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This month The Edge of the Forest talks with children's author
Leda Schubert about her writer's life.
Leda is the author, most recently, of Ballet Of The Elephants, which received stars from Kirkus and Horn Book and an
amazing review in the New York Times Book Review. She is on the faculty of Vermont College's MFA in Writing for
Children and Young Adults. She's been on the Caldecott and Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards committees, the Arbuthnot
Committee, and Vermont's Dorothy Canfield Fisher and Red Clover children's choice awards committees. For more about Leda,
see her website: www.ledaschubert.com
The Edge of the Forest: First of all, Leda, thanks for talking with The Edge of the Forest for our Day in the
Life series. To begin with, please tell us what type of writing you do, and how long you've been doing it.
Leda: Thanks for inviting me, Kim; I love this website.
I write a bit of everything. Picture books, nonfiction, a Middle Grade novel (not yet published) and a YA
novel-in-progress. I've been writing seriously only since 2002, but did submit some picture books for consideration as
early as 1985. If rejections came by snail mail, I could do the proverbial papering-the-wall thingie.
The Edge of the Forest: What attracted you to children's literature and writing for children?
Leda: I've been involved with children's books in one way or another for my entire life, first as a reader, then
as a cooperative preschool director, then as teacher and librarian, and then as the school library consultant for the
Vermont Department of Education. The DOE and the Vt. Department of Libraries sponsor a statewide review session to
recommend purchases for school and public libraries, so for seventeen years I read and reviewed a huge percentage of what was
being published for children.
Reading these thousands of books kept me constantly in a children's book frame of mind, and I began trying to write a long
time ago. Then I went back to school for an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College and started
writing seriously. The program was life-changing.
The Edge of the Forest: Tell us about a typical writing day. How often do you write? When do you write? And why?
Leda: There is no typical day, but I'm writing full-time, at least in theory, after years and years of full-time
work for somebody else.
I do try to write every morning, but often it's afternoon before I settle down. I seem to have become an e-mail addict;
this is very bad. After not having been addicted to anything for my entire life (though not entirely pure and good, either),
I find this lapse in behavior horrifying. Must stop. Must stop. Must stop. Pause to engage in self-flagellation.
So I write when I get really mad at myself for wasting time. Also there's all this other stuff: dogs, friends, husband,
gardens. All in all, though, I spend many hours a day facing my manuscript. It's better when I have a draft to revise.
Why do I write? Another difficult question. Because I have to. That's the only answer that makes sense to me. I kept a
journal for decades (my husband has strict instructions to burn them if anything happens to me) to feed my hunger for
words. Sometimes I'd like to stop writing, but I can't. It's a deep-seated need.
The Edge of the Forest: Some writers work in a study. Others prefer penning their stories in a busy cafe. Where do
you write and why?
Leda: I work in my home office, which is a total disaster area. Too many books, papers everywhere (I'm a piler, not
a filer), and there's never enough time to organize it all. This goes for the house, too, but I have transcended having a
clean house. Life is too short. I'd love to try writing in a cafe, but I'd have to drive too much to get there.
The Edge of the Forest: Some writers work in long hand. Others write on a laptop. How do
you work? How does this technique inform your creative process?
Leda: I use a desktop. Computers have changed my life (yes, children, I was born before there were any PCs, shocking
as it may appear). I type very fast, and used to jam keys all the time on typewriters. The IBM Selectric was a terrific
invention, but it was difficult to make corrections. Now we have keyboards that can keep up with me.
My handwriting is illegible, even to me. My husband is constantly approaching strangers in the supermarket for help in
deciphering the shopping list. And handwriting is agonizingly slow. You young folks don't know how lucky you are.
Don't get the idea that I write fast, though. Quite the contrary. But now, if I do happen to come up with a sentence, I
can get actually get it down before I forget the end.
The Edge of the Forest: Some writers write for very personal reasons, using their art to help make sense of the
world. Others feel the need to share their joy of language with young readers. Why do you write?
