Author Series: Interview with Lois Lowry
By Rachel LoeperPosted in Because Writing Matters, Because Writing Matters... At Home, Author Series: Interviews
What made you decide to be an author, and at what stage in your life were you when you made that decision?
Well, there are probably two different questions in there, and one is “author,” and the other is “children’s author.” For me that was two different decisions. I wanted to be an author or a writer since I was a child. It’s what I always did best, what I loved best. I went to college and majored in writing. But I married young and had children young, so everything got deferred. When I did turn my attention back to it, I was then in my thirties and I was writing for adults. It was a request from a children’s book editor that I write a book for young people that made me turn my attention in that direction. Then, it was the reaction to that book, A Summer to Die, my first novel for young adults. The reaction from young readers made me become aware of the importance of literature for young people, and so gradually, I turned my attention entirely to writing for kids.
Do you ever look back and wonder “What if?”
Do any of us not do that? There was no “what if” for me in terms of becoming a writer. There was nothing else I wanted to do. The only thing I suppose I look back on is, “What if I hadn’t dropped out of college and married at age 19?” That seems to me now a foolish thing to have done. On the other hand I have grown children and grandchildren, and I wouldn’t have those if I hadn’t done what I did. So I think we make our decisions, sometimes they’re foolish, but most often they turn out to be the right ones at the time.
As a writer, do you feel that you have a certain obligation to your readers, or do you write more for your own purposes?
I don’t think much about readers when I am writing. I don’t worry much about the age of the reader when I’m writing and I try not to dumb down anything I write. I do feel an obligation to readers — and this would be true if I had an adult audience as well — to be honest with readers, to not whitewash things. Sometimes that’s caused me problems from audiences. Some books have been controversial as they have dealt with difficult issues. But I think it’s important to deal with these issues for young readers who will have to face these difficult issues in their life, and I think it’s important for writers to take these issues seriously.
How critical are your own life experiences and accumulated wisdom to your writing?
Several of my books, three that I can think of, are autobiographical though they’re fictionalized. They’re based on real experiences and my memories of real experiences, though they’re subjective as all memory is. But aside from the blatantly autobiographical books, the unabashed fiction nonetheless draw on everything I’ve ever thought, felt, observed, because that’s what goes into the making of a writer. All of those things become part of your consciousness, and when you sit down alone in a room to create a story, you’re creating characters out of every person you’ve ever met, and using every emotion you’ve ever had… What goes into the writing, and from the writing to the reader, is built out of the writer’s experience and then the reader brings his own experience to the reading as well. So every book a kid reads is not the same book that the author wrote, but that’s the way it should be.
On Being a Writer (5:32)
What role has reading played in your life as a writer?
I am a voracious reader. In fact, I just bought a Kindle, an electronic book, because it will hold 200 books at a time and I travel a lot. My worst fear is flying to San Francisco, and finishing a book over Omaha. I always have books with me. I’m surrounded by books. In fact, I’m sitting now in my old farmhouse starring at a wall of bookcases filled with books. Reading is probably the thing that is most important to me with the obvious exception of my family. I read all the time, and I think for a writer, reading is a necessary thing. When kids ask me for advice, I don’t think they like my advice, but I always tell them that reading is how you become a writer. It doesn’t mean that you have to read the classics. You don’t have to read Steinbeck at age 14 to be a writer. You have to read everything, and you learn as much, oddly, from reading mediocre books as you do from reading the great books. As you become more mature, you will begin to gravitate towards better literature, but reading is essential for a writer, and has been essential to me as a writer.
It is clear in your work that you love what you do. Realizing that not all kids share this love for reading and writing, is there some advice you would give them that might help them to at least like it?
That’s a toughie. I’m not a teacher, so I’m not in the business of coming up with those “gimmicks,” but I think reading aloud to kids, whatever their age, is important. My son and his two boys were here last night, and the boys are 7 and 10 and can read independently, fluently, but every night one of their parents reads aloud to them, and I think it’s a wonderful process and I think all parents ought to try and do that. Even as kids get older, I’ve seen my teenage granddaughter listen to books on tape with her mother in the car. So that’s another vehicle for the kind of kid that may be reluctant to sit down with a book and turn the pages. Listening to a book may be a solution that turns them on to the concept of storytelling and literature.
