JD: I was an ardent, constant, insatiable reader. I loved Mary Poppins, The Borrowers, Dr. Doolittle, The Moffats, the Saturdays, Nancy Drew, the Narnia books, Tom Sawyer, The Secret Garden, Enid Blyton's books--on and on. I read almost exclusively fiction, though when my parents gave me a big book about dinosaurs I read that, and I read biographies now and then. Later I loved science fiction (especially Ray Bradbury) and mysteries (all of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes). I read a lot of Dickens in junior high--loved Dickens. I would read anything as long as it was interesting. I didn't like stories whose blatant intention was to teach me something--I wanted a real story, with a real plot and good characters.
3. SR: Please discuss your "writing apprenticeship". That is, your writing experience before your novel, "The City of Ember" was published. Success, failures, mindset, etc.
JD: Most of the work I've done has involved writing in one way or another. I worked as an editor at educational publishing companies for many years, often writing material for reading textbooks; I worked as a technical writer for a computer company; and I did a great deal of freelance writing--essays, book reviews, educational materials, and so on. I wrote some non-fiction books for young people. And I wrote a memoir about my own experiences with meditation and building a house. I sometimes tried writing fiction, but I didn't often succeed. I finally decided I wasn't a fiction writer--until the idea for THE CITY OF EMBER came to me.
4.SR: Can you remember and describe the very first seed that was planted that led to your novel, "The City of Ember"?
JD: I wrote the first version of this book nearly twenty years ago, so it's hard to remember the very first seed. The picture of a city where there was no light but electricity just somehow appeared in my mind. I imagine it had something to do with having grown up during the time when we did bomb drills in our classrooms, ducking under our desks, and when, a little later, people were building bomb shelters in their back yards.
5. SR: Are you at all like either of your main characters, Lina or Doon? If not, whom did you have in mind or what type of characters did you want to portray and why?
JD: I am like both Lina and Doon in some ways. Like Lina, I liked drawing and running as a child, and I had the sort of imaginative mind that she has. Like Doon, I collected bugs and was interested in how things work and loved to read. But both Lina and Doon are a lot braver and more adventurous than I was.
