While in college, and even after graduating with honors for my thesis, it still never occurred to me that I might become a writer. I fled academic life with only one vaguely formulated career hope: “to be outside and help people.” Over the next few years, I instructed wilderness challenge courses for teens in New Mexico, Utah, Texas, and Connecticut, eventually landing in Maine. While running a community service/wilderness program for teens there, I began having ideas for young people’s books. One was inspired by an elderly man I met who had been sent as a five-year-old in 1900 to live with his uncle on a tiny Maine lighthouse island. Too scared to actually write it down, however, I poured my writing energy into program reports that no one seemed to care about.

I tried taking creative writing classes through the University of Maine Extension program, but even though I had conquered some of my fears of composing essays, I was still terrified to show anyone the bits of fiction I’d managed to wrestle into writing. Then, at age 26, I took a workshop at the Proprioceptive Writing Center The instructor said, “You are not responsible for your thoughts,” “Write whatever comes into your head,” and “Your writing isn’t good or bad; it’s just interesting.”