9.SR: Have you taken any special courses or do you have any special training that helps you write for children?
In a previous lifetime, I was an E.S.L. and Spanish Teacher. In yet another lifetime, I believe I played centerfield for the New York Yankees. Next time around I'd like to be a standard poodle living in my household.
10. SR: Your adult fiction has appeared in many literary magazines like "Glimmer Train," "StoryQuarterly," "Iowa Quarterly," "Quarterly West," "New York Stories," "Alaska Quarterly," "North Dakota Quarterly," "Hawaii Review," "Green Mountains Review," "The Sun," "Chattahoochee Review," and the "Mid-American Review," just to name a few, in addition to appearing in many anthologies. Is there a difference between writing juvenile and adult fiction? Which do you prefer?
JL: As I write for children, I pretend I am a child. When I write for adults, I am still a child, I just now have bigger parts.
Writing for kids is like breaking bread(crumbs) with an army of ants, sitting squished between two Samurai wrestlers on a seventeen hour flight...Writing for adults is easier; it spreads out like peanut butter, there's more room for my "stuff." Woody Allen writes on little scraps of paper, matchbook covers and napkins and then deals them out on his living room floor. That's my adult fiction style; I throw it all out there and see what I've got-what's hot-what's not. Then I nip and tuck, lipo the fat until I've got the perfect specimen.
On the other hand, when I write for children, I'm a baby turtle, poking my head out a bit; when it's safe, my other limbs follow. Then it's step by step, crawling towards the finish line.
Adult or juvenile? I simply decide if I'm feeling "AHA!" or "umm....." and then get to work.
11. SR: How exciting to have won the "Writer's Digest Magazine Competition" for "Best Literary Short Story" three times! How does this and seeing your work in print make you feel?
JL: As the pitcher Dizzy Dean said, "It ain't braggin' if you can back it up." My stories were chosen from thousands of entries. When I've completed a story, I send it down the river in a basket, so as Issac Assimov warns, it doesn't "eat its head off in a drawer." Then I forget about it. When it appears in print, it's as if I'm reading it for the first time; like it was written by someone else. I think of the Chilean poet, Vicente Huidobro's lines: "Tomad un lirio y un canonazo, mezcladlos hasta hacer un todo; he ahi mi alma "- Take a lily and a cannonball, mix them together; there you have my soul." I feel peaceful, yet challenged; satisfied but fired up, ready to work again.
