Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
In a career spanning four decades, award-winning author Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011) wrote more than forty books of fantasy for young readers. Characterized by magic, multiple universes, witches, and wizards—and a charismatic nine-lived enchanter—her books are filled with unlimited imagination, dazzling plots, and an effervescent sense of humor that earned her legendary status in the world of fantasy. Her books, published to international acclaim, have earned a wide array of honors, including two Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Honors and the British Fantasy Society's Karl Edward Wagner Award for having made a significant impact on fantasy. Acclaimed director and animator Hayao Miyazaki adapted Howl's Moving Castle into a major motion picture, which was nominated for an Academy Award.
Diana Wynne Jones's website
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When did you decide to be a writer?
I decided to be a writer at the age of eight, but I did not receive any
encouragement in this ambition until thirty years later. I think this ambition
was fired - or perhaps exacerbated is a better word - by early marginal contacts
with the Great, when we were evacuated to the English Lakes during the war. The
house we were in had belonged to Ruskin's secretary and had also been the home
of the children in the books of Arthur Ransome. One day, finding I had no paper
to draw on, I stole from the attic a stack of exquisite flower-drawings, almost
certainly by Ruskin himself, and proceeded to rub them out. I was punished for
this.
Soon after, we children offended Arthur Ransome by making a noise on
the shore beside his houseboat. He complained. So likewise did Beatrix Potter,
who lived nearby. It struck me then that the Great were remarkably touchy and
unpleasant (even if, in Ruskin's case, it was posthumous), and I thought I would
like to be the same, without the unpleasantness.
When did you start writing?
I started writing children's books when we moved to a village in Essex
where there were almost no books. The main activities there were hand-weaving,
hand-making ...
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