Claudia Mills received her BA from Wellesley College, her MA from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University. He also received an MLS degree from the University of Maryland, specializing in children’s literature. She worked as an editorial assistant at Four Winds Press (Scholastic) and as an editor at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland. Since 1991 she has taught philosophy, first as an assistant professor at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County, then as an assistant professor, and now as an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has two sons, Christopher Wahl and Gregory Wahl.

Carma: When did you decide to be a writer or did it just happen?

Claudia: I always knew that I wanted to be a writer. My mother raised me to be a writer: When I was in first grade, she gave me a composition book covered in marble and told me it was going to be my poetry book, so I started writing poetry to include it. I wrote incessantly when I was a child; I still have a box full of poetry written on Kleenex, on paper napkins, aside from my math homework. It was the only thing I ever wanted to be.

Carma: When did your career as a professional writer start?

Claudia: I worked for Four Winds Press / Scholastic in the late 1970s, and that was my entry into the wonderful world of children’s book publishing. I began trying to write my own manuscripts, submitting them to various New York publishers and receiving consistent rejections. Then I came up with the brilliant plan to submit one of my own stories to Four Winds Press, using a pseudonym to escape detection. The story, like all the others, was rejected, and I had to type my own rejection letter! A second story suffered a similar fate. But then when I submitted my third article to Four Winds Press, my boss there, Barbara Lalicki, asked me to write an editorial review for her. I did, and surprised myself to find a lot in my own story to criticize. Barbara then wrote the author (me) a letter, which her secretary (me) typed, asking if I would be willing to revise the story according to the suggestions of my own criticism. I followed through on all the great advice I had received (!), And Four Winds ended up publishing the book, under the title At the Back of the Woods.

Carma: What role, if any, have writing groups played in your career?

Claudia: I don’t think I could be a writer without my group of writers. When he lived in Maryland, he was a member of a group of writers called The Soup Group; Here in Colorado, I am a member of a group of writers that has no name (well, we refer to ourselves as the Beauties and the Beauties, but that’s not our official title). I trust my writing group for the first critique of each of my manuscripts, as well as for invaluable support and encouragement when the going gets tough.

Carma: Who or what inspires your ideas?

Claudia: All my ideas have been inspired by my own childhood experiences, or by things that have happened to my two sons, who are now 19 and 16 years old. I have been taking a lot of inspiration lately from the always fascinating elementary school curriculum. For example, in my most recent book, Amanda MacLeish’s Totally Made-Up Civil War Diary, Amanda is assigned a school assignment to keep a journal by pretending to be a Civil War character, Polly Mason, who has a brother who fights for the North and another for the South. At the same time, Amanda is dealing with the “Civil War” within her own home: the separation from her parents. The book alternates between chapters in Amanda’s life and chapters in the journal she writes as Polly Mason. My book Being Teddy Roosevelt was inspired by the “biography tea” my two children participated in: each child had to read a biography and then go to school disguised as the subject of the biography and impersonate that prominent individual at a fancy party of tea. And my book Trade places is based on the popular Mini-Society curriculum, in which children create their own society in the classroom, with their own rules, flag, currency, and economy.

Carma: Does being a philosophy teacher give you an added advantage when writing your children’s books?

Claudia: It makes me more sensitive to the importance of the topic in a book: what is this story about? What is the little kernel of truth that you are trying to reveal?

Carma: Did you have an agent for your first published book?

Claudia: I have never had an agent for any of my books.

Carma: What advice would you give a beginning author?

Claudia: Well, of course, read, read, read and write, write, write. Join SCBWI (the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) and attend their conferences. And find yourself a writing group.

Carma: What is your favorite genre?

Claudia: When I was a child I loved fantasy, but now I only write realistic fiction, about real life children at home and at school. I want to write (and I love to read) the kind of story where the reader laughs and cries, hopefully at the same time.

Carma: Do you have a favorite age group for writing?

Claudia: It used to be grades 4-6, the age group for the middle grade novel, but lately I’ve been falling in love with writing chapter books geared toward third graders. I love the more energetic beat. And I love writing about the small but painful challenges of children: mastering those pesky multiplication tables! trying to convince your mom to let you make instrumental music. . .

Carma: What is the origin of your famous Dance of the Apes?

Claudia: This is a dance that I used to do in high school, and even in high school (my high school yearbook shows a photo of me doing the ape dance as a senior). For the dance of the apes they gave me (or did I give myself?) The nickname Tarzan, Queen of the Apes. So my first book-length manuscript was an autobiographical collection of stories about my eighth grade year, written when I was in eighth grade, called T Is for Tarzan. I usually close my school visits with a performance of the dance of the apes. So now you know!

 

Thanks for this interview Claudia.