Ask the Author: Dominick Grace
Answered Questions (10)
Dominick Grace
Hi there! Thanks for the question. Most of my favourite children's books are older ones; I am not generally up on current books for children under 10. That said, there are a lot of great older books that stand up well today. Personal favourites are C. S. Lewis's Narnia books and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, all of which I have read multiple times. When I was around the ages of your kids, I really loved The Enormous Egg, by Oliver Butterworth, but I have not read it since then, so I honestly don't know how well it will stand up. I also loved E. B. White's Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, the Winnie-the-Pooh books, all of which I also read more than once. Ursula K. LE Guin's A Wizard of Earthses is a great fantasy story. Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy is a dandy "realistic" novel for kids, as are the books of Judy Blume, perhaps especially Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. It's hard to go wrong with Katherine Patterson, but my favourite is Jacob Have I Loved. There are also lots of great comics and graphic novels for kids. When I was a kid, I was super fond of any of the Carl Barks Disney comics about Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. Many of these have been collected in different editions, and generally stand up well, I find; I've reread many of them in the last few years. Raina Telgemeir is a current hot property in kids' graphic novels. I believe Scott Chantler has also done several good ones. And of course, old classics such as the Tintin and Asterix books generally stand up well, though there are often elements that by today's standards are racist. Roald Dahl is another good one, in my opinion. Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels are excellent SF for kids, and she has written many other children's books, as well. Another personal favourite SF juvenile is Phyllis Gotlieb's Sunburst. I am sure more will occur to me after I hit submit, but this list covers a lot of my obvious choices.
Dominick Grace
On November 8, 2016, Americans went to the polls. When the votes were tallied, the new President of the United States of America was Donald Trump.
Dominick Grace
Wow. Interesting question. A lot of my favourite fictional worlds are great to read about but pretty dangerous, so I doubt I'd choose to go to, say, Middle Earth, or Narnia. I think I'd like to visit Jane Austen's England, though, and see whether I could edge out one of her less impressive lovers--Wentworth, perhaps--to win the affections of one of her delightful female protagonists (Anne Elliott in that case).
Dominick Grace
Tough question. Probably Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, because Austen's representation of their dialogue is scintillating.
Dominick Grace
After Eric Hoffman and I finished off Dave Sim: Conversations and Chester Brown: Conversations, making a "Canadian Trilogy" of it and doing a third volume on another major Canadian graphic novelist seemed like a no-brainer, However, Eric was the one who originally floated the idea. I just went along with it.
Dominick Grace
I don't.
Okay, that's a bit of a flip answer, but really, most of the work of writing has little to do with inspiration.
Okay, that's a bit of a flip answer, but really, most of the work of writing has little to do with inspiration.
Dominick Grace
Eric Hoffman and I are finishing off the manuscript of Seth: Conversations, forthcoming from the University Press of Mississippi. Other possible projects are too gestational at this point to discuss.
Dominick Grace
Write about what you care about, not what you think will sell or what you think someone else wants you to write.
Dominick Grace
The best thing about being a writer is having written something--when the work is done and you can look back on it.
Dominick Grace
There are several answers for this. The flip one is, if you just can't write that first paragraph, write the second one and worry about the first one later. More seriously (though that is not entirely a joke), one thing to do is to take a break: do something else for a while, and come back fresh. But the other thing to do, ultimately, is just to write. No matter how crappy it seems, just grind out the words. You can always throw (some of) them away later, but you need to start if you're ever going to finish.
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