Today we sit down for a chat with Christie Waldman, author of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Learn more about Christine and her books at her website.
When did you realize you wanted to write novels?
When I was seven, I had a second-grade teacher who thought kids should be writing stories and plays. We even wrote a class play which we performed for the parents with paper mâché puppets we made ourselves. When, for my story about a talking horse, I kept going back for more yellow paper, my teacher said, “I think you’re writing a novel.” Oh! I liked that!
How long did it take you to realize your dream of publication?
Sixty years! From first draft to publication of The Voice of the Wooden Dragon was forty-one years.
Are you traditionally published, indie published, or a hybrid author?
Hybrid
Where do you write?
Home office
Is silence golden, or do you need music to write by? What kind?
Silence
How much of your plots and characters are drawn from real life? From your life in particular?
Most are imagined, but some details come from history or my own life.
Describe your process for naming your character?
Mostly, the names just come to me. They need to sound “right.” “Meredith” was the name of the statue that inspired The Voice of the Wooden Dragon (carved by Bill Loomis of Carbondale, Illinois).
Real settings or fictional towns?
My novel has both: the Land of Deweydaire and Philadelphia.
What’s the quirkiest quirk one of your characters has?
Dr. Sampson, an oddball dragon doctor, performs hypnosis with a yo-yo.
What’s your quirkiest quirk?
Chewing on pens and pencils
If you could have written any book (one that someone else has already written,) which one would it be? Why?
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. It is such a great story—so full of heart!
Everyone at some point wishes for a do-over. What’s yours?
Everything happens for a reason, even things that look like wrong turns, is how I see it. If, for example, I had gone to a college other than SIU in Carbondale, Illinois, I would not have met Bill Loomis or seen his dragon statue, “Meredith,” which gave me the idea for The Voice of the Wooden Dragon, the book I feel I was meant to write.
What’s your biggest pet peeve?
People who automatically find some reason to disagree with you instead of looking for common ground.
You’re stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves?
Aside from the essentials, food, water, and sunshine: the music of birds, the beauty of nature, and fresh air.
What was the worst job you’ve ever held?
“Walking beans” (hoeing rows of soybeans)
Who’s your all-time favorite literary character (any genre)? Why?
Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables. She’s loving and lovable. She’s an imaginative dreamer who grows up into a lovely young woman. She’s probably based on her author’s life.
Ocean or mountains?
Mountains
City girl/guy or country girl/guy?
Country girl
What’s on the horizon for you?
Perhaps I will try to write some short stories. Maybe one will turn into a novel. Also, I have Francis Bacon-related research to complete and patchwork quilts to make for my grandchildren.
Anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself and/or your books?
I would love to see children’s creative writing, art, and music cultivated in homes and schools. I did not get this nurturing growing up, other than from that one teacher. Still, I went to college seeking a liberal arts, humanities education that would prepare me to become a “serious fiction writer.” Bernard Malamud once offered this advice to would-be writers: “You must know and love literature and read and think of it endlessly.”
The Voice of the Wooden Dragon.
“Wanted: Princess Meredith!” Friend and foe seek the outlaw dragon princess who fights on behalf of oppressed human farmers. Things go from bad to worse when her cousin Prince Rupert—that bully!—takes the throne. Somehow, with the help of her friends, the boy Peter, court-jester dragon Felix, and a little girl in America named Suse, she must find a way to defeat Carlos’s magic, reclaim her power, and fulfill her destiny.
Buy Links