Writing

"...persuasive and compelling... utterly authentic."
— Kirkus Reviews (Starred)

"...touching...believable...a treasure."
— Horn Book (Starred)

"...memorable... heartfelt... humanizes the reclusive literary figure..." — ALA Booklist

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Published by HarperCollins

Download "A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson" Teaching Guide: click here

Includes Barbara Dana's play
"War in Paramus"

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Excerpt from FATSO AND HIS FRIENDS, the series of short stories that I wrote for The Queens School Newspaper when I was eight:

"One sunny morning Fatso was trying to cook some fifteen-minute-never-ready peanuts. He decided that for some reason it wasn't possible because the stove that his medium-sized Grandfather gave him didn't work. Why? Why didn't it work?

Since he wasn't a kind of elephant to figure out why or why not he decided to go to Newdl's middle-sized cabin and see if he had a little something.

If you don't know who Fatso and Newdl are, Fatso is an elephant and Newdl is a dreadfully small rat. But Fatso has the understanding that Newdl is a very considerate creature, therefore they have a lot of fun together and play with each other a considerate amount of their time.

By the way, Happy-the-Tearless-Cat caught the too late train to and from Boston, and he is very sorry that he can't stick his nose into this story, but he will be back in time for the next newspaper. He is very sorry and hopes that the too late train will not be too late. He wishes you lots of good luck. When it comes from Happy it is his best, which really is not so much.

Yours every issue,
Barbara Dana, 3rd Grade"

> More information on upcoming
performances and appearances

I first knew I wanted to be a writer when I was
in the 3rd grade...

We had a school newspaper that came out every month and I wrote a series of stories about a group of animal friends who had all kinds of adventures. The series was called FATSO AND HIS FRIENDS. The characters were Fatso, an elephant, Newdl, a mouse, and Happy the Tearless Cat. The first episode was called FATSO AND HIS FRIENDS in DOWN THE MANHOLE. I loved writing the stories and enjoyed seeing them each month when they were printed in the paper. I have been writing ever since.

Do you like to write?

Here are some questions I often get asked about writing, along with my answers.

Where do you get your ideas? I get my ideas from life, from the people and animals I see, and the things that happen. I often pattern characters after people and animals in my family, after friends and acquaintances, and after famous people like Emily Dickinson and Joan of Arc who inspire me. If I am really interested in a subject, but I don't know much about it, I learn all I possibly can.
How do you know if your ideas are good enough? If I am interested in an idea I don't worry about that. I just go ahead and write. You never know for sure if people are going to like your ideas. You hope they will, but if you care about something and want to write about it you must go ahead. Any idea is worth writing about if it means something to you.
How do you finish a story? Usually if you stop writing in the middle of a story, there's something that needs to be made more truthful. It's often a small thing. I don't let my mind tell me the whole story is no good, or that I'm a terrible writer and I should stop. I think we get afraid of our work not being good enough and that makes us stop. Keep going to the end. Then read it and make it better. Always do at least a few drafts.
What do you do when you want to write, but you can't. If I really want to write a certain story, but I feel like I can't write that day, I play a trick on myself. I say, “I'm not going to write today, but if I were going to write I would write something like this.” Then I write down what the story would be like if I were going to write it. A lot of times I end up writing a chapter, or part of a chapter, most of which I actually use.
Is it hard to get published? It can be hard, but it's not impossible!

Books

Adults

A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson

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“Long recognized as a great American poet, Emily Dickinson the woman remains a mystery. The known information is full of contradictions. Her attorney father believed in educating girls but ruled the household with an iron hand. Even so, Emily found the courage to hold fast to her unique personal and religious convictions and to pursue her literary calling. She clung to home and family, in variable physical and mental health, becoming increasingly reclusive. Yet she maintained lifelong intellectually vigorous and passionate friendships by correspondence. In this fictionalized autobiography, never less than persuasive and compelling, Dana uses Dickinson’s vocabulary, syntax and ideas to craft a portrait of a gifted adolescent moving through puberty into womanhood. Watching Emily rejoice in her dawning creative powers and struggle with her anxieties and fear of death, readers sense that her genius is inextricably bound to both. The author describes years of research on Emily’s world in her afterword and bibliography, and the world readers are immersed in feels utterly authentic. The result does full justice to its complex, challenging subject who, like this novel, was sui generis.”
— KIRKUS REVIEWS (Starred)

A promotional video for Barbara Dana's new critically acclaimed novel A VOICE OF HER OWN: Becoming Emily Dickinson. This is a HarperTeen selection.

