Frances Dowell, Editor and Children's Author
Frances O'Rourke Dowell is a woman who wears many hats. She is an award-winning author and also editor and copublisher of "Dream/Girl", a savvy magazine for girls 9-14 that inspires and highlights the creative arts. Frances is also a wife and mother and lives in North Carolina. She is also a poet and teacher.
"Dovey Coe", is Frances's first novel and has won the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Juvenile Novel from the Mystery Writers of America in 2001. The novel, set in 1928, reveals to readers a young mountain girl named Dovey who is accused of killing a young boy. The book is great reading and a great resource for writers who want to study what it takes to write an award-winning mystery.
"Where I'd Like To Be", is a new novel by Frances (2003, Atheneum Books). Twelve year old Maddie, the main character, struggles to find herself and a place she can call home. Shuffled from one foster home to the next, Maddie meets a new girl named Murphy who changes everything. Writers will want to read and pay close attendtion Frances's excellent character development.
"Dream/Girl" Magazine, was created by Frances as an alternative to the celebrity-packed, beauty driven magazines young girls read. Written for girls 9-14, the articles inspire girls to pursue the beauty and creativity that lies within each one. It is advertising free and has received rave reviews. "Parents Choice" proclaimed, "Packed with high interest material, this magazine should be thrust into hands that are beginning to shape and mold." "School Library Journal" states, "Dream/Girl" offers girls an alternative to the passive presentation of information found in other magazines". Please visit the online version and consider a subscription for any young girl you know.
1.SR: When did you first have an inkling that you wanted to be a writer?
FD: I realized I wanted to be a writer when I was 28 years old, rather late given that by that time I had an MFA in Creative Writing. Up until then I'd written mostly poetry, but I'd begun to suspect that I didn't having a calling to be a poet--in fact, I was really itching to write something else. Really, I just wanted to write and to make a living at it. Since college, I'd been reading children's books, first re-reading my childhood favorites, then branching out to new books, and it suddenly occurred to me that what I wanted to do was write books for children. Eight years later, when I was 36, I published Dovey Coe.
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