Biography
A voracious reader (but an admittedly poor speller!), Annie Barrows grew up in northern California. One of her first jobs, while she was still in school, was re-shelving books in one of her favorite haunts, the public library. She attended the University of California at Berkeley and graduated with a degree in Medieval History. After graduation, she went to work for a publisher, editing books in many different fields.
Bitten by the writing bug, Barrows received her M.F.A in Creative Writing from California's Mills College. She wrote several books on such diverse topics as fortune telling, urban legends, and opera before branching into children's literature. In June of 2006, she released Ivy and Bean, the first award-winning book in a series about two young girls who become best friends in spite of their differences. In 2007, she published The Magic Half, a standalone children's fantasy about the middle child (between two sets of twins) who travels back in time and befriends a young girl in need of her help.
In addition, Barrows and her aunt, the late Mary Ann Shaffer, collaborated on a post-WWII epistolary novel entitled The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Conceived by Shaffer, the novel was accepted for publication in 2006, shortly before Shaffer fell ill. Barrows stepped in to complete the project, and the book was published in 2008 to positive reviews.
Good to Know
Here are some fascinating outtakes from our interview with Annie Barrows:
I can read palms. I learned when I was researching a book on fortune-telling, and I figure it's my back-up career if this writing thing doesn't work out. I can also read head lumps, but no thanks.
In my house, we have a Museum of Despair. The collection includes a burst pipe; the wire hanger that was being used to open my car when I surprised the thief; the stitches from my daughter's knee; a bottle of vodka so old that it's a product of the Soviet Union; and a broken thermometer.
There are two quotations stuck to the wall over my desk. Here they are: .
"But how could it be true, Sir?" said Peter.
"Why do you say that?" asked the Professor.
"Well, for one thing," said Peter, "if it was real why doesn't everyone find this country every time they go to the wardrobe? I mean, there was nothing there when we looked; even Lucy didn't pretend there was."
"What has that to do with it?" said the Professor.
"Well, Sir, if things are real, they're there all the time."
"Are they?" said the Professor; and Peter did not know quite what to say.
--from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis
"Behold, you look on a man that is soon to be dust. Yet because love endures all things, tell me, I pray you, how fares the human race: if new roofs be risen in the ancient cities, whose empire is it that now sways the world; an if any still survive, snared in the error of the demons."
--from "The Life of St. Paul the Hermit" Most of the time, I don't do anything but work and hang out with my family, but I just got back from a three-week trip to England, where I got a chance to indulge some of my secret fascinations: Neolithic standing stones, haunted battlefields, out-of-the-way castles, and Victorian anthropological collections.
Feature Interview
In the summer of 2008, Annie Barrows took some time out to talk with us about her favorite books, authors, and interests. What was the book that most influenced your life or your career as a writer -- and why?
I'm going to have to make it two books -- the two books that most influenced my career as a writer. The first was Harriet the Spy, which I read when I was nine. Harriet, as you probably know, is a girl who wants to be a writer when she grows up. To that end, she spies on all her friends and neighbors, and then writes what she thinks of them in her notebook. Now, I adored Harriet, because she climbed on roofs and because she wrote. But Harriet was intimidating too. She never stopped writing; she filled notebook after notebook. Like Harriet, I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, but I didn't actually like writing very much. It was too hard, and I couldn't spell worth beans. Plus, nothing I wrote was as good as the books I liked to read. I decided that if I wasn't like Harriet the Spy, I wasn't a writer. I decided to become an interior decorator instead.
The second book is one I didn't read. The Wings of the Dove, by Henry James. When I was in my mid-twenties, a writer I greatly respected told me that Henry James was the most important modern author. Yikes, I thought, the most important modern author! I'd better get busy! I was fine through the short stories, and then I hit Wings of the Dove. I read and read, but it was like walking through cake batter -- the words were lovely, but I had no idea what they meant. I got about halfway through it, and then I had a revelation: "I don't like this and I don't have to read it. I'm going to read Jane Eyre and be happy. So ha." Obvious, you might think, but for me it was a turning point. Right there, I freed myself from the jail of other people's literary opinions and scampered off to find the things that gave me pleasure.
What are your ten favorite books, and what makes them special to you?
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. Okay, it's a kids' book, but I love it. Plus, I think it's a great work of art about the difficulty of being peculiar in America.
The Letters of Charles Dickens, v. 1-12. I adore reading letters, and I adore Dickens. This edition, published by Oxford University Press, has about eight million footnotes, which is glorious. It took me five years to read all twelve volumes, and I'm about to start the whole thing again.
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. This is one of the Austens "that nobody reads," but it's my favorite because the author champions moral fiber over glitz and manages to make us all agree that dull Fanny Price is a heroine and charming Mary Crawford is a villain.
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. This book drives me crazy. I just can't figure out what the heck is going on from chapter 28 to 36. But still, I read it over and over.
The Habit of Being: The Letters of Flannery O'Connor. More letters from another fabulous writer. She kept peacocks.
Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. I read this last year and was transfixed. Six novels in one, a feat of imagination and writerly verve.
The Long Walk, by Slavomir Rawicz. Everyone should read this. It's the story of a man who escaped from a Soviet prison camp during World War Two -- by walking to India. You will never complain again.
