Q & Q Writer Series featuring Urve Tamberg

Website: Urve Tamberg

Published Book (s): The Darkest Corner of The World by Dancing Cat Books

Notable Review (s):CM Magazine

The Q&Q:

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality? 

Hmmm - only one word? I think that would be "determined". My mother would have said "stubborn", but I'll stick with "determined." Final answer. 

2) What is your deepest desire?

Not becoming old and senile. I can't do much about the "old" part, so I'll work on not becoming senile.

3) Your greatest fear?

I fear any kind of harm coming to my children and family.

4) Your favourite colour?

Lime green

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?

Hallelujah, but only when it's sung by K.D. Lang. I can't sing, so I'd have to be in the car so no one can hear me. 

6) A movie that made you cry?

Almost anything these days. Even James Bond can make me cry. 

7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?

I loved Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, and The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. There's no one book that I go back to but those are a few of my favorites. 

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?

I only have one book so let me say I like feisty female characters. Someone  who is clever, and smart, and funny.  

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?

The slowness of it all. I'm not a fast writer, and I like results. So the writing process is a love/hate thing for me. 

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?

That's a tough question. I can't think of of anything really interesting, so I'll have to pass. 

Thank you, Urve!

Q&Q Writer Series featuring Linda Granfield

I first met Linda Granfield through email when we were discussing the "Mash-up" planned for the launch of the Anthology,  Piece by Piece: Stories About Fitting Into Canada edited by Teresa Toten and published by Penguin. Her wit and humour won me over as we wondered just how this mash-up was going to mesh out. She was even more wonderful in person!

Linda loves writing historical non-fiction and she has a really cool website. She lives by the motto:
"Every Day Is Remembrance Day/Veterans Day." Linda is best known for her book: In Flanders Fields: The Story of The Poem by John Mccrae. The entire list of books can be found here.

And here's a peek at make Linda who she is... 

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?

Curious
 

2) What is your deepest desire?

I want to see my now-adult children (2) remain healthy and happy.

3) Your greatest fear?

Snakes, even pictures of the real things.

4) Your favourite colour?

Blue

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?

Any Beatles or Dusty Springfield song.

6) A movie that made you cry?

Field of Dreams (every time!)

7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?

"Little Women" made me want to be a writer.

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?

No favourite child--but "In Flanders Fields: the Story of the Poem by John McCrae" changed my writing-life.

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?

The paper "mess"--from research, drafts, letters, edits. After recycling, I'm still running out of places to put it! And I can't write and file at the same time, so the paper piles grow.....and grow....

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?

I collect "perfume cards" from the fragrance counters in stores. Well-designed, free, mini-art made of paper, wood, ribbon, silk, etc. I have nearly 500 different perfumes represented, from stores in a few countries. (See what I mean about "paper"!)

Thanks, Linda!

Q&Q Writer Series featuring Jane Yolen

I do not know Jane Yolen personally and yet I do know her...through her words, her kind advice and her wonderful stories. I sense a kindred spirit who has figured out many struggles that I'm am currently wrestling with. Vist her website, especially the section for writers to see what I mean...

Award-winning author and known as the Hans Christian Andersen of America, Jane has written over 300 books in all genres and for all ages. Mentioning her books here would take too long, but you can find the entire list here.

 My favourite, as well as that of a few millions, is Owl Moon: a story that is calming, magical and timeless.

Jane graciously agreed to answer my questions and here they are:

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?
Two words: Honestly lying.
2) What is your deepest desire?
To live forever. Or at least have written stories that do that.
3) Your greatest fear?
Snakes. It's always snakes.
4) Your favourite colour?
Wine. Though there are carpers who would point out that in my case "whine" is more like it. 5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
"Amazing Grace" and "Lay, Lady, Lay."

But if Fairport Convention is in town, "The Hiring Fair."
And these days half of the songs that Janis Ian or the Dixie Chicks sing.
6) A movie that made you cry?
"Truly, Madly, Deeply."
7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?
As a child--probably "Ferdinand".
As an adult, probably "Moby Dick."
8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
Possibly "Owl Moon" or "The Devil's Arithmetic" or "Ring of Earth" or "Girl in a Cage" or "Sword of the Rightful King." Ask me tomorrow it it might be a different list.