The Reading-Writing Connection (2:43)
What do you enjoy most about writing?
Just sitting alone in that room. It’s a thing you have to do alone. Looking now at computer screen (it used to be a typewriter back in the prehistoric days when I began this career), and looking at the words on a page and rearranging them, and saying them aloud to see how they flow, and then writing them a different way to see if they sound better, and just doing that sentence after sentence. And then walking away from it but having it still in my mind, so that when I’m cooking dinner, or watching something stupid on TV, it’s still in my mind; it’s still there. My mind is still working on it, so that when I go back to that room and computer, new stuff will be there because my brain has been mulling it over, and all of that is a very exciting part of my daily existence.
Is there still an element of writing that you still find challenging after 30 years?
The thing I find most difficult, and I laugh to think about it, is plot. I find characters easy to create. I find dialogue easy to create. You mentioned pacing, which I consider along with transitions to be a strength, but plot is a struggle, and it probably always will be. I’m sure that there are writers who are terrific at plot, but perhaps have a little more difficulty with developing characters.
Joys and Challenges of Writing (1:45)
Is there a particular process you use when you write, or does it differ with each piece you write?
I have two houses, and each house has a room which is mine, and which has a computer in it. It is where I work, and I work alone. These rooms have no other purpose except to write. Each day I go into that room and work and one of the things that I do — and this sometimes surprises people –almost every day I begin by reading poetry. There is something about certain poets, whose work I like, that invigorates me mentally and tunes me in to the cadence and fluency of language, and the specificity of it. It’s about the selection of the right word, and poets have to do this even more than writers of fiction. We can get away with throwing in a little extra stuff, but poets really have to cut it down to its essence, and so I think that reading poetry in the morning for me is something that just gets me going and gets me excited about language.
How important is the revision process to you as a writer, and what does that process look like for you?
I revise as I go, and of course a computer makes that so much easier than when I used a typewriter. In fact, I wasn’t much of a typist so I probably didn’t do as much revision as I should have because I hated the retyping. Now, I go back to what I’ve been writing each day, and look at what I wrote the day before and revise that right then and there before I go on. That’s an ongoing process. By the end of the manuscript, that book has been revised again, and again, and again. I feel as though it’s finished at that point, but of course it’s the editor who disabuses me of that. When they read it, they’ll see flaws in it that I hadn’t seen, things that are weak. Then with their advice, or their pointing out something that needs work, I’ll go back to it. What we end up with then is a second draft and that’s what will ultimately be published.
Two Rooms of Her Own (2:50)
Do you take pride in those occasions when The Giver is challenged by schools or other authorities?
I don’t take any pride in it being challenged, because I think it is often challenged for idiotic reasons and by people who haven’t read the book or haven’t understood the intent of the book. So that doesn’t give me any pleasure, hearing about one more challenge of The Giver. However, I am always gratified to hear when kids and parents read the book together, because it does provoke discussion, debate, and thinking, often among kids at an age — thirteen or fourteen — where they would probably rather be doing something else. Often it does take a good teacher to cause that to happen and to be a part of that happening.
Thinking about themes from The Giver, would you give up any part of what love is to subsequently reduce some of the hate that exists in the world?
Those are questions that the book really raises — “What choices do we make?” and “What sacrifices are we willing to make?” Another question the book raises is what are we willing to give up for our safety? That’s of course been a political issue in our country in recent years. What would I sacrifice? That’s hard to answer. I had four children, and one of my sons died in a plane crash. If when I gave birth to that child, I knew he was going to die young, would I have not wanted to have him? Because his loss was an enormous source of pain. But my memories of him and his life — which was too short — are so wonderful that I wouldn’t give those up. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t have love without pain. Maybe not always in the sense I had it, but we can’t appreciate love unless we experience the other. Incidentally, one of the things that the society in The Giver has also lost is all art, literature, and music. Because all of those things are frequently borne from strong emotions, which that society has sacrificed.
The Giver, Love, and Sacrifice (3:56)
Additional Lois Lowry Resources:
iSEEK Education Lois Lowry Resources
Interview Date: August 7,2008
Interviewer: Drew Sterner