Helen Craig Quotes

People think writing a children's book is something you could do in an afternoon but it's actually really hard.

Writing for children is an art in itself, and a most interesting one.

Writing children's books gives a writer a very strong sense of narrative drive.

It wasn't until I was working on 'Tacky' that I admitted to myself that I was writing a series.

The great thing about making picture books is that you can make absolutely anything you want happen. It's a bit like making a film, but you don't need lots of money for actors and costumes - you just need pens, paper, and your imagination.

I was taking my first uncertain steps towards writing for children when my own were young. Reading aloud to them taught me a great deal when I had a great deal to learn. It taught me elementary things about rhythm and pace, the necessary musicality of text.

I like working in children's books because it gives rise to such a variety of jobs. One month it may be a picture book, the next a retelling, the next a play, a short story or the start of the next novel.

I know authors shouldn't play favorites with books, but 'Release Me' really is right up there for me. The characters truly came alive on the page and drove the story as much as I did from behind the scenes. It was a pleasure to write, and I'm so thrilled that it's the first of a trilogy because I get to spend more time with the characters.

When I started writing and illustrating, I knew little of classic children's literature. My stories came from real life, from my concerns about what was happening in the world.

Every day I run into people who don't know what I do. And even after I explain it they still don't know what I do. So now I can just say, 'Pick up the Locas book!' And that tells them all.

Then one day I thought it would be wonderful to make a whole book, to make my text and my drawings together, and that's how I started doing children's books.

When I was starting to write, I was fascinated with 'Knuffle Bunny' by Mo Willems. I remember taking it home and typing it out, trying to figure out how it worked. It's just a classic, with dauntingly few words.

We always wanted to do a children's book of some form or another.

Fiction is about small ambition, small failed ambition, small disappointed hope.

People would congratulate Dick for my movies. It bothered me for a long, long time.

I like to create characters and worlds, and there's nothing like telling your own stories.

The key thing if you're a writer is to visualize the scene and convey it to the penciller and turn the penciller loose.

Whenever the kindly uncles and aunts came over for a cup of tea and asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, it was always the same: an 'authoress', and illustrate my own books.

When television gets in trouble is when it forgets that it all begins with the written word.

I'm the author of several books, including children's books.

I don't want to be like other authors and say that there are only a few story lines in literature. A story is like a human face. We have as many stories as human faces. You might have similar facial features, but they're all a little different.

I love to read the kind of books I write. Genre-breaking. Fresh-concept. World-building. My all-time top three authors would have to be Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Harris, and Pat Conroy.

I wrote my first play when I was eight. It was about a queen, and I - of course! - was the queen.

I love taking on roles that other people have written for me just as much as I take on writing - just not as much of a, 'Oh, that guy.' I want people to start saying, 'Oh, Brett Gelman's new piece is coming out. That's a Brett Gelman movie. That's a a Brett Gelman show.'

Authors make stuff up. Let's not pretend it's any more magical than that.