Back to Featured Interviews >>

MEET ASHLEY WOLFF
by Bonnie O'Brian

What did you most like to do when you were a child?

Ashley Wolff

In the late 1950s and early 60s I was a confirmed tomboy. I had curly blonde hair, cut very short by my mom. I wore only baggy corduroy pants and I roamed the woods behind my home in Vermont with complete freedom. I collected stuff like animal bones, snail shells, bird’s nests and broken blue bottles from an old dump I stumbled upon. I drew a lot, mostly with crayon or pencil, usually portraits of animals and people, almost always on the back of used paper from my father’s Economics department at Middlebury College. I adored my collection of tiny china animals, especially a little sleeping beagle puppy. I had several Troll dolls too. One with orange hair and one with black. My sister and I spent hours assembling natural homes for our trolls using rocks for furniture, moss for bedding and acorn caps for dishes.

What books influenced you most when you were growing up?

My favorite picture book was called OPHELIA. It was illustrated by Evaline Ness and was about a little lamb that misbehaves and meets a truly scary looking fox. I’m sure I identified with the naughty lamb. I loved BLUEBERRIES FOR SAL by Robert McCloskey for the same reason. Sal wanders off and has an adventure in nature. When I was older I loved the novels Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome, the Half Magic series by Edward Eager and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle. They all have many of the same elements I seemed to crave: children, outdoors, having adventures and learning to survive.

When you went to college, were you already pursuing a writing career? (or a career in illustrating? or just art in general?)

I was pursuing art in general and I think I had an idea I’d enjoy illustration. I like to solve problems and answer questions with pictures. I dabbled in lots of things but became most fond of printmaking. In the middle of my junior year I inhaled too many silk screen fumes and dropped out of art school for a year to recover. During that time I began working in woodblock prints and eventually returned to major in illustration, where I employed block printing to solve many of the assignments.

What was your first job when you graduated from college?

My first job was a direct result of the two jobs I held during my year away. At first I worked in a small, weekly newspaper in my hometown, pasting up ads using rubber cement. I did a tiny amount of illustration for various things in the paper, but it was a real starter job. After that I did somewhat more sophisticated graphic design and paste-up at a printing company. I laid out brochures, and even a book; a biography of Alexander Calder.

From this experience I got my first and second jobs, also at weekly newspapers. At the first one I met my husband, a reporter. We moved to San Francisco in 1980 and I got the second job at The Pacific Sun Newspaper in Mill Valley. I stayed there for 3 years and I have been a free lance artist ever since.

How soon after that was your first book published?

I published A Year of Birds in 1984.

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

In March of 1983 I took a portfolio of artwork to New York and made the rounds of the many, many publishing houses. I had some positive reactions, but one editor in particular took me seriously and asked me to develop a character more fully and try to write a story about her. That character became Ellie, a girl who was-surprise-a lot like me as a child. The book was modestly successful. I went on to work with that editor, Donna Brooks, for 20 years, first at tiny Dodd Mead and later at E P Dutton.

Have any of your fiction stories been about real people or events?

I have illustrated about 50 books since 1984, but the ones I also write seem to have several themes in common. They are all based on either my own childhood or that of my 2 sons. I didn’t realize just how accurately I had portrayed my sons’ characters in a 1993 book called Stella and Roy until years later. It was based on an actual bike ride in Golden Gate Park. My 4 year old rode a “Big Wheel’ tricycle and my 18 month old rolled along on a Radio Flyer sit down scooter. As I observed their behavior they seemed to be acting out a tortoise and hare story. The older, faster one raced out ahead but was easily distracted and stopped often, while the younger, slower boy just kept steadily on. I disguised my eldest as a girl named Stella and she became the hare. I tweaked reality just a bit to have the “tortoise” named Roy win the race. They are now 20 and 16 and still acting out this essential drama!