Devin Rhodes Is Dead by Jennifer Wolf Kam

What I wouldn’t have given for a touch of her magic!īut I kept at it. My dream drifted further away, like a little witch, gliding off into the Halloween night on her broomstick. There were dark moments, soothed by chocolate and loved ones, when the “what ifs” and “never wills” mingled with the stories inside my head. None of my efforts led to a book contract. I spent countless hours at my laptop, writing and revising, creating and honing, immersed in worlds of my own creation. I studied the craft, attended conferences, joined critique groups, and earned my MFA at the fabulous Vermont College of Fine Arts. In the ensuing years, I wrote whenever I could, and even when I couldn’t. I carried stories inside of me, too-all asking for a chance to be told. But I also heard something else-the story needed to come out. The thought of the mischievous little witch pestering Florence Laughlin (like I often pestered my mother) delighted me. She described how the idea for the book had come to her twenty years earlier, and that the little witch herself nudged and pestered her to write her story. “You are my favorite kind of people! You tell me that you just love to read.” I know this because her generous reply began with: I may have declared that, since reading her book, I would be a witch for Halloween. I probably described how I dressed up and performed stories for whomever would listen.

I likely told her about the construction paper and crayon creations I read to my third grade class.

I can imagine what my letter to Florence Laughlin was like, written in my best penmanship. I thought perhaps, I might be a witch, too, but writing seemed more practical-especially since, try as I might, I could not get my room to clean itself just by snapping my fingers and wishing it so. I’d just read The Little Leftover Witch, and my letter was to its author, Florence Laughlin.Īfter reading this wonderful book I knew I wanted to be a writer.

It was not a letter to Shaun Cassidy or Scott Baio, or any other Tiger Beat sensation. In the spring of 1981, Space Shuttle Columbia completed a successful orbital mission around the Earth, my hometown New York Islanders won the Stanley Cup and eight-year-old me wrote my first fan letter. Meeting young writers at The Voracious Reader.

Devin Rhodes Is Dead by Jennifer Wolf Kam