Best of all, the more I wrote, the more I was filled with a sense of wonder. I learned to be precise and concise in my own choice of words. I learned to listen to the way people talk. Working as a reporter taught me how to talk to people, how to find the story behind the story, and how to tell a story in a way that keeps a reader reading. I got paid to do the two things I loved most: writing and being curious. and I found myself wanting to become whatever I’d last read.Įventually I grew up and became a newspaper reporter. Then I read a book about a surgeon, and one about a veterinarian, and another about a great tennis player.

It was a lot easier than becoming a pianist. I weighed only 40 pounds and could leap and pirouette all day without stopping. Then I came across a book on Maria Tallchief, and became a ballerina, just like that. My parents had bought an old piano and signed me up for lessons and, thus, I began dreaming of becoming a world-famous concert pianist. As for fame and fortune, I took care of that, too–I taught my brothers and the neighborhood kids how to wait in line for autographed copies, and I charged them 25 cents a book (an enviable paperback royalty today!), but also accepted candy.īy third grade, I had abandoned the literary scene.

By first-grade, I was my own publisher, making multiple copies of my books by hand. Publishing was no problem in those days, not like it is now. But a life of crime requires practice and patience, neither of which I had, so I settled into industry, making what I coveted but what my parents could not afford to buy: beautiful books like the ones my teacher read to us in school. I first began making picture books in kindergarten because my other career option at the time was stealing.

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