photo by cappy hotchkiss
Julie Chibbaro is the award-winning author of three novels: Into the Dangerous World (Viking, 2015), about a girl artist on the NY streets in 1984, Deadly (Simon & Schuster 2011, Scholastic 2012), a medical mystery about the hunt for Typhoid Mary in 1906, and Redemption (Simon & Schuster 2004) historical fiction about a girl's unintended trip to the New World in 1524.
Into the Dangerous World was named a Junior Library Guild Selection, a 2016 Notable Social Studies Trade Book by the Children's Book Council, and was nominated for the North Carolina YA Book Award. Deadly won the 2011 National Jewish Book Award, and was Top 10 on the American Library Association's Amelia Bloomer Project list. It was named a Bank Street Best Book, and an Outstanding Science Trade Book by the National Science Teachers Association and is now part of many schools’ curriculum. Redemption was nominated for the Illinois HS Book Award, and won the American Book Award.
Julie has written for The Prague Post, The Montreal Gazette, The Poughkeepsie Journal, Hudson Valley Magazine, NY States of Mind, Books in Canada, SundanceTV, Tuttle Publishing, and many other venues. For the last few years, Julie has studied with master memoirist Beverly Donofrio. She studied writing at The New School, and with Sue Shapiro and Gordon Lish, among others. She received scholarships to study with Clark Blaise at the Prague Writers Workshop, and with Janet Fitch and Amy Tan at the Community of Writers. At the New York Writers Institute, she took a Master class with Marilynne Robinson and Ann Beattie.
Into the Dangerous World was named a Junior Library Guild Selection, a 2016 Notable Social Studies Trade Book by the Children's Book Council, and was nominated for the North Carolina YA Book Award. Deadly won the 2011 National Jewish Book Award, and was Top 10 on the American Library Association's Amelia Bloomer Project list. It was named a Bank Street Best Book, and an Outstanding Science Trade Book by the National Science Teachers Association and is now part of many schools’ curriculum. Redemption was nominated for the Illinois HS Book Award, and won the American Book Award.
Julie has written for The Prague Post, The Montreal Gazette, The Poughkeepsie Journal, Hudson Valley Magazine, NY States of Mind, Books in Canada, SundanceTV, Tuttle Publishing, and many other venues. For the last few years, Julie has studied with master memoirist Beverly Donofrio. She studied writing at The New School, and with Sue Shapiro and Gordon Lish, among others. She received scholarships to study with Clark Blaise at the Prague Writers Workshop, and with Janet Fitch and Amy Tan at the Community of Writers. At the New York Writers Institute, she took a Master class with Marilynne Robinson and Ann Beattie.
Interview with Julie:
* Did you always want to be a writer?
No. I wanted to be an actress (I went to the Fame school in NYC, Performing Arts, then to college for theater). I didn’t decide to become a writer till I was nearly 30. As a kid, I saw books as friends (okay, I didn’t have a whole lot of real friends, and books were rather nonjudgmental.) I read until late at night, when I’d fall asleep with the light on and get yelled at in the morning for wasting electricity (it was worth it). I got a job in high school to pay for the electric bill so I could keep reading. Later on, after my mother died when I was 27, I realized that writing and reading, two things I loved to share with her, were what came most easily and joyfully to me, and that's when I changed my focus.
* How much of your writing is based on your own experience?
In my fiction, I write about people from the past, sometimes the very deep past, which limits what I can use from my own experience. Still, everyone since the beginning of time has fallen in love, or hated, or been jealous, or has known extreme joy. So in that way, I use what I know in my work. The human element.
* What is your writing process like?
For historical fiction, when I’m looking for ideas, I will read voraciously, mulling over stories that I think might work for me (I need to really adore an idea before I’ll commit to it). Once I have an idea, I’ll read voraciously (again) to get a sense of the time period. While reading, I try to allow characters to surface, letting different voices in. When a voice, or main character, becomes clear to me, and I have an idea of their story, I’ll start writing. My current writing process is more like an internal opening, or many internal openings, until I understand what happened with a holistic perspective, and that's where I write from.
