Author Stephanie Cowell Remembers Madeleine L’Engle

By Kim

Photo by Russell Clay

My ten-year-old daughter recently started reading A Wrinkle in Time for school. Part of her assignment is to write three times a week in a reader response journal. Creativity is encouraged, so I put a little bug in her ear. “You know,” I said to her, “A writer friend of mine knew Madeleine L’Engle well. I bet she could tell you some interesting things about her that you won’t read about in any book.”


My daughter’s face lit up. She loves the book and she also loves surprising her teacher with unexpected tweaks that turn an ordinary assignment into something special.


I told her about Stephanie Cowell, showed her my copy of Claude and Camille, and explained that Stephanie considers Madeleine her writing mentor in much the same way that I consider Stephanie mine. I’m not sure how much of that she got because she was too busy looking at the painting on the cover (hardcover version, not the image shown here). She loves art and knew all about the impressionists, including Claude Monet.


“I want to read this,” she said.

I bit my lip as I remembered a few beautifully sensual but firmly R-rated scenes. “In a few years,” I said.


Make that six years at least.


Stephanie kindly agreed to the interview, so my daughter and I brainstormed a few questions. The questions are hers and the answers are geared toward fifth graders, but I thought our readers might enjoy them. I share them here in honor of the 50th anniversary of A Wrinkle in Time’s publication.


When and where did you meet Madeleine L’Engle? 


I met Madeleine when I took a writing class she gave at a convent for nuns in New York City. She was very good friends with them. Twenty writers were accepted and there was a waiting list. I was lucky to get in. We all sat around a large oval table and she gave us things to write about.

Madeleine L'Engle - Square Fish Books

2) What was her personality like? Was she easy to talk to? 

She was easy to talk to; she was warm and funny and loved people. She believed the great artists of the world were enlightened beings and saints. She always talked about Saint Bach. Of course it took a little bit of time to get used to her because she was very tall and a little bit like a queen. She wore long dresses down to her feet with beautiful embroidery; she was nearly six feet tall and she had a very low voice.

Do you know what inspired her to write A Wrinkle in Time? 


Goodness, she has written about this in her books and I’ll try to remember. She was terribly interested in science then and the universe and time travel. There is a particular area of physics called quantum physics which talks about time and energy waves and matter (the stuff that makes up the universe and everything in it) and many complicated things. One of the many ideas was there were wrinkles in time in the universe where you could leap over a lot of distance or time at once. She combined this with her sense of God and that people should be themselves. She felt love was the most important thing in the world. Also…Madeleine lost her own father when she was eighteen years old. He had been sick a lot of her life and I think she would have liked to go back in time and rescue him and that went into the novel. But when she had finished the novel, no one would publish it. Twenty-six publishers refused it. The one who finally took it thought it wouldn’t sell. They said it was too complicated for children!


How did she help you with your writing?


She loved my writing and when I asked her if she would read my first novel, she said yes. Then she helped me find a publisher and sent me a huge bunch of flowers when I found one. I could always talk to her about writing. She was like a second mother to me.


What were her favorite things to do? 

She loved to play classical music on the piano and to travel and to teach and speak to people, and of course to write. She loved to go to church. She loved opera and ballet and reading and museums. If she lent you a book, you had to PROMISE to return it. And she loved to cook but never doing dishes! When she was young, she was an actress. Oh and she loved her dogs!


What was her house like? 


She had a house in the country and an apartment in the city. The apartment was a short walk from where I lived. It was on a high floor and you could see the sun set over the river from the windows. The rooms were very large and she had thousands of books and a grand piano and many old things which had been in her family for a long time. She had many pictures of her husband who was a famous actor. Her country house was an old farmhouse and there was a path by the side of the house where she used to walk up and down at night and ask God why she couldn’t sell A Wrinkle in Time.


If you want to learn more about the friendship between Madeleine and Stephanie, here is an article Stephanie wrote about the subject. Have you read A Wrinkle in Time? Tell us your thoughts!

Evenfall: A Review and Q &A with Author Liz Michalski

By Kim

About Evenfall (from the book jacket):

Welcome to Hartman, Connecticut – home of the Murphy women, known for their beauty, willfulness, and disastrous luck with men. Fifty years ago, Gert Murphy stood aside and watched her true love, Frank, marry her sister. Now Frank’s dead – dead, but not quite gone – and realizes he’s made a mistake.

Andie Murphy is just returning to settle her uncle Frank’s estate, a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse known as Evenfall. Though Aunt Gert drives her as crazy as she always has, Cort, the wide-eyed farm boy she used to babysit, is all grown up…and has a whole new definition of the word sleepover. And if that’s not enough to distract Andie from her work, the mysterious whispers certainly are. Either she’s losing her mind, or something she can’t see is calling to her…something that insists on mending the past.

Author photo by Elizabeth Sullivan Photography

About the author (from the book jacket):

Liz Michalski graduated from college in Connecticut with a BA in English. She has worked as a reporter, an editor, and a freelance writer. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, two small children and large brown dog. Evenfall is her first novel.

Review:

Nina sees the man first. It’s a warm summer day, the kind where, when I was alive, you’d have found me down by the creek. Fishing, I’d have said if anyone asked, though the only thing worth catching there was a long, cool breeze. 

