Kate DiCamillo's Blog, page 24

I had a long and glorious Fourth of July weekend. My best friend Tracey and h...

I had a long and glorious Fourth of July weekend.
My best friend Tracey and her college-bound daughter Roxanne (who still sometimes calls me Aunt Kate) came to stay.
There were boisterous gatherings. There was great food. There was laughter.
There were sparklers.
Some day when I am very old, I will wake up in the winter darkness and think that I have only dreamed these long days of light, this greenness, this deep joy.
So I will post these words here to say that it was not a dream.
It was...

In the mailbag: a letter from Natalie in Virginia who wants to know if my real n...

In the mailbag: a letter from Natalie in Virginia who wants to know if my real name is Kate DiCamillo. She goes on to say that when she writes stories she usually uses a fake name, just in case someone doesn’t like the story.
Yep, I get it, Natalie.
I surely do understand.
But I have found that it is impossible to hide in a story.
And what I mean by that is that the story reveals my truest self (to me and to the reader) whether I intend for it to or not.
Some people are going to like that tru...

About twenty years ago, I came to the conclusion that it would be easier to writ...

About twenty years ago, I came to the conclusion that it would be easier to write than not to write, easier to do the work, than not to do the work.
So, I do the work.
Some of the time the work does not go well.
Actually, a lot of the time the work does not go well.
I do it any way.
And then, there are those times (after days and weeks and months of the work not going well) when a story will suddenly, unexpectedly, open.
It is like trailing around after a peacock, hoping that he will fan his...

From the Candlewick team: A special peek at Kate's interview with Bookpage at BE...

From the Candlewick team: A special peek at Kate's interview with Bookpage at BEA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FFRva1t3p8


Kate DiCamillo at BEA 2013
Beloved children's author Kate DiCamillio chats with our editor Kate Pritchard about her next story.

I was walking home from a friend’s house a few evenings ago, when I heard a “qua...

I was walking home from a friend’s house a few evenings ago, when I heard a “quack-quack,” followed by a “quack?”
I looked up and saw a duck sitting on the very top of the roof of a house.
I was surprised to see him sitting there.
The duck looked a little surprised, too.
He looked down at me.
“Quack?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I told him.
He turned away from me and looked up at the moon.
It’s not often that you see a duck on a roof admiring the moon.
This world keeps surprising me.
I love...

COOK CAUGHT MAKING SOUPThat is the headline in Despereaux’s Daily News, a news...

COOK CAUGHT MAKING SOUP
That is the headline in Despereaux’s Daily News, a newspaper put together by Miss Buswell’s fourth grade class at Oak Street Elementary in Franklin, Massachusetts.
Inside the newspaper: cartoons (featuring rats), sports columns (Miggery Sow playing softball), news flashes (Despereaux caught talking to the princess), recipes (for soup), interviews (with the Princess Pea and Despereaux), word puzzles and advice columns (“Dear Princess Pea”).
On every page of the newspape...

Yesterday morning, I was out walking Henry and a guy came out of his house carry...

Yesterday morning, I was out walking Henry and a guy came out of his house carrying a toolbox and got into another guy’s truck. The guy who was driving the truck said, “All right, let’s go get this done.”
And then they headed off together.
To get the job done.
It made me wish I had a toolbox for the job of writing . . . hammers and pliers and awls and wrenches, objects that are straightforward and definitive, things you can pick up and put down, objects you know exactly how to use.
But when...

E.B. White (in Charlotte’s Web) said that we must always be on the lookout for w...

E.B. White (in Charlotte’s Web) said that we must always be on the lookout for wonders.
I saw this wonder on the sidewalk leading up to the New York Public Library.
The words literally stopped me in my tracks.
They made me laugh out.
They made me nod my head in agreement.
And they made me love E.B. White even more.

I often refer to writing as “going down the rabbit hole.”This is a reference,...

I often refer to writing as “going down the rabbit hole.”
This is a reference, of course, to Alice and her journey into Wonderland, a place replete with the unknown, the unpredictable, the mysterious, the strange.
Last week, I saw into an actual rabbit hole; it was stuffed full with bunnies.
I was entranced.
Nothing is as strange and pleasing as the truth.
No journey is more astonishing than the every day.

From the Candlewick team: Kate just contributed a dot to the Celebri-dots campai...

From the Candlewick team: Kate just contributed a dot to the Celebri-dots campaign celebrating The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. You can see her dot at this link:

http://www.celebridots.com/2013/06/kate-dicamillo.html


Celebri-dots: Kate DiCamillo
www.celebridots.com