 Photo by Venetia Thomas Carigo
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Barbara
Ann Porte Send Mail to Ms. Porte at: P.O. Box 16627 Arlington VA 22215 Learn more about Barbara Ann Porte at:
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 Authors Among Us - Children's Writers Who Are or Who Have Been Librarians |
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Featured Titles by Virginia
author Barbara Ann Porte:
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If You Ever Get Lost;
The Adventures of Julia and Evan ISBN 0-688-16947-3 |
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Ma Jiang and the Orange Ants
ISBN 0-531-30241-5 (Trade) ISBN 0-531-33241-1 (Library edition) |
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Beauty and the Serpent : Thirteen
Tales of
Unnatural Animals ISBN 0-689-84147-7 |
| For a bibliography of Barbara Ann Porte's books, click here. | |
| What influenced you to become a
librarian?
Librarians I met seemed to love their jobs. Do you have a library/information science degree? MS degree from the Palmer School of Library and Information Science, Long Island University. What kinds of library positions have you held and where? Freeport Memorial Library, Department Head,
Children's
Room. How long were you a librarian? 30 plus years. Are you currently working as a librarian? No. If not, why did you leave? To write full time. Which came first in your life, your work or career as a librarian, or writing for children? Both. Did your library work have anything to do with becoming a children's writer? I would have become a writer, regardless. Whether I would have become a children's writer, I don't know. Did your library work directly influence your work as an author? Working as a children's librarian reminded me how wonderful children's books are. Meeting Susan Hirschman, I was encouraged to try writing a children's book. Did incidents from your library work ever make it into your books? Did you ever set any scenes in your books in the library? Yes, yes, yes: my library work made it into my books. Librarians and librarians pop up a lot. See the chapter "Taking Notes" in The Kidnapping of Aunt Elizabeth. In Harry in Trouble, his trouble comes from losing his library card (and not for the first time, either). My forthcoming book, Beauty and the Serpent, Thirteen Tales of Unnatural Animals (Simon & Schuster, Fall 2001) features Ms. Lavinia Drumm, Head Librarian (and primary storyteller) at the Ernestine Wilde Alternative High School. These examples are just the ones I remember. What were the greatest benefits of being a librarian to you as a writer? In my position as Children's Consultant at Nassau Library System, for 12 years I saw every children's book published. It was wonderful. Doing programs with children allowed me to see how they respond to books and to stories. I became a storyteller. Now I tell people, if you want children to become better writers, teach them to tell stories. I speak from experience. It gave me a sense of pacing, a knowledge of how the written word sounds aloud, and whole blocks of language in my head with which to work. Once I became a children's book author, an unexpected bonus of being a librarian was that almost everyone I knew and worked with read my books. After I left the field, I realized that in life outside the library, that seldom happens. Were there any drawbacks to being a librarian and also a writer? Working and being a mother took up most of my time. The drawback to working was less time for writing. If you wrote while working as as librarian, how did you manage the time-juggling act? How did your employment impact on how much you wrote and when you did it? I have a long essay on this topic. To summarize: it was hard. Most Recent Book: Are there any other comments you would like to make about librarianship and writing for children? Hey, it worked for me! |
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Last Updated October 21, 2003