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
Long waits.

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
My father did publicity for double bubble chewing gum, silly putty, and slinkies when I was a child and so I had more of all of them than any child had any right to.

Thank you, Jane! And I look forward to meeting you at SCBWI later this month.

Q&Q Writer Series featuring Uma Krishnaswami

Hello All,

This weekend I'm excited to present a very special guest: Uma Krishnaswami.

Uma is a writer, teacher at Vermont College, MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults and was my mentor for The Silver Anklet. My favourites from her brillaint repertoire are Naming Maya (and the poignant concept of the Two-Gift which I love!) and Monsoon (the word evokes such beautiful memories.)

Her latest book called The Grand Plan to Fix Everything was published by Atheneum, May 2011. Would that we could have such a plan! It has received starred reviews in Kirkus and Publishers Weekly!

And here are her anwers to my crazy questions:

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?
===One word? How about changeable? I'm mostly quiet and introverted, but I can be selectively outgoing and social given the right company! 

2) What is your deepest desire?

===Probably world peace, but that seems unrealizable so most days I would probably settle for a clean desk.

3) Your greatest fear?

===I'll tell you a writing fear that really gets in the way. It's a fear of being unable to deliver on a promise. I suppose in some ways it relates to the fraud factor, right? The fear that so many writers have that they simply don't know enough, that someday someone's going to come along and expose them for the fakes they are. However, I tell myself I'm not alone in this: http://mediabistro.posterous.com/fighting-the-fraud-factor 

4) Your favourite colour?
===That changes too. Right now it's purple.

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?

===I don't sing along with songs. Is that a character flaw? They do get stuck in my head sometimes but I can't think of one that's lodged there right now. 

6) A movie that made you cry?
===I'm hopeless in this--I cry easily! Deepa Mehta's film, Water, reduced me to sniveling incoherence. And most recently, I cried at the documentary, The Story of the Weeping Camel. If you haven't seen it, it's about a Mongolian camel rejecting her newborn white colt. Two young boys travel across the desert to find a healing musician. After the musician has done his work, there's a scene where they place a bridle on the colt. It resists quite a bit, and they have to force it on. Part of me flinched at that. The camera didn't waver either, from the obvious discomfort of the colt. Then the elderly man blesses the camel colt. "May your humps grow straight," he says, "may your hooves grow strong." And I realized, this was the point of the whole film. That these people would not live without those camels, and this camel would not have lived without these people trying so hard, and at such cost to themselves, to get the mother to accept it. I just melted. I'm tearing up thinking about it now.

7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?
===Several--may I cheat and mention more than one? 
Tagore's Geetanjali, the one with the Yeats foreword--I wish I knew Bangla so I could read it in the original but even in translation it sings.
Yeats, collected works
Pride and Prejudice
Summer Lightning by P.G.Wodehouse (the preface alone is a monument to humor and goodwill!)
Alice in Wonderland
All right, that's five that I've read more than five times so I'll stop.

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
===I think Dini in the novels I'm working on now, The Grand Plan to Fix Everything (to be published in May 2011) and its sequel due out the year after. It's the first time I'm working with a single set of characters over more than one book and I'm coming to love this girl for her larger-than-life, eccentric view of the world!

(Mahtab's note: I am a few months late posting this interview, but hey, on the bright side, we don't have to wait to read about Dini!)

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?

===Having to buy my own health insurance.

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
===Thanks to my friend and colleague Rita Williams-Garcia, and several other knitters at Vermont College residencies, I have taken up knitting! That's not the secret, as a hundred odd people saw me hauling yarn around campus in January. What no one knows is that it has become a necessity for me to knit while I'm working out knots in a story. The problem is that I can only knit rectangles and triangles. This is because I can't concentrate too much on the knitting. It needs to be a tool to help the story take shape, and if I focus on a pattern instead it just becomes a distraction. It turns out, fortunately, that you can do a lot with those two shapes so we'll see where it leads me.

Thank you, Uma. These were fun!

