Spring 2002 Flying Starts: Heather Henson

By her own admission, Heather Henson backed into the world of children's books. She never meant to start a career editing them, and she certainly never meant to write one. But somehow, at the age of 35, she has ended up doing both.

Spring 2002 Flying Starts

Four first-time children's book authors and illustrators talk about their road to publication

Fall 2001 Flying Starts: Alex Sanchez

Though Alex Sanchez wrote a picture book while in college, he says he didn't have an audience in mind when he started writing Rainbow Boys (S&S), his novel about three gay teens who deal with everything from coming out to parents to an AIDS scare and even hate crimes.

Fall 2001 Flying Starts: Heather Solomon

Webster defines the word clever as "marked by wit and ingenuity," a description many would agree befits debut artist Heather Solomon's artwork in the picture book Clever Beatrice by Margaret Willey (Atheneum). "I use a bit of everything," Solomon says of the technique she used to create the uniquely vibrant and intricate scenes for Willey's spunky tall tale. "I'm primarily a watercolorist, because I initially learned to paint in watercolor," she explains. "But I use other media [collage, acrylics, oils] to make up for what watercolor lacks: bright colors and texture."

Fall 2001 Flying Starts: Cathryn Clinton

"God and faith tend to be taboo subjects for YA fiction," says Cathryn Clinton, whose debut novel, The Calling (Candlewick), introduces a heroine who is not only a firm believer in God but has a calling: Esta Lea, a 12-year-old Southerner, comes from a long line of preachers and discovers that she herself can use faith to heal others. The novel has been praised for its rich, Southern-style storytelling, its supportive but non-preachy approach to religion and its humor. Fans impressed by Clinton's imagination might be startled to hear her say that most of the episodes in the novel, from the miraculous restoration of a blind girl's vision to an offbeat funeral scene, are true or composites of real events.

Fall 2001 Flying Starts: Annie Callan

How exactly does a girl from Dublin end up writing a western?

Fall 2001 Flying Starts: Harry Bliss

Harry Bliss, illustrator of Sharon Creech's A Fine, Fine School (HarperCollins/Cotler) has a knack for pictorial storytelling that can be traced to a love of comics and a family fond of visual art. "I knew who Ben Shahn was by fifth grade," he says, not kidding. "We had to be able to tell the difference between a Picasso and a Braque. I might still have some trouble with that."

Fall 2001 Flying Starts: Ann Brashares

For anyone who hasn't been perusing bestseller lists this fall, or hasn't visited a bookstore and seen an eye-catching pair of faded blue jeans on a book jacket, hearing someone mention "that pants book" might engender only confusion. But the many thousands of teenagers who have discovered the book and are passing it around to their friends would know instantly what you were referring to: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, written by Ann Brashares (Delacorte).

Spring 2001 Flying Starts: Susanna Vance

Spring 2001 Flying Starts: Alex Flinn

Spring 2001 Flying Starts: Nora Raleigh Baskin

Spring 2001 Flying Starts: Laura Ljungkvist

Spring 2001 Flying Starts: An Na

Fall 2000 Flying Starts: Rita Murphy

One could say that prior to the publication of her first YA novel, Night Flying (Delacorte), Rita Murphy was a closeted writer. "I actually wrote the first draft of Night Flying in a closet," Murphy recalls. "I used to write late at night when my husband and son were sleeping. We live in a one-room place, so I pulled a lamp and my computer into a closet where I wouldn't disturb them." Murphy's consideration for her family has come back to her manyfold, as time spent in those somewhat cramped writing quarters seems to have spurred her creativity to new heights.

Fall 2000 Flying Starts: Christopher Bing

For as long as I can remember, there were three things I wanted to do," says Christopher Bing. "I wanted to draw, I wanted a crack at Everest and K2, and I wanted to fly jets."

Fall 2000 Flying Starts: Patricia McCormick

Patricia McCormick's first novel, Cut (Front Street), about adolescent girls in a psychiatric hospital, is so convincing and so compassionate that many readers will assume that McCormick is either a therapist or was, like her protagonist, a self-mutilator. In fact, McCormick--who has been a crime reporter for the New Brunswick (N.J.) Home News, a children's movie reviewer for the New York Times and the children's book reviewer for Parents magazine--got her inspiration from a 1997 article in the New York Times Magazine. The piece, by Jennifer Egan, described the growing phenomenon of teen girls who cut themselves, presenting the problem not just as a pathology but also as the girls' desperate attempts to cope with undue stress.

Fall 2000 Flying Starts: Ian Falconer

The story of Olivia (Atheneum/ Schwartz) begins with a real-life Olivia: Ian Falconer's three-year-old niece. At least, that's how old she was when Falconer started doodling pictures of a pig to give her as a Christmas present. "I thought I'd do a little book for her, a little story," he recalls, "and it just got better and better. I just did drawings first--I drew a whole story--and then I wrote it afterwards."

Fall 2000 Flying Starts

Talks with four authors and illustrators who made auspicious fall debuts.

The World According to Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal is very much in the spotlight these days.

Spring 2000 Flying Starts: Lori Williams

Lori Williams admits she has more in common with Shayla, the 12-year-old narrator of When Kambia Elaine Flew in from Neptune (S&S), than just being raised in an impoverished Houston neighborhood. "I saw a lot of abused children while I was growing up," says Williams, who was physically abused by her father. "[But] when things happened in your house, you didn't talk about it." She wrote her novel, she says, to bring attention to child-abuse victims: "I wanted to give the children a voice."