KIDS' WRITER

The Baltimore Sun

Thirty-one years ago, Colby Rodowsky, a Baltimore mother and housewife, got her chance. An English major at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, she had always wanted to write, and now that the youngest of her six children was out of kindergarten, she'd have a bit of quiet time each afternoon.

She signed up for a tutorial with a writing coach, submitted a book idea, and, with a lot of encouragement from her husband, Lawrence, wrote her first novel for children.

"I had no idea whether anyone would publish it," says Rodowsky, 74, at an interview in her Baltimore home. "It was all so new to me."

Though that book stayed in a drawer, Franklin Watts published her next -

What About Me?, concerning a teen whose brother has Down syndrome - in 1976, and the stories kept coming. With Julie's Daughter (1986), Not My Dog (2001), That Fernhill Summer (2006), and many more, she established herself as an author of children's fiction. And last month, when Farrar, Straus & Giroux published Ben and the Sudden Too-Big Family - about a Baltimore boy whose single dad abruptly remarries - it was a landmark, her 25th book.

Quite a feat for a woman who says that after each work comes out, she still fears she'll never get another idea. But there have been plenty.

In P.S.: Write Soon (1987), a girl with a leg brace finds it doesn't pay to exaggerate to pen pals, because they might come for a visit. The heroine of Not My Dog yearns for a puppy but instead ends up with a great-aunt's old mutt. In Jason Rat-a-Tat (2002), a boy who dislikes sports must find his way among siblings who love them.

A few fall in the fantasy category - The Gathering Room (1983), for example, is about a boy who lives in the gatehouse of a graveyard much like Green Mount Cemetery and looks to the "people" buried there for friends. But in each, it's about people. "I'm fascinated by characters," Rodowsky says. "I like to see how they respond to challenges."

A grandmother of 14, Rodowsky has plenty of family material to draw on. The Sudden Too-Big Family features a huge reunion not unlike the one she and Lawrence planned for their recent 50th anniversary. Other books were sparked by a Sun feature and a clue in a crossword puzzle. "You borrow from everywhere," she says.

A member of the Children's Book Guild of Washington, Rodowsky has garnered some of the field's more coveted honors, including School Library Journal's Best Book for Young Adults (Julie's Daughter) and Best Book of the Year (Sydney, Herself, 1989). Currently, she's excited about the jacket design of her latest. Artist Michael Wertz has etched each of the book's nearly 30 characters in beach-friendly hues.

"His attention to detail is wonderful," Rodowsky says.

So is the author's as she addresses the craft and business of her work. How did you get your start?

I arranged a one-on-one [course] with a friend of mine, an English teacher I'd [had] at Notre Dame. I thought she would just give me writing exercises, that sort of thing. At the first meeting, she told me to bring in an outline for a book - the following week! I came up with a children's book idea.

I finished [the book] and sent it around to a bunch of places; they all kept sending it back. Frankly, it wasn't very good. But finally, one publisher sent ... a long letter saying why they couldn't publish it, but that they were interested in seeing the next thing I wrote. This had all taken so long, I'd finished another one by that time, and they took it. What makes a good children's story?

I think [it's] what makes a good anything story. Characters; plot. Plot is not my strong point. I give my manuscripts to my husband to read. He's not a writer, but he's a good critic. ... He always says, "When's the murder going to happen?" If he were to pick out a book to read, it'd tend to have more plot.

I usually know a lot about my characters before I write. I'll think about them. I know things that won't appear in the book. What does the character think about? What does her room look like? What kind of posters does she have? I'll think about that while walking the dog or doing other things. Sometimes I'll make a list [of character traits]. Before you sit down to write, how much of a book do you have formulated in your mind?

Usually, the beginning and the end. I'm not sure how I'm going to get there, and I have to figure that out as I go. ... There are exceptions. In What About Me? (1976), I had no idea the brother with Down syndrome would die in the end. Sometimes you discover things. Twenty-five books: That's a lot of story ideas.

