Tag: writers
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March 25, 2024
I was a kid who loved to read, but I didn’t dream of becoming a writer. Books seemed so magical to me that I couldn’t conceive that human beings wrote them. For my 60th birthday, my friend Ann (who is also a writer) gave me the gift of a signed school library copy of E.B.…
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April 9, 2019
Last week, I received a letter from a young reader that said, “All of my favorite writers are dead. Except for you. You are NOT DEAD.” Every time I think about that letter, I laugh out loud. Also, I’m oddly comforted. I’m NOT DEAD! I’m alive! I get to tell stories! It doesn’t get any…
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March 14, 2019
I was up this morning, early, working on a story; and it is a mess. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know how it’s going to happen. But yet, I keep showing up each morning. I’ve been writing for 24 years now (!) and I’ve learned a few things: 1. Nothing happens…
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November 2, 2017
I’ve been out in the world talking about La La La and about the radiant connections that can be found in stories—in reading together, and reading alone, in reading out loud and reading as a community. Everywhere I go, I meet people who are doing the important, lasting, profound work of connecting people through stories.…
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June 15, 2017
A long time I did an interview, and the last question was something like “Do you have any last thoughts for people who want to be writers?” My answer was something along the lines of “Reading matters and doing the work of writing matters and luck matters.” But when the interview appeared in print, the…
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June 13, 2017
When I was at the Sydney Writers Festival, I listened to George Saunders talk about how much he (as a third grader) was influenced by Esther Forbes’ novel, Johnny Tremain. So when I got back from Australia, I searched my (very unorganized) shelves and found my childhood copy of Johnny Tremain (cover price: 95 cents).…