Ashley Marie asked Jane Yolen:

I devoured The Devil's Arithmetic in a few hours one evening and was stunned when I found out you've written 350+ books. Do your ideas come from anywhere in particular or all across the board? If you get a good idea, do you let it stew in the back of your mind for awhile or immediately jump on writing it?

Jane Yolen With that many books out, as you have already guessed, the ideas come from everywhere--things I read (newspapers, magazines, books, news feeds, museum or castle walls), things I hear or overhear (gossip, conversations, songs, song lyrics), dreams, my own history, suggestions from editors or passing strangers, etc. Sometimes the idea and the writing are almost simultaneously, sometimes they stew for twenty years or more.

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