What were your favorite books as a child? Why?

As a young child, my favorite books were the Betsy-Tacy books by Maude Hart Lovelace. My mother read those novels to me before I could read, and I know those books were the start of my love affair with the novel form. I vividly remember imagining those characters’ lives, and wishing I could live the story with them. I wanted my own best friends, my own Big Hill where we could meet for picnics. Mostly I wanted a life of great adventures like Betsy, Tacy and Tib lived.

What was your inspiration for the story about Reenie Kelly and Mr. Marsworth?

Well, here we’re visiting another childhood literary influence. I think my real inspiration for Until Tomorrow, Mr. Marsworth came from a book I read in fourth grade called Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster. It was an epistolary novel written in 1912 for “college girls,” and while I was a good eight years from college, and a long way from 1912, I was a great fan of the form. So my dream to write an epistolary novel was formed young.

Describe some of the challenges of writing an epistolary novel for children.

The challenge with the novel, regardless of audience, is the need to show rather than tell, and the primary device for showing is the scene. The scene is really a method of narrative execution, and I had to have a narrator—Reenie Kelly—for whom that method would read naturally. Beyond that, there was the literal passage of time because life continued while letters were waiting to be written and answered. 

Also, in the letter, there is as much unsaid as said, and it’s that withholding of information that gives the letter its power. You have to trust the reader to read between the lines, and I did. I have great faith in young people’s ability to read between the lines.

Gardner Hill in Wayzata, Minnesota

Is Lake Liberty a real town in Minnesota? Is there a real town that inspired the setting?

Lake Liberty is an imagined town, but it was inspired by the “old town” section of Wayzata back in the 1960’s. This was the place where my father was born and raised, and my O’Connor relatives all lived. Like Reenie Kelly’s grandmother, my grandmother had a little house at the top of Gardner Hill, a house with an attic bedroom where her three boys once slept. It was just beneath the Wayzata water tower, with an overgrown woods that later became part of a freeway, and in the years before that freeway, I spent many happy days playing on that land, and in that neighborhood. When I picture Lake Liberty, I picture the Wayzata of my childhood—the movie theater, the A & W, the small cottages on the lake. I was an outsider to that town, just as Reenie Kelly is an outsider to Lake Liberty, and I was keenly aware of how deep the ties ran for long-time residents.

Your story is enriched by an interesting cast of secondary characters. Who is your favorite and why?

Oh, you know that question is too hard for a writer to answer! I truly loved them all, even the less lovable characters like Gram. I hope that each character is a fully realized human being with desires and flaws, because that’s what I want to see in my work. I love Billy for his gentleness and humility, and I love Dare for his ragged edges and his bravado. I love Skip for the friendship he extends to Reenie Kelly, and how carefully he navigates the letters that he sends from Vietnam. I love Sno-Cone for her intelligence, and her ability to expand Reenie’s world. And of course, I love Mr. H.W. Marsworth for his great patience, and his quiet courage, and his unending kindness. I love that he is willing to be changed by Reenie, and that he allows a child to teach him lessons he still needs to learn.

If you didn’t write books and teach creative writing, what would you do for a living?

My first love is children, and I think if I hadn’t been able to teach writing to adults and children, I would have worked with children in another capacity, perhaps as a child psychologist or sociologist who specialized in the lives of the children. Both of those were interests when I began college, but they were put aside for writing.

If you were an animal, which animal would you want to be?

In terms of temperament, I’m probably most like a dog. I’m happy to be a loyal companion, to sleep between walks, to enjoy the world on a sensory level. We have an adored family dog named Rollo, a Brittany Spaniel mutt, and I wouldn’t mind living his existence. Maybe in my next lifetime, I can sleep next to my owner while she writes.

Sheila O’Connor, author and educator

Biography

Sheila O’Connor is the critically acclaimed author of Sparrow Road, winner of the International Reading Award, and Keeping Safe the Stars, as well as the adult novels Tokens of Grace and Where No Gods Came, winner of the Michigan Prize for Literary Fiction and the Minnesota Book Award. A writer of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction for audiences of all ages, Sheila is a professor in the MFA program at Hamline University, where she also serves as the fiction editor for Water~Stone Review. You can visit Sheila at sheilaoconnor.com.

