Respecting readers, developing characters

“Over the years, my students influenced me greatly, and I've learned many lessons from them. I have an immense amount of respect for them, and I think that respect for your audience is the foremost requirement for anyone who wants to write.” – Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Bartoletti, born in Pennsylvania on this date in 1958, taught school for 20 years before turning to writing.  She started in junior high, a choice she not only enjoyed but also which inspired her to do her own writing.  Watching and working with kids also has given her many of the traits and patterns she uses in developing her characters.

"I felt immense satisfaction in watching my students grow as writers and I wanted to practice what I preached,” she said.   Her first short story sold in 1989, her first children’s book, Silver at Night, in 1992, and three longer children’s books, Growing Up in Coal Country, Dancing With Dziadziu, and Kids on Strike in the mid-1990s, prompting her to pursue writing full time.

The winner of numerous awards including the SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction, the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, and the Newberry Honor Medal, she still teaches, but now her students are master’s degree candidates in various writing programs or students in writing workshops around the nation. 

                                And character development remains at the heart of every piece that she does and what she stresses to her writing students.   “When I create a character, it happens in layers,” she said.  “The more I write and revise, the better I understand my characters.”

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