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MEET SALLY WARNER
by Bonnie O'Brian

What did you most like to do when you were a child and what books influenced you most when you were growing up?

When I was a child, what I most liked was being alone and thinking. I remember sitting in a big cardboard box on the preschool playground, watching the sky, while my poor teacher kept calling my name. When I was older, drawing and reading satisfied this need for solitude, but my mother often urged me to gooutside for some “fresh air and sunshine.” (I liked both those thingsa great deal, but on my own terms!) The books I most loved as a childoften combined reality with fantasy, as in Mary Norton’s THE BORROWERS.Scott O’Dell’s THE ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS was so important to mein a number of ways that I made it a virtual “character” in my book HOWTO BE A REAL PERSON (IN JUST ONE DAY). (Knopf, 2001.)

Did you write stories when you were growing up? at school? Or at home as a hobby? As a young child, or as a teenager, or both?

When I was growing up I wanted to be an artist, not a writer. In the public schools I attended, you had to choose from among the arts, so I always chose visual art. (I received my MFA from Otis Art Institute, and exhibited my drawings and taught art for many years.) However, I had a great big secret when I was a child: I made up stories in my head, usually when I was in class, and they weren’t mere daydreams! No, they were complete in every detail: setting, plot, dialogue, the works. My stories took months--often as many as six months--to complete. This “inner storytelling” was a diversion, an escape, and a refuge for me, but I didn’t realize until many years later that it had anything at all to do with writing!

If you didn’t write as a child, then when did you start writing and what inspired you to start?

I started writing professionally when, after teaching college-level art education for 10 years, I decided--at my students’ urging--to write a non-fiction book for parents about children and art. This book was ENCOURAGING THE ARTIST IN YOUR CHILD (St. Martin’s Press, 1989) and it is still available, as is MAKING ROOM FOR MAKING ART (Chicago Review Press, 1994). I sold all 3 of my adult non-fiction books from proposals. I made the huge jump to children’s fiction when I realized how much I had come to love writing. I decided to tell myself another story--but on paper, this time. My first novel for young readers was DOG YEARS (Knopf, 1995). I also drew pictures for this book--in ink, using a wooden barbecue skewer!

Writing a book is always a process of discovery for me, so I begin each book with some one big thing that troubles or interests me, something that I want to explore in depth: accidental betrayal; overcoming errors in judgement; bravery. Some ideas marinate for many years, while others find their way to the page much more quickly. Many things trigger my imagination and give me ideas for specific books. For instance, a singleword--“lavendyre” led to TWILIGHT CHILD (Viking, 2006), and discovering my great-grandmother’s 1882 journal led to FINDING HATTIE (HarperCollins, 2001). Sometimes, a book is inspired by a place, such as upstate New York, in both TOTALLY CONFIDENTIAL (HarperCollins, 2000) and A LONG TIME AGO TODAY (Viking, 2003). ELLIE AND THE BUNHEADS (Knopf, 1997) was inspired by my son’s life as a dancer (both of my sons have found careers in the arts), and SORT OF FOREVER (Knopf, 1998) was inspired by the death of a friend. My experiences as both a little girl and a single mom have influenced my current EMMA series: ONLY EMMA, NOT-SO-WEIRD EMMA, SUPER EMMA (all from Viking).

I have two unusual instances of special recognition to report, and both have to do with a book’s finding its readership in an unexpected way! DOG YEARS (Knopf, 1995) did quite well in the U.S., but it has sold more than 90,000 copies in Italy! Still going strong, as far as I know. And SORT OF FOREVER (Knopf, 1998) sold fairly well here, too, but it has sold close to 200,000 copies through the Scholastic Book Club, and it’s still selling. To me, this illustrates how, because of the pressures of the marketplace, books can “disappear” before young readers get a chance to discover them, or to learn about them through word-of-mouth. Thank goodness for libraries, because libraries keep good books alive! Also, I have had books in eleven of the California Collections:

I write 6 days a week, and I usually do the creative part of my work between 9 A.M. and 1 P.M. I edit and revise afternoons, and sometimes on Sunday, and I do the business part of my work during those off-hours, as well. I long ago learned the importance of working whether I “felt like it” or not. Inspiration comes while you are working! I want to stress, however, that when my two sons were young, and I was teaching, my work schedule was much different. Time for any drawing or writing was hard to come by, but what I discovered then was that any creative work done in a day is better than no work at all, and even 15 minutes a day--every day—will get you someplace.

I am currently working on the revision of a book I sold a year ago. It is called IT’S ONLY TEMPORARY (Viking), and it will probably come out in early 2008. I will also be doing the illustrations for this book, which is intended for ages 8--12. Also coming out soon are BEST FRIEND EMMA (Viking), the fourth in the EMMA series, and ELLRAY FIGHTS BACK (Viking), the first in a series focusing on a third-grade boy in Emma’s class.

MEET SALLY WARNER by Bonnie O'Brian

MEET SALLY WARNER
by Bonnie O'Brian