with Lois Lowry

Mel is Mel Boring, moderator of this interview with Lois Lowry and web editor of the ICL Web Site.

Mel: Hello, and welcome to the ICL Chat Room! Lois Lowry truly needs no introduction to anyone connected with children's books because her name is a household word in children's writing circles. But I feel very privileged to introduce Lois this evening. The awards she has won for her writing for children tell only part of the full story of her writing. She first published with A Summer to Die in 1978, and since then has added more than 30 books to her credits. But just to say "books" does not justly describe Lois Lowry's writing achievements. For her books have covered many more genres than the usual one or few that most children's writers connect with. Soon after Lois's most touching A Summer to Die, she began one of the longest and most successful book series for young readers, about Anastasia Krupnik. Anastasia is a most read and delighted-in teen by young readers; and the rich humor of that series is STILL funny and fun to read for both youngsters and oldsters. Lois Lowry's trilogy of The Giver, Gathering Blue and Messenger demonstrates how just one category could never contain Lois's writing, for they have been classified as both science fiction and fantasy by booksellers. For all genres of books and all ages and walks of people, we are fortunate to have Lois Lowry here tonight. Welcome, Lois!

Lois: Thanks, Mel. And hi, everyone. It's very cold where I am!

Mel: YIKES--good thing we're in the warm chat room! Were there any other writers in your family of origin, Lois, or were you the first?

Lois: No, there weren't any other writers. My dad was a dental surgeon, my mom a kindergarten teacher before she married. But she, in particular, came from a family that valued literature. Our house was always filled with books. She read to us when we were young. And read, and read. That's a great way to grow up! At Christmas we always got books!

Mel: Did YOU write as a child growing up, or did that wait until you had grown up? (If we children's writers EVER grow up!)

Lois: I began to write…very privately; it was a solitary thing....when I was 8 or 9. Schools didn't pay much attention to the craft of creative writing then so I never had an opportunity to LEARN writing when I was young; not till high school. But in a way I think the solitude of it was valuable for me. (As you can see, I never learned to type, though! J )

Mel: Did that solitude provide you with a kind of "quiet of writing space" later?

Lois: I still am a solitary writer. I have friends who belong to writers' groups, close friends, like Phyllis Naylor. And they actually read their work to each other. I could never do that.

Mel: You're making some of us feel WONDERFUL, Lois!

Lois: You too? Another solitary guy?

Mel: Yes, a solitary guy! Some of us are solitary people, I think, and have never been able to do writers’ groups either—thanks for the support!

Lois: Though I should add that my space always feels well-populated with fictional people, who become so real that they seem like a group to me.

Mel: Let's fast-forward a bit. I once heard you speak about your life before becoming a writer. Particularly I remember you telling about ironing all those frilly ruffles on your daughter’s dresses. I would love to hear that story again, and I know others would like it, too. It had something to do with the great changes you made in becoming a writer.

Lois: Oh gosh, let me think. It had to do with the way people's perceptions differ.

Mel: Yes, that too!

Lois: It was back in the days when girls wore dresses to school. And moms (moi) ironed them. My daughter—she was maybe 10—came through the laundry room and I handed her, on hangers, maybe five freshly ironed dresses to take up to her room. Later I was upstairs, walked past her bedroom and she was on the bed, reading—and the freshly ironed dresses were a crumpled heap on the floor. I was so outraged that I picked one up (angrily). It slipped from its wire hanger and I swatted her backside with the hanger (through denim jeans, I might add). Many years later, I asked her if she remembered that incident. Maybe by then she was a mom and we were talking about how annoying kids can be at times, and she replied: "Remember it? How could I forget the time my own mother beat me around the head and shoulders with a wooden coat hanger???" Well!!! Let me hasten to add that I had NOT! But memory is so subjective and what she remembered, really, was her usually gentle mother becoming furious. And it had magnified in her mind. Oh, sorry, I was going on and on. I do that when I write, as well.

Mel: GOOD, so do most of us! I think that particular story stayed with me because it seemed to speak of what a change had to come about, how HARD it was for you to become a children's writer. WAS it difficult for you?

