Skipping school
Another confession: One of my more curmudgeonly, least practical goals as a children's writer is to never set so much as a single scene of my fiction inside a school.
I've got nothing against schools, the people who attend them (I was one), work at them (I'm the son, grandson, nephew, brother-in-law, son-in-law, and husband of current or former educators), or write about them (such as Laurie Halse Anderson, whose terrific Speak I hope to finish tonight).
It's just that writing about what happens there doesn't interest me nearly as much as what happens on the other 99.9999999999% of the earth's surface.
Sure, lots of children -- my audience -- spend lots of time in school. But adults spend even more time at work, and I'm not interested in writing about the office, either.
I've got nothing against schools, the people who attend them (I was one), work at them (I'm the son, grandson, nephew, brother-in-law, son-in-law, and husband of current or former educators), or write about them (such as Laurie Halse Anderson, whose terrific Speak I hope to finish tonight).
It's just that writing about what happens there doesn't interest me nearly as much as what happens on the other 99.9999999999% of the earth's surface.
Sure, lots of children -- my audience -- spend lots of time in school. But adults spend even more time at work, and I'm not interested in writing about the office, either.
Chris Barton. permalink
