Seattle's Child

Your guide to a kid-friendly city

A Talk with Kate DiCamillo, Author of 'Because of Winn-Dixie'

When her first novel started taking off, Kate DiCamillo's publisher suggested that it might be time for her to quit her day job – fairly unheard of advice for a first-time author. Good advice, though.

That novel was Because of Winn-Dixie, which quickly became a best seller, won a Newbery Honor and was made into a feature film. Since then, DiCamillo has written a parade of best-selling and award-winning books: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, The Magician's Elephant, the Bink & Gollie early chapter book series, the Mercy Watson series and, of course, The Tale of Despereaux, winner of the 2004 Newbery Medal.

DiCamillo was in Seattle in May promoting the latest in her Bink & Gollie series, Bink & Gollie: Best Friends Forever, co-authored by Alison McGhee and illustrated by Tony Fucile.

She was also here offering a preview of her September release, Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, the comics-inspired tale of a squirrel that nearly expires when an unusually powerful vacuum cleaner sucks him up. Thanks to CPR administered by neighbor girl Flora Belle, the squirrel survives … and emerges with SUPER POWERS! (Of a sort. One of my 10-year-old daughter's favorite lines is, "For heaven's sake, what kind of superhero types?")

Parts of the story are told through graphic novel, comics-style illustrations by K.B. Campbell.

Seattle's Child talked to DiCamillo about her career, her stories and her advice for young aspiring writers.

Seattle's Child: Did you always want to be a writer? Did you always want to be a children's writer?

Kate DiCamillo: I wanted to be a writer since college. For about a decade after college I worked all kinds of odd jobs while telling myself I was a writer, telling everybody else I was a writer, reading books on writing – and not writing, right? … So then, right before I turned 30, I thought, "Wow, I'm going to have to write something if I want to be a writer." So I started to write.

At the same time, I got a job in Minneapolis at a book warehouse for a book distributer. I was assigned to the third floor, which was all kids' books. I entered into that job with a prejudice that I think a lot of adult readers have, which is that kids' books are not really literature.

Then I started to read the books, and the first thing I read was The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis. I loved it. The next was Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, and that was it. I started reading my way through the warehouse. It was like a free education.

Where do you get your ideas for books? Maybe you can start with Because of Winn-Dixie.

So it's one of the worst winters on record in Minneapolis, which is a considerable statement. I grew up in Florida. I'm also homesick. I don't have a dog, and I've always at least had access to a dog in my life, and I can't have one.

So, one night right before I go to sleep, I hear a girl's voice, with a southern accent, saying, "I have a dog named Winn-Dixie." When I got up the next morning, I just started with that sentence. I followed that voice because she sounded like she knew what she was talking about.

What about The Tale of Despereaux?

Winn-Dixie had just come out. My best friend's son was 8 years old, and I was visiting them. He had never been that impressed with me, but he was a big reader and all of a sudden here was a book with my name on the spine, so that gave him pause. He asked if he could talk to me privately, and we went to his room.

He told me he had the idea for a story for me, and I said, "You know, it's not usually someone else's idea, it usually something that comes to me, but you can tell it to me." And he said, "It's the story of an unlikely hero with exceptionally large ears." And I said, "What happens to him?" And he said, "I don't know. That's why I want you to write the story."

He didn't say a mouse, but large ears … unlikely hero … that's kind of how it coalesced in my brain.

Then there's your upcoming book, Flora and Ulysses, about a squirrel super hero. Why a squirrel?

A squirrel was expiring on my front steps and I called a friend and I said, "I don't know what to do. I don't see any blood, but he looks like he's dying." And she says, "Do you have a shovel?"

This is the sweetest friend in my pack of friends, and she was going to come over there and whack him over the head! So somewhere in my twisted psyche I thought, "I want to figure out a way to save this squirrel." And that's what happens in Flora and Ulysses.

How do you work with illustrators? Do you go and find an illustrator you want to write a book with?

This is the best kept secret in children's publishing – that you have nothing to do with it. What I have, contractually, is something called rights of refusal. So not only do I not pick the person, but I don't talk to the person until everything is done.

Were you a comics reader as a child?

I was a Peanuts reader. I was obsessed with Peanuts. My brother and I would go to the library and check out Peanuts anthologies. We loved them, we lived in them, and it shaped a lot of how we looked at the world.

What advice would you give to a kid who wants to be a writer?

I would say to a kid: Don't let your parents talk you into being a lawyer, which is what they're going to do if you have any verbal facility.

And, read as much as you can. And anybody who wants to be a writer, who's not thrilled with that assignment, doesn't really want to be a writer.

Then, write. It's a thing that you teach yourself. You teach yourself by reading the people who came before you, and you teach yourself by writing. You learn by doing it.

Read the full interview with Kate DiCamillo.


Ruth Schubert is a Seattle-based writer and mom.

About the Author

Ruth Schubert