'Creating' from freedom and flexibility

 

“The deadlines are much, much longer with books. When I was a reporter, a lot of times I'd come in at 8:30 a.m., get an assignment right away, interview somebody, turn the story in by 9:30, and have the finished story in the paper that landed on my desk by noon.” – Margaret Haddix

 

“Write tight and write quick” are the daily mantras for journalists, and how Haddix, born in April of 1964, started her writing career.  She worked on newspapers in Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, Indiana before switching to the creative side in the mid-1990s and has never looked back.

Best known for her series’ Shadow Children and The Missing and her stand-alone books Running Out of Time and The Girl With 500 Middle Names, she has authored more than 50 books and won the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award for her body of work.  Her most recent book is 2024’s The Secret Key in her newest series Mysteries of Trash and Treasure.

 

Haddix said she’s very glad she switched from Journalism to the creative side three decades ago.   “It's just so much fun to make up characters, situations, and everything else about a story,” she said.  “I have so much freedom and flexibility to do whatever I want.”