Why We Write

Caroline Heller's book Reading Claudius: A Memoir in Two Parts, explores not only her family's experiences during World War II, but also how the Holocaust affected her own life as the child of a concentration camp survivor. In this interview, she talks about her family history with fellow author Rachel Kadish.

When Joel Christian Gill realized painting wasn't working for him, he returned to comic books and began writing and illustrating books that tell the unknown and wild stories of extraordinary black people in history.

Richard Blanco was the fifth presidential inaugural poet in U.S. History and has gone on to write poems on cultural identity, gender, equality, and place. In this interview, he speaks with former Boston Poet Laureate Danielle Legros Georges at Lesley University.

Young adult author Sara Farizan talks about "Here to Stay," her new book on basketball and Islamophobia, navigating social media as a public figure and introvert, and being a not-quite-full-time writer.

Fabiola R. Decius’s is a playwright and the founder of Teens WRITE (Writing, Reading, and Investigating Theater Everywhere), which is a program for teenagers to write, revise, cast, direct, and produce original plays culminating in a Ten-Minute Play Festival.

It took Janet Pocorobba 15 years to write "The Fourth String: A Memoir of Sensei and Me," a biography of a non-traditional Japenese sensei teaching a very traditional instrument and an autobiography of the author's immersion into Japanese culture. In this episode, she talks about the challenges of writing about real people and how Japan changed her life.

YA and children's author David Elliott's most recent titles are Bull, a raucous, rhyming retelling of the Minotaur myth that's been compared to Hamilton and Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc, a story idea that came to Elliott in his sleep.

Boston-based poet Jess Rizkallah is the award-winning author of The Magic My Body Becomes. She first decided to "chase poetry" as an undergrad at Lesley University and went on to study creative writing at NYU. A native of Boston, Jess often writes about her experiences as a Lebanese-American woman, family, love, religion, and gender expectations.

Sara Levine is a writer, educator, and a veterinarian. Her children's books are lively explorations into scientific topics such as the purpose of flower color and comparisons in animal anatomy.

Hundreds of new books for kids and young adults hit shelves every year, yet teachers often stick with the same titles year in and year out. The educators behind The Classroom Bookshelf encourage teachers to try new and diverse books by giving them ideas on how to incorporate them into their existing lessons. In their words, they share "thoughts and ideas on some of the most exciting, arresting, profound, and beautiful books for children and young adults."