Laini Taylor Extended Interview on "Strange the Dreamer" and the Power of Fantasy
As a girl, Laini Taylor wanted to be a writer. She would dream up magical worlds filled with witches and monsters. But once she got into high school and college, she started reading literature \u2014 all those serious books about the real world that serious people read. And she stopped writing.
\u201cI had no life experience,\u201d she laughs. \u201cAnd really nothing to say. I felt a lack of ability to contribute to that body of work.\u201d
Then years later, she read a little book you might\u2019ve heard of. Harry Potter? And her childhood imagination rose up like a phoenix.
\u201cThat whole \u2018write what you know,\u2019 you don\u2019t have to do that,\u201d she says. \u201cI find it much more fun to imagine what I don\u2019t know and want to figure it out.\u201d
Since then, Taylor has imagined stories to incredible success. Her early collaboration with her husband, the illustrator Jim Di Bartolo, \u201cLips Touch,\u201d was a finalist for the National Book Award, and her \u201cDaughter of Smoke and Bone\u201d trilogy is an international best seller.
We sat down with Taylor at her Portland home. It\u2019s sunny and bright and filled with wonder: paintings of her characters, small figurines of magical creature, princess dresses for her daughter Clementine Pie, and a library with a grand fireplace and floor-to-ceiling book shelves that seems right out of a fairy tale. Which is fitting: Taylor launched a new series this week about a young librarian who also has big dreams, \u201cStrange the Dreamer.\u201d
Taylor will read from the book and talk with Sara Grundell of the YA website Novel Novice at Powell\u2019s at Cedar Hills Crossing on Apr. 6.