Kate DiCamillo
I write in my house, at my desk, where I have Christmas lights strung over it to try and convince me that I'm having a good time. I can't really write anywhere else.Collection: Christmas
Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.
If you read, the world is your oyster. It truly is. Reading makes everything possible.
I think our job is to trust our readers. I think our job is to see and to let ourselves be seen. I think our job is to love the world.
If you want to be a writer, write a little bit every day. Pay attention to the world around you. Stories are hiding, waiting everywhere. You just have to open your eyes and your heart.
I have no talents. But I do have hope. And wonder. And love. Maybe those are talents?
Every well-written book is a light for me. When you write, you use other writers and their books as guides in the wilderness.
My father - he was an orthodontist - was supposed to sell his practice and move down to Florida, but that never happened... I would sometimes spend the summer with him and visit him, but he never lived with us.
So much of writing is like walking down a dark hallway with your arms out in front of you. You bump into a lot of things.
I have always been a reader. I was one of those kids desperate to learn. I would read anything.
I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have found what I am supposed to do and to get to do it.
I was a kid who loved to read. I read everything I could get my hands on. I didn't have one favorite book. I had lots of favorite books: 'The Borrowers' by Mary Norton, 'Paddington' by Michael Bond, 'A Little Princess' by Frances Hodgson Burnett, 'Stuart Little' by EB White, 'A Cricket in Times Square,' all the Beverly Cleary books.
We have this thing as human beings: we have a profound need for story. That's what kids need.
I want to remind people of the great and profound joy that can be found in stories, and that stories can connect us to each other, and that reading together changes everybody involved.
I don't know what my mother was thinking, but she entered me in a Little Miss contest - Little Miss Orange Blossom, I think it was. And I don't remember anything about that, except I have one flash-bulb memory of standing on the stage and thinking, 'This is not where I should be.'
I actually participated in a Little Miss Orange Blossom Contest when was I was seven or eight years old. I remember standing up on the stage and thinking, 'Oh boy, I should not be here.' Obviously, I didn't win.
When I was starting to write, I was fascinated with 'Knuffle Bunny' by Mo Willems. I remember taking it home and typing it out, trying to figure out how it worked. It's just a classic, with dauntingly few words.
I always have a notebook with me, I eavesdrop; I write down what people say. It's very rare that one of those things will provoke a story, but I think that that kind of paying attention all the time, and keeping everything open, lets the stories come in. But where they come from is still a mystery to me.
I think of myself as an enormously lucky person.
I've always been a doodler.
I get my inspiration from looking at the world and paying attention to people and just looking closely. Also from reading. I get so much inspiration from other authors.
I read a couple of books a week. About 80 percent of what I read is contemporary literature for adults. The other 20 percent is made up of non-fiction and children's books.
Everything I write comes from my childhood in one way or another. I am forever drawing on the sense of mystery and wonder and possibility that pervaded that time of my life.
Hands down, the biggest thrill is to get a letter from a kid saying, I loved your book. Will you write me another one?
I always write with music. It takes me a while to figure out the right piece of music for what I'm working on. Once I figure it out, that's the only thing I'll play.
I am busier now than I ever imagined I would be, but I feel blessed in that I have found what I am supposed to be doing with my life. It's wonderful to tell stories and have people listen to them.
I am single and childless, but I have lots of friends and I am an aunt to three lovely children.
I didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay.
I didn't start working on children's books until I got a job at a book warehouse on the children's floor. When I started reading some of the books, I was so impressed.
I hate to cook and love to eat.
I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, which means I had a lot of formal training in reading.
I like to think of myself as a storyteller.
I thought I was going nowhere. Now I can see there was a pattern.
I was born in Philadelphia and currently live in Minneapolis. I write for both children and adults.
I work full-time in a used bookstore. I get up. I drink a cup of coffee. I think, The last thing I want to do is write. Then I go to the computer and write.
I'm at the mercy of whatever character comes into my head.
It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. The best way for children to treasure reading is to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure.
My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my father telling me fairy tales that he had made up shaped me profoundly, too.
My goal is two pages a day, five days a week. I never want to write, but I'm always glad that I have done it. After I write, I go to work at the bookstore.
Understand, I had absolutely no interest in writing; I wanted to be a Writer.
I'm never impressed with myself!
I always wanted to be a character when I worked at Disney, but I wasn't short enough for certain characters, and I wasn't tall enough for others.
You have to learn how to write each book.
Everything about writing is hard for me except for that - the names pop into my head. That's one of the reasons why I always make sure I have a notebook with me.
I didn't really start to write until I was almost 30, and I started with the short stories.
I am stuck at 10 years old. I think.
Happily, I had lots of childhood heroes.
'Island of the Blue Dolphins' by Scott O'Dell had a huge impact on me.
I'm not going to make judgments about what people are reading. I just want them to be reading. And I think reading one book leads to another book.
I think hope and magic are probably connected.