Ask the Author: Cynthia Voigt
Answered Questions (17)
Cynthia Voigt
Thank you, I hope so too. I have not run out of ideas--especially since many come to me looking out the windows.
Cynthia Voigt
Hannah, old bird--Never mind my old bits and pieces, make up your own. What a very good idea of yours that is!
Cynthia Voigt
Your problem with me is that I don't have a favorite anything. I mean, OK, a favorite husband but the rest of it swells and eddies. On the other hand, I like rare beef and good pasta, I'm a bread snob I gather and an egg snob too, although that's more difficult to indulge. I like simple foods, not "tall" four-star restaurant constructions, Italian food and also Oriental variations. Oh, wait, don't forget a simple green salad!
Cynthia Voigt
Hello Andrea Simmons --and how can I answer your question? Except of course to observe that life is a pretty time-consuming activity. Castaway among Binchy and King...I love the picture, and am honored by the company I kept. Thanks for getting in touch.
Cynthia Voigt
Of course I do. Without some sense of the geography of a book, I seem to wander badly. I have maps of the Davis Farm (not artful) that place trees, fields, etc. The farm is in western Maine, in my mind. Now I think about it, it could be in any state with expanses of country, mountains in the west, and four seasons. (Am I on trend?)
Cynthia Voigt
No, they are names I chose because they seemed to me to match the personalities I was imagining. I think I'd still choose exactly the same ones, especially Dicey.
Cynthia Voigt
Other than the general (what Christopher Fry calls a riddle, the way a seed contains the rose), my life lacks mystery. Luck and gratitude it is rich in, however.
Cynthia Voigt
To my mind (which is the mind of a teacher who worked in the 70's and 80's) the Tillerman books are grades 8 and up (although The Runner may be better at grade9 or 10) and the YA others are for grades 9 and up.
Except for Teddy and Co, which is for young children, pre-readers, and the Rosie books, which should work with 2nd graders, I'd say grades 3-6 is about right.
Grade 7 can go in either direction, depending on the reading skills of the child. And Glass Mountain is aimed at adults, by subject not language or event.
I am often surprised at how young some of the students are who have been assigned my books--but then, I have "reading theories."
Except for Teddy and Co, which is for young children, pre-readers, and the Rosie books, which should work with 2nd graders, I'd say grades 3-6 is about right.
Grade 7 can go in either direction, depending on the reading skills of the child. And Glass Mountain is aimed at adults, by subject not language or event.
I am often surprised at how young some of the students are who have been assigned my books--but then, I have "reading theories."
Cynthia Voigt
How odd that when I branch out from the romantic (and I am a great romantic) possibilities for this (Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, Ophelia and Hamlet, Forster's narrator and Maurice) and try to think of fictional examples from daily life, no names spring to mind. Long and happy marriages between people who continue to find one another interesting, amusing, admirable: I know they exist in life, but where are they to be memorably found in fiction? I don't know about you, anonymous questioner, but I'm going out looking.
As to the why part, well, there are the usual array of reasons, from emotional satisfaction to validation of a certain moral structure and hopefulness, admiration for what human nature can be ... as I said, the usual.
As to the why part, well, there are the usual array of reasons, from emotional satisfaction to validation of a certain moral structure and hopefulness, admiration for what human nature can be ... as I said, the usual.
Cynthia Voigt
First, Thank you. I am honored by the place you've given my book in your own life (and I hope we have neither of us been led astray by my own understanding of the world). I don't think about writing about Dicey, Grown, but I do sometimes think about her, who she might be, what she might get up to, how she would manage the usual women's life-events (or manage the not having of them, that too is interesting).
A series I most enjoyed writing? that one doesn't exist, since I tend to enjoy whatever I am doing (or else I don't do it). But truer is to admit that I can't do favorites, of any kind; I used to ask students who wondered what book I liked best, if they knew what they would order for their last supper, if they were due for execution (and deserved it) the next morning. About 2/3 of them did; but the other third, and me, we had no idea.
Thanks for your inquiry-
Cynthia Voigt
A series I most enjoyed writing? that one doesn't exist, since I tend to enjoy whatever I am doing (or else I don't do it). But truer is to admit that I can't do favorites, of any kind; I used to ask students who wondered what book I liked best, if they knew what they would order for their last supper, if they were due for execution (and deserved it) the next morning. About 2/3 of them did; but the other third, and me, we had no idea.
Thanks for your inquiry-
Cynthia Voigt
Cynthia Voigt
No, Emily, I don't although I admit that I, too, love them. Writing that kind of a story (like reading it) is such an exercise of the imagination, to live in a world that is definitely NOT my daily life, that it's as good as living in a foreign country, speaking a foreign language, trying to learn entirely different customs. And know what? until I was answering your question, I didn't realize that, for me, the writing of these stories is as adventurous as the stories themselves. Thanks for asking.
Cynthia Voigt
From a poor maimed teddy bear and other such treasures, on the shelves and desks and floors of my house, and of my memory too.
Cynthia Voigt
If I knew the answer to this I'd spend less time wondering, and worrying.
Cynthia Voigt
Your job is to figure out how to get your best work out of yourself, and then do it, and do it some more. Oh yes, remember that you can change your mind, or put the ambition aside for a year or ten.
Cynthia Voigt
Getting to make sentences out of words? When a communication comes in that lets me know I've been read well? When a publisher offers a contract? Or is it really, like teaching, the infinite variability of any project from every other?
It changes, from day to day, by the way.
It changes, from day to day, by the way.
Cynthia Voigt
I employ denial, for which I have a genetic predisposition. Sometimes, I negotiate a deal with myself--write a paragraph, then you can get in the car and go buy yourself a present. Usually that works, and once started I just blither on, quite happily, writer's block circumvented.
Cynthia Voigt
This is a question I never answer - not because I think it's silly, or unmerited (I am always curious about what writers I enjoy might be presently working on), but because I am what I call a closet writer, I can only work on my own. Frankly? I am not sure how I feel about this. I only know it's the way I am.
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