Q&Q Writer Series featuring Vikki Vansickle

Hey Friends,
After a long hiatus, the Q&Q series is back again, and today I'd like to introduce you to Vikki Vansickle. She is the Marketing & Publicity Manager at HarperCollins Canada (one of the many hats she wears) and will be launching her latest book Love Is A Four-Letter Word tomorrow, Sept 12, 2011 at the Breakout Studio on Bayview from 6.30 to 8.30 pm. Check out the fun activities planned on  FB.

This is a sequel to Words That Start with a B.

* Shortlisted for the 2011 CBA Libris Awards’ Children’s Book of the Year

* A Best Books for Kids and Teens selection, 2011

* Recommended List, IODE Violet Downey Book Award, 2011

Love her blog called Pipedreaming! Especially the line: Everything I need to know in life, I learned from children's literature.

And here are her answers to my quirky questions...or is it the other way around?

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?
Bookish

2) What is your deepest desire?
Happiness

3) Your greatest fear?
An office job.

4) Your favourite colour?
At the moment, hot pink.

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
A Whole New World from Disney's Aladdin

6) A movie that made you cry?
 My Girl

7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
 I only have one, but I think she's a beauty: Words That Start With B
9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
Waiting!

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
I have, in the past, read aloud to my cat.

Thanks, Vikki, and look forward to meeting you at the book launch!

Q&Q Writer Series featuring Rachna Gilmore

Hmmm, wondering what can I say about this latest guest on my blog which will adequately describe her warm, witty, intelligent, talented, fun-loving personality?

I give up. I think you better read it in her own words. Here is Rachna Gilmore, who has written everything from picture books to adult fiction. One of my favourites from her repertoire is A Screaming Kind of Day, the GG award winner in 1999!

Though I had been corresponding with Rachna for many months, I first met her in January this year when she attended OLA to promote her new book, That Boy Red. It was like discovering a kindred spirit. Here's a little bit about the book that is already garnering great reviews...

First came Anne Shirley–now meet Red MacRae


Eleven-year-old Roderick "Red" MacRae never has much spare time. It is the Depression and times are hard. When he isn’t at school, he’s helping Pa with chores on their P.E.I. farm or being nagged to do his homework by his older sister Ellen, who is also his teacher. Red tries to be responsible and help his family, but all too often he gives in to impulse – and lands himself in the midst of some hair-raising and hilarious misadventures involving runaway horses, cow dung, lost sisters, outhouses and even aeroplanes. But when Pa is seriously injured, Red must step up to the challenge to finish the tobacco caddies his father makes for credit at the local store. An episodic novel THAT BOY RED traces the coming of age of a resourceful, pig-headed young lad during a particularly difficult year, while celebrating the strength and spirit of a large, lively Canadian family living through the Depression.

And while you're browsing around, be sure to check out her blog; My Writerly Plarks. It's fun!
1) In one word, how would you describe your personality
One word? You ask a writer to restrict herself to one word? Besides, personality is contingent on circumstance, and weather...
Okay. Ahem.
Exuberant. That’s one word. But I have to say in February, when the light deprivation sets in, it’s more like Saggy. Or Trying, as in not-the-easiest-person-to-live-with and also trying hard not to be S. Otherwise, I’d also say Enthusiastic. Some would say annoyingly so. But what do they know?

2) What is your deepest desire?
Again, do I have to stick to one? Simply put, to be happy and centred, in the best sense possible. Which is a conglomeration of many factors. But one part of that is writing – writing from the place inside me that wants to create story, and not being caught up or distracted by the outcomes. Just being centred in the delight of story. In the white heat of that flow where time stands still. Oh, and to have a place by the ocean so I can write in-between long walks on the beach. Ahhh!
And then, having limitless chocolate to eat -- say a landscape of chocolate, or chocolate trees, or rivers of chocolate -- and no worries about weight gain would be pretty darn great, too.


3) Your greatest fear?
Being off centre and caught up in the illusions of life and the frenzy of life. Caught up in wasting more energy than I already do fantasizing about best sellers (mine!) etc. Snarled and knotted with needless worry. (Why bother, when there’s chocolate at hand?)