Newcastle upon Tyne

When I was a child my passion was exploring the back-alleys and narrow passageways of my native city. One particular long-ago day when thunder rumbled across the river and rain clouds hovered over the coal barges in a thick gray shroud, I sheltered beneath the smut-grimed arches of the ancient castle walls. Rain splashed over the parapets and sluiced into the gutters. And through the gloom I spied a shabby little shop gouged out of the soot-stained stones. A weathered sign creaked in the wind. Barlow’s Bygones.

The door was warped and a rusty bell clanked dejectedly. Inside smelled of damp mold and the powdered bones of long-dead beasties. An old man stood in the shadows dressed in a long duster coat. Rimless spectacles perched on a nose almost lost under bushy eyebrows, and curls of gray hair sprouted from protruding ears.

 “Benjamin Barlow at your service.” His voice rasped. “Look around, bonnie lassie.”

Surrounding him in piles were musty books, rolled up maps, a muddle of old medals and badges, baskets of buttons. Even a rusty dagger festooned with sticky spider webs. Thrilled, I searched through the treasure trove until I discovered a wolf head’s carving, two inches long with a neat hole chiseled through the creature’s neck. Despite being whittled from bone it lay warm as a new-laid egg in the palm of my hand. I ached to possess it. Who had made it? Why? For what purpose?

“How much?” I whispered.

“Whatever you have,” wheezed the old man.

I emptied my pockets onto his worn wooden counter. A half crown. Two sixpences. One threepenny bit. Mr. Barlow smiled and hummed as he wrapped my precious prize in brown paper and tied it with string. “For you, lass. Weaver of dreams.”

Newcastle upon Tyne

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Janet Graber grew up by the sea in northern England, a magical place of fairy-tale castles, golden beaches, desolate moors, gray stone walls, and woodlands ablaze with bluebells and snowdrops. Her vivid childhood memories include imaginary games on the ancient Roman Wall, burying treasure on Holy Island, and summer holidays at Granny Drummond’s cottage in Kirk Yetholm. Although she has lived in many places all over the world since, her heart remains firmly in the land of her birth. Visit Janet’s website.

I’m working on a picture book about place like nothing I’ve done before. When I first started writing stories, I worked as a tour guide for the Minnesota Historical Society at Saint Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis. I became fascinated by the story of the only large waterfall on the Mississippi River and how it eroded upstream over twelve thousand years from what is now downtown St. Paul.

Saint Anthony Falls today (Adobe Stock)

One day, the writer Marsha Wilson Chall took a tour with a school group. Afterwards, she said, “I’m sure you’ll get a picture book out of this place.”

Twenty-three years later, we have a contract for My Mighty Journey: A Waterfall’s Story. It’s first person waterfall, a category of books that is fairly limited. Gaylord Schanilec, the artist, is working with a team of other artists on stunning illustrations. Gaylord agreed to make art for the book on two conditions: one, he and I would walk by the river over the course of a year, and two, we would not have a deadline for the project. The editor, Shannon Pennefeather, and I agreed to both.

Gaylord Shanilec and John Coy at Shanilec’s studio, working on My Mighty Journey: A Waterfall’s Story

Having no deadline opened up opportunities to talk with many people. Europeans and their descendants have been here for less than three percent of the time people have lived by the Falls. We’ve been fortunate to work with Diane Wilson, Ernie Whiteman, and the team at Dream of Wild Health, a Native American farm that grows and gathers food using knowledge that’s been handed down for thousands of years. Diane and Ernie have generously shared their expertise and introduced new ways of seeing the waterfall, time, and how we live. We’re grateful to them and the Dakota and Ojibway people who have lived here for thousands of years for providing a deeper understanding of place. 

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John Coy (photo: Anna Min)

John Coy is the author of young adult novels, the 4 for 4 middle-grade series, and fiction and nonfiction picture books. He has received numerous awards for his work including a Marion Vannett Ridgway Award for best debut picture book, a Charlotte Zolotow Honor, Bank Street College Best Book of the Year, Notable Book for a Global Society, the Burr/Warzalla Award for Distinguished Achievement in Children’s Literature and the Kerlan Award in recognition of singular attainments in the creation of children’s literature. John lives in Minneapolis and visits schools around the world. Visit johncoy.com.