Lois: It was not difficult for me to become a writer for young people. I was already a writer. But it took me by surprise. I had not planned on writing for kids. It took an editor to see that I should do that, and to point that out to me.

Mel: You say you were already a writer. What KIND of writing did you do before you wrote for children, Lois?

Lois: I was a working journalist and photographer writing for magazines and newspapers. Then I published an adult story in an adult magazine, but it was about a child, and through the child's perceptions. And a children's book editor contacted me and asked me to writer a book for young people. That was my first book, A Summer to Die. I used a real-life experience, and fictionalized it.

Mel: WHAT made you able to write so perceptively about a 13'er facing the death of her older sister?

Lois: I had been there. My own sister, 3 years older, my arch-enemy, best friend, sidekick, partner in many a crime, had died of cancer. I had told the story of her life and death over and over to myself, so when I was asked to write a book, it felt like the right subject. I changed many things, of course, but the emotions are true to my memory.

Mel: What a POWERFUL real-life background—and now we know WHY that book is so powerful!

Lois: You know, it is still in print after all these years, and I still hear from kids about it. I looked at it recently and realized that the father in the book uses a typewriter. Now that's obsolete, of course.

Mel: I've found it HARD to believe A Summer to Die was a first novel--now I can understand why it was such a successful first novel!

Lois: thank you. I think that's true, that the book worked because it called on true and powerful feelings.

Lois: You know, as we speak, I have been working on a short story that I promised a publisher for an anthology, and it is very hard. You have to distill and distill, and select and select—no room for discursiveness.

twisted: Do the words flow for you or do you sometimes struggle?

Lois: Well, I guess both. More flowing than struggling. But both are necessary, I think. Sometimes flowing is deceptive, makes you think you got it right and you usually haven't. THEN you struggle, in revising.

Mel: You mentioned writing a short story. Did you write any magazine pieces before tackling your first book project?

Lois: Oh, I wrote MANY magazine articles. But not for kids. I once wrote a piece on the quiz show Jeopardy for the New York Times and went on the show and humiliatingly lost (but not badly). It made a funny article.

Mel: LOL! Lois, you went from those very serious first two books, A Summer to Die, and Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye, to the very funny series of books about Anastasia Krupnik—or at least that seems to be what you did. How did it come about that you came up with a humorous series of books after such serious books?

Lois: The third book I wrote was not the third published. It was a book called Autumn Street, also from my own experience, also a set of tragic events in my childhood. The publisher was reluctant to follow two very serious books with Autumn Street. So they held it back and I wrote Anastasia Krupnik, a very light-hearted book (though with some serious themes). Then they published Autumn Street after that, and it remains my favorite, I think, of my books.

Mel: Why is Autumn Street your favorite, Lois?

Lois: I think primarily because it is about people I loved, who are all now gone, and because I was allowed to use an adult voice, and adult language, though the main character (me) is very young. I should not have said "allowed," implying that my publisher restricts me in any way. They are so good that way. I've been lucky to have a wonderful publisher and editor all along. And they pretty much let me do what I want.

Mel: Was Find A Stranger, Say Goodbye at all autobiographical?

Lois: No. It's about adoption, and I was not adopted, nor were my kids. But I had friends who adopted children, and at that time (1978) it was very early in the movement to seek out biological parents. So the book deals with that, and is almost like a mystery story.

Mel: Can you tell us about your own children, please?

Lois: I had four children before I was 25. Gulp! Girl, boy, girl, boy—all in four and a half years. Aren't I the creative one??!!!

Mel: Yes!

Lois: My oldest child became a computer engineer, then an artist, and I just heard from her today that she is applying to graduate school in criminal justice (this is after doing the same in economics). My older son became an air force pilot and sadly has been killed in an F-15. My younger son is a lawyer, and my younger daughter runs a small business. They are all smart and interesting people but not one of them wanted to be a writer.

woolwoman: What words of wisdom do you have for a beginning writer?

Lois: Hi, woolwoman. Great name (I'm a knitter). I am completely devoid of wisdom, I'm afraid. When I was little, there was a children's magazine called Wee Wisdom.

Mel: I remember that magazine.

