Pamela Jane

 As a little girl, I saw stories everywhere ­– in the woods and fields near our home in Connecticut, in books and movies, and on our old black-and-white TV. Programs featuring cowboys, like The Lone Ranger, were among my favorites. (Unfortunately, the Lone Ranger was so busy chasing outlaws, he failed to notice that the real story was about his horse, Silver.)  Even waves had stories to tell.  Standing on the beach during summer vacations back east, I imagined that I, alone, understood their secret language as each one broke, breathing its brief tale before sinking back into oblivion.

We were not given writing assignments in school, and I never imagined there were living authors.  I pictured a cemetery filled with tombstones of my favorite writers with their last names first, like card catalogs in the library: Baum, L. Frank 1856-1919.

I was thrilled when I found out writers could actually be alive!

For some mysterious reason, my brain is mapped in a way that I write fiction for children, and nonfiction for adults. I inherited the love of writing rhyme from my dad, who was a microbiologist (sadly, I did not inherit the science gene).  

I’ve always been fascinated by aspects of nineteenth-century design, especially banisters and stairways leading to attics and upstairs rooms like Katrin’s attic room in I Remember Mama or Jo’s hideaway in Little Women. Stairways are entrances to the ethereal realm of imagination and memory, for “a nostalgic longing for impossible journeys through the realms of time.” Swann’s Way, Marcel Proust.

Aside from writing, I love history, Jane Austen, old rhythm and blues, jellybeans (especially the licorice ones), movies filmed before my time, and laughing with friends and family.