Just went to see Katherine Paterson speak last night. She wrote Bridge to Terabithia and The Great Gillie Hopkins and Jacob Have I Loved, if you've read any of those. I think you'd really like what she had to say. She talked about how she includes religion and belief in her books because she is a person of faith--that she can't help but include it, even if it's just in the background. She quoted C.S. Lewis: "The book cannot be what the writer is not."
One thing I remember her saying is that it's useless to pretend that all is well, but cynicism is the easy way out. She prefers to seek for meaning instead, "healing and illumination." She also talked about hope. All in all, it was a thoughtful talk about integrating faith with art. If you ever wanted to hear it, they said they were going to put it on the web. It's the public station here, WGBH. I'll have to find the site. If you've ever read her books, they're very thoughtful, and all of them are realistic fiction. A few are historical fiction, though.
She also talked a bit about her writing process, which was great. She's a mother of four, and now a grandmother. She says that everyone expects her to be organized, to write every day, etc. She said, "I had four kids in four years. I wrote in 5 minute snatches whenever I could. I just got it out." She said one time someone told her, "Yeah, I know what it's like to be a writer, that kind of life. One of my friend's dads when I was growing up was a writer. Man, did we have to tiptoe around!" To which she answered, "Yes, but you said he was a *dad*?"
I can just imagine all the things she was juggling as a mom, and it just couldn't be her full time job. It sounds to me like she just did it when she could, but she made time for it all the same. It's fun to hear about different writers and how all their processes are so different.