I have one friend who claims that she has 12 outlines and ideas ready to start at any moment. I don't. it's too depressing to think about that.

That Fernhill Summer started because I went to a house, and it was the most incredible house I'd ever seen. It wasn't so much that it was gorgeous; it was filled with everything-masks and sculpture and paintings. I needed somebody to live in it, and family members to come there, and why they came. That book came from a place.

Another book, Not Quite a Stranger (2003), starts when a girl opens the door, and there's an older teen-age boy standing there who is the spitting image of her father. He's her father's son, from before he was married, and she didn't know about it. I wondered: What would she think? What would she say to him? What will he say? It sort of went from there. And the idea from the crossword puzzle?

Well, I was doing the puzzle one day, and the clue was "Beatle album." The answer was "Abbey Road." So I kept saying in my mind, "Abbey Road, Abbey Road." I thought you could have a kid's name: Abbey Rhode. Why is she named that? Or why does she think she's named that? She imagines her father was one of the Beatles. ... Her mother keeps telling her this is ridiculous, but she spends a lot of time trying to convince everybody she's the child of one of the Beatles.

I did the whole book, and it was called Beatle Blood, but the Beatles' lawyers objected. The Beatles suddenly became the fictitious "Boomerangs" from Australia, and the kid became "Sydney" (Sydney, Herself, 1989). Do you clear ideas with your editor first?

Never. I write the manuscript and send it in whole. Then they come back with the "editorial letter." It's long and detailed - a couple of pages, single-spaced - with some broad observations. Then you go back and revise in your own way. Later in the process, they get into the nitty-gritty or the small details of the writing. What are your writing habits?

My theory is, as long as a book is moving forward, it doesn't much matter if I spend four hours one day and half an hour the next. I guess in that sense I'm not disciplined. When I'm working on something, I do put in some time ... every day if possible. I actually spend a lot of time just staring at the computer screen, thinking about how to say something, or how a character might react.

I also like working in the afternoons. All the kids are grown and married now, but when I started, I wrote when they were at school, and that stuck. Do you aim your books at a certain age?

Not really. ... People ask if I consciously make my language simpler for younger readers, and I don't. I keep in mind that I'm writing about younger kids [in general] and kind of gear my language to them. I don't really care ... whether [publishers] say it's for 8-year-olds or 10-year-olds. But even in those "3-or-younger books," I've never had an editor say, "This word is too hard; take it out." It's a fad for celebrities to write books for kids these days.

Yes, and that can be a little hard to take. Some are pretty good, according to friends who read them. But it's not as hard getting published if your name is recognizable. How does a beginner find a publisher?

You have to do homework. You go to Writer's Market or one of the books in the library. If you've written a book, go to the library and find out which companies have published similar books. When I started, I sent eight query letters to publishers - "It's about such-and-such, and I think it's for roughly this age." Most everyone said they'd look at it. Then I started sending it out.

The rejections were discouraging. The editor at Franklin Watts turned it down [too] but asked to see something else I'd written. When I used to speak at schools, I'd tell them my first book did not get published. ... Most every writer I know had a few in the bureau drawer that never made it. Any advice to aspiring authors?

Don't quit your day job. You probably shouldn't count on [getting rich]. There are exceptions; look at J.K. Rowling. My grandkids can't wait for the next Harry Potter to come out.

But be committed. I know someone who said she wanted to be a writer. She wrote one short story and sent it to The New Yorker. They turned it down, and she never wrote another one! How important is having an agent?

The book world is more complicated now, with bigger companies owning several publishers - it can be hard to follow. An agent helps with that. ... You can find agents' organizations on the Internet. And your next project?

I'm working on something I did for an older readership, and I'm now trying to redo it for younger readers. The setting is a small town in Virginia where I used to spend summers. ... But I don't want to talk about it. I'm superstitious.

jonathan.pitts@baltsun.com

Copyright © 2021, The Baltimore Sun, a Baltimore Sun Media Group publication | Place an Ad
72°