4) Your favourite colour?
Red. Not fire-engine red, but a deep, mellow red. Used to be blue. Oh, and on walls, yellow. Not shrieking, burn-your-eyes-right-outta-your-head yellow, but mellow yellow. Green’s pretty good too, in the garden...

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
"The hiiiiillllsss are aliiiiiiveeeee weeeth the sound of musiiiiiiick! WAH, wah, wah wahhhhhhh!"


6) A movie that made you cry?
Mmm. BEACHES. It’s sappy, manipulative, but the minute they start up with "Wind beneath my wings" I’m gone.

7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES. Read it squillions of time as a kid, when I lived in India, and got to know P.E.I. and love it. That book was one of the reasons I came to Canada and even lived in P.E.I.


8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
Come on. That’s like asking which of my kids is my favourite. Although, currently, perhaps Dilly. From THE TROUBLE WITH DILLY. Only because I’m not done writing about her. But I am, as we speak, plotting new stories with other kids, who will fill the slot of fave until they are pushed out of the nest as books.

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
The biz side of things. The endless erosion of quiet writing time. The increasing frenzy and pressure put upon writers to promote themselves. I’m a writer, for gawdsakes. I’d rather leave the publicity to the pros, but no, I guess I have to do my share. It’s distracting. It eats up slices of my brain that would be better off dreaming up stories. On the other hand, I’m trying to see this part of the biz as creative too. Still working at it. Oh, and I also hate making squat-all.

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
(Panic! Do I give away something AWFUL? Oh my gawd! Gleep.)
Ahem. How about: I love to garden? I’m indecisive?
No?
Okay, I confess. I AM AN ALEEEEANNNN from OUTER SPACE!!!!!!!!

Rachna, your answers were a hoot! Best wishes with your writing and thanks for dropping by.
PS: I looove Aliens!

Q&Q Writer Series featuring Lizann Flatt

So, back from Mumbai, a little tired but nevertheless ecstatic to have been back, and reconnected with family, friends and old haunts. Check out all my pictures on facebook.

But now to introduce the next writer in my Q&Q series, Lizann Flatt. She has written two fantastic books.

Bedtime Teeth appeared in Switching on the Moon, a poetry anthology by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters, published by Candlewick Press in September 2010.

Let's  Go! The Story of getting from There to Here was chosen as the TD Grade One Giveaway book for 2009.

She also voluteers as a regional adviser for the Canada East Chapter of SCBWI.  That takes a lot of committment and time!

Friends, here's Lizann Flatt...

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?
Reserved

2) What is your deepest desire?
Um.... (See above.)

3) Your greatest fear?
That would be ditto the above. I find it impossible to distill my thoughts and feelings into anything resembling a coherent answer for this type of question. But I could quip: liver.

4) Your favourite colour?
Yellow...usually.

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
"It's My Life." Mostly the Talk Talk version but I also like the one by No Doubt.

6) A movie that made you cry?
Almost all of them make me cry. Seriously. It's pathetic.

7) A book you have read more than five times?
Too many books I want to read to have read any one of them 5 times, but books I've read several times include the Lord of the Rings trilogy, most of L.M. Montgomery's books, Holes by Louis Sachar, and Kate DiCamillo's The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
Let's Go! The Story of Getting from There to Here.

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
The vast and ever-changing unknown of it all.

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
I would rather ask the questions than answer them. And my snack habits went to hell once Miss Vickie stopped using peanut oil.

Currently, Lizann is working on manuscripts on the War of 1812, the Islamic Empire, and a picture book involving nature and numbers. If all goes well they'll be books sometime in 2012.

Lizann, it was wonderful  reading your answers. Thank you for stopping by and  good luck!

Q&Q Writer Series featuring The Maestro

Ever since I read THE MAESTRO I've always wanted to meet the author, Tim Wynne-Jones. He has written over thirty books and they are all fantastic, compelling and worthy of very close study. Tim was also my mentor at the Humber School for Writers in 2008 and I had the pleasure of working with him for six months. It was a difficult time because Tim does not mince words, but I learned more about writing in those few months than I did on my own in four years.

Wise, witty, excruciatingly funny and above all, very supportive of emerging writers, his autobiographical sketch is a must read for all TWJ fans. It starts with "When I was three, I ran away from home with a tea cosy on my head..." How can you not read on after that opening line! All his books start with the same wonderful promise and never fail to deliver.

