Song of Myself

What kind of child were you?
I was an only child, which meant that when I was alone I was really alone, and I was alone a lot. My parents were divorced when I was nearly seven. My mother, who was an alcoholic and a drug addict, and who suffered a series of nervous breakdowns, was often hospitalized. My stepfather was often at work or just not at home. I was often on my own after school and on into the evening. Often during those times I would wander around the cities I lived in, exploring.

My stepfather kept changing jobs, and as a result of this, we moved so often that between second and eighth grades I never went to the same school for an entire year. All this change made me into a kind of jokester and a show-off. I needed to be noticed. And it made me very observant. I became a real spy and a quick study: on starting at a new school I could figure out right away who I wanted to make friends with, which kids I wanted to avoid. I noticed everything about everybody: when somebody got new sneakers or when somebody was sobbing quietly to herself. And I learned that you live the life you're given, and so I adjusted to whatever was going on around me.

Did you enjoy reading?
I was very interested in comic books. Then, in fifth grade, a new teacher, in yet another new school, read to our class from books that weren't part of our schoolwork. The first was one of Beverly Cleary's novels about Beezus and Ramona. That was the first time I realized that school could be fun, and that books could be fun. That experience led me to read more on my own. In sixth grade, I read all the James Bond novels. In eighth grade, I read Charles Dickens's Great Expectations.

Did you like to write?
Very much. I started by trying to write comic books, but my drawing skills didn't keep pace with my writing, and so after a while writing came to mean more to me. The word balloons took up more and more of the space. Eventually, I just drew tiny heads in the corner of each frame speaking my long sentences.

At the same time, I realized that my stories weren't as good as the ones we were reading in school. So, much like the kids who were athletes or musicians, I practiced: I would pick a passage of description or dialogue from a book that interested me and go over it again and again, trying to figure out why it moved me or made me laugh. I did this for years. From the fifth grade on, I knew I eventually wanted to write novels.

Did any teacher, or other grown-up, praise your writing?
No, never. In 1957, when I was in second grade, the Soviet Union launched the first space satellite ever, Sputnik I, and Americans became terrified that our nation had fallen behind in math and science. As a result, schoolteachers encouraged kids to be math and science geniuses, not word geniuses. Being a scientist didn't interest me.

Did you go in for sports?
I loved sports, but because we moved so much, I rarely got to play on a school team for a complete season. The other problem was that I was short for my age. But I was quick and a good passer. When I was living in Washington, D.C., an African-American friend who was six feet four used to go around with me to the playgrounds where black kids played serious basketball. I was accepted. We'd all kid around. And if I ever faked out one of the black players and sank a shot, they'd all laugh and say, "Oooh, white boy put the move on you!"

What do you tell children who want to write?
To practice writing. To take your time and not expect to be able to write perfect stories. And to read analytically. Try, for instance, to write a paragraph describing a room that, without the use of a single negative adjective, makes the reader absolutely not want to go into that room. When you read a passage in a book that makes you feel sad or happy or scared, go back to it and ask yourself why.

Bruce Brooks is the author of the Wolfbay Wings series (HarperCollins, 1997).

What kind of child were you?
Perky. Into everything. My mother didn't know what to do with me. Because I had six older brothers and a male cousin all living at home, in our Bronx apartment, I knew early on how to maneuver and how to take care of myself. I knew how to take a punch! I was also good at hopscotch and jump rope. Very athletic.

Did you grow up bilingual?
Yes. My brothers spoke English with me at home. We played--and fought!--in English. But with my mother I spoke the sweet sounds of Puerto Rican Spanish, and because of this, Spanish has always felt like a safety net to me. It is the language I associate with my first experiences of being loved and hugged. Growing up, it was the language of my community.

Did you like to read as a child?
Oh, yes. By the time I was four, and with the help of my brothers, I taught myself to read and write English. I learned on comic books such as Dick Tracy and Popeye. We were a working-class family and didn't have a lot of books at home, and so when I first began reading I went around the apartment attempting to read the labels on all our cans of beans and cereal boxes. It was just thrilling. By the time I was seven, I was writing notes in English for my mother, who was barely literate in Spanish and completely illiterate in English.

Did you go to the public library?
The library was where I spent my life! It was quiet there, especially for someone like me who lived in such a crowded apartment. Many librarians befriended me. There, I could read whatever I wanted. It was a wonderful place to be.

Do you remember the first book you ever checked out?
It was Pinocchio. I took it out seven times. Finally, the librarian said to me, "You know, it will always be here." As a teenager, when my mother died I went to live with an aunt. At that time I worked part-time in the library as a page girl to earn some money.

