I enjoyed giving this interview to The Reading Tub several years ago.

RT:No Star Nights(1989, 1994), your first book, was drawn from your experiences growing up in Weirton, WV. Publisher’s Weekly characterized it as an “oral history embellished with illustrations.” Several of your books, and much of your poetry, center on life in Appalachia. What do you hope readers learn about this unique place in reading your work?

Anna: I would hope readers learn just that – that Appalachia is a “unique” place. In the introduction to my book A History of West Virginia, I describe West Virginia, the only state entirely within Appalachia, as “a place whose hills and hollows are a part of its people, a place where family has always been important . . . where people are proud to call this beautiful, rugged land home.”

RT: Your most recent book, To Keep the South Manitou Light (2005), just like your first one, grew from personal experience, a family vacation. In doing your research about life in a lighthouse, what did you find to be most fascinating? Were you able to capture that in the story?

Anna: Before I began my research I had no idea how difficult a light-keeper’s life was. In addition to keeping the light burning throughout the night, the light-keeper put in a full day of work taking care of the lighthouse, the other buildings, and the grounds. The strict rules and requirements of the job are in a 100+ page book titled Instructions to Light-Keepers. That book was invaluable to me in reconstructing the daily routine of the real keeper of the South Manitou Island Lighthouse (in Lake Michigan). Accounts of the bravery of light-keepers can only leave one with a sense of awe and admiration for these dedicated men and women -- and their children. Hopefully the real details I incorporated in my fictional story will help the reader travel back to the time when lives depended on these keepers of the lights.

RT: ........How important is it for parents and teachers to bring a book to life with ancillary information?

Anna: Nothing exists in isolation. Ancillary information, be it literary, cultural, geographic, historical, scientific, etc., emphasizes this interrelationship enriching the reading experience, opening windows to the world—that is the joy of reading. Historical fiction lends itself especially well to this. In extending stories in this “across-the-curriculum” way, parents and teachers model the skills of life-long learners. I can think of no better way to guide our children along this path.

RT: As a teacher and librarian, there have likely been a number of moments over the years where you could visibly see “the spark” that energized or inspired a child to a love of reading. Is there any particularly poignant or memorable story? Have these events inspired or influenced you as a children’s author?

Anna: I treasure the stories librarians and teachers have told me of how some people have responded to my books: the librarian sharing my book No Star Nights with a group of low-income women who grew up in the shadow of Pittsburgh’s steel mills, who, until they heard my story, didn’t think their lives were worth writing about. The response of a care-giver who reads No Star Nights to the Alzheimer patients with whom she works, telling me how the story helps stimulate their memories. Most recently, the story of a second grader who heard her teacher read To Keep the South Manitou Light, and immediately went to the library and checked it out – her first “big” book read all by herself. I concur with the authors who say that in many ways we write for the child within ourselves – that child who remembers the excitement, adventure, stimulation, and solace that we found, and continue to find, in books.

RT: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Anna: I would just like to thank you and those who work with you for all the work you are doing to promote reading – connecting readers with good books.

Background: To Keep the South Manitou Light is a work of historical fiction set in 1871 on South Manitou Island in Lake Michigan and was published in 2005 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI

Here are some more excerpts from an interview I had for To Keep the South Manitou Light. Interviewer Cymbre Foster, Leelanau Enterprise, Feb. 2005.  To read the first part of the article, click here.

