Becoming a Writer

I have been making up stories ever since I was a little girl. I lived on a dirt road in Vermont with few other children nearby. I didn't have a television until I was much older, and my brother wasn't born until I was four, so I had to make my own entertainment. I invented an imaginary friend who climbed in my window every night. I also made up stories about my stuffed animals, giving them silly names and personalities. They seemed as real to me as the characters in my novels do now.

Books and stories were always important in my family. While my parents read to me, I pored over the words, but I couldn't figure out how to read them. One day when I was about four years old, my mother and I were out driving. We came to a stop sign. I remember, very clearly, that I suddenly understood that those four white letters - S-T-O-P - made a word I knew. I could read!

One Sunday morning soon after that, I lay in bed studying "Little Lulu," my favorite comic strip. Somehow, the letters became more than just squiggly black lines. They made sounds, and the sounds turned into words, like "POW!" and "EEK!" I felt as if a big light bulb had just lit up over my head, just as it did for Little Lulu when she got a new idea. Now, whenever I was lonely and had no one to play with, I could disappear into books.

I started to write my first stories when I was in second grade. I folded construction paper and stapled the pages into small, hand-size books. Each page had a picture with words to go with it. I was very proud of my stories, and liked to read them at night, under the covers with a flashlight, when I was supposed to be asleep.

By the time I was eight or nine, my brother, Tom, and I created an imaginary kingdom with our stuffed animals. We had kings, queens, courtiers, soldiers, cooks, fools, and trouble-makers. Tom came up with many outlandish names (such as a cross rabbit named Brick-Bat-Bun). I liked to write about their adventures in a notebook.

My parents encouraged all this play-acting and storytelling. My mother was very tolerant of our games, which usually left animals and wooden blocks strewn across the floor. At night, my father drew pictures of our stuffed animals and let us make up stories to go with them.

Our parents read to us all the way through childhood. When I was fourteen, I was very sick with the measles. I had to stay in bed with the shades drawn and the lights out. Worst of all, I wasn't allowed to read! I passed my days listening to serialized stories on the radio. (I never guessed that someday I would write a story that would be serialized in the newspapers.) I waited in my dark room until evening, when my mother pulled a chair into my closet, turned on the light, and read "The Witch of Blackbird Pond." Her voice came to me through a crack in the door. I listened with my eyes closed, creating pictures in my mind to go with the story.

On Sunday nights, my family enjoyed a "make your own" supper. We ate sandwiches in the living room while my father read from his favorite collection of James Thurber stories. Sometimes, when he came to the funniest part, he laughed so hard he couldn't go on. Tears ran down his cheeks and he passed the book over to my mother so she could finish the chapter. I was amazed that books and words could have so much power.

I kept writing stories and poems of my own. Even when my eighth grade English teacher encouraged me to be a writer, my dream was to be an actress! Ever since I was young, I had been playing dress-up with my best friend Sally. We paraded up and down in my grandmother's high-heeled shoes and slinky "flapper" dresses from the 1920s. As we grew older, we invented characters, then put them into plays, giving ourselves the starring roles. I acted in plays in junior high and high school, and went to theater school the summer before college. I also taught drama at a summer camp. Although I never became an actress, my work in theater turned out to be great preparation for writing novels. For each part, I had to imagine what it was like to live inside someone else's skin—just as I do now when I invent characters for stories.

During my junior year at Sarah Lawrence College, I studied with a wonderful writing teacher named Harvey Swados. He sent us on strange, exciting assignments in New York City. We went to the fish market at dawn and watched the boats come in. We sat on hard benches in Night Court, where people who had been arrested lined up before the judge. We wandered all over the city, taking notes on conversations and soaking up smells, textures, and tastes. Afterward, we wrote stories about what we had seen and heard. From that class, I learned that some of the best writing comes from experience.

I also studied education in college, and ran my first writing workshop for children. After I graduated, I worked in special education in Washington, D.C., then lived in England and wrote a book about some of their most exciting schools. When I moved to Vermont, I started my own pre-school, using some of the teaching ideas I had seen in England. My sons, Derek and Ethan, were born, and I carried on my family's tradition of reading aloud. As we devoured the Arthur Ransome series and the "Ramona" books, or laughed over Tintin comics, I started to wonder: Could I do this? Could I write a story for children?

One summer, I drove from Vermont to California with my family, visiting sites on the original Oregon Trail, as well as places described by Laura Ingalls Wilder in her "Little House" series. I read everything I could find about the gold rush and the Oregon Trail. Most of the stories were told from a man's point of view. What was that westward journey like for children, and for girls and women? I began writing a diary about a young woman's experience on a wagon train headed to California. Slowly, the diary became a novel, and the main character changed from a young woman to a teenager. I was creating my first book for young people.

West Against the Wind was published in 1987 and I have been writing for young readers ever since. I also carry on my love of teaching by visiting schools, and by running writing workshops for students of all ages. In 2001, I joined the faculty of the Vermont College MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults, where I am privileged to teach adult writers who are also creating stories for young readers.

About My Family

My sons, Derek and Ethan, have always helped me with my books. Derek is a scientist who helped me to explain the geology of the California gold rush to young readers. His wife, Ali, is also a scientist who writes about environmental issues, including climate change. Ethan is an artist who has taught me a lot about design and illustration. ( He also created the icons on my home page!) They both gave me good advice about soccer, as well as suggestions about music and dialogue, for Blue Coyote and Twelve Days in August.

My husband, John Straus, is a pediatrician who reads all my drafts and sometimes helps me come up with ideas for stories. We live in Massachusetts and enjoy music, canoeing, traveling, visiting museums, and gardening together.

My Passions

Even though I live in the city now, I have spent many years in the country, and my husband and I share a small cabin in Vermont with my sons. When we are at our cabin, we see lots of wildlife, including deer, foxes, coyotes, and bears—as well as many different kinds of birds. We love the quiet of the forest, the views of the mountains, and the noisy springtime chorus of frogs in our little pond. I like to know the names of birds, flowering plants, and trees, so I enjoy taking classes that help me to learn more about the natural world.

I am very concerned about our environment, and am doing all I can to work with groups that protect our natural resources and care for our fragile planet. One of my favorite volunteer jobs is being a water tester on the Charles River near my home. On the third Tuesday of each month, I get up long before dawn and join a crew of other volunteers who test the river from its source in central Massachusetts all the way to its outlet in Boston Harbor. At six A.M., my testing partner and I lower a bucket from a bridge high above the river into the dark river water, haul it up, and then pour it carefully into our test bottles. We put the bottles on ice and rush them to a collection point. From there, the bottles go to a laboratory for testing, so we can see whether the Charles is dirty or clean that month. Our group hopes that, by the year 2006, people might be able to swim in the river again. On Earth Day every year, my husband and I join hundreds of volunteers from many towns who get together to clean up the banks of the river. We fill big dumpsters with garbage, and hope that a cleaner river will help the birds and fish who live there.

I also volunteer for an energy committee in my town, and I am the proud owner of a hybrid car, which has a combination gas and electric engine that releases less pollution and uses half as much fuel as most regular vehicles. My car is very sleek, and her name is “Princess.”

When I speak to young people, I am always interested to hear about their interests in nature. If you or your friends belong to an interesting environmental organization, or have started a project to help take care of wildlife or to clean up your neighborhood, I hope you’ll let me know about your activities by going to the Guest Book on my website!

 

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