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MEET GINA WILLNER-PARDO (9/2011)
by Bonnie O'Brian

What books influenced you most when you were growing up?

As a very young child, I was read to every night.  My father read me STUART LITTLE, THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS, THE BORROWERS, and WINNIE THE POOH.  My mother read me CHARLOTTE’S WEB, ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS, and THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO (the real one, by Collodi).

Once I could read to myself, I read for hours a day, across all genres.  I remember loving HEIDI, TARZAN OF THE APES, FIVE CHILDREN AND IT, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, ROBINSON CRUSOE, ALL-OF-A-KIND FAMILY, CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN, and V. M. Hillyer’s A CHILD’S HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

Two books stand out as both most influential and most beloved.  Cornelia Otis Skinner’s OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY was partially responsible for my eventual decision to attend Bryn Mawr College (which was Skinner’s alma mater).  And Louise Fitzhugh’s HARRIET THE SPY taught me the joy of fully realized, fully drawn characters with whom I could identify profoundly.  

When you were a child did you ever have moments when you decided that you were going to be a writer when you grew up?

Being a writer was the only thing I ever really wanted to do.  I began writing stories when I was in the second grade.  I was probably the only ten-year-old in the history of John Muir Elementary School (in Berkeley, California) who begged for typing lessons over summer vacation.  After I learned to type that summer, my father gave me an old Underwood typewriter, and I was off.

In college, I (briefly) considered a career as an art historian, which would have been disastrous for all concerned.  And I earned an MBA after college in yet another ill-conceived attempt to thwart my destiny.  Fortunately, I figured out shortly thereafter that writing was in my blood: something I had to do.  I have never looked back.

What was your first job when you graduated from college?

I was graduated from Bryn Mawr with a B.A. in English and a minor in French.  I moved from Pennsylvania to San Diego without a job, to be with my boyfriend, who was in a band.  I scoured the want-ads in desperation—this was, of course, long before Craig’s List—and saw that a small publishing company was looking for a typist.  About a week after I applied, I received a call from a woman who said, “I’ve got your resume, and I don’t think you really want to be a typist.  Come see me.”  I ended up becoming an abstractor and copy editor at Sociological Abstracts, writing short summaries of scholarly articles about sociology and linguistics.  It was wonderful preparation for the discipline of writing children’s books: I learned to be clear and concise and how not to split an infinitive.

I moved back to New York after a year (to marry the musician), and I worked for a while in the production department at Heart Corporation, publisher of Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping.  What I learned from doing this was that I didn’t want to work in a production department ever again.

Was your first book accepted immediately? or did you experience a number of rejections?

I decided to start writing for children after the birth of my son in late 1985.  I wrote several short books; all were summarily rejected by several publishers.  I was very discouraged.  My husband suggested that I try my hand at writing fiction for children’s magazines.  I sold my very first effort to Cricket in 1989.  I am embarrassed to say that I can’t even remember the name of the story.

Emboldened, I started writing book-length manuscripts again.  I sent NATALIE SPITZER’S TURTLES to twenty publishers, and nineteen of them rejected it.  But an editor at Albert Whitman sent me a letter with six suggested revisions.  I made them all, and received word in 1991 that the book had been accepted for publication.  I was ecstatic and remain ever grateful.

What are the topics of some of your books?

I am always attracted to stories of real children and the things that matter to them: friends, family relationships, sports, fitting in, being different, loneliness,the beginnings of interest in the opposite sex.My latest book, Prettiest Doll (to be published by Clarion), is about a girl who is forced to compete in child beauty pageants. 

I love and admire many works of fantasy and historical fiction.  But these are not what I’m compelled to write.

How did your life change when you got married? and had children? Did it make it easier or harder to find time to write? 

I didn’t write much when my children were little.  Once they started school, I made time to write every day.  I remember writing much of SPIDER STORCH’S TEACHER TORTUREsitting on the bleachers while my son had soccer practice. 

After my divorce in 2000, I didn’t write very much, and what I did write wasn’t very good.  It took me a couple of years to recover enough to find joy in the process again.
 
Now I’m back to writing every day.  Sometimes I only manage a page or two.  If I don’t do it, I feel a little depressed and vaguely ill, as if I haven’t taken a pill that’s been prescribed for me. 

Have any of your books earned special recognition?

FIGURING OUT FRANCES won the Bank Street College of Education Josette Frank Award in 1999.  I am very, very proud of this award.

Which of your books did you most enjoy writing?

I enjoyed writing all of them, but for different reasons.  It was fun to write the Spider Storch books because it was fun to write in a boy’s voice.  I loved writing THE HARD KIND OF PROMISEbecause it was the last book drawn from the experiences of my children (in this case, my daughter) and their friends.  (Now that they are grown and don’t live at home, I have to look elsewhere for inspiration.)  FIGURING OUT FRANCES reminds me of all the lunches I had with my writer friend Sue, hashing out plot details.  My new book, PRETTIEST DOLL (about a girl who competes in child beauty pageants), takes place in Missouri, a state I happily visited twice during the year it took me to write the book.

I loved writing all of my books.  Trying to choose among them feels like favoring one of my kids.  Each of them was the book I most wanted to write at the time that I wrote it.  Each reminds me of where I was at that point in time: what I was doing, the people I knew, the things I was thinking about.