kathleen duey

Interview for S&S 2005

Duey, Kathleen
Author
www.kathleenduey.com

Many writers have a defining moment, an instant in which they knew they would write. Do you?
Yes. Two. Mrs. Fredericksen told me, in fourth grade, that it was better to tell my friends the truth, then write down the way I wished things had happened. I began writing short stories for her. She unfailingly encouraged me. Mr. Doohan, my tenth-grade English teacher, made me promise I would keep writing. Teachers shape so many lives.

Why do you write historical fiction?
A connection to the past is profoundly important for young readers. In well-researched historical fiction they discover that life has almost always been hard, the world has always been scary. They learn that people have always been ordinary, and that ordinary people pass on a legacy of courage. Readers of historical fiction know children have lived through terrible times, been heroes, saved their families. They know children have always been competent, needed, important, and that they have as much courage as adults - sometimes more. If readers learn a little history, too, that's wonderful.

Why do you write fantasy? Isn't it irrelevant to real life?
Fantasy and science fiction novels create entire worlds, cultures, arts, languages, religions, economic structures, races of people. Nothing is off-limits, too sacred or too far-fetched. Fantasy novels are set amid the wide, wind-scoured fields of human dreams. The paradox is obvious. Everyone dreams. Even our oddest dream is as familiar as air. The near and the far - fantasy contains both.

Most science fiction and fantasy assumes each person is vitally important, that one person can cause profound, far-reaching change. That concept is part of my carry-on ideology, in the bundle of beliefs I have never unpacked, that go where I go. History is built upon single moments in myriad lives. I think how each one of us lives is critically important.

Does your own life end up in your books?
THE UNICORN'S SECRET series is based solidly on a dream I had a hundred times or more in the third grade. It contains so much of my childhood's emotional landscape that at times I have to stop and just breathe a few minutes until I can go on.

Some of my AMERICAN DIARIES titles are family stories I have adapted. In choosing each historical setting, I chose eras and issues that touched me deeply. My friends see pieces of my kids, my life, my fears, my joys in every book.

I am working on a YA fantasy trilogy now. It is about a world very different from this one. But every time I reread a day's work, I am astounded to find the dark cliffs of my grandfather's mountain, the never forgotten grin of someone I loved who couldn't love - or even like - me. All my old growing up battles are there: the agony of difficult friendships and the joys of flat-out, heedless emotional connection. I recognize the cozy loneliness, the beloved warmth and suffocation of family, the sky-wide joy of individuation - and it's all seeping out of my fingers into the story whether I want it to or not.

How is writing historical fiction different from writing fantasy?
It is oddly similar. The writer creates an unfamiliar world - and ends up describing chairs and walls and clothing the reader can't picture without help. But I always end up back at the same point, staring at the tidal shifts in the oldest human struggle. In my books, the good in humanity usually defeats the bad - but often not without a real fight. Sometimes the struggle is staged grandly, over whole worlds. Sometimes it plays out within a single human heart. Ordinary courage is always a big part of my books; I think it is a big part of every life. That's the gift I want to give readers, I think: an awareness of the human legacy of ordinary courage.

Is that why you write for children?
Ten years ago I would have balked at such a simple answer, but, yes. Yes, it is.

photo: Sonya Sones

Kids write me all the time for book report information. Sometimes they have put this request off until the VERY, VERY last minute-- and the report is due tomorrow. In case I am out of town speaking or trying madly to finish a book, here's everything you need… FAST!
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Kathleen Duey grew up in Colorado.

She loved riding her horses, hiking, being in the mountains. Reading was always important to her. Writing became a fascination early in her life. In the fourth grade, Kathleen began writing stories and told everyone who would listen that she was going to be an author. Then she did nothing about it until she was 35 years old.

Kathleen has lived mostly in isolated places. For many years she chose to live without electricity—nearly 25 years without television, most of that without a phone. She lived in a tipi for two very long summers at almost 11,000 feet in the Rockies. This kind of life means she knows how to carry a candle so it won’t go out, how to sew by hand and with a treadle machine, to knit and crochet, how to make bread, milk a goat, weave baskets, make yogurt and cheese, and dry fruits and vegetables using only the sun. She once canned 400 quarts of food using a wood stove and used to make bread three times a week, grinding the flour by hand. She knows how to judge baking-heat by sticking her hand inside a wood stove’s oven. She can make pickles, turn a chicken into chicken soup, make tofu—and much more. These skills are of little use in a modern world unless you write historical novels or build fantasy cultures in your mind. So,as usual, things work out.

In the last decade, Kathleen has learned about computers, the internet, research and writing. Writing is her passion and her dream-come-true. She is in love and feels lucky to have a such a wonderful and loving partner in her life. Her hobbies include playing guitar (badly), singing, (not so badly) and writing songs (improving a little, after all these years). She also enjoys horses, gardening, travel, figuring things out and learning anything new.

Because of the many historical novels she has written, Kathleen knows a lot about American history. She hated it in school, but finally, as an adult, has realized that history is simply family stories—the BIG family.

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"I get to travel nationwide and internationally to speak to audiences at schools, literature and educator's conferences, bookstores and more. I have written over seventy books now, including my new dark, sociological YA fantasy trilogy, picture books for toddlers, unicorn stories for 2cnd and 3rd graders, historical horse novels, historicals for middle graders, nonfiction for middle school kids, and books for adults. I am sifting through ideas for a graphic novel with an artist I admire very much...and there are several other interesting projects waiting for me to free up a little time. One of the wonderful things about writing is that it's always hard, so it is never boring--it's the best job the world." kathleen duey

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