My Story
I’ve written five novels for young readers, all published by Knopf Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House.
How did this amazing thing happen to a child like me?
First, a bit of backstory.
I was a young person who stuttered. My words didn’t come out right and they got all jumbled up and blocked up and speaking was very difficult for me.
The hardest thing was saying my name and I couldn’t do it and so I stayed silent. I was teased and I tried to pretend that it didn't bother me. Sometimes I laughed along because I didn’t know what else to do about the kids who would mimic me.
Sometimes, I hid. Even adults would say things like slow down, relax, take a breath, or sometimes they’d say: "What’s wrong, don’t you know you own name?" Or they’d look away, embarrassed, and that was the worst of all.
I was incredibly shy and more than anything I wanted to hide. I turned to books to find strong characters who could survive, no matter what hurdles stood in front of them. I had no idea at the time what an incredible and wonderful miracle they would become in my life, but it wasn’t long before they were as important to me as breathing. Books were the first miracle in my life.
I realized books made me stronger and my life better. And do you know what happens when you read a lot of books? Sometimes you start thinking, I would like to do that, I would like to write a book! And that’s just what happened to me, and that became the second amazing and wonderful miracle in my life. I found that when I wrote I was happy and peaceful and my heart soared.
Suddenly, by the time I was in the sixth grade, I had a voice!
I let my pen do the talking for me!
I started writing ALL THE TIME!
And teachers became the third miracle in my life. They noticed my writing and said I was talented, and they pushed me and encouraged me and believed in me. They showed me that my stuttering did not determine my future. With hard work, I could choose my own destiny. And I decided it would be writing.
My first published work was in a national church paper. It was a anti-war poem. By the time I was 19 and a student in college, I was getting paid for my newspaper writing. I was a journalist for the next 20 years, much of that time as an education writer. I kept Charlotte’s Web on my desk because E.B. White’s prose is so beautiful.
I tell this story to young readers today because it seems we all have some sort of adversity to confront – for some it is on the outside for all to see, for others it is more interior. But we all have something. It seems to be universal. It is part of what makes us human.
I was able to climb mountains with the love and support of my family, from great books, and, a pen.
In writing I found the magic that fixes things.
And, I haven’t stopped.
