Avi

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I started every book

After a cou­ple of my books were nom­i­nat­ed for the Mys­tery Writ­ers of America’s juve­nile award, I was asked to be a judge. I accept­ed and what hap­pened was, I thought, fas­ci­nat­ing. And bewil­der­ing. The judg­ing went this way:  Five judges were cho­sen. I didn’t know them, and nev­er met them. Anoth­er writer was functioning

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The best writing I’ve ever done

What’s my best piece of writ­ing? I lost it. In a com­put­er. Into the ethers. And I don’t know why. But I am sure it was the best writ­ing I ever did. But be assured, I am not the only writer who has expe­ri­enced this. I am a very fast (and slop­py) typ­ist. I am also,

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Animal stories

There are many of us who write sto­ries with ani­mals as their chief pro­tag­o­nist. I’ve just pub­lished Old Wolf, and there are nov­els like The Good Dog, and the Pop­py books. All of these books, and oth­ers by oth­er writ­ers (like my favorite, The Wind in the Wil­lows) are anthro­po­mor­phic sto­ries, with a vari­ety of

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Advice to Aspiring Writers

Avi_Advice for Aspir­ing Writ­ers from Mackin Edu­ca­tion­al Resources on Vimeo. Thanks to Mack­in­Via for this excerpt from a longer inter­view I did with them recent­ly. You can view more of Mack­in’s videos here. 

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Illuminating fiction

A young read­er recent­ly wrote to me: “We [my sixth grade] thought your book [Nev­er Mind] was real­ly good, but at times it was hard to imag­ine. If it was made into a movie we could visu­al­ize the char­ac­ters bet­ter and how they react­ed. For exam­ple, Har­ry Pot­ter is a series of books that were turned

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Learning about awards

It is excit­ing to have my new nov­el, Catch You Lat­er, Trai­tor short-list­ed for the Edgar, the Mys­tery Writ­ers of Amer­i­ca award for the best mys­tery for young read­ers, 2015. It was in 1975 that my first nov­el, No More Mag­ic, was sim­i­lar­ly nom­i­nat­ed. Much younger, to be sure, I did not quite know what to

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In translation

The True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle was pub­lished in 1990. This means that it has been around for twen­­ty-five years. Over the years it has been trans­lat­ed into many lan­guages. Now I have got­ten word that it is about to be pub­lished in Roma­nia. When these trans­la­tions hap­pen, I’m nev­er told why, what brought on

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Saying goodbye

Hav­ing just fin­ished a book, I am filled, as I often am, with sad­ness. I quick sur­vey of writ­ing friends tells me this is a com­mon phe­nom­e­non. “Why?” I asked. “Because you have lived with your char­ac­ters so long, and now you have to say good­bye. You are say­ing good­bye to dear friends.” I wrote

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Sending the Manuscript Out Into the World

There is some­thing of a rit­u­al in my writer’s life when I fin­ish a first, read­able draft of a new nov­el. I read the book to my wife, Lin­da. This is not a sim­ple mat­ter. The read­ing is a mul­ti-day activ­i­ty, dur­ing which time I will read as many as fifty pages at a time,

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A Library’s Festival of Writers

A few week­ends ago I attend­ed a library event such as I have nev­er been to before. Love­land (Col­orado) Pub­lic Library offered a one-day fes­ti­val of local writ­ers. All kinds of writ­ers were there: those who self-pub­­lished, those who work with tra­di­tion­al pub­lish­ers, blog writ­ers, writ­ers who work with small press­es and inde­pen­dent pub­lish­ers. The point

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