Karen Cushman
Newbery award-winning children’s book author
Are there particular memories of growing up that, looking back, you see as leading you toward a writing career? My first 17 or so years seemed to be leading me to a writing career. I wrote all the time—poems, short stories, a 7-page novel, an epic poem cycle based on the life of Elvis. A lot of what I wrote
Rodzina Brodski is one of thousands of orphaned children who were sent West to find homes from 1845 to 1929. She is the heroine of my novel Rodzina. Here’s some of the factual background behind the orphan trains. This article about the Children’s Aid Society recounts the history of Charles Loring Brace, the man who faced head-on the heavy immigration
There were so many immigrants moving to California during the Gold Rush, from the East Coast and other countries, that the population of San Francisco grew from 1,000 to 20,000 in two years. Can you imagine the construction and the need for sanitation, food, and medical practitioners? Teachers? The Harvard University Library Open Collections has photos you can study, quite
The Seeing Stone—Kevin Crossley Holland. King Arthur as a boy. Lovely story, lovable characters, beautiful language. Just what one expects from a poet.
What’s your strongest memory of the 1950s? Elvis. No question. I also remember looking at all the unhappy housewives on our suburban street, sipping martinis and making lunches, and feared I would end up like that. PS: I didn’t.
Did you take writing classes? My university had a graduate creative writing major but there was only one course for undergraduates. I took it, hated it, and never went. People sat around and criticized each other’s work. Not for me. The night before the quarter was over, I stayed up all night and wrote twelve short stories. The professor commented that
Are you working on a new manuscript? I’m struggling my way through a book set in San Diego in 1941, shortly before Pearl Harbor. Here’s the beginning, or the beginning at the moment: Jorge lifted the slimy creature to his lips and bit it right between the eyes. I shuddered as I watched. “Doesn’t that taste muddy and disgusting?” “Nah,” he
For young adult readers: Life in a Fishbowl Len Vlahos Certain to be controversial, this novel tackles life and death, euthanasia, celebrity, reality television, religion, cancer, oh, most everything. Even Jared Stone’s brain tumor had a voice and a point of view, and I found myself feeling sorry for it. How can you top that? Sad and funny and insightful, this
The Goblin’s Puzzle: Being the Adventures of a Boy With No Name and Two Girls Named Alice by Andrew Chilton. Mystery, adventure, and a title like that—I climbed into the book and stayed a while.
Belated congratulations to Late Bloomer Stephen Baker, whose manuscript Prayers to Broken Stone was chosen to receive this grant. Karen and Philip Cushman Late Bloomer Award Fourteen-year-old Milana lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo with her mother studying the wild gorillas in Virunga National Park, but soon Milana must save both her family and the gorillas from an oil