Leda: : Other than my earlier answer, "I write because I have to," I'm not sure I can completely explain why I
write. I think it's also for the love of story, the joy of solving the puzzles that every page creates, and the need to
create something.
I play music as well, or at least I used to—guitar, banjo, backup piano. I've been a folkie my whole life, and for
the last twenty five years I've played traditional Irish music on the fiddle. I've pretty much stopped doing that now, and
what fascinates me is that instead of tunes, I have sentences floating around in my brain. I know there are people who are
both musicians and writers, but I have subconsciously made a choice, I guess. Perhaps for me the need to play and the need
to write come from the same deep place.
And I think I write to be heard. It took therapy for me to figure that one out.
The Edge of the Forest:Writers find inspiration in many places. Who or what inspires you?
Leda: My dogs? Conversation. Memories. The community in which I live—a small town (1200 people). Other books.
Random brain firings. Events. Research. Dreams. I've actually written two picture books (they will never see the light of
day) that came to me while I was sleeping.
And I'm famous (with an extremely small group of people) for the following:
I woke from a dream knowing I'd just written the best picture book in history. Rather than drifting back to sleep, I roused
myself enough to switch on the light and write it down. Back to sleep. In the morning, I found the following:
"Find hamster. Put in freezer until solidly frozen. When frozen, slice thinly as for hors d'oeuvres. Serve."
That was it, I kid you not. So now I let myself sleep, hoping that if it's a truly significant idea, it will return to me
in daylight.
The Edge of the Forest: Writing can be a lonely and isolating vocation. Where do you find the support you need to
survive the process?
Leda: My husband is my best cheerleader, but possibly not my most discriminating reader (Bob, if you read this,
remember that I love you). I had a writing group which folded after many years; I may join another. I have my online
writing friends (must stop doing e-mail, must stop doing e-mail) and the Vermont College class. But writing IS lonely and
isolating, and I'm basically a hermit, so it works out well. In the long run, we have to learn to trust ourselves. When I
get too weird, I call somebody.
The Edge of the Forest: Tell us about your favorite growing up book.
Leda: Truly, I wish I could. But a) I have no memory; and b) all I did was read. I couldn't pick a favorite. In my
early years, I did love Winnie-the-Pooh, The Color Kittens, The Just-So Stories, Barnaby
(by Crockett Johnson, a cartoon strip published as a book), anything about horses (Black Beauty, King of the
Wind, the Black Stallion and Island Stallion series, My Friend Flicka), Heidi,
Grimms'and Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Blue Fairy Book, dozens of picture books, Myths and Enchantment Tales
(a collection of the Greek myths), several books by James Thurber such as The Thirteen Clocks and The Great
Quillow, and I'm leaving out dozens more. Tomorrow's list would be entirely different, I'm sure. After about age
seven I read everything. Flashlight under blankets, the whole thing.
The Edge of the Forest: What's your current read, and what's on your summer reading list?
Leda: I just finished an ARC of Tobin Anderson's phenomenal and brilliant The Astonishing Life Of Octavian
Nothing, Traitor To The Nation, Vol. 1, The Pox Party. It's extraordinary. Written in the language of 18th century,
it tells the heartbreaking and agonizing tale of a young African boy who has become an experiment for an American group
of rational philosophers during the Revolutionary War period. It was so good that I don't want to read anything else: so many
books are disappointing.
But I'm also reading Amos Oz's Tales Of Love And Darkness, because I'm interested in autobiography and my book
group chose it. And I've got a huge pile of both YA and grownup books (which I've been slyly accumulating during the
children's book review years). Next: David Mitchell's new book, Black Swan Green, and if you hold on a minute
I'll go look at the pile.
Okay, I'm back. For YA, the top of the pile includes Dairy Queen (Murdock) and The New Policeman (Kate
Thompson); there will be many more.
Adult: Anansi Boys (Gaiman), China Court (Rumer Godden), The Fountain Overflows (Rebecca West),
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel (Louise Murphy), and Alison McGhee's Rainlight.
Finally, I'm doing a bunch of research for my novel and for another nonfiction picture book, so I'm surrounded by assorted
histories of the nineteen-fifties.
