Creating characters 'that entertain and inspire'

 

“All I wanted to do was read, to be told stories. Stories were full of excitement and emotions and characters that entertained and often inspired.” – Cynthia Voigt

 

Born in Massachusetts on this date in 1942, Voigt wrote the best-selling and award-winning Young Adult books, Homecoming and Dicey’s Song – the latter winning the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature and the former adapted into a movie.  Voigt also received the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association recognizing her contribution in writing for teens.

 

 Drawn to writing at an early age, Voight said, “By the time I started high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer.”  After college, she worked in advertising, then teaching, first in New Mexico then Maryland before writing Homecoming.   The first in what became known as “The Tillerman Cycle” (a 7-book series about four children from a family named Tillerman), she soon was concentrating on writing full time.

 

Voigt said words don’t always “flow” from her imagination, but she has written 40 books, the latest being 2024’s When Wishes Were Horses.     

 

 “I have ideas that I have trouble starting to write,” she said.  “But I'm the kind of person who tends to finish everything she starts out of sheer stubbornness.”