Lois: I never liked it. Maybe the thought of wisdom is a little overwhelming to me. Writing is hard work, and fun, and requires you to keep your backside in a chair when you would sometimes like to put it elsewhere. So the only wisdom is the advice to keep at it, I guess.

paulplqn: Lois, who edits your work? You or someone else?

Lois: I write a book. Then I revise it, on my own. Then I give it to my editor. He often (not always, but usually) suggests some changes. So I go back and revise, taking his suggestions into consideration. None of that is "editing," really. The editing, line by line, is done later, when the book is in the process of publication, by a copy editor. An e-mail from my editor saying, "Chapter 4 is boring" (sorry, Mel) is the kind of editing he does.

Mel: Ha! Love it! My name in fame! Does it happen, now that you're so oft-published, Lois, that your editor can’t wait for your next book, knowing it will be good?

Lois: I doubt if he feels that he knows it will be good. I think he HOPES it will be. But neither he nor I KNOW that. Each book is a whole new enterprise, a whole new set of problems, especially because I do different KINDS of books, and for different ages. So nothing is taken for granted. I re-invent the wheel, I think, again and again.

msp: How do you create such multi-dimensional characters?

Lois: I assume you mean the main characters. They are the ones I spend the time on, of course. What happens is, they become very real to me. As if they are in the room with me, in my life, living in my house, and I get to know them well. So I simply write what I have become familiar with. The characters seem so REAL to me that I simply write what they have become, and they have become multi-dimensional. At least I hope so, by the time I have them confined in a book.

seymour64: Hi Lois! My 3rd grade daughter is in a novel reading group. They are half way through Number the Stars. Do you have any comments for them? The kids will be so excited to get a message from you!

Lois: Oh, nice! You can tell them that they are reading a book that is now in 24 languages, so they are reading the same book as children in China and Israel and countless other places. And they are all hearing, I think, a very important story about things that really happened.

Mel: Lois, seymour64 and those 3^rd-graders and I ALL would like to know WHAT the real-life story was that Number the Stars is based on, that inspired you to write that book.

Lois: Denmark surrendered to Germany, and was occupied by the Nazis, during World War II. In the fall of 1943, Nazi headquarters ordered the taking of the Danish Jews. There were about 7,000 Jews living in Denmark. A large cargo ship was brought to Copenhagen harbor, to transport them to Germany and to concentration camps. And on the last weekend of September, the Nazis went to round up the Jewish population and couldn't find anyone. They had all been hidden by the Christian population, and they were secretly moved by small boats to Sweden, which was still free. So the Danish Jews survived the war. Number the Stars tells the story through the eyes of a child whose parents participate in the rescue.

Mel: What an amazing real-life story!

Lois: Yes, and an important one for the world to know, I think. I did a lot of research and found so many real-life accounts and details. It was hard not to be able to use them all. It was tough selecting what to put in.

Mel: What I SEEM to be hearing you saying in many ways is that REAL stories kind of pull you into writing them?

Lois: The strange thing is that all stories, even those that are pure fiction, SEEM real to me. The people—the ones I make up—become real people to me, they populate my thoughts. You know, when I create a character, most often the character himself, or herself tells me his (or her) name. It's very magical, in a way. I begin to see a character in my mind, usually in a PLACE, like the girl in Gathering Blue. I saw her in that desolate field and I knew her name, as clearly as if she had introduced herself to me. In the book The Silent Boy I started with a photograph of an unknown boy, a photo taken in 1911. He stared at me for some months. And then he told me, not only his name but his story. I simply wrote it down. But also I knew that he couldn't speak. And so I had to find the one who would tell his story. And I created a little girl.

Mel: WOW, it makes me tingle just to hear that!

Boo Boo: Once you have your rough draft down, what does your revision process usually look like? How many revisions do you do? Is each revision dedicated to a certain part of your story like "theme" or "dialogue" and if so, what are some of these specific revisions?

Lois: Hmmmm. I think my revisions deal more with structure and continuity. Not theme. Theme is there and clear from the start. Dialogue I fiddle with a bit, perhaps. But the main thing I work on second time around is structure. What follows from what? And should this go BEFORE that? And if so, how can I make it connect up? By the middle of a book (though I write it through from start to finish) things have become complex and intertwined. So when I go back, after the first writing, I work on making those connections clear and believable. Does that make sense to you?