Tim is also a faculty member of the Vermont College of Fine Arts (MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults)

Among the lovable characters he's created over the years are Rex Zero in his trilogy by the same name, Mimi Shapiro in The Uninvited, and of course, Burl Crow in the Maestro. The list of awards is too long to mention but check it out here.

Tim's latest novel, BLINK AND CAUTION, is out on March 8, 2011 and has already garnered great reviews. I can't wait to get my own copy!

Here is Tim; the maestro, my mentor and friend;

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?

Surprised.

2) What is your deepest desire?
To walk around the coast of England with the ocean always on my left.

3) Your greatest fear?
Anything bad happening to my children.

4) Your favourite colour?
Teal, on Wednesdays and Fridays; whatever colour turmeric is, on Sundays; and Burgundy for about an hour on Monday morning.

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
Too many to mention. I grew up in a Welsh family and we all sing all the time. Right this minute I'm singing Stephen Sondheim's Finishing the Hat, but I'm only hearing it in my head.

6) A movie that made you cry?
Truly, Madly, Deeply.

7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?
So many...but I'd have to say The House at Pooh Corner.

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
Impossible to say: I might be pushed into acknowledging my three favourites: Zoom at Sea, Some of the Kinder Planets, and Rex Zero and the End of the World.

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
First drafts.

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
I'm still hoping to write one really good book.

Thank you for everything, Tim. And I have to disagree with you on answer ten!

Q&Q Writer Series featuring Monica Kulling

I met Monica Kulling at OLA 2010 and it was friendship at first sight! She was signing copies of All Aboard, Elijah McCoy's Steam Engine. An excellent book which I heard Monica read at Word on The Street Toronto last fall, bells, whistles and all.

Monica has published over 26 fiction and non-fiction titles for children which includes picture books, poetry and biographies. You can read about it on her website.

Her latest book, Merci Mr. Dash from Tundra received a great review from the CM Mag.

A gifted writer with two dogs and four cats who lives in TO. Need I say more...read on!

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?

Fun-loving.

2) What is your deepest desire?
To live pain free.

3) Your greatest fear?
Public speaking.

4) Your favourite colour?
Moss-green.

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
I’ve always loved to sing. I used to play guitar and even entertained the thought of writing songs and following Joni Mitchell on her world tours. Oh the foolishness of youth! These days I sing whenever I hear a great oldie. Yesterday it was These Eyes by the Guess Who.

6) A movie that made you cry?
Schindler’s List.

7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?
I was not a reader as a child, or even as an adult in my thirties. Consequently, I’m packing in a lot of reading now, but have yet to read one particular book five times. The writer who has influenced me the most is Virginia Woolf. Her daring and her skill always encourage me. She truly is a writer’s writer.

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
It’s true that the story one has just finished writing shines as the most perfect thing you’ve ever written, until it becomes a book. Don’t know why that is nor how that gorgeous piece of writing morphs into something completely ordinary. So I have two favorites: the story I finished last week about a grumpy girl who finds her smile, and It’s A Snap! George Eastman’s First Photograph because I love photography.

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
Not making a living salary.

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
I’m a fan of slapstick. I know … childish. But if you’re going to slip on a banana peel or walk face-first into a clean pane of glass, what am I to do? Or course, in real life, not REEL life, I’d help you out. But watching it on film cracks me up. Every time.

Q&Q Writer Series featuring Shane Peacock

I had the pleasure of meeting with the creator of The Boy Sherlock Holmes, Shane Peacock, at the TD Book Awards a couple of years ago. At the time I had not read any of Shane's work. All I knew was that he was a fellow nominee for the OLA Silver Birch Award.

Once I read Eye of the Crow, I was hooked by this brilliantly written novel. The action is immediate, the plot and pacing, superb and the denouement, heartbreaking. Since then, The Boy Sherlock Holmes has solved three more cases: Death in the Air, Vanishing Girl and the most recent, The Secret Fiend. Shane is the winner of numerous awards, all of which are listed on his website.

