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Back to Featured Interviews >> MEET ELIZABETH VAN STEENWYK
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| Elizabeth Van Steenwyk |
I began to write when I was ten. It just happened. No one told me I had to, but the words just spilled out on a piece of paper. The story was about a ballerina who had broken her leg and it was doubtful if she could dance in the recital to which the prince had been invited. Talk about a story question!!! The following year, in sixth grade, I wrote plays for every holiday and my class performed them for the rest of the school. One, in particular, remains with me. The play was called The Tallest Christmas Tree in the Forest and guess who played the tallest tree? It never hurts to write yourself a good part if you happen to be the author. Junior High offered endless opportunities. I began writing for radio then because our principal had been a commentator and started a group of us writing and broadcasting on the local station. High school was more of the same.
When did you get your first job?
Before my freshman year at Knox College, I had a part time job at the local radio station and they paid me. Real money for a real job for real writing. The job paid my way through school to my B.A. and gave me opportunity and experience and cash. I moved to Texas and wrote for a NBC network radio and television station. Soon, I was writing commercials and copy for a children’s program, the prelude to my children’s book career.
How did your life change when you got married?
Later, I married my true love and we began our family and soon I was raising my own little audience of four. It didn’t take long for me to put it all together and the books began flowing.
Do you focus on fiction or nonfiction?
My list is both fiction and non fiction and always involves history. It just happened that way, I’m an amateur historian with a particular interest in Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. Perhaps it’s because I was born and grew up in Galesburg, Illinois, the scene of the fifth Lincoln-Douglas debate and which I heard about from day one in school by dedicated teachers.
How many books have you written?
Now I have about 70 titles to my publishing credit plus a couple of movies, some nice awards and many stories to tell about my stories.
Have any of your books earned special recognition?
Yes, many awards and movies. I’ll list them below:
Fiction
Three Dog Winter
Walker and Company Yearling paperback Bantam Doubleday Dell
motion picture “Kayla”
Awards
Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List
Ilinois Rebecca Caudhill Award Master List
The Best Horse Scholastic
Barrel Horse Racer
Walker & Company
motion picture “Best Horse”
Awards
Silver medal at Cannes Film Festival
A Traitor Among Us
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Awards
Parents’ Guide to Children’s Media award
Selected as Outstanding by Parent Council, Ltd.
Pennsylvania Young Readers’ Choice Award
Mark Twain Master List
Senior High California Collection: 2003, 2004, 2005
Notable Children’s Trade Books in Field of Children’s Studies
New York Public Library Books for Teen Age List
Maggie in the Morning
Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing
Awards
Foreword Magazine, Book of the Year Award,
2 nd place
Prairie Christmas
Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing
Non Fiction
The California Gold Rush
Franklin Watts
The California Missions
Franklin Watts
Awards:
Elementary California Collection: 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
Middle School California Collection: 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
Saddlebag Salesmen Franklin Watts
Barnstorming to Blue Angels Franklin Watts
Mathew Brady, Civil War Photographer Franklin Watts
Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Woman of Courage
Franklin Watts
Awards:
Notable Children’s Trade book in Field of Social Studies
Frontier Fever
Walker & Company
Awards:
Notable Children’s Trade Book in Field of Social Studies
Nominated for NCTE Award
Senior High California Collection: 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
Middle School California Collection: 2003, 2004
Dwight D Eisenhower, President
Walker and Company
Awards:
Best Teen Age book by New York Public Library
Levi Strauss, the Blue Jeans Man Walker and Company
Ely S. Parker: Seneca Chief & Union General Carolrhoda
When Abraham Talked to the Trees
Wm B. Eerdmans
Awards:
Hoosier State Award List
Bluegrass State Award List
Land of Enchantment Award List
Foreword Magazine Book of the Year finalist
Let’s Go to the Beach
Henry Holt & Co.
Awards:
Notable Children’s Trade Book in Field of Social Studies
One Fine Day
Wm. B Eerdmans
Awards:
Learning Magazine Teachers’ Choice Award
COMING SOON:
First Dog Fala 2008 Peachtree Publishers
Blacksmith’s Song 2009 Peachtree Publishers
When is your next book going to be in book stores?
FIRST DOG FALA will be hitting the bookstores in September 2008. FIRST DOG FALA is a picture book to be published by Peachtree Publishing in Atlanta, Georgia and it was recently chosen by the Georgia Public Library Service to be the state representative book at the National Book Festival to be held in Washington, D C on September 27 th 2008. My other recent work to be published early next year titled ABRAHAM LINCOLN: A PRAIRIE LIFE will be a commemorative book celebrating the bicentennial year of Lincoln’s birth.
That’s enough about me.
My books tell more.
It’s been great fun talking to California Readers.
Happy tales, Elizabeth Van Steenwyk