clarevanderpool@gmail.com

Newbery-Award Winning Author

If you ask anyone who knows me, they will tell you that I have a very strong connection to place. I live about four blocks from where I grew up, in an old neighborhood called College Hill. From my house I can walk to my parents’ house, my sister’s house, the school I went to, where my kids also attended, the pool, the sledding hill, and two bookstores! If I have a particular strength as a writer, this is it: I have a strong connection to place, and for me there is a story around every corner.

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children." – Madeleine L'Engle