“In 1840, when Emily Dickinson was nine, her family abruptly moved a few blocks from the 'Homestead' in Amherst, Massachusetts, where, except for this novel’s fifteen-year span, she spent her whole life. Emily found the move traumatic, as she did most changes. Casting Emily as first-person narrator was 'bold,' as Dana observes, but the choice proves felicitous: the voice she fashions for Emily presages the works we know, judiciously sprinkled with trademark words ('Possibility,' 'Time,' 'Self'), laced with the poet’s own tart honesty and humor, and evoking nineteenth-century prose as challenged by its most free-spirited practitioner. Skillfully, Dana limns the Dickinsons’ characters (Mother 'buries herself beneath a cloak of obedience'; autocratic Father’s 'thoughts are stiff, with many corners') and the quiet events of Emily’s childhood and young adulthood (friendships, late-night confidences with brother Austin, bickering with sister Vinnie, wondering about 'Whiskers'—i.e., boys). Most significant is Emily’s inner life: her growing self-awareness as she spends a homesick yet stimulating year at Mt. Holyoke Seminary; finding a kindred spirit in a man who marries another, then dies (as do many friends, mainly of tuberculosis); an intense intimacy with her sister-in-law-to-be. Altogether, it’s a touching, believable overview of the sources of Dickinson’s uncompromisingly truthful poetic voice, the pursuit of which would trump all her other relationships and endeavors. For thoughtful readers, a treasure.” — HORN BOOKS (Starred)

“Dana's novel Young Joan (1991) envisioned Joan of Arc's youth. This title imagines the life of another famous woman, Emily Dickinson, moving from the poet's girlhood into her young-adult life. Dana spent 10 years researching this title, and the novel's historical and domestic details sometimes threaten to overwhelm the story; indeed, finding drama in such a quiet life is certainly challenging. Dana succeeds by creating a memorable, often vibrant voice in Emily's first-person narration, which incorporates archaic language and lines from Dickinson's poems and journals. Readers may recognize themselves in Emily's initial terror over puberty, her intense friendships, and her curiosity about young men ('the Whisker Set'), while her ambivalence about marriage ('We give our lives to this man, but what of ours?') and her literary aspirations form a strong feminist thread that will also draw YAs. An obvious choice for curriculum support, this heartfelt, exhaustively detailed portrait humanizes the reclusive literary figure and offers an intimate sense of how a poet draws from small moments, 'gathered on scraps,' to create great works.”
— Gillian Engberg, ALA BOOKLIST (3/15/2009)

Wider than the Sky: Essays and Meditations
on the Healing Power of Emily Dickinson
(co-edited with Cindy MacKenzie)

“...a richly varied collection... the contributors combine scholarly and personal perspectives with a brilliance that burnishes hard-won knowledge into wisdom.” - The Emily Dickinson Journal

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Children and Young Adults

A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson

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More Information:
www.harperteen.com
www.authortracker.com

Download:
"A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson" Teaching Guide

Young Joan

“…wise and profoundly moving…captivating and timeless.”
- Los Angeles Times Book Review

“A beautifully crafted portrait of Joan of Arc, from her first visions until she leaves on her historic mission…A convincing, unforgettable recreation.” - Kirkus Reviews

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Zucchini Out West

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“...heartwarming...”

“A wonderful tale of love, sacrifice and personal growth.”

- Amazon Reviews

Necessary Parties

“Neatly constructed and quick-moving…believable characters…humor and lively dialogue.” - School Library Journal

“A smooth and involving examination of a compelling problem…Realistic and funny and a strong sense of the injustices visited upon children in divorce.” - Kirkus Reviews

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Zucchini

“An adventure that makes you happy…touching and
irrepressibly funny.” - Publishers Weekly

“Wonderfully funny…A delight; these engaging animals are at least first cousins to the memorable menagerie in Charlotte's Web.” - Booklist

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