These are the opening lines of Evenfall, Liz Michalski’s debut novel. Given my fascination with ghosts, I knew from that second sentence that this was a book I could not put down. The prose is beautiful, the love stories bittersweet, the longing and regret palpable. The house, Evenfall, is not just a setting, but a character. The dog, the cat, even the goats and a snapping turtle are integral to the story, not mere props. The Murphy women, Frank, and Cort are all believably flawed and you love them for it. Neil is so flawed I wished I could scratch his eyes out. Men, don’t be frightened off by “love story.” I know of several guys who openly admit to having enjoyed Evenfall, particularly a certain few pages (see below). Word of warning: don’t hand it to a teenager without reading said pages first.

Interview: 

Welcome to What Women Write, Liz! You begin Evenfall from the point-of-view of a ghost, a perspective that drew me in immediately. How did you come up with this idea? 

Honestly, the first line of the book just popped into my head one morning. And then a few days later, I wound up touring the house that Evenfall is based upon. The two events just sparked the novel for me -- a man who loved his life, and his home, so much he just can't leave it.

You have become quite the topic of conversation in the pick-up line at school. Tell us about that. 

Hee. I was lucky enough to have lots of support from the people I met at my children's grammar and preschool. Evenfall is a love story on many levels, and mostly very clean, but there is one particularly steamy scene (starting on page 117 for those who would like to skip ahead). The month after the book came out, I was constantly having people sidle up to me at school when I was waiting to pick up my kids, saying things like "I liked your book. And, um, that scene..." Which is awesome, but also not the kind of thing you want to be discussing around the principal. : )

Nina serves as a sort of bridge between the living and spiritual worlds, yet she can’t exactly translate. Why did you choose an animal for this role? Was she inspired by a real dog? 

Nina was inspired by a real dog -- (you can read more about her on the secret pages -- see below). For me, an animal was a logical bridge between the two worlds. Animals have such keen senses, it's not such a stretch to imagine they can see and hear things that we can't. At the same time, Nina can't speak for Frank -- she can only provide the same type of silent support that our own animals do.

Evenfall was your debut novel. Tell us a little about your road to publication? 

I was very fortunate. I met my agent at Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace conference in Boston and connected with him right away. He worked on Evenfall with me for about a year, and then sold it shortly after he sent it out. On the other hand, it took me a really long time to write Evenfall -- like eight years to finish it -- so that part of the process was extremely long.

Your author page is wonderful and you have secret pages on there where readers can learn more about the backstory of the book. (Great idea, by the way.) If a reader wishes to access these pages, what would you like them to do?

I love my secret pages and I'm glad you do too -- it's so much fun to share more about Nina and other parts of the story. I've asked those who read and liked the book to email me (at info@lizmichalski.com) and I'll send them the links and passwords.

Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

An introvert who has learned to hide as an extrovert. It's nice to go out sometimes, but I'm happiest hanging at home with my husband, kids, and big dog. An ideal weekend is one where it snows or rains enough to keep everyone home and in pajamas. Sadly, that only happens about once a year.

You have small children. How do you manage to get any work done? 

At times it can definitely be a struggle. When my two kids were really little, I'd write for a few nights a week after my husband came home, and then for two hours or so on the weekend. Once or twice a year I'd go away for the weekend and just crank out as many words as I could, but I always felt guilty about leaving, which I guess did serve as a great motivator to get my writing done. I spent a lot of days playing on the floor, repeating one line over and over in my head so I wouldn't lose it before I could get to the computer to write it down.

This is the first year both my kids have been in school all day. It was actually tough to adjust to at first, but I've finally developed a good routine where I work on my fiction three mornings a week, and then do freelance work or other writing stuff the other two. Of course, it will be chaos again when summer comes!

Do you prefer composing or editing? Why? 

It depends. When I'm telling a new part of the story that I'm excited about, I love how easily the words flow, and how well they fit together. On the other hand, it is so satisfying to see when a chapter isn't working and be able to fix it. Which one I prefer depends on my mindset of the day -- and is usually the opposite from what I am doing!

What are you reading now? 

I always have a stack of books going. I just finished Julia's Child, by Sarah Pinneo, a novel which captures so honestly the struggle between having a dream and a career and raising a family. I'm one chapter into The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey, and really enjoying it. And I'm rereading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle in preparation for sharing it with my daughter's book club.

Are you working on another novel now?

Yes, I'm working on a story about a family in which in each generation, one daughter develops the power to make things disappear. It's a different story entirely, but has the same kind of feel to it as Evenfall, I hope.

Any advice for aspiring writers? 

When I first started trying fiction, a friend pointed me to Zoetrope.com, an online workshop. It was a great place to learn not only how to write, but how to give and receive criticism. I was so inspired by the stories I read there, by how seriously people took the craft of writing, and by how generous they were with their feedback. I'd read a short story I loved, then try and pinpoint why it worked for me. And then I'd sit down and write. So read. Read, read read. Try and figure out how other authors write action scenes, how they handle dialogue, how they build a plot. What makes a scene work? And then sit down in that chair and write, even if you've only got 15 minutes today. There's no other way to get the words on the page.

Thank you for stopping by today, Liz!

Evenfall is available at bookstores everywhere. If you've read the book, please tell us your thoughts in the comments below.