Dotti is a prolific writer and has authored many stories and poems for children. Her new series, "The Fortune Tellers Club" is a big success. Published by Llewellyn, "The Lost Girl", "Playing With Fire" and "The Magic Shades" (Sept.2003) are the first three installments. Dotti's Fortune Tellers Club website is as interesting as her books. Readers and fans of the series can peer into the future and have fun with various types of fortune telling.
Be sure to visit Dotti's websites and check out her exciting Fortune Tellers Club series.
1. SR: When did you first realize that you wanted to write?
DE: When I was in high school. I loved putting my thoughts and feelings on paper. And like many children's writers, I fell in love with children's books after having my two daughters.
2.SR: Were there any adults in your life who inspired or encouraged you when you were young?
DE: Not really. I was a romanticist who thought writing was my fate. I guess I proved myself right.
3.SR: Can you define or explain exactly why you are passionate about writing for children?
DE: Passionate is definitely the right word. I love children's literature, and I want so much to write books kids will read. So many of the award-winning books sit on the library shelves, collecting dust. I want my books to please children, not an adult committee.
4.SR: What were some of your favorite books as a child? Were you an avid reader?
DE: I read more as a teenager than as a child. But I do remember the first children's novel that I read all the way through. Mr. Popper's Penguins. I was eight-years-old, and what a feeling of accomplishment to have read a novel from first to last page!
5.SR: Your "Fortune Teller Series" are going to be a great success. Who or what exactly planted the seed for the idea?
DE: When I was thirteen, my best friends, Pamela and Debbie, and I spent hours together consulting the Ouija, reading cards, and hunting new forms of divination. We were like the Fortune Tellers Club, but we never solved any mysteries. The Ouija even lied to us about the rich famous guys we were going to grow up and marry. Then when my oldest daughter was twelve, she had a sleepover, and the girls pulled out the Ouija board. All those childhood memories
