Clare Vanderpool
Clare Vanderpool was born in 1965 and has always lived in the same neighborhood in Wichita, Kansas. She's wanted to be a writer since she was in fifth grade. She majored in English and elementary education in college. and wrote Moon Over Manifest over the course of five or six years while she was raising her four children.
During those years, I did what a writer does. I changed diapers and I wrote. I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and I wrote. I listened to what others had to say about writing and I wrote. I try to approach my writing the same way I approach everything else in my life. Work hard at it and have fun with it. Enjoy the experience.
-- from Vanderpool's Newbery acceptance speech
During the summers Vanderpool runs a writing camp for kids, and her engaging and informative web site features lists of her favorite books and a page of tips for prospective young writers: http://clarevanderpool.com.
Some of the characters Vanderpool loved most as a child are Huckleberry Finn, Anne of Green Gables and Meg Murry from A Wrinkle in Time. Historical fiction is her favorite type of fiction because its story is firmly rooted in time and place. Her own novel grew from a quotation about place, by Herman Melville:
I came across a quote from Moby Dick."It is not down in any map: true places never are." That's when the wheels began turning. What is a true place? What would a true place be for someone who had never lived anywhere for more than a few weeks or months at time?
Vanderpool is the first writer since Joan Blos in 1980 to win the Newbery Award for a first novel.
She is currently working on her second novel, which takes place in Maine and features a boy as its main character.
During those years, I did what a writer does. I changed diapers and I wrote. I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and I wrote. I listened to what others had to say about writing and I wrote. I try to approach my writing the same way I approach everything else in my life. Work hard at it and have fun with it. Enjoy the experience.
-- from Vanderpool's Newbery acceptance speech
During the summers Vanderpool runs a writing camp for kids, and her engaging and informative web site features lists of her favorite books and a page of tips for prospective young writers: http://clarevanderpool.com.
Some of the characters Vanderpool loved most as a child are Huckleberry Finn, Anne of Green Gables and Meg Murry from A Wrinkle in Time. Historical fiction is her favorite type of fiction because its story is firmly rooted in time and place. Her own novel grew from a quotation about place, by Herman Melville:
I came across a quote from Moby Dick."It is not down in any map: true places never are." That's when the wheels began turning. What is a true place? What would a true place be for someone who had never lived anywhere for more than a few weeks or months at time?
Vanderpool is the first writer since Joan Blos in 1980 to win the Newbery Award for a first novel.
She is currently working on her second novel, which takes place in Maine and features a boy as its main character.