Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
My parents were missionaries in the Philippines from 1950-1954. I was home schooled with the same materials used at a private school I went to in Bagio City, Luzon. My first stories were about the characters in Winnie the Pooh. I wrote them when I was eight years old. I had beautiful handwriting until we came back to the US and I went to public school and had to change to a slant. I would start to write in longhand and write until my hand was tired. Sometimes I wrote for tweny-four hours at a time or until the story was finished. Almost everythng I wrote was stream of consciousness. Some stories ended before I finished them because I ran out of studyhalls or I as too tired to write anymore. Most of my stories came from dreams I had that I wrote down the next day. Sometimes i was inspired by something I read or something someone said or people I observed.
When did you first start writing?
When I learned how to read and write. When I was eight years old. A nurse who lived downstaiirs in the mission house asked me to get crackers out of the kitchen. When I said I couldn't find them, she grabbed me by the ear, dragged me into her kitchen and pointed to a box and spelled out "C R A C K E R S." Then she said, "Can't you read?" Until then, I didn't know there was a reason to learn how to read. I was reading at a seventh grade level by the end of the summer. And I was writing short stories about Eyore, my favorite character in Winnie the Pooh.
Read more of this interview.