Mel: Yes! It's a very fresh explanation like I've never heard!

guessit: I have read nearly every single one of your books, and I'm amazed by your ability to write in so many different styles! The Anastasia books and The Giver could've been written by two different authors. What's the trick?

Lois: My schizoid personality?, ho ho. I don't know. I just like to move from one thing to another. I never cook the same thing for dinner twice in the same month. But I should add that I don't work on more than one book at a time. I might have other ideas simmering, but I finish one, then pick up the next.

msp: Do you prefer to write fantasy or contemporary stories?

Lois: Hmmm. Hard to answer. A few years ago I would have answered contemporary. But now that I've done, and loved doing, the trilogy, that genre has become very appealing. I'm wondering whether I might combine the two but don't know yet if I'll try that.

Mel: Lois, when you wrote first The Giver, did you have trilogy in mind?

Lois: No, not at all. I thought of that as one book, period. But as you probably know, the ending was ambiguous, and a lot of readers wanted the ending clarified. And at the same time, the girl in the desolate field began to appear in my imagination. I didn't know who or where she was, at first. Then I perceived that she could be, in a way, a continuation of The Giver. And after the second book there was no way I could relinquish the little boy named Matt. I loved him, so he was the obvious protagonist for a third book.

Mel: So, though it may sound trite, "one thing led to another" in that trilogy?

Lois: Yes, and people are now asking for a fourth. But I kind of feel as if the three are enough.

msp: In your mind, did Jonas and Gabe die at the end of The Giver?

Lois: No, I always thought of them as alive someplace. I didn't know where, until I began to write the ending of the second book. Then I could see where they were, and it became the setting for the third book.

Lois: No, I didn't. But interestingly, fairly recently there was a piece on, I think, 20/20 about a teenage girl who had fled abuse in an Amish community. And I have just heard from her teacher (she is living with a foster family now) that she is fascinated by The Giver, which she is reading in school, and sees such a connection to her own past. But I have also heard from many people who have fled cults, and also from a group of Trappist monks. So people from many different backgrounds relate to that book.

Mel: INTERESTING sidelights!

GooneyBird: The Giver seemed to me to be such a flawless story. How many edits do you generally put your work through before sending a manuscript to a publisher? Then how drastically are they edited after acceptance?

Lois: I gave the manuscript of The Giver to the publisher without revision. It was so different from my previous books that, instead of just one editor reading it, three did. Then each wrote a letter, with the questions they had. And I rewrote the book, addressing their questions. Some were small things, others larger. The character of Rosemary first appeared in the rewrite. The letters from those editors, incidentally, are in the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota.

GooneyBird: Did you have a favorite book when you were younger, Lois?

Lois: My favorite book was the one read to me by my mother when I was eight: The Yearling. It was the first time I was viscerally affected. The book made my mother weep while she read, and it made me aware of what a book could do, and how it could affect a reader. I've never forgotten that evening she read the book to me.

Mel: Were you viscerally affected by The Yearling because you loved animals, Lois, or was it just the way that 1938 Pulitzer Prize winner is written?

Lois: It was the writing. The characters were so real to me and they were so hurt by things. I had never read a book in which characters suffered. Not in Nancy Drew. Or Cherry Ames. And suddenly here was a family that seemed so real (and the book was written so beautifully, though I didn’t know that then) and tragic things happened in their lives, and they weathered those things, and went on. It was a revelation to me.

Mel: Do you think you've always had a special ability to identify with hurt people?

Lois: Well, I don't want to make myself sound like some sort of morbid character. But it's fair to say that I easily identify with people, fictional or otherwise, suffering or otherwise. It's why I love to read. AND write.

tach: Are you emotional when writing an emotional scene?

Lois: Emotional, yes. Maudlin, no. It was hard to write the scene in Autumn Street where the child Charles is killed. Because that had been a real child.

Mel: I can see tonight, I believe, that it's your ability to be emotional, but to stop short of maudlin, Lois, that has made you so successful. Sometimes writers for children don’t stop short of maudlin, I think.

