Mary Downing Hahn
Near the beginning of Mary Downing Hahn's published career, she wrote a book called The Sara Summer which she described for Something About the Author as being inspired a lot by her own life. She continued,
Much of the story, of course, is made up and changed, which is one of the nicest things about writing. You can make your life more exciting, you can change sad endings to happy ones, you can meet all sorts of interesting people, go places you've never been, have adventures without leaving home or even packing a suitcase.
Before ever being published, Hahn was one of many children who are fascinated by literature. As she tells it:
I came to writing through drawing and reading, my favorite subjects in school. As a result of reading incessantly, I began making up stories of my own, but I told them in pictures, not words. By the time I was 13, my picture stories had become too long and complicated to tell without words. That's when I began thinking of becoming a writer and illustrator of children's books.
As she moved along in her writing, a lot of her plots thickened into the spooky and mysterious. She has been declared a "master of suspense" by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publishing, and several of her books are centered around ghosts. For the American Library Association, she said:
Children have taught me that they love a good story—especially if it's scary. Or funny. Or exciting. Just so it's not boring. I love their enthusiasm and excitement. I love the questions they ask and the projects they make in honor of my visit. I love their openness.
