMENTS OF DAWN, I have authored poems and creative nonficton that have appeared in numerous literary journals, including "Poetica," "Touch: The Journal of Healing," Foliate Oak," "Third Wednesday," "The Lost Country," Drunk Monkeys," "Survivor's Review," "Snapdragon Journal of Art & Healing," Lamp in Hand," "Blood and Thunder," and "The Barefoot Review."
For
more information about me, please see Something About the Author:
Facts and Pictures about Authors and Illustrators of Books for Young
People, Volume 140, pages 115 -119. You may be able to find
this multi volume encyclopedia at your local public library.
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