1. Can you tell us a little about your background? What was it that drew you to writing?
I grew up in the Southern part of the USA, listening to family stories and to the unique sounds of the voices telling them. I think I wanted to write to continue to tell stories like those I’d heard, transforming them into the kind of fiction I was reading in my library books.

2. What inspires you about writing or why are you still doing it? What keeps you going?
Writing is a way of being in the world, a way to discover what’s really there and what really matters. I keep writing because I keep discovering more about myself as well.

3. What was your favourite book when you were a child? Do you remember the first "foreign" or "translated" children's book you encountered?
I loved a small illustrated Mary Had a Little Lamb. My earliest memory of a book of my own was a tiny book that just fit in my hands called, if I remember correctly, Bobby Has Three Pennies. I think he ended up buying a whistle. I loved it when I found out that the fables and fairy tales I enjoyed were translated or adapted stories from other cultures and languages.

4. Which book or writer do you feel has most influenced your own writing and why?
Some of the first to come to mind are novels by Cynthia Rylant, Kaye Gibbons, Robert Cormier and Marion Dane Bauer (for drama and voice).

5. Who do you think are the most interesting writers for children today? Why?
M.T. Anderson, Carolyn Coman, Ellen Wittlinger—among so many I can’t even begin to name them all. I am interested in real kids and teens and in the way characters in fiction can show us truth beyond the outer facts of our lives on this planet (and elsewhere).

6. What do you consider the biggest challenge for writers of children's books today?
Writing the stories one has been given to tell whether they seem to be suited to the current marketplace or not.

7. Can you tell us a little about your books? Which are you proudest of and why?
I’m in awe of all of them—not because I wrote them, but because of how they exist now, no longer typed manuscript works-in-progress, but illustrated, bound, and wonderfully designed book-objects.

OLD THUNDER AND MISS RANEY, illustrated by Kathryn Brown (D-K Ink, 2000) is for younger children, ages 4-8; THROUGH THE TEMPESTS DARK AND WILD, A Story of Mary Shelley, Creator of Frankenstein, illustrated by Angela Barrett (Candlewick—in USA/Walker—in UK), ages 8-12; and THE PAINTERS OF LEXIEVILLE (forthcoming from Candlewick Press), a Young Adult novel.
I like that the three cover a large range of age and interests. I hadn’t planned it that way, but I like it.

8.What are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on another picture story book and another novel—and always poetry.

9. Do you think there is such a thing as a Sharon Darrow "voice"? How would you describe it?
My voice is heavily influenced by the voices I heard around me in my formative years in the Southern USA.

10. What do you think are the key elements of a successful picture book biography? What made you decide to work on the biography of Mary Shelley? Are there any books in this genre you'd specifically like to draw our attention to?

I like a picture book biography that allows the reader access to the formative situations in the person’s life and times, and manages to give something of the essence of the personality that combined with these to produce a unique work of art or courage in the world.

After a very vivid dream, I began reading about Mary Wolstonecraft and her daughter, Mary Shelley. I thought that this work was for my own personal growth and because of my studies in poetry, but when I was talking to my editor Mary Lee Donovan about what I’d been doing with my time, she asked why I wasn’t considering writing about Mary Shelley. After that, the project took on a life of its own (so to speak) and I loved every part of it, though it took me a long time to find the form and tone I needed for the story.

I found particularly useful Michael Bedard’s Emily (about Emily Dickinson) and his The Divide (about Willa Cather), both about women writers and both amazing and wonderful in many ways, but especially in their ability to capture elements of the writers’ voices in his own prose about each.

11. How do you go about preparing to write a biography for younger people. Do you seek out primary sources or rely on other biographers for information? Do you have any suggestions for reserch in general and/or for a biography?

I both sought out primary sources and relied on other biographers, as well as read literary criticism of Frankenstein from many schools of thought. I also read others writings and books by Mary Shelley.

Because I am writing picture book biography, which is distinct from true biography, I came to understand my work as historical fiction rather than nonfiction. This advice then is for the same kind of project. One should research enough, stay faithful to the truth without over-factualizing the story, then release yourself into the imagination’s story for the fictional elements. You have to trust there is a reason you have been drawn to this historical personage and find where your stories and life themes intersect with theirs. Then the facts and your fiction will come alive.