How much historical info did you use in the story (To Keep the South Manitou Light)?
The story begins in early October 1871. The year had been very dry. Newspaper accounts reported fires burning in the forests around Lake Michigan all summer and into the fall. On the evening of October 8, 1871 two catastrophic fires ignited. One of these, the Great Chicago Fire, destroyed the city and claimed up to three hundred lives. The other fire, less well known but far more deadly, raged around Green Bay, Wisconsin, burning 1.25 million acres of forest and destroying the lumber town of Peshtigo. Possibly as many as two thousand people died. Smoke from the fires spread like a blanket all the way up Lake Michigan to the Straits of Mackinac. In my story, this was the reason for the Inspector's hurried visit warning the lightkeepers to be ready. There really was a lightkeeper who piled pots and pans on his lap to keep himself awake to ring the fog bell for the three days and nights the lake was covered with the smoke. This is recorded in Charles K. Hyde's The Northern Lights: Lighthouses of the Upper Great Lakes. The description of Patrick Malloy's rescue of the crew and passengers of the ship that ran aground on the shoals near the island is derived from this same book.

Instructions to Light-Keepers, a photoreproduction of the 1902 edition of Instructions to Light-Keepers and Masters of Light-House Vessels, was also an invaluable resource. When I could not find answers to my questions in books, Kimberly Mann, historical architect, and Bill Herd, National Park ranger at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore office in Empire, Michigan, were of great assistance.” In addition, I read every book on South Manitou Island that I could find and made several visits to the island to verify details about the lighthouse and to immerse myself in the setting. The collections of Leland’s public library and museum were also very helpful. Leland is mentioned frequently in the book in association with my main character and her family. They spend the winter living with Jessie’s grandparents in Leland where Jessie and her sister attend school.

Who is the intended audience (age/grade) for To Keep the South Manitou Light?
Ages 8 –12, however, I was very pleased to see a review by an adult reader on Amazon.com who called the book “Truly exciting and not just for young readers.”

Is there any additional information you’d like to tell your readers?
The cover of my book and the line drawing of the South Manitou Island Lighthouse were done by Louise Bass of Traverse City. Several years ago when I first started working on my story I bought a postcard and framed line-drawing of the South Manitou Island Lighthouse in a store in Leland’s Fishtown. I knew I wanted to use the drawing as an illustration in my book. I‘m delighted to say that not only is the drawing in the book, but the artist, Louise Bass, of Traverse City, also did the wonderful cover of the book. Louise and I both came to love South Manitou Island as a result of family camping trips there. Who knows, we might have been camping there at the same time, little realizing how our paths would someday cross!

Background: To Keep the South Manitou Light is a work of historical fiction set in 1871 on South Manitou Island in Lake Michigan and was published in 2005 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI.

I was interviewed several years ago by Cymbre Foster of the Leelanau Enterprise about my book To Keep the South Manitou Light.  Here I include some excerpts from the interview.
 
What connection do you have to Michigan’s Leelanau County?
My husband’s family has owned a cottage on Long Lake near Interlochen since the 1950s. For the thirty years of our marriage we’ve spent part of every summer there, always looking forward to trips to Leelanau County. We swim at Otter Creek, climb the Sleeping Bear dunes, visit the shops in Leland, Northport, and Sutton’s Bay, and just enjoy the spectacular, unspoiled beauty of the county. It’s the first place we take our visitors and it’s always one of the highlights of their Michigan vacation.

What was your inspiration for the book?
“The characters in this story are fictional, and the life of South Manitou Island has been changed in several instances for the sake of the story, but the lighthouse is real. Several years ago, my family and I camped on South Manitou. On a sunny day in August we followed a National Park ranger up the winding steps of the South Manitou Island Lighthouse and out onto the lower balcony that circles the top of the lighthouse. The view from up so high was at the same time breathtakingly beautiful and very scary.

Stories often begin with a writer asking the question, "What if?" And so this story began with What if it were November, a stormy, sleety night in November in the 19th Century, with ice building up in layers on the windows of the lighthouse? What if I were only twelve years old, and afraid to be up at the top of the lighthouse even on a sunny summer day? What if something had happened to the lightkeeper and I was the only one who could climb the ladder to the upper balcony and scrape off the ice so the light could shine through to warn the ships? I asked these and many other questions, until Jessie Lafferty, her mother, Omie, and the other characters in my story came to life.

To read the second part of the interview, click here.