Ann Marie Meyers: Up in the Air

I'm going to take a little break from the wrap-up posts about the Historical Novels Conference this last weekend in St. Petersburg to host an old buddy.

Ann Marie is someone I remember fondly from the old days at the San Francisco Writers Workshop. We both attended religiously about six or seven years ago. Now she has a children's book out called Up In the Air. Isn't that a gorgeous cover?

I'm very happy to host her today with a little Q&A about the process of writing this book and her career in general.

1)                What inspires you to write

I get my inspiration from just about anything. Something I read, or overhear; a thought that flashes through my mind, the look on someone’s face; my dreams, especially my dreams. Sometimes I just let my mind go blank and write down the very first thing I think of and then see where that takes me. My very first book was written this way.

2)                What about Up In The Air. Which form of inspiration did that take?

Surprisingly, neither of the above. The idea came to me while I was meditating one day. That was the first and, as of now, the last time such a thing has happened to me.

Ann Marie Meyers

3)                Did you always want to write?

No. Definitely not. I have always enjoyed reading. I devoured hundreds of books when I was young, and I loved writing essays in school and letting my imagination fly. Then, one day, (in my late teens actually) to my utter shock, I started a journal and the very first words I wrote were: “I want to be a writer”. I have no idea where that thought came from, though I didn’t actually start to write until much later, and even then I didn’t embrace the idea at first. I resisted.

Some of the famous authors I studied in school (eg: James Joyce and D. H. Lawrence) were so unhappy I wanted no part of it. I wanted to be happy, unfettered by depression (idealistic but true).  Eventually though, over time, I learned to accept the fact that I wanted, even needed, to write and create stories.

4)                And children’s books? How did you get involved in that?

Quite by chance actually. I remember seeing advertisements appealing to people to write children’s books, but I never paid any attention to them. After my daughter was born, I began having thoughts about what she might like to read but it wasn’t until she was about 3 years old that I actually wrote my first children’s book, Up In The Air.

. . . .