What is your best book?
My best book is the one YOU enjoy the most.
Did I base the character Crispin in my Crispon Books, on a real person?
Crispin is an invention of my own thoughts. But he came to life because I read many books about the time in which he lived.
How can I become a writer?
I believe the best way to become a writer is to read a lot of books, books you really enjoy.
If you could describe yourself as a line, would you be curvey? Straight? Zig-zag?
I think I’m mostly a straight line, but perhaps here and there a curve, and a zig-zag, and mabe a few dots . . .
Why don’t you make a movie of the Poppy books?
While I would enjoy having a movie made of the Poppy books, I can’t do it. I am a writer, not a film maker. Film making is a skill that’s very different than writing. It also takes a whole lot of money, and many people. One of the things I like about writing, is that I can do it alone, and it doesn’t cost much.
How do you find so much detail in the books you write?
I do a great deal of research for my books. For the most part that means I read a lot about the place and history where and when my story takes place. Sometimes it means going somewhere to do research. I did that for the Crispin books when I traveled both to England and France. Sometimes I visit museums (True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle). Sometimes it comes out of my own experience, such as when I had a photographic darkroom. That helped me write Seer of Shadows. It can even happen that I lived in a house where a story takes place, as in Something Upstairs.
What’s the hardest part of being a writer?
Writing is hard for everyone. And I mean everyone. That certainly includes me. And the hardest part of writing is making what you write–which is hard to begin with–really good.
What is your favorite book that you have written?
The next book.
THE GOOD DOG takes place in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Did you ever live there?
My family rented a tiny little house in Steamboat so that my boys could ski and snowboard. That’s where I got the idea to write THE GOOD DOG because there were almost more dogs there than people. Those dogs just went about their business, but I never saw dog that skied.
When you were young did you ever know that someday you would be a writer?
When I was young I read a lot of books but I never imagined I would be a writer. Didn’t even think about it. I don’t think I was aware that I knew any writers. But in fact, my grandmother was a writer!