Karen Cushman

Karen Cushman

Newbery award-winning children’s book author

Karen Cushman

My writing future

Copyright-free image of Elvis Presley from the Library of Congress collectionI was asked not long ago if I plan to write in other formats—plays, poetry, screenplays, or picture books. My short answer was good grief, no! but here’s more. I think I wrote all the plays, poetry, and screen plays that I had inside me before I was fifteen. I still have boxes of them: plays like “Jingle Bagels,” the story of Santa Claus going down the wrong chimney on Christmas Eve and finding himself in a Jewish home; a notebook called Plots for Elvis Movies; and of course poetry, poetry I wrote when I was happy, angry, frightened, in love, broken hearted—even a series of poems based on the life of Elvis (do you see a theme here?). No, I believe I’ll stick to middle-grade novels. They have gotten me this far.