Author of over 400 Books for Children and Adults
An original fairy tale about a child whose sorceress stepmother leaves her out in the woods to die. Jane Dyer wanted to illustrate an original fairy tale and I had the first three pages of this one done, without a plot in sight. The editor Maria Modugno put it under contract and hoped I’d find a story in
Short stories and poems, all written by me and having to do with unicorns. Among the stories is the much reprinted “The Boy Who Drew Unicorns.” Each story and poem begins with a short introduction about how it came to be written.
An original fairy tale about a good woman, the devil, a bet between the angels and gargoyles on a French cathedral, and an ugly little boy. The climax takes place on Christmas eve. I began the story after a visit to Paris with my husband, where we spent the weekend with one of my editors who was
This is a book of nonsense poems, about made up animals. Like the Canterlope and the Raggit. As I am an incorrigible punster, I had a ball working on these rhymes. Obviously Janet Street enjoyed herself, too, as the ebullient pictures show.
My editor at Little Brown, the marvelous Maria Modugno, sent me a picture by a young artist named Laurel Molk. It was a charming water color of mice dressed in Halloween costumes and playing musical instruments. “We love her work,” Maria said, “but she can’t write a story. Can you do something for
This is a comic book for adults, not children. The artist Charles Vess–whose work in comics and illustrated books I had admired for a long time–asked a number of fantasy writers to try writing a comic book story based on a
Scottish/English folk ballad. I chose “King Henry,” a ballad in the Loathly Lady tradition.
The start of a series of the best original adult fantasy short stories and poems, including one of my own poems in each volume. Martin H. Greenberg and I sold the book together, but only my name appears on the cover because I edited the book. He handled the monetary details. Rave reviews, calling this the series that shows what fantasy is about. Few sales.
Almost ten years after my father died, I wrote this rhymed picture book about a boy on the day of his grandfather’s funeral. Why rhyme? I have absolutely no idea, but it was one of those books that simply poured out. The initial writing took several days and then I was weeks worrying it over.
This is one of the poems from “The Three Bears Rhyme Book” made into a Big Book and illustrated by a young Russian illustrator. The cover is actually too big to scan properly.
I was challenged by an editor to write a repetitive nursery rhyme. So I began it “Mouse’s house is very small, very small, very small. Hardly any room at all for anyone but mouse.” And then the editor turned the book down. So I turned around and sold it to my wonderful editor at Putnam