Over the last 25 years, Deer Isle’s Cynthia Voigt has published almost 30 novels, most for young adults. Intent to be a writer from the age of 14, she published her first young adult novel, Homecoming, in 1981, at the age of 39. In 1983, her third, Dicey’s Song, won the Newberry Medal, awarded to the most distinguished American children’s book published in the previous year. Other awards include the Newberry Honor Book, American Bookseller Pick of the Lists, Horn Book Fanfare Book, Edgar Allen Poe Award, Phoenix Honor Book, and Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book of the Year, among others. Her most recent book, Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do?, the fifth in the “tart, subversive, and wholly entertaining” Bad Girls series, will be out next month.
A fearless writer, she tackles tough subjects for young adult readers, treats them with unflagging respect and honesty, and refuses to be boxed in, writing historical, fantasy, and contemporary realistic fiction, as well as mysteries and, last year, a dog story.
Voigt crafts these stories in her old farmhouse on a side street just off Route 15 in the village of Deer Isle. A furiously fast typist, she works a few hours at a stretch, plays tennis as often as she can, travels, and generally celebrates life.
It’s quite the pace you’ve had. You’ve written almost 30 books.
Well, I’ve published that many, but I have 10 or 12 no one wanted.
Really?
Really. My job is to write the story that I’m supposed to be writing. Their job is to say we do or we don’t want to publish it, or we want these changes; they select the cover, design the marketing plan. My job is just the story.
Speaking of story, what is it about the voice of the Tillerman books [a series of seven books, published between 1981 and 1989] that continues to ring without a false note?
I think I got my hands on something real good with that first book. It’s rich, and the characters are a little bit larger than life. And they’re living every child’s dream—which is to say, “I have no parents.” It’s an adventure we can almost imagine having. But mostly it’s a story I loved telling.
Is that important? Do you have to love telling the story?
I don’t have to.
Do you always love it?
No. But I’ve learned to love revising.
Do most of your books undergo a number of revisions?
It’s all over the map. It’s a crapshoot. You never know.
What about the new book, Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha
Gonna Do?
This was the most serious revising I’ve ever done. I wrote the story to occur over eight weeks and my editor wanted it stretched over an entire school year. To get all the important things in, to get the tension building and the characters developing, was really difficult—and interesting. The last revision I did, I said, “If this doesn’t go I’m giving them their money back.” But it worked, and in the end made a better book.
You show great respect for your readers by being so truthful with them, tackling serious subjects. Has that been risky?
Well, until Harry Potter, the great thing about children’s literature was it was not a big-money operation. So they didn’t have Da Vinci Code ambitions. People just cared that they were in a field where excellence kept cropping up.
Your books also explore the tenderest and hardest aspects of humanity. Did you start out with that intention?
No. The only conscious ambition I have is that my books should raise questions. I have no answers. But what I think is really dangerous is not considering the questions, like “Why do I feel sympathetic to this nasty character?”
Have children and young adults changed much over the last 25 years?
No. I don’t think people’s interest, needs, their characters change that much. Styles change, but what people want to say to one another, want to hear from one another, or need to talk about is the same. High school kids still talk all about their
parents.
And always have.
And always will. [Both having been parents of teenagers, we laugh pretty hard here.]
Do you do the “what would happen if?” method of story idea development?
Yes, absolutely.
An example?
The best example is Homecoming. I pulled up beside a parked station wagon full of kids at the grocery store. They
didn’t swear at me; they didn’t throw themselves out the window. Nothing happened. But by the time I’d walked through the electric door, I was thinking, “What would happen if nobody ever came back for those kids?” I knew it was a whiz bang idea, stopped to write it in my notebook, grabbed the cart, and by the time I got the tomatoes, I knew the father was gone and the mother was a problem. Then I left it for six months to grow.
Is that what you do? Leave ideas alone to grow?
When I’m being smart I do. [A pause. Returns from the kitchen with more coffee.] You know the nice thing about being interviewed is it reminds me I’m a writer.
Do you forget sometimes?
I get out of step sometimes. You’re alone, and it’s only you reinforcing yourself. It’s difficult to believe in what you’re doing. Recently I was looking at old rejected manuscripts. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever done that and said, “OK, you really can write.” [We both laugh even harder than the first time.]
