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MEET DURLYNN ANEMA
by Bonnie O'Brian

What books influenced you most when you were growing up?

Durlynn Anema

Two authors I especially enjoyed were Florence Crandall Means and Doris Gates. Means wrote about ethnic minorities when that wasn’t a popular subject. Gates wrote about girls living very different lives from mine. I also loved any book about a successful woman. Among my favorites were books about female fliers. When I wrote about female fliers living in my county for the Historical Society, I remembered ho I loved reading about these women.

Did you think about being a writer when you grew up?

I loved to write fiction when I was in elementary school. Then I discovered journalism in junior high and high school and thought I might want to be a reporter after college.

What type of writing did you do after college?

 Actually, I was a columnist and reporter for a local newspaper while attending college. I continued in those types of jobs after graduating, but not on a full-time basis. Instead, I became a high school journalism teacher to lead aspiring writers to a field they would enjoy.

What other jobs have you had besides writing?

I’ve had many jobs, which is probably why my writing is so wide ranging. Right now I am a family counselor. I was also a high school teacher, counselor and administrator, and a college professor of journalism and mass communication, plus teaching beginning education courses and directing continuing education programs.

When was your first book published?

My first book to be published was DON’T GET FIRED in 1978 by Janus Publishers. It was a textbook for high school and beyond. I had submitted many manuscripts (fiction and nonfiction, books and articles) before this with lots of rejections and some publications. I was asked to write this book which had a different format – ten chapters, each with a brief story, then a playlet, and finally comprehension questions. The playlet allowed me to use my imagination – even with a textbook! By the way, I still receive royalty checks from this book thirty years later, as well as a second book GET HIRED (Pearson Educational Publishing, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster now publishes the book.)

What are the topics of some of your books?

My first 12 books were textbooks, ranging from a California history book for 4 th grade, a high school book on independent living, then to college textbooks and finally a resource book for parents of ADHD children. In the early 1990’s I became involved with writing Young Adult biographies about American female explorers (guess that goes back to my interest in strong women). The first biography was HARRIET CHALMERS ADAMS: Adventurer and explorer (now in a second edition with National Writers Press, Inc.) The second was LOUISE ARNER BOYD: Arctic explorer. The title in the 2007, 2008, and 2009 Middle School California Collections is YNES MEXIA: Botanist and Adventurer.

What types of writing do you do and for what type of publications?

The majority of my writing has been nonfiction. This started with my newspaper writing which included both reporting and column writing. I like to interview people and find facts. Nothing is more fascinating than digging up information through research of personal letters and scrapbooks, plus interviewing about a person. As mentioned earlier, I have been published in newspapers, magazines, and educational journals. I have tried my hand at fiction, with BRIO magazine publishing a story I enjoyed writing. I would like to try more fiction, but publishers keep asking for my nonfiction research.

What inspires you to write and where do you get your ideas?

I’m a family counselor as well as a writer, so many times I see areas that need to be covered, like the tween/teen divorce book I just completed. Sometimes I read about a subject and want to pursue it. I also have friends who give me ideas, like about the three female adventurers.

What are you working on now, or have recently finished?

I just completed a book titled HEY, MOM AND DAD, REMEMBER ME? It will be published in 2009 by National Writers Press, Inc. as one of their first ventures to royalty publishing. It is for tweens and teens whose parents are getting a divorce/ It goes through all the steps of a divorce as well as giving suggestions on how to cope with the divorce and move through this traumatic period of life. My biggest thrill was asking two teens to read it and then write Forwards for the book. From what they said, I feel this book will help tweens and teens during and after the parental divorce.

When you do school visits, what question do young people ask you most?

“Where do you get your ideas?” It doesn’t make any difference whether I’m talking about the women adventurers or about how to get and keep a job. The Young people want to know how I came up with these ideas. Then they are interested in where I get my information – which is a great time to talk about research and interviewing.

What do you want students to get out of your school visits?

It depends on what books I’m discussing. Obviously, when talking about any of the women adventurers, I want them to see two things. First, I want them to see that women can do just as exciting things as men and also they can do whatever they want to do. Second, because these women traveled to some interesting places in our world, I want the students to look at maps and learn about far distant lands – the places and the people. Therefore, the students learn geography as well as about the books. If discussing the employment books, obviously I want to encourage the students to think about not only how to get a job (and unusual ways to do it) but also about what good habits translate into keeping a job (not being tardy, being responsible, finding work to do, etc.) And I love to have the students write for me – using their imaginations or writing on an important nonfiction topic of interest.

Has anyone ever written you a fan letter?

Many, but right now I have them in an inaccessible file!