Winter Words

In December, I had the privilege of being one of four authors on a panel at the Fairfield (CT) Public Library, as part of Winter Words, a daylong annual conference aimed at aspiring writers. The podcast of that panel just went up:



This was the best panel I've been on to date, in terms of chemistry among the panelists, quality of questions asked, and spontaneous humor generated. Anyone interested in books would be interested in what my fellow authors had to say, yet if an hour is too long to commit to, here is one of many ways to take a shortcut...the approximate times at which my answers begin:

7:20 why I write and why for children
12:49 anecdote that gives one reason why I continue to write for children
19:37 where I get character ideas
26:41 am I in a writers' group
28:29 my research/writing process
34:42 a little joke
38:40 how I come up with original ideas
44:25 who my heroes are
52:58 what I am working on now
55:26 audience question: do we or does publisher pick book titles
58:36 audience question: how important are reviews

Again, this is not to say that my answers are any more engaging than anyone else's.

If, before I listened to the podcast, you'd asked me how many times each of us spoke during the panel, I'd have said four or maybe five times. I was surprised that it was at least double that. Now I have a greater appreciation for how much can be packed into an hourlong panel.