By Jane Yolen, author of Owl Moon, Mapping the Bones and 364 (yes, that number is correct!) other titles.

I come from a family of writers and storytellers. My great grandfather was a storyteller in the old country (Ukraine). My father published nonfiction books, eight in all. My mother wrote short stories and created crossword puzzles and acrostics. And my brother has been a long-time journalist. Plus he published eight or nine children’s books for Brazilian children (he has lived there for the past 50 years).

And now all three of my grown children are children’s book (and adult book) writers—Heidi, Jason, and Adam Stemple. And my late husband David Stemple, a professor of computer science at UMass, Amherst, didn’t want to be left out, so he published a children’s book as well.

This means that I am surrounded by and related to writers, live in a community of writers in Western Massachusetts. My weekly critique group is made up of six other children’s book writers. And there are even more who live in the neighborhood.

So everywhere I turn, I have companions who write, who talk about writing, who see the world as a writer does—a place filled with story, where listening and seeing and feelings are reflected every day in poetry and prose.

This year my 365^th and 366^th books will be published. Both on March 6, so I honestly don’t know which is which. And that means, of course, that a child and adult together could read a book of mine every day of the year, including in a leap year. (Though some of the books are very clearly adult books; I wouldn’t suggest them for the child reader.)

Yes, I am a disciplined writer (you don’t get to 366 books without discipline), but I may not be the writer you are trying to form in your classrooms.

A Different Kind of Writer 

You see—there are two kinds of writers, really. Those who plan ahead, make lists of the gross national product of the world they are building, lists of character traits, and landscapes. They know every inch of the plotline as if were drawn on a map.

And then there are others, like me, who get caught in the glory of an idea or the spell of a character, and fly off into the mist knowing (which is what we call educated guessing from a long time of working that way!) that the plot or arc or through-line—or whatever we are calling it this year—will develop along the way.

This kind of freewheeling approach to writing often makes other writers blanch. They call us “Pantsers” meaning we fly by the seat of our pants. 

I tell you this because you will always have some freewheelers in your classroom. I was once one of those. Don’t break their hearts. Don’t take the writer out of them just so that they conform to your one-size fits all writing programs.

Two take-away stories: My picture book Owl Moon was an idea I had from the time my children were 5 and up, going out owling with their dad who had a passion for birds. It took me almost 15 years before I knew how to make that story fly and when it came out, the little girl in the story, my daughter Heidi, was in college. But we expect kids to write a story in a half hour at their desk. Or as homework. Just let them know that it doesn’t always work that way.

The other story has to do with my 365^th book (or maybe it’s the 366^th), a Holocaust novel for YA and adult readers called Mapping the Bones.

Because it’s hung on the armature of the Hansel & Gretel story, I knew there had to be a “witch” character and an oven at the end—or a reasonable facsimile. However, it’s not a fantasy novel but a historical novel. I didn’t figure out how I was going to end it until I was at the end. If I had planned it carefully, I don’t think I would have found a better ending for the novel than the one that started leaking out of my fingertips as I was typing the final three chapters. Yes, it meant I had to go back and rejigger some stuff, do a barrelful more research about—among other things—infectious diseases in the Nazi labor camps as well as the hideous twin experiments of Dr. Mengele. But I regret none of the winding road I walked to get me to the end.

And I have a number of wonderful teachers that I had in elementary, junior high, high school and college to thank for that, They gave me the space and understanding that my way of writing was/is as productive and useful as any other. I have 366 proofs of that.

About Jane Yolen:

Born and raised in New York City, Jane Yolen now lives in Hatfield, Massachusetts. She attended Smith College and received her master’s degree in education from the University of Massachusetts. The distinguished author of more than 170 books, Jane Yolen is a person of many talents. When she is not writing, Yolen composes songs, is a professional storyteller on the stage, and is the busy wife of a university professor, the mother of three grown children, and a grandmother. All of Yolen’s stories and poems are rooted in her sense of family and self. The Emperor and the Kite, which was a Caldecott Honor Book in 1983 for its intricate paper-cut illustrations by Ed Young, was based on Yolen’s relationship with her late father, who was an international kite-flying champion. Owl Moon, winner of the 1988 Caldecott Medal for John Schoenherr’s exquisite watercolors, was inspired by her husband’s interest in birding.