"We don't need to have just one favorite. We keep adding favorites. Our favorite book is always the book that speaks most directly to us at a particular state in our lives. And our lives change. We have other favorites that give us what we most need at that particular time. But we never lose the old favorites. They're always with us. We just sort of accumulate them."
~ Lloyd Alexander
Lloyd Alexander was one of the first authors I read when I was a teen whose writing made me want to become a serious, honest-to-goodness writer/storyteller. I can’t explain exactly what it is about his “narrative voice” that I find so sympathetic, but whether it’s the affection he holds for all his characters, the fun he’s obviously having with the storytelling process, or the humility with which he works hard at creating worlds that entertain and inspire, I almost immediately felt that if I met him, we would be best friends.
Lloyd Alexander Interview, Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jln9VPoP3Tw
(OMANOMANOMAN HE WAS FRIENDS WITH TRINA SCHART HYMAN!!???
I missed that epic detail the first time I watched this!)
You know, the first copies of his work I read had no
pictures of him in the back. They were
paperback copies of his The Chronicles of Prydain, in which there is a
character named Flewddyr Fflam, and I decided that Mr. Alexander looked like
him (according to the character description). Then I borrowed a hardcover book from the library, and lo in behold, there
was a photo of him that looked exactly
how I’d pictured him. And when I
finally found this series of YouTube videos, it even sounds like I imagined him.
That’s simply good writing. Writing so that your very self is so poured out into your narrative voice that complete strangers know you on sight.
"Books can truly change our lives: the lives of those who read them, the lives of those who write them."
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