Deborah Wiles

There's always something good to come out of disappointment: Comfort.

A story shared back and forth is just about the most perfect symbiotic gift. It's a bit like love. No, it's a lot like love.

So often, we don't realize that the very moments in which we live become our history, our story.

I always say that I take my life and turn it into story, and I certainly did that with 'Countdown'.

It's an extension of what I do also as part of making my living - I go into schools and work with kids on writing, and I do assembly programs often. Each one is different because each school has different requirements.

As a children's author, you get to advocate for reading and writing in general, in a way an adult author might not be able to. It's a really interesting dance we do to get literature into the hands of young people and to help them to become literate and become readers; we want them to grow up reading and continue to do so when they're adults.

I want young readers to know that to tell their own story is the most important thing they'll ever do.

I am always telling students that a story is not just words. You can tell a story with dance or paint or music. Kids and adults are visual learners, auditory learners. There are those of us who need to touch it. Storytelling encompasses so much more than words on paper.

I would lie in bed at night composing letters to Kennedy and Khrushchev, trying to convince them that they really didn't want to blow up the world. It seemed so simple to me that we just shouldn't hurt each other.

I loved everything about being ten, eleven, and twelve years old, and seem to make most of my heroines and heroes that age so I can reexperience all those pitfalls and wonderful discoveries. It helps me to figure out my own life when I write from that eleven year old place!

Open your arms to life! Let it strut into your heart in all its messy glory!

Telling stories with visuals is an ancient art. We've been drawing pictures on cave walls for centuries. It's like what they say about the perfect picture book. The art and the text stand alone, but together, they create something even better. Kids who need to can grab onto those graphic elements and find their way into the story.