12. You have written a picture book, a picture book biography and a teen novel. How easy did you find it to switch genre and reading age? Do you have a preferred genre? What were some of the problems you encountered moving between genres? What are you going to try next?

I also write poetry for kids and adults, creative nonfiction, and short stories. I’m working on a YA in lineated form, a middle-grade novel, and another picture book. I guess that would indicate I don’t experience much of a problem moving from one to another. I like having lots of things going and I love the way each informs the other in the revision process. I learn so much about writing picture books from poetry, and middle-grade novels from creative nonfiction—both in content and in form. I don’t know if I can say it’s a preferred form, but always there is the poetry—always, no matter what else is on my plate. I guess poetry is, for me, the foundation and my first love in writing.

13. How would you describe your writing and editing process?
I write when I can—when my students are doing writing exercises, when I’m enjoying the sunshine coming in my windows between grading papers or reading student manuscripts, and, occasionally, during a long uninterrupted morning or afternoon. Also there are summers when I’m not teaching college. Then I revise unendingly (it seems). I have to do many revisions to find and tell the real story.

14. What is the hardest part of writing for you? (Revision, by any chance?)
I adore revision. I’m never happier than when I have some “clay” (words, lines, sentences, paragraphs, chapters!) to mess around in. I love the idea of discovering within, around, and under my own words what the story is I am really trying to tell—first to myself, and, in later revisions, to my audience.

15. Would you consider yourself as an essentially "American" writer? How well are your books received in other English speaking countries? Are they translated into other languages? Have any of your books been changed in any way for their British/European editions?
I have thought of myself as an essentially “American” writer, what with the Southern voice and all, but then came Mary Shelley out of a dream and the next thing I knew I had a book published in the UK, too. That did have changes in its British version, though they were not substantive, but having to do with differences in technical matters of spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

16. If you could write the Sharon Darrow entry in "The Best Ever Guide to Children's Literature," what would you want it to say?
Her characters have taken on a life of their own, and live in the hearts and memories of her readers. (That’s what I would like to have happen, anyway.)

17. You are on the faculty of the Vermont College's MFA programme "Writing for Children and Young Adults" Can you tell us a little about the programme and what you teach there? What is the advantage of an MFA for a writer?
Prior to my becoming a faculty member in the new MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults, I received my MFA there in Writing (Fiction and Poetry). It has enabled me to teach at Columbia College Chicago in their English Department. Many colleges and universities require terminal degrees (MFA or PhD) now and having one gives the writer opportunities for work in areas at least somewhat associated with her own field of practice. Editing and reviewing skills are enhanced through the intense work of an MFA, as is, of course, one’s own creative work.

The program is a low-residency format with two ten-day residencies a year, which begin the two semesters per year. Four semesters are required during which an advisor works with the student one-on-one through an exchange of manuscripts and comments in the mail. During the residencies we have full days and evenings of lectures, readings, workshops, seminars, and other activities. It’s absolutely wonderful, especially for adults whose lives and jobs would keep them from moving to a residential university. I lecture, read, and lead workshops during the residency, and advise five students during the semester.

18. If you were allowed to shout out a single line of wisdom to writers beginning their careers today, what would it be?

In inspiration, let your stories discover you; in revision, let yourself discover the real story. Trust the themes of your life to emerge as you go deeper into story.


Sharon Darrow’s picture book, OLD THUNDER AND MISS RANEY (DK-Ink, Fall 2000) was honored by a Western Writers of America Award. THROUGH THE TEMPESTS DARK AND WILD: A STORY ABOUT MARY SHELLEY, a picture book biography for ages 8-12 was published Spring 2003 and a young adult novel, THE PAINTERS OF LEXIEVILLE (Fall 2003) is forthcoming – both from Candlewick Press. She will be speaking and critiquing manuscripts at this year’s SCBWI International Conference, “Oceans Apart, United by Story” 4-6 July in Madrid, Spain.