The Edge of the Forest: Time to role play. You're sent to a remote island for a year, and allowed to take one book.
What would you take and why?
Leda: War And Peace. It's long, it's about Russia (to quote Woody Allen), and I read it when I was far too
young. Rumor has it that everything important is there. I did just read Anna Karenina last year. I am not the
first person to notice that Tolstoy is a master.
Also, War and Peace would probably make me feel better about being on a remote island, too. I once heard an
interview with a young woman who said (I misquote terribly here, but it was a while ago) that whenever she felt really
depressed she read about the Andersonville Prison (Civil War) and felt better right away, because things could be so much
worse.
The Edge of the Forest: Do you have a favorite quote that inspires you?
Leda: I used to collect quotes in a big blue book. Occasionally I calligraphied them in brown ink, which I thought
was so sophisticated, and stuck them on my bulletin board. I was very cool.
What's on my monitor now is a little sticker of Sendak's Max, to inspire a picture book one-tenth as good, and a list of a
bunch of emotions researchers have identified, such as fear, joy, sadness, anger, disgust, love, contempt, surprise. Guess
why?
My favorite writing quote is from Thomas Mann. "A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for
other people." No actual source.
The Edge of the Forest: What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Leda: Not that I am any kind of expert, since I am still aspiring myself, but I have learned that sitting down and
writing is more likely to produce work than talking about sitting down and writing. So: Write! Do the work. Set a schedule.
Turn off the e-mail.
Read and analyze—study your favorite books for structure, character development, plotting, and every other possible detail.
Read for pleasure.
What makes a book work? It's not magic; it's a combination craft and genius (or, in the absence of genius, 100 drafts.
That's my approach). Find a process that works and don't get swayed by what other writers tell you works for them. If you
need to write with a paper bag over your head, do it. If you can't write until 1 a.m., do it.
And forge ahead. If you're in a stuck place, write a different scene from some other part of your WIP.
Big advice: don't do it for fame, glory, or money. Do it because you have to or because you love it or because...
The Edge of the Forest: Can you tell us about your most current project?
Leda: Could you possibly mean checking email? No, I expect you mean my writing. I've got a couple of picture
books in revision, but I usually work on my never-to-be-finished novel, which is about a girl growing up in a leftist
family during McCarthyism. I've been thinking about this and writing it erratically for many years; suddenly it seems to
be a popular topic, with movies and books appearing daily. An idea whose time has come. I better get to work.
The Edge of the Forest: Anything else you want to add?
Leda: Although I have had jobs that have been extremely demanding, both in terms of time and intellect, writing is
the hardest thing I've ever done. Every morning when I sit at the keyboard I descend into the depths of self-loathing. I
fear I will never arrive at a satisfactory sentence, paragraph, chapter, whatever. I know for some people writing is easy,
but I've never met one in real life. I just thought I'd tell you that. And don't expect your non-writing friends to
understand you any more. You can talk to them about other stuff.
Leda Schubert's Books
Ballet of the Elephants. Illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker. Roaring Brook Press, 2006. ISBN: 1-5964-3075-3.
A Junior Library Guild selection, starred in Kirkus and Horn Book, reviewed in the New York Times.
Here Comes Darrell. Illustrated by Mary Azarian. Houghton Mifflin, 2005. ISBN: 0-6184-1605-6. A BookSense
Winter pick.
Winnie All Day Long. Illustrated by William Benedict. Candlewick (Brand New Readers), 2000. ISBN: 0-7636-0774-6.
Winnie Plays Ball. Illustrated by William Benedict. Candelewick (Brand New Readers), 2000. ISBN: 0-7636-0673-1.
Forthcoming
Feeding the Sheep. Illustrated by Andrea U'Ren. FSG, Fall 2008.
Donna and the Robbers. Illustrator TBA. Vermont Folklife Center, TBA.
Leda received a Work-in-Progress grant from SCBWI for her novel. You can find out more at her website: www.ledaschubert.com
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