The way we started was, Alison [McGhee] said, 'Tall girl, short girl.' We had no plans beyond that.

The shapes arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase: Once upon a time.

Everything, as you well know . . . cannot always be sweetness and light.

As a kid books changed how I looked at the world and helped me understand things. Books still deepen me and open my heart.

We were 15 minutes into it and nothing was happening; I thought, well, that's not going to work. Then all of a sudden everything clicked. I don't know how long it took us, but I would just show up at Alison's [McGhee] office. She would type and we'd just kick it back and forth. Writing is so scary for me, such a lonely endeavor, and it became a wonderful thing to show up and have somebody else go through it with me. It was actually a wonderful experience.

This is the great thing about writing for kids. Adults might not do anything if they recognized me. But if they do see me, and they're with a kid, they'll tell the kid who I am. They think they should give that to the kid. So generally that sends the kid over.

It's a weird kind of disconnect that this whole story [he Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane] grew around a real doll of mine, and here he is, with his "Edward" expression on his face. It's kind of reality bumping into fantasy.