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Nerdy Book Club Interviews Christopher Paul Curtis

Posted by on September 1, 2013 in Author Posts, Surprise Sunday | 7 Comments

Your books vividly bring to life the African American experience of the last century for children today. Do you think authors writing 50+ years from now will be able to tell a significantly different story?

 

I sincerely hope so. Fifty years from now is such a long time that it’s difficult to imagine what will be happening then. Kenny Watson was ten years old in The Watson’s Go to Birmingham, so this would be like a ten year old kid from 1903 looking fifty years into the future and predicting the Civil Rights Movement. It’s a long time. There will have been many, many changes I’m sure. I just hope all are positive.

 

I know one of the things that happened after the Civil Rights Movement is that we became complacent. There has been a lot of backsliding. This is something we should be aware of and try to overcome. I hope 50 years from now, a different story can be told.

 

Can you walk us through your research process?

 

There has been a real change in the way I do research. When I wrote The Watsons Go to Birmingham, the internet was nowhere near where it is today and I didn’t own a computer. All of my research was done in the library. I looked up books, magazines, and recordings from the 60’s. In turn, I was at an advantage because I was ten years old in 1963, the year in which Watsons takes place. Parts of the culture back then came naturally to me; I knew what it was like to live during the Civil Rights Movement.

 

When I’m writing books now, like The Mighty Miss Malone, I have a big advantage because it is so easy to find information online. For instance, when writing Miss Malone I needed to know the temperature of the water on Lake Erie in 1936, so I just went online and searched for Gary, Indiana Lake Erie 1936 and I got the information I needed.

 

Another big part of my research doesn’t have to do with facts; I also want to get a feel for the language of the time about which I am writing. I want to know the way people spoke because so much changes from year to year. To help figure this out I listen to recordings of the time period. I also read books and other print pieces from the time to help establish speech patterns.

 

Do you already have the basic plot in your mind before you write or do you think of different story situations as you go along?

 

Well, it depends on how you define “basic.” When I start writing, I have the simplest idea of where the story is going. I like to start out with characters – I set them up in a particular time and place and let them go. Most of the time my story starts with two characters talking. I enjoy this style of writing because as I get to know the characters, I get to know where the story is going. I think I know what’s going to happen, but once I start writing, and thinking about the characters, there it goes. Most of the time I’m surprised.

 

It’s a long process. I do a lot of wheel-spinning. But I don’t think it is wasted time, it helps give me back-story. It’s probably not the most efficient way to write, but it seems to work for me.

 

Which of your characters do you most identify with and why?

 

There’s that old saying that an author’s first book is the most autobiographical. In Watsons, I think I identify with both Kenny and Byron.  One of the fun things about writing is that you can combine personalities into multiple characters – that’s what I think I did in Watsons. I pretend to be offended when people ask me which character I am more like because what they are really asking me is are you a kind, caring little boy or a juvenile delinquent? I would always tell them I was much more like Kenny, the caring young boy, of course. In truth, I can see myself in all the characters, but Kenny and Byron the most.

 

If you were to write about Byron and Kenny 25 years later as adults, who do you imagine they would have become?

 

Lots of times young people will say to me, “you left us hanging, what happened?” And I always tell them that the unknown is one of the things that makes reading so enjoyable.

 

I don’t want to speculate with what would happen. Anything the reader would say happens to the characters, if it’s in line with their personalities, is just as legitimate as anything I could come up with. I tell people that just because I wrote the book doesn’t mean I have all the answers.

 

What advice do you have for the young student writers today?

 

I have four rules for student writers:

 

Rule #1: Write every day. Writing is like everything else that you do: the more you do it, the better you will get.

 

Rule #2: Writers are very powerful people.  We can speed up time, slow it down, go back in history. This is something we should celebrate and enjoy doing.  Some writers say writing is like opening up a vein, but I don’t get that. I have such a good time when I write. It is a joyful thing to do.  I think young writers should enjoy it too, not because they have to, but because they want to. They have to write for themselves.

 

Rule #3: This is especially true for young writers: Be patient with yourself. Writing is a very different kind of art.  It’s not like music or painting.  There are no prodigies.  There are no young people writing really, really good books because you have to live quite a bit to be a good writer. Be patient and don’t give up.

 

Rule #4: This is the most important rule of all: Ignore all rules.  Once you become a writer, you can develop characters. Develop your own style, don’t listen to rules. Don’t believe you have to move the way the book wants you to do. Put your own stamp on it. Take a chance. Ignore the rules.

How do you feel to see your novel on the screen?

 

I was ambivalent about it. It’s like taking someone else’s interpretation of your story and really solidifying it. Lois Lowry has said that the most important part of a book being made into a movie is that the movie captures the spirit of the book.  And in The Watsons Go to Birmingham, I really do think the director and writers caught the spirit.

 

In the beginning, in many ways I didn’t want this to happen. In fact, they sent me a copy of the movie and I had it for a week before my wife sat me down and said, “You have to watch this.”  I was chewing my fingers the whole time, but in the end I was very, very happy.

 

Do you have a favorite book you have written?

 

Most times when authors are asked this question they get very serious and say, “my books are like my children, I don’t have a favorite.” But I’m not like that. In many ways, Watsons is my favorite. I was working in a warehouse, and then that book made it and I didn’t have to work in a warehouse anymore.

 

But I’m now also discovering that the last book I have written tends to also be a favorite. I love The Mighty Miss Malone. I love the The Mad Man of Piney Woods (the book I’m working on now). My books are also a lot like music for me, it depends on what day you ask me to name favorite. I might have a different answer each day.

 

What are you currently working on?

 

My next book is The Mad Man of Piney Woods, due to come out next fall. It takes place forty years after Elijah of Buxton, part of my trio of books that take place in Buxton, Ontario.  It has a few of the same characters and it’s told in alternating chapters from the perspectives of a young red-headed boy from Chatham and a young African-American boy from Buxton and the friendship that grows between them.

Born in Flint, Michigan, Christopher Paul Curtis spent his first 13 years after high school on the assembly line of Flint’s historic Fisher Body Plant # 1. His job entailed hanging car doors, and it left him with an aversion to getting into and out of large automobiles—particularly big Buicks. Curtis’s writing—and his dedication to it—has been greatly influenced by his family members. With grandfathers like Earl “Lefty” Lewis, a Negro Baseball League pitcher, and 1930s bandleader Herman E. Curtis, Sr., of Herman Curtis and the Dusky Devastators of the Depression, it is easy to see why Christopher Paul Curtis was destined to become an entertainer.

 

Christopher resides with his family in Michigan. He is the author of the Newbery-Honor winning The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963, Newbery Medal winning Bud, Not Buddy; Bucking the Sarge; Mr. Chickee’s Funny Money; Mr. Chickee’s Messy Mission; and The Mighty Miss Malone.