• 1982: ALA Best Book for Young Adults
• 1982: National Council for Social Studies and the Children's Book Council
• 1992: Margaret A. Edwards Award

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"Is that you, honey?" Mother called from the kitchen. "There's mail for you on the piano."

I wasn't surprised. I got more mail than most teenagers dreamed of getting, all large manilla envelopes in my own handwriting.

But this was something different.

It was a narrow, white envelop with the name and address of a magazine in the top left corner, and when I opened it two pieces of paper fell out. One was a letter, and the other a check for twenty-five dollars.

I stood there, staring at them, too stunned to move. Then, slowly, I lifted the letter and read it.

"Mother?" I said weakly. "Mother?" My voice did not carry to the kitchen. I drew a deep breath and let it out in an explosive shout. "Mother! They want it! They bought! Calling All Girls has bought my story!"

It was the most incredible moment of my life.

That was many years ago. I am now a grown woman with five children of my own. I'm also a writer of books for young people. Every day I received letters from people wanting to know how that came to be.

"I want to be a writer," many of them tell me. "How did you become one? Is it that hard? Is it fun? Do you earn a lot of money? How do I get started? What courses should I take? What books should I read? Are the story you write true, or do you make them up? Where do you get your ideas? Where do the characters come from? How do you go about submitting things? How do you get people to publish them?"

For some of these questions, there are concrete answers. If you "want to be a writer" badly enough, you can be one. "Is it hard?" Yes. "Is it fun?" Yes. "Do you earn a lot of money." Not in the beginning years.

"How do I get started?"

A writer "gets started" the day he is born. The mind he brings into the world with him is the amazing machine his stories will come out of, and the more he feels into it the richer those stories will be.

I cannot remember a time when I did not consider myself a writer. When I was three years old I was dictating stories to my parents, and as soon as I learned to print, I was writing them down myself. I shared a room with my younger brother, and at night I would lie in bed inventing tales to give him nightmares. I would pretend to be the "Moon Fairy," come to deliver the message that the moon was falling toward the earth.

"And what will happen to me?" Billy wold ask in his quavering little voice.

"You'll be blown up into the sky," the Moon Fairy would tell him. "By the time you come down the world will be gone, so you'll just keep falling forever."

"With no breakfast?" poor Billy would scream hysterically.

Eventually, our parents had the good sense to kept us in separate rooms.

Aside from tormenting Billy, I had few hobbies. A fat, shy little girl, I was a bookworm and a dreamer. I grew up in Sarasota, Florida, and spent a lot of time playing alone in the woods and on the beachers. I had a secret hideaway in the middle of a bamboo clump. I would bend the bamboo until I could straddle it, and then it would spring up, and I would slide down into the hallow at its hear with green stalks all around me and leaves like lace against my face. I'd hide there and read.

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