Lois: I hope I stop short of maudlin. EMPATHY, I think, is what a writer needs, for characters.

woolwoman: What books inspired you to write?

Lois: Well, I mentioned The Yearling, certainly an early inspiration. Also, while still a kid, I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. A librarian called my mom when I checked it out at age 11, told her I had taken out an unsuitable book. My mom asked to see what book I'd brought home, looked at it, laughed, and gave it back to me.

Mel: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn makes me ask, were you a city kid growing up?

Lois: I was born in Hawaii, left there at age 3 for New York. But when the war began, my father had to go overseas (he was an army officer) so my mom took me and my sister (and my mom was pregnant) back to the small town where she had grown up. And so I spent my formative, elementary school years in a small college town. Then we moved to Tokyo for junior high. So I got a taste of many different lives.

msp: Do you ever get any rejections anymore?

Lois: The same publisher has published all the books I've written. Some years back, though, I did a picture book text that they turned down. I still think they were wrong. Hmmpphh!

Mel: Speaking of picture-type books, you wrote a picture story book about your dog, didn't you? Tell us about that.

Lois: No, you got it wrong, Mel. It's a novel, written in a dog's voice, and illustrated. But it's a full-length novel: Stay! Keeper's Story. I LOVE that book, but it has never really found an audience and I think I know why. The illustrations are terrific, but they make the book appear to be for a youngish age, and it isn't. The voice is very sophisticated, somewhat Dickensian. So a young kid, attracted to the pictures, won't like the text. And the older person won't pick it up because the illustrations are deceptive. But take my word for it. It’s a really neat book.

Mel: GREAT analysis! And I think the book is neat too!

g_logger: Hi, Mel, Ms. Lowry, and gang. Ms. Lowry, it is a pleasure to have you with us. Thank you. I went and bought Number the Stars and can understand why it won a Newbery Award.

Lois: Oh, thank you. The Newbery was a complete surprise. The book had gotten good reviews, but had not had the kind of buzz that sometimes happens. So I was astonished when they called me about the award, and thrilled, of course.

Mel: Lois, what is that "buzz" you speak of that most of us writers haven't ever experienced, probably?

Lois: Well, often there is a lot of talk among librarians in particular about what book they expect to win the Newbery, and a magazine called Publishers Weekly always announces what book THEY expect to win. So people are always watching those titles.

Lois: It happened with The Giver.

Mel: But not with Number the Stars?

Lois: No. And not this year's either. This year’s winner, Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata, was a total surprise, which is kind of nice. Last year's—The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo—was not a surprise. Everyone predicted it. And Holes by Louis Sachar in 1999, everyone knew Holes would win. How could it not???

Mel: Tell us what it was like when you were first were called about winning the Newbery with Number the Stars, please.

Lois: Well, it's always announced in January. I was at my desk, in Boston, and it was snowing, and the phone rang. It was the committee on a speaker phone, and they told me. I was kind of confused at first and said a lot of things like "Who?" "What?" So I probably sounded very dumb.

Mel: I can’t imagine you sounding dumb!

Lois: But it certainly was true, and when it sank in, a thrill. Then the year The Giver was published, as I said, everyone was predicting it. And I did NOT want to be sitting by the phone when the committee met. So I went on a VERY LONG trip. And they couldn't find me, and I didn't get to receive the call. I was in Antarctica.

Mel: Then did you find out in Antarctica?

Lois: Yes, finally my publisher radioed the boat I was on. Then I couldn't call my kids, darn it!

Mel: Did you tell ANYone, then?

Lois: I told an absolute stranger. I showed her the radiogram, and said, "You have probably never heard of the Newbery Award."

Lois: She looked at it and said, "I'm the past president of the American Library Association." So I couldn't have chosen a more perfect stranger, since the American Library Association awards the Newbery.

Mel: What a SUPER coincidence!

Lois: One of the really nice things that also happened that year was that the Caldecott Medal went to Allen Say for his Grandfather’s Journey. He and I have the same editor, but more than that, we are the same age (born in 1937). And when I was eleven, and he was eleven, we lived near each other but never spoke because he was Japanese and I was American (this was in Tokyo). I used to ride my bike past his school. Years later when he and I were at the Newbery/Caldecott Awards dinner—now we were both what, 50-something? We both spoke, and he said: "Were you the girl on the green bike?" And I got to say "My friend" to him in Japanese, after all those years, and now we are still close friends.

