Author Birthday – 4 October – Karen Cushman

Happy Birthday, Karen Cushman, born on 4 October 1941.

Karen Cushman Quotes

1. I did not start out to ‘be an author’. I started writing because I had an idea for a story and I wanted to know what happened. I write because I love to make up stories, because there are things I want to say, because writing (most of the time) brings me great joy.
2. I didn’t know anyone else who wrote and certainly no adult who wrote for a living so I never thought about being a writer. I just wrote.
3. It took me 49 years of preparation — of reading and writing and making up stories in my head — to be ready to write. Now I do not intend to stop.
4. I think the Middle Ages are an interesting period to explore. It was an exciting, colourful, brutal time in history. The idea of a young person living then and trying to make sense of her world appealed to me.
5. I like making things up.
6. I develop the characters slowly, over many, many drafts of a book. Each time I go through the manuscript, I add some specific detail or dialogue to bring the character to life and help us get to know her.
7. Writing is very hard work. And sometimes I worry that a book won’t be good enough, that readers won’t like it, that I’ll finish and never have another idea again—I don’t like that either.

Source for quotes: Author’s website

Karen Cushman is an American writer of historical fiction for young readers. She is the author of The Midwife’s Apprentice (winner of the 1996 Newbery Medal), Catherine, Called Birdy (a Newbery Honor book), The Ballad of Lucy Whipple (winner of the John and Patricia Beatty Award), and several other prize-winning novels published by Clarion Books. Her newest book is When Sally O’Malley Discovered the Sea. Her books re-create in rich detail the lives and times of spirited, complex female protagonists. Cushman has been honoured by numerous organisations, including the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the Parents’ Choice Foundation, and the American Booksellers Association. Follow her on Bluesky.

Source for photograph: Author’s website

by Amanda Patterson
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