Did you enjoy school?
School was not always a pleasant experience for me. For example, I was eager to learn and was an excellent student in English. Nonetheless I was aware early on that often when I went to school I was going into hostile territory. The library, on the other hand, was an exception, but not the public schools.

My first day of kindergarten was an unfortunate experience. I had already taught myself how to count as well as to read and write, and when I tried to show my teacher what I could do, she would have none of it. "Look at this show-off," she said, scolding me for knowing too much. Later that same year, some new girls arrived from Puerto Rico who spoke Spanish very well but knew no English. When I tried to help out by explaining to them in Spanish what the teacher was saying, she became furious. "This is not your country," she said. "You speak English here." For the rest of the year I got that kind of treatment.

In junior high school I opted to take the Spanish class, but my teacher, who had a thick Irish-American Bronx accent, insisted that we speak Castilian Spanish--as it is spoken in Spain, with a European accent--rather than with a Caribbean Spanish accent. It was like asking an American-born English speaker to talk like an English citizen. It felt like playacting, and all of us Puerto Rican children and other Latino children would laugh. But finally it became stressful and humiliating, and I decided to study French instead. I wrote about this experience in my novel Nilda (Harper, 1973).

What is the best part about being a writer?
Having a chance to write about things that are important to me. Events that I knew well, heartfelt things. And, having the opportunity to tell good stories.

Nicholasa Mohr's books include The Magic Shell/El Regalo Magico, illustrated by Rudy Gutierrez (English- and Spanish-language editions: Scholastic, 1995; Scholastic, 1998).

What kind of child were you?
Working in our family store, and getting to know our customers, I learned early on how to observe and listen to people, how to relate to others. It was good training for a writer.

Back then, however, I thought of myself as a scientist. I was going to be a chemist. Like my father, I was fascinated by machines. My father wanted to know how machines worked, televisions, for instance. At one time he filled our apartment with old TVs! I, on the other hand, was always asking "What if?" questions about machines. What if the world had a central energy source that broadcast power? There could be world peace because it would be possible to cut off the power to any nation that wanted to start a war.

I was an American child--so relentlessly so that my grandmother became hesitant to talk about Chinese things with me, even about the gods she kept on her bedroom bureau. I regretted this later, when I wanted to know more about my Chinese heritage.

Did you enjoy reading?
Both my parents were good readers, and I became one, too. The Oz books were among my favorite books. Fantasy led to science fiction. When it came to realistic stories, however, I found nothing as a kid about the lives of Chinese Americans. I know now that there was nothing for adults to read, either.

When did you first think of yourself as a storyteller, as a writer?
As a child, I never thought of myself as the storyteller of the family, because the others were always better at it than I was. I got interested in writing purely by chance, thanks to a high school English teacher, the Reverend John Becker. He challenged us not to set limits for ourselves. He told us all to write a story or poem that would be published in a national magazine. That's when I began writing science fiction, which I found was a lot like doing a lab experiment. I could set up a society, give it inhabitants, decide on certain parameters or rules, and then ask myself what might happen next.

What was your first story about?
It was about a time when San Francisco had sunk underneath the ocean. A young man goes back to the underwater ruins, trying to discover his roots. Finally, he decides that the only thing he can know about himself is that he's human. The irony is that he's not human, but a genetically altered dolphin. The reader knows this, but he never finds out.

Years later I realized that all my science fiction stories, including that first one, were about alien creatures--or about alienated heroes. And I realized that in writing those stories I was really trying to work my way through to a clearer sense of who I was as a Chinese American.

How has being of Chinese heritage been important to you?
The answer to that question has changed dramatically more than once. As a child I hated Chinese school. I wanted to be as American as possible. Then, in my early twenties, I became very interested in my Chinese roots.

For years after that, I thought that my function as a Chinese- American writer was to act as a bridge between two cultures. Now, though, I am not so sure that it is possible to blend the two cultures together. Asian cultures are family- and cooperation-oriented. American culture, on the other hand, emphasizes the individual and competition. The two cultures pull in opposite directions. So I see myself now as someone who will always be on the border between two cultures. That works to my benefit as a writer because not quite fitting in helps me be a better observer.

What do you tell children who want to write?
That there are many ways to get into a writing mood. During school visits, I'll ask for a list of objects in the room. We'll choose one object--a light bulb, say--and try to imagine it as a living creature. How would a light bulb communicate with others? How would it get its food? We then try to imagine the creature's world. The last step is to make up a story about that world.

What is the best part of being a writer?
It's nice being able to daydream and to get paid for it.

Laurence Yep's most recent book is called The Amah (Putnam, 1999).