American author (1947- )
No music. No rituals. At home I write in my office or on the laptop in the kitchen where our puppy likes to sleep, and I love his company. But I've trained myself to be able to work anywhere, and I write on trains, planes, in automobiles (if I'm not the driver), airports, hotel rooms. I travel often. If I couldn't write wherever I was I would get little done. I also can write in short bursts. Fifteen minutes are enough to move a story forward.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
interview, Bookshop Talk, September 22, 2011
I loved fairy tales as a kid. I've always been drawn to fantasy. They're always exciting. There's never a dull moment. I just love the embellishments and the magical stuff. It's such fun to work with and to re-imagine your own way.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
interview, RIF Reading Planet
Queer Ducks flock together.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
Ella Enchanted
I didn't think [Ella Enchanted] would get published. Everything I'd written till then had been rejected. If it was published, I thought it might sell a few thousand copies and go out of print. I thought if I was lucky I could write more books and get them published, too. I still pinch myself over the way things have worked out.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
"An interview with Gail Carson Levine", BookBrowse
I love having written. Sometimes I love writing. I love to revise. Revising is my favorite part of writing.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
interview, Harper Collins
Step follows step,
Hope follows Courage,
Set your face towards danger,
Set your heart on victory.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
The Two Princesses of Bamarre
Crying is part of the adventure.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
The Two Princesses of Bamarre
My favorite of my books is DAVE AT NIGHT, because it's loosely based on my father's childhood in an orphanage.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
"Ask the Author: Gail Carson Levine", Goodreads
When I was little I knew my father had been an orphan and had lived in an orphanage. I was curious, but my father wouldn't satisfy my curiosity. He told only one story about the orphanage, and that was of sneaking out and buying candy, which he sold to other orphans. He said he had a pretty good business going--till he was busted! I guess he told that anecdote because he was the hero of it and I suspect he was rarely the hero as a child, more often the victim. There's a photo of the actual orphanage on my website, and you can see it's a forbidding looking place.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
interview, Bookshop Talk, September 22, 2011
I wished she'd never stop squeezing me. I wished I could spend the rest of my life as a child, being slightly crushed by someone who loved me.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
Ella Enchanted
Writing is a weird thing because we can read, we know how to write a sentence. It's not like a trumpet where you have to get some skill before you can even produce a sound. It's misleading because it's hard to make stories. It seems like it should be easy to do but it's not. The more you write, the better you're going to get. Write and write and write. Try not to be hard on yourself.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
interview, RIF Reading Planet
Why do you keep reading a book? Usually to find out what happens. Why do you give up and stop reading it? There may be lots of reasons. But often the answer is you don't care what happens. So what makes the difference between caring and not caring? The author's cruelty. And the reader's sympathy ... it takes a mean author to write a good story.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
Writing Magic
I had to share a room with my sister, who is five and a half years older than I am. We didn't get along well, and I felt that I had no privacy. So books were my privacy, because no one could join me in a book, no one could comment on the action or make fun of it. I used to spend hours reading in the bathroom -- and we only had one bathroom in our small apartment!
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
interview