An interview with Charlotte Zolotow...
Q: How has being an editor, publisher, and educator in the world of
children's literature affected how you do as an author?
A: Being both a writer and editor affects different expressions of the same
personality. Writers must shut out everyone else while they write. They must
forget outside suggestions, or the temptation to follow suggestions separate
from their own visions.
Editors must resist the desire to insert their own idea of how and where the
story goes. They must resist the temptation to offer their own words as a
solution when something is weak; instead they should alert the writer to this
weakness, so that if the writer agrees, she may solve the problem in her own
words and way.
Q: What have you relished most about each role?
A: I love the editor's recognition of a problem to be solved, for the story's
sake, and the delight a writer herself takes in finding her own solution to any
possible failure in the manuscript. The love of the final book stems in each
case from wanting complete fulfillment of the work in question.
Q: You have written over seventy books for young audiences. Where do your
ideas continue to come from?
A: To ask where I get ideas, no matter how many books I've written, is like
asking where I get the air I breathe. Every day, both ordinary and unusual
things and relationships shift and change through the writer's point of view.
Q: Your career has seen many changes in the children's book industry. What do
you think about it now in the early stages of this new millennium?
A: Changes in the book industry may change the media through which books reach
our children, but radio, computer, TV, or any future technology will never
replace the personal experience of reading a book. It is a private experience
between writer and reader, which cannot be replaced.
About Charlotte Zolotow