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MEET GLORIA D. MIKLOWITZ
By Ann Stalcup

How soon after you submitted your first book manuscript to a publisher was it accepted for publication ?

Gloria Miklowitz

The first book I sold was entered in a national contest by Follett Publishing. Called Barefoot Boy it was about a boy who didn't like to wear shoes, so he lost them until he got a pair of cowboy boots. Five months after sending the story I received a thick envelope in the mail from the publisher. My first thought was that the manuscript had been returned and now I'd have to iron it before sending it out again, but it was a contract!

Had you written anything for children prior to Barefoot Boy ?

Writing for young children was new to me. I'd written documentary films on rockets and torpedoes for the Navy Department for four years, but when I finally had two children, one right after the other, I began reading to them, ten books a week, as soon as they could understand words. Without realizing it, I was absorbing the structure of these books.

What can you tell us about the writing projects that came next ?

In the next years I wrote more picture books, all rejected and I almost gave up, figuring the first book sale was a fluke. My second book sold six years later. From then on, I sold regularly, picture books, then middle grade books (mostly biographies) and finally - young adult novels. My sons, meanwhile, moved on to high school, college and graduate school while I remained writing for children.

Have all of your books had a common focus ? Tell us about some of them.

When I look at my body of work, I am surprised to see that most of my books have dealt with serious moral and personal issues. I've dealt with runaway girls, unwed mothers, rape, nuclear war, date violence, racial injustice, joining a cult (the Moonies), abusing steroids, AIDS and more. Most recently, my historical novel Masada, the Last Fortress about a band of Jews who choose to die free rather than become slaves of the Romans, won an award and a variety of honors. It had been written 35 years ago and been rejected because "we do not do well with Jewish subjects". After that came SECRETS IN THE HOUSE OF DELGADO about Spain's eviction of the Jews in 1492 and THE ENEMY HAS A FACE a mystery with the theme that we shouldn't jump to conclusions about who is your enemy because of prejudices.

Have any of your books been televised or made into movies ?

I have been very fortunate in that three of my books became after-school television programs with THE WAR BETWEEN THE CLASSES winning the Emmy for Best Children's Special of 1986. Other of my books have won awards and/or been highly recommended reading.

Where do you get the ideas for your books ?

Many of my book ideas come from reading the newspaper or watching the news. Once I've decided on a story idea, I do a fair amount of research. For example, before writing The Enemy Has a Face I interviewed, via e-mail, six young Israeli and Palestinian children living in the Middle East who had attended a Peace camp in the U.S., interacting with each other and becoming friends. I interviewed a local police officer and the director of a Muslim school. When I wrote The Love Bombers, about the Moonies, I spent a long weekend with the cult and interviewed several young people who had been in it. I enjoy research. It takes me out into the real world and gives me details I couldn't begin to imagine on my own.

Do you have a regular routine for keeping yourself "on task" with your writing ?

Once I have done enough research and have the idea of where the book will begin and how it will end I go to the real work of writing. Each morning I am at my computer, working four to five hours. If the story isn't going well I wake up the next morning dreading having to go to work, but I do and soon the block is cleared and the story moves on. Writing is like playing with dolls. I become the people I write about for a while. They tell me what they want to say and do, flowing through my fingers onto the computer keys.

How did you develop your gift for telling stories ?

I told stories to my friends when I was very young, charging them a safety pin to hear me. I always read a great deal, hiding in the bathroom where no one would bother me and sitting on the floor against the tub. Even in high school I visited the library, skating there and bringing home several books each week.

When you visit a school what is your approach when you talk to the students ?

I like to show students a typical manuscript page with rewrites and words added and blacked out so they can see how much thought goes into each and every sentence.

Have you had any letters from students that you would like to share ?

I often get fan letters - thousands on the book AFTER THE BOMB. The most important fan letter I ever received though was from a 15 year old girl in Michigan. She said she planned on killing herself and picked up my book Close to the Edge and read it in one sitting. It made her rethink her plans. She enclosed five poems she'd written, four before reading my book and one afterwards. Only the final poem showed hope.

Does anyone else in your family write professionally ?

I'm very fortunate. Ours is a bookish family. My husband was the author of two books on engineering mechanics. One son is the author of a book on Hegel and Nietzsche and the other on two books about Bipolar Disorder. I tease them. They're Ph.D.s so I'm the underachiever, but my books reach the most important audience of all - children.