Interview with Victoria Bond | Writing for Children 237

INTERVIEW WITH VICTORIA BOND

Victoria Bond is a writer and professor. Her novel, Zora and Me, co-written with T.R. Simon, won the John Steptoe/Coretta Scott King Award for New Talent and was nominated for an Edgar Award in the category of Juvenile Fiction, as well as being a Junior Library Guild Selection. Victoria holds a MFA in poetry. The occasional essayist on issues both personal and political, she teaches first year writing at John Jay College, The City University of New York.

WE TALK ABOUT

• How Victoria and her co-writer start working together
• How they created the series together
• What’s based on reality and what did the authors invent
• How much reality should one use when writing historical fiction
• How far can you go when creating new information based on someone’s actual life