Flying High with Jane Yolen

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By Donna Liquori September 9, 2010

Don't call Jane Yolen "prolific." She hates that word. She prefers "versatile." And she is. This fall marks the publication of her 300th book, Elsie's Bird (Philomel), about a young girl who travels west with her father and her bird.

On top of that, Yolen's books this year include a graphic novel, a bedtime poetry collection, a biography of J.M. Barrie, and a tome about dance folktales.

Yolen's been compared to Hans Christian Andersen and Aesop. It all started almost 50 years ago with Pirates in Petticoats (D. McKay, 1963). Since then, her books have garnered a Caldecott Medal, a Caldecott Honor, two Nebula awards, the Jewish Book Award, and two Christopher Medals. And at 71, she doesn't show signs of stopping.

You dedicate Elsie's Bird to your husband, David Stemple, saying he was much like Elsie's father. Why is this book is special to you?

The description of the father in the book sounds a lot like my late husband and that was intentional. It's a nod to his love of the countryside, though he was a West Virginian born and bred in the mountains, not the big-sky territory. He was always my first reader. We'd been married 44 years, together for 46, when he died, and he enters many of my books in different incarnations.

What does it take to write 300 books? Are you a very disciplined person?

I am very disciplined when it comes to writing, not so much in the rest of my life. But then writing is a major part of my life, so I suppose that's all right. Just don't ask about things like keeping my checkbook balanced, or filing mail and email (my daughter does that) or doing the laundry or cleaning house.

To write 30 books or 300 books or 3 books? BIC. Butt in chair. Every day.

I read on your website that you hate the word "prolific." Why?

"Prolific" carries with it a sneer, a sense of the pejorative. Critics use it to mean a hack, someone who is not careful about what they write. I prefer the word "versatile," which is an admiring word, as in "Gosh, she's so versatile. I'm amazed!" So "prolific" is a hack, and "versatile" is a national treasure. Which one would you rather be called?

Even after publishing 300 books, you still receive rejections. Does it ever get easier?

Nor should it? If it gets easier, then it gets easier to be shoddy in one's work, to throw things together rather than to craft them. I'd rather it stays harder.

What inspires you?

Nature, people, gossip, overheard conversations, dreams, music, jokes, stories. Gosh—everything.

Recently, you've taken on a graphic novel, "Foiled" (First Second, 2010). How did you like working in that genre? Will you do it again?

I already have done it again. The sequel Curses, Foiled Again is in [illustrator] Mike Cavallaro's hands. And there's a stand-alone graphic novel called The Last Dragon (Dark Horse) that illustrator Rebecca Guay is more than halfway through right now.

I love the genre, tried to sell a graphic novel for about 15 years before Mark Siegel of First Second bought Foiled. It was a huge learning curve to write one, even though I'd done two short comics for [illustrator] Charles Vess before.

I also understand that you were a college fencer and your granddaughter fenced. What qualities from fencing have helped you in your life and career?

While I've always had a fascination for fencing scenes in movies and in the theater, the con brio wildness of it, there is a strict technical side to competitive fencing—especially if you fence foil. It is a spectacularly good metaphor for the process of writing, which takes both brio and the technique to make a good story.

You have the sign "Value the process, not the product" over your desk. Can you explain why the process is so important?

I believe that if the process is infinitely painful or distasteful or a blood-letting, why do it? There's plenty enough in the publishing process that is annoying, aggravating, even heart-wrenching. So if I don't enjoy the writing process, I would have done better at any kind of other job, including Wal-Mart greeter. But having said that, I know many writers who hate the process and call it pouring blood onto the page. Ugh. People who know me well know I love writing—that I write with joy. I am not masochist after all.

Nature plays a big part in many of your books. Why do you think it's important for kids to read about nature?

Because the pieces of wildness in the world are being paved over, cut down, washed away, covered with spilt oil. My one admonition to my children about what kind of work they do in their adult lives was, "Leave the world a better place than you found it." I hope that is what I do. And writing about wildness and wilderness, about birds and trees and the wide slate of sky reminds me—and I hope my readers—of what we have in this world and what we might lose if we are not more careful.

I also liked what you said about being a woman writer: "Most woman writers do not have the luxury of a wife. We muddle through our chores and our writing, doing a balancing act that would put the Flying Wallendas to shame." What was your secret to getting it all done?

A wonderful husband who—as a professor—used a lot of his discrete time to help me with house and childcare long before the idea of a House Husband was even a part of any feminist vocabulary. Both my sons became House Husbands and had the raising of their children while their wives went off to work for several years. But still I kept another sign over my desk, attributed to Marya Mannes: "A man at his desk at home is at work. A woman at her desk at home is available."

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