Heather Vogel Frederick
Author
If you've ever attended a writer's conference, you've probably heard the old adage at least once: You need to read one thousand books before you can write just one. But how many of us, with our busy, Blackberry-buzzing lives, have actually managed such a thing?
Meet
Heather Vogel Frederick. A bookworm since birth, Frederick spent fifteen
years reviewing children's books for the Christian Science Monitor,
the New York Times, Child magazine and Publishers
Weekly (where she was a contributing editor) before she launched her
current career as a successful children's author.Her debut novel, The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed, published by Simon & Schuster, and its sequel, The Education of Patience Goodspeed, won many accolades including positive reviews in the New York Times and the Horn Book. Her picture books include the forthcoming Hide-and-Squeak (Simon & Schuster) and Calamity Wayne at the O.K. Corral (Harcourt).
But the big news,
at the moment anyway, is her Spy Mice series, published by Simon
& Schuster.Think Stuart Little meets Spy Kids -- a nifty mix of humor, action, fun characters, and a whole lotta cool spy gadgets mixed in (not to mention something called the Silver Skateboard). Spy Mice, which is set at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, kicks off with The Black Paw and follows with For Your Paws Only and Goldwhiskers. Rights for the first two titles have been sold to publishers in the UK, Germany, and Italy.
Frederick, married to her college sweetheart and mother to two teen-age boys, grew up in Boston, MA, and now lives in Portland, OR, where she writes full time. She is represented by literary agent Barry Goldblatt.
Frederick, a one-time Fulbright scholar, is as sweet and genuine as she is smart. She was interviewed both in person and via email.
Barb Odanaka: You spent many years reviewing children's books before you actually sat down to write one. Do you think that helped you as a writer? Or did the reviewer in you make it hard to let loose?
Heather Vogel Frederick: Book reviewing was my graduate school. I reviewed for many different publications over the years, but I owe a huge debt of gratitude to one in particular: Publishers Weekly. [Senior editor] Diane Roback added me to her stable of reviewers shortly after my first son was born, when I quit newsroom journalism to stay home with him and freelance. She supplied me with a steady diet of fabulous books to read and review over the next 15 years, as well as opportunities to interview a wide range of children's authors.
Was all this helpful to me as a budding writer? You bet. Sure, I could have gone to the library and checked out armloads of children's books and ultimately accomplished the same thing, but actually having to read books on deadline -- that was key for me. We all know how deadlines tend to light a fire under us! Plus, it was just so much fun being able to earn a living doing what I love to do best: read. Meanwhile, the writer in me soaked up all that wonderful language and gained a clearer sense of what works and what perhaps doesn't structurally in a picture book or novel. And I was enormously inspired by the authors I had the privilege of interviewing, including Cynthia Rylant, Christopher Paul Curtis, Brian Jacques, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Chris Crutcher, and many, many others. Talking with them gave me valuable insights into the creative process -- which I came to realize is as individual and unique as each writer. That was heartening, as up until that point I'd always felt there was some "secret" to being a writer. There isn't. You just need to sit down and do it. Whenever, however -- just do it. I sound like a Nike ad!
Did any of this get in my way when I sat down to write, or make it harder for me to let loose? Not really. Perhaps there was a fleeting initial thought of "Gee, somebody's going to be reading this and passing judgment on it," but that quickly passed. Once I'm in the creative flow, I'm in the flow.
Odanaka: Looking back, was there anything in your childhood or teen years that might have indicated a future in children's books?
Frederick: Absolutely. I've wanted to be a writer since I was about four or five, and all my family and friends knew it. I was a major bookworm growing up, shuttling back and forth to the public library every few days on my Schwinn bike to stock up on fresh reading material, and I wrote lots of stories, too. My dad always took me seriously, and I love him for that. He slipped a copy of Strunk & White's Elements of Style into my Christmas stocking when I was 12. I still have it. I didn't zero in on writing children's books until I was in college, however. As a lark -- and yes, I admit it, because I thought it would be an easy "A"! -- I signed up for a class in children's literature spring quarter of my senior year. The instructor was a former children's librarian by the name of Marjorie Hamlin. She's a wonderful, delightful human being, and my hero. She's in her 80s now and as vibrant as ever. She came to the Pacific Northwest to see me last fall and went camping -- in a TENT, on the GROUND -- up on the Olympic Peninsula! Amazing. At any rate, in this class she reintroduced me to many books I'd read when I was younger, giving me a fresh appreciation for them, and she also introduced me to other authors I had never read, including Susan Cooper. I remember reading The Dark is Rising and every hair on the back of my neck standing up as I realized that this was not "kiddie lit" -- as our class was often dismissively referred to -- but literature as fine and true as anything written for adult audiences. I knew at that minute I wanted to write children's books. And I've never looked back.
Odanaka: What were some of your favorite authors and books growing up?
Frederick: I've always been a huge fan of fantasy. Charlotte's Web, of course –- which I still consider the most perfect children's book ever written. Half Magic. Mr. Popper's Penguins. The Borrowers. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. Those are just a few. My bookshelves are still crowded with all the books I had as a child, and like most parents, I've loved sharing my favorites with my two boys.
Odanaka: You actually have your own "writer's studio." Tell us about that.
Frederick: Writer's studio sounds so grand! You have to understand, I live in a house the size of a teacup. A cottage, really. With my husband and two teenage sons, all of whom are well over six feet tall. Plus a dog. I'm like the old woman who lives in a shoe. I worked out of a tiny corner in our home for many years, but with three books now published and half a dozen more under contract, the research materials, files, books, etc., mushroomed to the point where I needed a separate space. So we found a small apartment nearby. It's very peaceful. Any window I look out of, all I see is trees.
