Sometimes events in a writer’s life directly lead to a story idea. In the case of JUST JUICE, my family purchased a house we very much admired but could not have afforded at full price. The house had come on the market because the owner owed a significant amount in unpaid taxes. We paid their taxes and “owned” the house with the real owners for eleven months. During that time I imagined what it would be like to live in that house. I also imagined what it would be like to be the real owners looking at the prospect of losing their home. In the final weeks of that year in which we both “owned” the house, the real owners finally paid their back taxes, we were refunded our money, and we never stepped foot inside the house. I was full of regret. But I was also relieved for the home owners who did not have to surrender their home. JUST JUICE grew out of that experience.

That is the story I read in a newspaper published in the 1940s while doing research for ALEUTIAN SPARROW. I don’t believe the “cat” technique was used often. In fact I’m not 100 percent certain this attempt to distract the guards and get food and medicine into the Warsaw Ghetto actually happened at all since I never came across the story in any other place.  But it was such an ingenious idea and so uplifting that it inspired THE CATS IN KRASINSKI SQUARE. Perhaps this event never really occurred, or perhaps it did not occur exactly the way it was related in the newspaper article, but it seemed to me it spoke so beautifully of the human spirit and in this case that was truth enough for me.

I love this question, Emma. I sometimes first envision a book as a shining, shimmering castle on a distant hill. It is my greatest longing to recreate that vision so that not only I can inhabit it, but you, as my reader, can, too. The castle always appears the same: distant, sparkling, ethereal. There is never anything menacing about it. But I ache with yearning as I gaze at it in the distance.

We are told by psychologists that when we dream of  a house we are really dreaming of our inner selves. Perhaps the castle I see in my vision is some sort of waking dream.

When I’m writing I enter an alternate reality, going deep within myself so that I am not aware of the physical act of making a book; I am inhabiting a reality separate from the one my body occupies. It is an extraordinary experience. One that I’ve repeated over and over  because of how deeply satisfying it is.

I’m not certain this comes close to answering your question, Emma, but I think it might come close to answering one of mine.

I often take two years to complete a novel. OUT OF THE DUST took two years. PHOENIX RISING, two years. BROOKLYN BRIDGE, two years, too.

THE MUSIC OF DOLPHINS is also in the “two year” club.

I spend about a year doing research, another year writing and revising.

And no, I do not do the work on a deserted island under a palm tree. Most of the time I labor away in a tiny office in Vermont.

I’m not certain how to answer this.

When we are very young we take many things seriously only to be patted on the head by the adults around us. When I was very young I took writing seriously. But the adults in my family were gently (and sometimes not so gently) dismissive. So I stopped sharing my writing rather than suffer the embarrassment of having my deepest inner thoughts become the subject of family ridicule.

I began sharing my writing again in high school because of an understanding and supportive English teacher named Robert Corrigan. If not for the support of teachers like Mr. Corrigan it’s possible I would never have become a published author.

And even so, it took another twenty-five years  before an editor took my writing for children seriously enough to publish it. That editor was Brenda Bowen. Thank you, dear Brenda.

1. When it comes to writing, poetry was my first love. I started writing poems as a very young girl. Often my books begin as poems and evolve over the long writing process into prose.

2. In my attempt to convey to the reader what it might have been like to live under such challenging conditions, I thought poetry might be an ideal way to subtly key the reader into the importance of every word and every action. It felt essential to cut out anything extraneous, to include only what was absolutely necessary to tell this story and give it a lean but credible shape.

This book tested my emerging skills as a writer. All the research I’d done was dry. My aunt told me her tales from the point of view of a 78 year old. How could I translate everything I’d learned into young Rifka’s voice?

I started LETTERS FROM RIFKA over at least a half dozen times. Each time I read the “new” first chapter to my critique group they would say, “Yes, this is good, keep going.” But reading the chapter aloud, I knew it still wasn’t right.

I felt so frustrated…I’d spent so much time preparing to write this book, learning about the early part of the 20th century in the U.S. and Europe, reading up on the economics,the  politics, the culture of the time…but I couldn’t figure out how to relate all of that material credibly,  in the voice of a twelve year old.

Finally, I put the question to myself before going to bed one night…”How do I write this book?”

When I woke the next morning the answer came to me. Letters! Make it an epistolary novel!

As soon as I wrote, “Dear Tovah…” I knew I had found my way into the book.

I am asked for a sequel to LETTERS FROM RIFKA more often than any other book I’ve published. And I have been tempted at times to give it a try. But the reality is I have said everything that needed to be said about Rifka in the one book. A sequel would, in the end, most likely disappoint you. Even though “Rifka” might have gone on to live a fascinating life, it was her transition from the Old World to the New World, her transition from childhood to adolescence, her transition from being nurtured to nurturing others that truly interested me which is why it is the part of her life I chose to write about. A sequel might be entertaining, diverting, but I’m not certain it would be compelling enough to win your hearts in the way they deserve to be won. But I thank you for wanting a sequel from the depths of my heart.

I don’t believe I had a real nickname as a child. But my family has affectionately called me “fog” over the years because, I think, sometimes I’m not entirely visible to them.

Many years ago my family bought this house by paying the back taxes on it. The family living in this house had exactly a year to catch up on their delinquent taxes.

They managed to pay back everything they owed  in the eleventh month. The money we’d paid for the house was returned to us, and the original owners remained in possession of their home.

They later sold the property to someone else and you can see the new owners had several construction projects going on when I drove past. During the eleven months we “owned” this house I would drive by often…I was, indeed, the lady in the red car.

I love this house though I’ve never stepped foot inside it. I did however get a very nice book out of the experience.