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Both my parents were English teachers, but they were also quasi-hippies,
and so they pretended they weren’t surprised and didn’t care
that it took me a really long time to learn to read. But they
were secretly relieved when I finally started getting into books.
And then, just as the relief started to fade, they got annoyed.
I read at the dinner table. I read in the car. I read on Christmas.
I even tried once to read during school, slipping a book in my
lap under my desk. This didn’t work out for me any better than
when I was five and hated getting dressed in the morning so much
I put on all my clothes under my nightgown and hoped my mom wouldn’t
notice––she did.
Anyway, by the time I was nine, I was starting to write my own
books, mostly because I wanted the stories to keep going. But
the opening paragraphs would lie there, all wrong, and then I
would get bored, lost in thoughts about the characters and the
world I had sketched out so clearly in my mind. Also, it was
hard to keep going after I read those first few paragraphs to
my sister and she laughed her head off.
It turns out both those things––getting really excited about
a world I see in my head, and being laughed at––helped me later
on, when I started to try to make a life from writing. I guess I’ve
learned that when I have an idea in my head, I should reach in
so very gingerly and pull down a handful of it at a time, and
just hope––holding my breath––that the little handfuls start
to show a picture of what’s up there in my head. And I’ve also
learned to wait until it’s ready before I show it to anyone to
read.
Slipping is my first published book,
and I’m very excited to be sharing it with the world. I hope
some people will read it. Remember my sister, who used to laugh
at what I read aloud? When she read Slipping,
much to my amazement, she cried.
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