Gail Carson Levine

I have a very vivid memory of the way my parents spoke, and the 50's that I grew up in are closer to the 20's, I think, than today in many, many ways.

Most of the authors I liked were dead, so it didn't seem like a safe occupation.

Sometimes the kids come up with better endings than the real story.

Get to know your kids' minds and how they think.

If a big person invests time in reading, kids learn reading is important, the child is important, words are important, stories are important.

I loved fairy tales as a kid, so that's where my mind gravitates.

I wrote as a kid, but I never wanted to be a writer, particularly. I had been drawing and painting for years and loved that.

My interest in the theater led me to my first writing experience as an adult. My husband David wrote the music and lyrics and I wrote the book for a children's musical, 'Spacenapped' that was produced by a neighborhood theater in Brooklyn.

Contemporary fiction is the hardest for me because I am not really in the popular culture - I don't watch TV.

Ideas sometimes come from nowhere, and sometimes they take lots of thinking.

Most of my job life has had to do with welfare, first helping people find work and then as an administrator. The earlier experience was more direct and satisfying, and I enjoy thinking that a bunch of people somewhere are doing better today than they might have done if not for me.

As a child, I loved fairy tales because the story, the what-comes-next, is paramount. As an adult, I'm fascinated by their logic and illogic.