Q&A with Sharon Creech

Sharon Creech has kindly taken the time to answer our questions about her latest book, One Time.

 

Many of your books are taken from your own life experiences. Does writing bring back a sense of nostalgia about those family trips, settings or family members?

I do enjoy revisiting those family trips and settings, and witnessing how they become ‘other’ when I weave them into stories. It is fun to re-imagine and re-shape them. Once I’m underway in a story, the ‘real’ evolves into something new. Anything goes!

 

Your latest book, One Time, is about the power of imagination. Can you tell us a bit more about this story and Gina Filomena?

I’m always interested in what shapes us, and in particular what/who shapes our imaginations. In ONE TIME, we see how much a part of Gina is her imagination and we see how her family and grandmother have shaped and encouraged that, and we see how much a teacher like Ms. Lightstone can nurture imaginative powers and expand Gina’s (and her classmates’) world. Gina is like a young me, and Ms. Lightstone is like an older me.

 

Several of your books have been written with a blend of poetry and prose, do you find that an easy style to use when writing a story or does it provide its own set of challenges?

I let the ‘voice’ of the story shape the form, so sometimes the story feels more prose-like and sometimes more lyrical and poetic. Each has its own challenges. Lately the story ‘voices’ that come to me feel as if they are moving fluidly between both poetry and prose, and I enjoy that freedom.

 

What do you hope readers will take from reading One Time?

I hope readers will enjoy the story and that their own imaginations will be sparked. If you feed your imagination and exercise it, well, off you go!

 

Can you share some teasers about what you might be working on next?

My mind is all a jumble these days! I’ve taken a year off to re-fill my own imaginative well, and now it is bubbling and burbling and ready to burst. I’m not sure what I will work on next. It will probably be a novel. . . maybe in prose, maybe in verse, maybe a combo. Soon something more definite will emerge from the bubbling well . . . I trust!

One Time is published by Guppy Books and available now.