There's no phone, no interruptions. A teakettle in the kitchen, a few
favorite pieces of furniture. I have a desk, a comfy armchair where I do most of my actual writing, bookshelves, all the essentials. My favorite quote about writing hangs on one wall. It's from Somerset Maugham: "There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." Also, I have an original sketch by Barbara Cooney framed over my desk -- a mother mouse cradling her baby. Maybe that's why I have an affinity for mice! Barbara was friends with one of our next-door neighbors when I was growing up, and my mother -- who, in her own words, had more brass than Dick Tracy -- grabbed a sheet of brown butcher paper off my easel one day when Barbara was visiting, ran over, and asked if she'd draw a picture for me. Bless her heart, she did. It hung over my bed growing up, and now it hangs in my studio.
Odanaka: Your debut novel, The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed, was very well received, including a positive review in the New York Times. How did that affect your confidence?
Frederick: It was lovely to feel that the book resonated with readers, and of course a tremendous boost to my confidence. I think that, as writers, we all hope that we'll feel confident about the quality of our work despite what anyone else may think or say, but in all honesty, it is very rewarding, very validating to have that positive feedback.
Odanaka: Your new series, Spy Mice, is a wonderful blend of action, mystery, sharp writing and unforgettable characters, including a plucky, skateboarding heroine. Can you enlighten us a bit on how the idea came to you? And what, if any, serious challenges you had pulling it off?
Frederick: I grew up in the '60s, during the heydey of "spy-fi" television, and was completely hooked on shows like "Get Smart" and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and "Mission: Impossible." (I wasn't allowed to watch "The Avengers" because of Emma Peel's leather pants, which my mother deemed far too risque for the
likes of me, but I managed to sneak and watch it anyway.) And I've always been a huge James Bond fan. My dad slipped me Ian Fleming's books when I was probably too young to be reading them, but no matter, I ate them up anyway. So, when I heard that a new museum was being built in Washington, DC, a couple of years ago -- the International Spy Museum -- I instantly knew that I had to set a book there. Along the lines of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, I suppose. I had no plot or characters initially, just a setting. Then one day, the words "spy mice" floated into mind, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Serious challenges? None. These books are pure fun, and a delight to write. Years ago I read that P.G. Wodehouse, one of my favorite authors, used to sit in his study at his desk laughing his head off. His family would hear him and know that the work was going well. I remember thinking "I want that life." Spy Mice has brought me that kind of joy in my work. And the research has been a blast as well. For the first book, I spent a couple of days in Washington at the museum, happily poking around the exhibits (they have fabulous gadgets on display, and I'm working as many of them into the stories as I can). I was there for so long and took so many notes that the security guards started watching me closely. I think they thought I was a spy! The second book (For Your Paws Only) took me to New York City for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. At one point, as I stood there with pen in hand, taking notes on the balloons floating into Times Square, I looked over at my husband and said, "Do I have a great job or what?!" For the third book (Goldwhiskers) we went to London. I'm still pinching myself.
Odanaka: You definitely seem to be "living the dream." Besides a lifetime of reading, and years of reviewing, were there any other helpful steps you made to make your dream a reality?
Frederick: You know, Brian Jacques once said to me during an interview, "People always tell me, 'Brian, you're a lucky man,' and I reply, 'Yes, and the harder I work the luckier I get.'" I've never forgotten that. The notion of "living the dream" is a fallacy, really. We each have to earn the dream. And we each have to earn it in our own individual way. For me, that meant a 20-year apprenticeship as a journalist, both in a newsroom setting (I wrote and edited features for the Christian Science Monitor) and as a freelance writer. It meant learning patience. It meant humility, and a willingness to put my family's needs above my own. Some people are able to juggle babies and books with effortless grace; I always felt like I needed a nap!
It wasn't until my younger son was in first grade, and away at school all day, that I finally had time for both my bread-and-butter deadline work and the buddings of a novel. But those decades of apprenticeship honed my skills as a writer. They also enriched me as a human being. I think I have a lot more to say now than I might have had I become an author upon barely leaping out of diapers! Ultimately, I think we need to trust life to shape us as individuals and as writers, and to shape our deepest desires as well. What sometimes appear to be delays or frustrations or stumbling blocks are often the very things that, in hindsight, are the making of us.
For instance, I wrote my first novel right out of college. I submitted it to Houghton Mifflin, because I grew up near Boston and that was really the only publisher I was familiar with! They duly sent me a rejection letter. Unfortunately, I was too young and dumb (and the SCBWI didn't exist back them to help educate me) to realize that it was a good rejection letter, and not a bad one. All I saw was "we're sorry, but your book doesn't suit our current needs." I didn't notice the "but we like your use of language and flair for characterization, and wonder if you have any other stories that you might like to submit." I tucked my tail between my legs and slunk off, convinced I'd never be an author. I needed to earn a living, though, and so I became a journalist instead. It was the best thing that ever could have happened to me. I learned discipline. I learned to write on deadline. I learned how to interview and research and edit and rewrite -- all good skills that have translated directly to my current work.
Ultimately, I'd say that patience is the key, along with persistence. It's probably no coincidence that my first character's name was "Patience Goodspeed"! Don't give up. And don't compare yourself to others. "Comparisons are odorous," Shakespeare says, and he's right -- they stink. The trajectory of each writer's career is unique. Each of us has our own unique gifts to offer readers; each of us has our own unique books to write. There's room on the shelves for all of us, which is a wonderful thing.
For more on Heather Vogel Frederick, please visit her website www.heathervogelfrederick.com.
