A Daughter’s Journey by Myra Lee Glass

1. Tell us about yourself and how you became a writer.

My whole life I’ve had a very vivid imagination, and it would show through lots and lots of daydreams. Whether I am in class or driving alone in my car, I always get stuck in my mind. I love the idea of a story in general, how you can live through another person, in another world, with a different perspective. To me, stories are an escape from something bad, but can also be a fun little vacation for when I am bored. Being only sixteen years old, I think writing helps me to let go of all of the many ideas, characters, and storylines that get bottled up in my mind. To me, being a writer is very enjoyable but also very therapeutic.

2. Where did you get the idea for your book?

In school, history is my all-time favorite subject. I always take extra notes in history class and have watched many, many documentaries that span many different historical eras. If I could have any superpower, I would choose time travel because I think all of the places and people that existed before me are so extremely interesting and captivating. I knew that my first book would have to be historical fiction, and the 1930s is a decade that I already had previous knowledge of. The perspective of being a fifteen-year-old girl was almost unintentionally based on me, as I was fifteen when creating and writing my book. I created the entire original storyline in one night, sitting in my bed, and listening to music. I just kept thinking and thinking, and it just came to me!

3. What is your favorite genre to read? What about that genre draws you?

Historical fiction and dystopian/fantasy are my all-time favorites because, unlike other genres, they have the power to transfer you into a whole separate world that can be extremely different from the one that you currently live in. They both build a whole new world, with different perspectives, rules, societies, and people that can be so, so interesting! 

4. What do you think makes a good story?

I think it differs for each reader and writer, but to me what makes a good story is the effect it has on me after I am done reading. Some books I can close, tell myself, “That was good.”, and then move on, but the books that keep me thinking about them for days, weeks, and sometimes months afterward are the ones that I consider truly amazing. Maybe that book had a character that I really connected with, or maybe the way the author was able to connect different ideas and emotions together was astonishing. 

5. Does Writing Energize or Exhaust you?

For me, both. I think any teenager can agree with me, that doing something when you HAVE to do it is a lot harder than when you WANT to do it. For example, maybe I thought to myself, “Oh, my room is looking a bit messy, maybe I should clean it later.” But then the moment my mom or dad asks me to clean my room, it becomes the last thing I want to do. That’s what writing became for me. I could spend hours creating storylines and characters for fun in my free time,  but when deadlines and editing started to get included with that, it became a lot more difficult for me to get done. I would always remind myself that this is something that I actually enjoy, so I shouldn’t let a deadline that is built in to help me be my downfall.