Carolina QuotesI understand the craft of writing, because it’s who and what I am. The commercial world of publishing, both in the past and today, is an ongoing mystery to me. Fads are constantly changing.
Lois Duncan Connected to the Carolinas
Source
On writing and publishing, interview with Megan Abbott (2011)
- form
- interview
- work
- 2003–2016
- year
- 2003
Cite this record
“I understand the craft of writing, because it’s who and what…” Lois Duncan. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-0EF27A615D. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/0ef27a615d
More from Lois Duncan
It came naturally. I came from a family of strong women.
The books I loved most as a child were those that contained elements of magic—the whole series of Oz books, Mary Poppins, The Princess and the Goblin—I could name them indefinitely.
I was in my forties and teaching magazine writing for the Journalism Department at the University of New Mexico. I was hired on a fluke. The professor who was scheduled to teach the course became ill, so the chair of the department, my personal friend Tony Hillerman, asked me to fill in for a semester. Tony knew I’d never been to college and didn’t care; he just knew I’d written successfully for magazines for years. The original professor never returned, and someone else replaced Tony as Chair and automatically kept me on. I discovered I loved teaching writing and started to get worried that my deep dark secret, (no college!) might be discovered, so I began taking courses under my married name, Lois Arquette, hoping I could get a degree before someone “outed” me. In the course of that endeavor, I took a juvenile literature class where they were studying “Lois Duncan books.” My fellow students were excitedly writing A-plus papers about how many of my books were based on Greek myths. I had never even read those myths!