Shane is passionate about his writing and each word, line and paragraph contains that passion. Never a dull moment! In person, he is charming, warm and very generous with his time and advice.

Here is a glimpse into the mind of this exciting writer and creator of one of my favourite characters:

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?
Relentless.

2) What is your deepest desire?
To create great art and be a good father and husband at the same time.

3) Your greatest fear?
The death of one of my children or my wife.

4) Your favourite colour?
Red.

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da."

6) A movie that made you cry?
Dead Poets Society (though I dispute this!)
7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?
Oliver Twist.

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
"Eye of the Crow," the first of The Boy Sherlock Holmes series, about racism, prejudice and justice.
9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
Editing.

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
I like malls.

Thank you, Shane! Am thoroughly enjoying THE SECRET FIEND and look forward Sherlock's next case.

Q&Q Writer Series featuring Helaine Becker

Hello World...Happy New Year!

I'd like to start 2011 with the interview of a writer who is the epitome of quirky. She is also fun, vivacious, generous and a wonderful friend!

Here is Helaine Becker, a prolific writer who has won numerous awards and written a poem about panties :) I was almost ROFLMAO at one of her presentations when she recited it. Another masterpiece is called "Sleepwalker's Dilemma" from Mama Likes to Mambo. This poem is the first one I heard from her repetoire and remains my absolute favourite!

A few notable mentions within her oeuvre are the Looney Bay series, Are you Psychic, Boredom Blasters and Secret Agent Y.O.U. The last two are winners of the OLA Awards. Amazing books by an amazing writer. You can check out Helaine's blog too; informative and good for a giggle.

Friends, here she is;

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?
Passionate. Or loud. You can choose.


2) What is your deepest desire?
You mean only one???? Ok, my deepest desire is to help make the world a better place. And to have a school named after me, like Jean Little. Wouldn’t that be awesome????

3) Your greatest fear?
Being stranded on a desert island without chocolate.

4) Your favourite colour?
Pink. Preferably mixed with every other color in the rainbow, ala tie dye. I am also very partial to turquoise, the color of the Caribbean sea.


5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
I am a notorious singer alonger. My favorite for this purpose might be, Build Me Up Buttercup. Or anything by the Ramones. I love the Ramones. RAMONES!!!! That’s me screaming from the back of the bar, everytime.

6) A movie that made you cry?
The Blind Side. And the Bridge to Terabithia – I wept like a baby for hours after that one. And Up. And Toy Story 3, which I found totally absorbing and scary – I was instantly three again, while I was watching it, but then, watching the boy pack up for college? Well, my guy was leaving for his first year a few weeks later. I bawled like an idiot. My younger son, who I saw the movie with, had to keep patting me on the shoulder and telling me it would be all right.

7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?
People who know me well know I am obsessive about To Kill A Mockingbird. I also read all the Narnia books about a gazillion times when I was a kid, along with A Wrinkle in Time, Harriet the Spy, Are You there God? It’s Me Margaret, all the books by Edward Eager. I read tons as a kid, I loved reading more than just about anything back then, and still do. I guess that’s why I grew up to be a kids book writer – kids books are what I always loved best. Oh! And From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basi E. Frankweiler. I LOVE that book.

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
You mean in one of my books? Reese McSkittles, from the Looney Bay All Stars series. He’s based on my son Andrew. Here’s another one: Porcupine. He’s not a kid, but I’m also really crazy about the porcupine in my new picture book A Porcupine in a Pine Tree. Werner Zimmerman drew him, and gosh is he ever the cutest critter ever! I’m thinking of getting mugs made for my family with his picture on it as Xmas presents. I’ve also written a character called Dakota in my current WIP, Trouble in the Hills. He’s a really obnoxious bad boy teenager, and I really really like him. He’s got a mouth the size of Manitoba, and a foot to fit in it that’s nearly as big.

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
Having to write. It’s hard. I like coming up with the ideas, figuring it all out. But then the hard slog of sitting down and putting fingers to the keyboard. Argh! Sometimes the words come out fast and easy, but mostly it’s a struggle. And it interferes with my time to get together and talk about books with my friends.


10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
I am nervous around grownups.

Thank you, Helaine!