Lois: I seat myself at my desk. Sometimes it's hard. But just being there, in this seat, is an incentive. READING is an incentive, too. Reading good writing makes me want to go to work. And too, I try to stop each day at a point when I'm inspired and excited. So it's easy to go back to it.

adele: Can you tell us a little more about your writing process?

Lois: I'm afraid it's mostly intuitive and therefore hard to describe. I start a book with a character, a situation, and very soon a feeling that I know the ending. But from that beginning, I simply work by imagination. Plodding along. New characters appear when they want to. I have to fit them in, or send them away sometimes. The hardest part, for me, is making everything connect, and move toward the destination. And as it goes along, aiming there, the book becomes crowded with secondary characters and plots. That's the hardest part for me, the middle, maybe 2/3 of the way along. But I try to keep the destination in view. I revise as I go, little by little, but I keep going. And then, at the end, I print it out. It reads differently, for me, printed. And I also read it aloud to myself, listening for the flow of language, or more importantly, for the failure-to-flow. I mark the printed pages. THEN I revise. I usually give that second draft to the publisher. Then I incorporate the editor's suggestions into it, and that's the final draft. The whole process is maybe six months, and I love every part of it.

GooneyBird herSELF: Where do you get ideas for humorous stories like Gooney Bird Greene? Was the main character in this book based on any real people you know?

Lois: I was a very shy, introverted child. I also skipped second grade. So I created her to be what I wasn't, a self-confident second grader. There's a sequel coming out soon. She is not based on a real child, but the child I wanted to be, myself.

Lois: back again. Where were we?

Mel: Welcome back, Lois! I’m SORRY you keep getting bumped out of the chat room!

Lois: Can you picture me flying though the air, in and out of the computer? LOL!

Mel: You can fly, you can fly, you can fly! J Before you flew away, mia was asking where the idea for The Giver came from.

Mel: I must say that your speeches at your web site read like WORDS in REAL LIFE, Lois!

csandvik: How do we find out about your future speaking engagements?

csandvik: Where and when in Detroit did you speak?

Lois: Berkely High School Auditorium, (in Oak Park, Michigan?) night before last. Also, Detroit Country Day School; but the first meeting was open to the public. It was nice of them to come out in that cold!!!

Mel: Lois, I have truly never seen any chat fly so fast as this one with you has, and NOT just because you flew in and out so much!

Lois: I'm like a tennis ball!

Mel: A cybernetic tennis ball! Thank you so much for your wisdom and wit, and support for us children's writers! It's not at all difficult in talking with you to see how well you deserve to have won the Newbery Award twice. We wish you a third—and many more, Lois! And I also hope you will consider returning someday in the future to share more with us about writing for children. Would you be willing to come back sometime if we can fit it into your busy schedule, please?

Lois: Thanks, Mel! It was fun. Sure, I'll come back.

Mel: At our next Guest Chat on February 3, we will have a double-treat. Heather Delabre and Paula Morrow will be with us both at once. Heather is Editor of the Cricket Family's Spider Magazine, and Paula Morrow is Editor of both their Babybug and Ladybug. This dynamic duo of friends as well as editors will be here to chat with you about submitting nonfiction, and our discussion will touch on using references, listing documentation for nonfiction, how to do fact-checking, preparing sidebars with nonfiction, and the proper submission format for nonfiction—under the topic of "Nonfiction Submissions that Editors Love." Of course, fiction questions will also be allowed, since both Heather Delabre and Paula Morrow buy and publish fiction in their three magazines. I hope you can be back Thursday, February 3 to chat with these two editors who have each been separate guests of ours before. Now come chat with this dynamic duo!

Mel: Lois Lowry, THANK YOU again for taking the time to be with us in the ICL Chat Room tonight! We will all be remembering for a long time to come the things you have shared with us tonight, your touching words, your sparkling wit, and the understanding of writing for children and young readers that you have shared so freely with us. We wish you WELL, Lois, both in your writing and your traveling and talking with so many people about children's books!