An Interview with
Rebecca Kai Dotlich

ETC. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

Rebecca: I remember pouring over the words to the lyrics from my parent's favorite songs. This was far more important to me than the music. I spent days playing school and library. I loved to shuffle papers and lend books to neighbors. I made up jump rope songs. I was drawn to anything that rhymed.

When I was about 11 years old I started writing in diaries. Besides noting how I felt and what I had done on a particular day, I spent a lot of time copying favorite words and poems onto the pages. I also wrote letters and poems on scraps of paper and stuffed them down the register in my bedroom, wondering who would find them someday.

Nothing made me happier than having a new book to read. I read the whole series of Nancy Drew mysteries, and anything I could get my hands on about Helen Keller, Anne Frank, Clara Barton and other famous people. Little Women, Treasure Island and Heidi were some other favorites, and a book that really made me laugh was Pippi Longstocking. I loved the smell of books. I loved the feel of books. I loved turning the pages. Did I want to be a writer? Yes. But inside, deep inside, I think I knew I would be.

ETC: Were other people in your family writers?

Rebecca: My father wrote funny rhymes and poems to me. My brother wrote in journals. My grandfather and grandmother both kept journals of sorts; some of which I still have. My grandmother wrote on little sheets of lined notebook paper, mostly recording what she bought at the grocery and the names of flowers in her garden. My grandfather wrote poems and thoughts in margins of books he was reading, and even in the Bible.

ETC: How did you get started in the publishing field?

Rebecca: I guess it started in High School, when a wonderful English teacher named Doris Bradford read my poems and cried. She told me I was a poet, and that I would be published someday.
I went to college and took lots of creative writing courses and even songwriting courses, anything to do with language. Soon after, I got married and had two babies. I was still fairly young. It was then that I decided I wanted to write children's books.

ETC: Did you get published right away?

Rebecca: Oh, no! It took many years. Many rejection letters arrived in my mailbox from editors. I actually sold a few poems to magazines first. Then, finally, my first book!

ETC: Did you ever feel like giving up?

Rebecca: I don't remember that even being a choice. I sometimes 'put it away' for a few months, one time for even a year or longer. But writing was such a part of me that I always went back to it. I just had this feeling that it would happen.

ETC: Do you have any suggestions for young readers and writers?

Rebecca: If you find that you have to read, that you have to write, then you should never let anything or anyone discourage you. Read as many books as you can. You will learn the craft of writing better by doing this than by writing itself. Express yourself truthfully. Dig down deep and write about the things that you know and the things that bring you joy and sorrow.

Take courses in school that offer creative writing. Join writer's groups, and book clubs. I have heard there are even writer camps for young people. Go to the library and find magazines that offer to publish young writer's work, and send your poems and stories in. Try! You will, more than likely, get some rejections. Remember that's part of it. But sooner or later, if writing is your dream, you will make it happen.

EMAIL REBECCA KAI DOTLITCH