Ask the Author: Jacquelyn Mitchard
Answered Questions (21)
Jacquelyn Mitchard
There's no website you can read them on! But you can get a new copy for just a dollar or so on eBay!
Jacquelyn Mitchard
I did read this book when I was a child. Why did you hope I hadn't read it? I didn't get the question about Donald Trump. I read his niece's book about him.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
When I was in college, my wallet was stolen from a friend's house. His college was in deep southern Illinois, almost Missouri, far from where I went to school. Some years later, another friend, who lived in Chicago, bought a used car at a lot in Indiana. Everything about it was fine except the glove box wouldn't stay shut. She eventually determined that something was stuck behind it and she and her father prised it out. It was my wallet. Everything, even the money, was still in it.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
The first "real book" I ever read was NATIONAL VELVET by Enid Bagnold. I still think it's one of the best books I've ever read and my style of writing is very influenced by hers, so much so that I have to "watch it" a little. She also wrote THE CHALK GARDEN, another book to which I'm really attached.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
Yes, this is awful. I signed up for the site because I knew some people on it, and then I guess I hit the wrong button, because the site seems to have hijacked my contacts list. I'm really sorry for any inconvenience. Please ignore it.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
I'm sorry i didn't see this question sooner. No, it's not a kind of opossum. They just look ghostly (spectral) at night.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
She walked to the front of the chapel and looked down at the silent form in the casket. Then she noticed that the face was her own.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
I would live in the Yorkshire of James Herriott, or even the Yorkshire of Emily Bronte.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
I'm so sorry. I'm working on a new book and REALLY behind my schedule.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
I just like the title. To me, it meant that the boys came from the sea (two, if by sea) and that Frank was the guardian (waiting on the opposite shore). I saw Frank as someone who, despite his training, believed that HE was the alarm system and that he could protect his family ... his confidence in that was his fatal flaw.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
I've just finished Elizabeth Strout's ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE (loved it and reviewed it for the Oprah Magazine) and am looking forward to the memoir PRIESTDADDY (just what it sounds like) and to reading Karen Dionne's debut novel THE MARSH KING"S DAUGHTER.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
Is this for TWO IF BY SEA? If it does refer to this book, no, there was no mention of the title in one of the actual passages in the book. The title refers to the old poem about Paul Revere, but not to Paul Revere. Instead, it refers to someone who waits and watches for the two from the sea (the boys in the story). "One if by land/and two if by sea/And I on the opposite shore will be." In the first chapter, Frank rescues Ian from a flood following the Brisbane tsunami. He is the steadying presence, the one who saves Ian, and is his protector thereafter.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
For heaven's sake! I'm appalled. Please send me your address privately at jgmitchard@gmail.com, and I will send a signed book in the mail tomorrow.
Jackie M.
Jackie M.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
Wel, it is fiction. I did blend those two events to create a fictional event. I hoped it wouldn't irritate people. I wanted to write about the sight of the wave, and I couldn't figure out another way. I did consult experts, and my experts in tsunami said that it was possible for such an event to strike in Brisbane. I hope you read the rest of it. THANKS for writing.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
It had to do with the old poem in the sense that, after the line that says, "One if by land and two if by sea" comes the line "And I on the opposite shore will be." That's how I think of Frank, guarding the way for the precious lives who came to him, two ... if by sea.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
Well, I learned when i was a little kid that telling a story equalled power. It was possible to bring people, even grownups, under your spell if you could tell a good story. And that hasn't changed. The chance to provoke people to laugh or cry or question ... to try to put down human variety on the page ... that's a kind of magic.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
I only have "sentence" block or "word" block, and that can go on for hours, as I try to think of the right way to play the song I can hear so clearly in my head. Story block ... I don't have that. I'm always eager to write, even if not well!
Jacquelyn Mitchard
I wanted to write an adventure book that took place on a grand scale, while also observing the bonds of family -- but with a main character who was a man, not a woman. Well, this adventure went so big, and includes a little boy rescued from a tsunami who can get people to do what he wants with his thoughts, and a huge showdown, and a great love match. It's an epic. It's called 'An Ark of Our Own,' out early in 2016 from Simon & Schuster.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
I was born that way. There is no writer's block for me, just as there is no ... well, carpenter's block or pastry chef's block. Writing is always there, and I run to it. All I need is a flat space and the bud of a story.The flat space can be a desk or a dictionary on my lap on the floor of an airport. I can't wait to write.
Jacquelyn Mitchard
For years, I've been threatening to write a literary, but truly SCARY, ghost story -- not a horror story, mind you, with hatchets and zombies, but a ghost story. Now, I'm doing it. And ... when I started it, it was so scary, I had to sleep with the light on at the artists' residence where I was working. I wore a sleep mask because I need total darkness to sleep, but I knew the light was there!
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