Speak, Memory, by Vladimir Nabokov. Sometimes, I find Nabokov to be an awfully cold drink of water, but this memoir is beautiful.
His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman. Along with everyone else in the world, I devoured these books. I've never read so fast in my life.
My Sister Eileen, by Ruth McKenney. My family runs to sisters, and this book makes all of us laugh and laugh. What are some of your favorite films, and what makes them unforgettable to you?
In Mary Ann's [Barrows's aunt, the late Mary Ann Shaffer's] honor, I have to mention Gone with the Wind. My aunt adored Gone with the Wind. She saw it thirty-eight times, and, according to my mother, she used to watch it twice in a row when she was young (driving my grandmother crazy). Everyone in the family eventually saw the movie in Mary Ann's company, and I myself watched it twice with her. Of the first time, when I was four, I recollect only the burning of Atlanta, which I thought was real. Just as I was about to start bellowing, Mary Ann leaned over and said, "Watch. That actress isn't really Scarlett." I immediately stopped worrying about the fate of Atlanta and bent around to catch a glimpse of the actress's face. It's true, too -- the scenes of Atlanta in flames were filmed before the rest of the movie, and before Scarlett had been cast (actually, the producer discovered Vivian Leigh on the set during the Atlanta burning scene and . . . are you beginning to realize how much Mary Ann knew about Gone with the Wind?) The second time I saw the movie with Mary Ann, I was eight. I started crying at the train station scene (when Scarlett tries to find a doctor for Melanie), and I cried steadily through to the end of the movie, intermission included. My sister (age ten) was horribly embarrassed by my tears, and my cousins thought something was the matter with me, but Mary Ann handed me tissues for hours. What a wonderful movie.
What types of music do you like? Is there any particular kind you like to listen to when you're writing?
I would love to say that I like some really cool kind of music -- you know, Zambian jazz or something -- but here's the truth: I love opera. I love it because even someone as musically backward as I am can understand singing and because it's music with a story (and the story usually includes passion, insanity, fancy clothes, and someone getting stabbed). However, I can't listen to opera while I work -- it's like listening to my children argue, too distracting. In fact, I can't listen to anything with more than one instrument while I work. Bach's Cello Concertos are pretty much it. I read somewhere that listening to Bach makes you smarter, and I'm always hoping, hoping . . .
What are your favorite kinds of books to give -- and get -- as gifts?
The best gift is a recommendation from someone whose taste you trust. My mother reads more than anyone I know, and she understands exactly what I like and what I don't, so when she tells me I have to read something, I do. I'm never sorry.
Do you have any special writing rituals? For example, what do you have on your desk when you're writing?
My central writing ritual is staring out the window. My office is on the second floor of my house, and I look out into a landscape of leaves and shadows and one purple jump-rope, which has been dangling from a branch for the last six years. It's a very soothing view, and by now I think of it as what my imagination looks like.
My desk is less soothing, because there are pieces of work all over it, but I've put things I like there as well. There is a round red wooden pot with a lid that I've had since I was eight. It has a silver World War Two penny in it. There's a brass box that belonged to my mysterious uncle. There are two daguerreotypes of long-lost relatives that I keep because I love the embossed cases and tiny clasps. There is a tin box that once held "Song Restorers," which were apparently pills for birds. There's a reliquary with nothing in it. There's a blue bottle containing dubious ink made from bricks by my daughter. Above my desk is a photograph of a person in a rabbit suit.
Many writers are hardly "overnight success" stories. How long did it take for you to get where you are today? Any rejection-slip horror stories or inspirational anecdotes?
I used to think that writers were not like me. They were, in fact, magic creatures who knew they were writers from an early age. They might suffer, they might agonize, but still, they were certain. There was nothing for them to learn about writing, because they already knew it.Mp> It was clear to me that I was not a member of this club. So I worked in libraries, in bookstores, and finally, in publishing, in order to be close to the magic. After I had edited several hundred books -- I'm a little slow on the uptake -- my opinion changed. Sure, there are people who are natural, innate writers -- I have encountered exactly one in my whole life -- but most writers are simply people who write. They work at it, they get better, they mess up, they try to fix it, they can't tell if it's any good, but they just keep going. And I realized that, as an editor, I'd take hard work over magic any day, because magic never gets any better than it already is.
I think that the popular idea of literary genius has been the death-knell of many a good writer, particularly women. The image we have of writers -- the self-absorption, the frenzy, the time -- doesn't dovetail with the lives most people live. I have basically no attributes of a writer. I don't agonize, I don't talk about writing, I don't read very much contemporary literature, and I don't hang out with other writers. Even my own children didn't believe I was a writer until two years ago. But now I believe that there are lots of ways to be a writer. When I need inspiration, I think of Jane Austen, writing at a table set in the middle of a busy sitting room, interrupted by tea, requests for knitting, errands, nieces and nephews, and yet still managing to produce the most perfect novels in the language.
What tips or advice do you have for writers still looking to be discovered?
I don't think I'm qualified to give tips. I'm floundering around just like everyone else. As for "discovery," I've been very, very lucky -- and what can anyone learn from that?
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