* What brings a character to life for you?
Mostly, it's when I can see both sides of a person – their strengths and weaknesses. They are alive for me when I can understand why they made certain choices. In Redemption, I understood Lily from the very beginning – how the pain of losing her father drove her to ask her mother to go to the New World, a very dangerous and frightening trip in 1524. In Deadly, it took me a little longer to get Prudence. The book was rewritten a number of times – first in a boy’s voice with an added story, then pared down, until I found Prudence. I understood her the moment I realized she helped her mother deliver babies in 1906 in crummy apartments in New York City’s Lower East Side. For Into the Dangerous World, I had been living with Aurora, in conjunction with another main character, for many years. It wasn't until my editor suggested I focus the book on her that it took its shape.
* Do you have any advice for beginning writers?
Read books as a writer. Study what you’re reading to try to understand what works and why. Type out your favorite passages from books to see what it feels like to write well. Try stuff out, be willing to throw a lot of it away. Read your work aloud, either to yourself or to someone who won’t laugh at you. Find people who will tell you the truth about your writing, in a way that can help you improve without crushing your ego.
* What is the one book no writer should be without?
Roget’s Thesaurus. Writers tend to have ten favorite words they use over and over and Roget can help us out of that cycle.
No. I wanted to be an actress (I went to the Fame school in NYC, Performing Arts, then to college for theater). I didn’t decide to become a writer till I was nearly 30. As a kid, I saw books as friends (okay, I didn’t have a whole lot of real friends, and books were rather nonjudgmental.) I read until late at night, when I’d fall asleep with the light on and get yelled at in the morning for wasting electricity (it was worth it). I got a job in high school to pay for the electric bill so I could keep reading. Later on, after my mother died when I was 27, I realized that writing and reading, two things I loved to share with her, were what came most easily and joyfully to me, and that's when I changed my focus.
* How much of your writing is based on your own experience?
In my fiction, I write about people from the past, sometimes the very deep past, which limits what I can use from my own experience. Still, everyone since the beginning of time has fallen in love, or hated, or been jealous, or has known extreme joy. So in that way, I use what I know in my work. The human element.
* What is your writing process like?
For historical fiction, when I’m looking for ideas, I will read voraciously, mulling over stories that I think might work for me (I need to really adore an idea before I’ll commit to it). Once I have an idea, I’ll read voraciously (again) to get a sense of the time period. While reading, I try to allow characters to surface, letting different voices in. When a voice, or main character, becomes clear to me, and I have an idea of their story, I’ll start writing. My current writing process is more like an internal opening, or many internal openings, until I understand what happened with a holistic perspective, and that's where I write from.
* What brings a character to life for you?
Mostly, it's when I can see both sides of a person – their strengths and weaknesses. They are alive for me when I can understand why they made certain choices. In Redemption, I understood Lily from the very beginning – how the pain of losing her father drove her to ask her mother to go to the New World, a very dangerous and frightening trip in 1524. In Deadly, it took me a little longer to get Prudence. The book was rewritten a number of times – first in a boy’s voice with an added story, then pared down, until I found Prudence. I understood her the moment I realized she helped her mother deliver babies in 1906 in crummy apartments in New York City’s Lower East Side. For Into the Dangerous World, I had been living with Aurora, in conjunction with another main character, for many years. It wasn't until my editor suggested I focus the book on her that it took its shape.
* Do you have any advice for beginning writers?
Read books as a writer. Study what you’re reading to try to understand what works and why. Type out your favorite passages from books to see what it feels like to write well. Try stuff out, be willing to throw a lot of it away. Read your work aloud, either to yourself or to someone who won’t laugh at you. Find people who will tell you the truth about your writing, in a way that can help you improve without crushing your ego.
* What is the one book no writer should be without?
Roget’s Thesaurus. Writers tend to have ten favorite words they use over and over and Roget can help us out of that cycle.