(Click here to go directly to the "quirky question" section.)
(See below for a selection of Jacquelyn Mitchard's books.)

We all have the friend who knows something about almost everything. The person who knows what they're about and not afraid to go for it. They’re amazingly driven, yet undeniably human. Bold, yet sensitive, they forge ahead, somehow managing to care about their loved ones while working to make their dreams reality.

Jacquelyn Mitchard is such a person. I’ve been extremely fortunate to get to know Jackie a bit through e-mail, and she is one of the funniest, yet most serious people I’ve known. She’s been through a great deal, and she works to make not just lemonade out of it, but lemon cake, lemon meringue, lemon bars, and lemon groves out of the seeds. Maybe it’s just me, but I think her experiences have contributed to the profound depth she reaches in her writing.

If you’ve had a perfect life, you won’t get her books. But if, like most people, you’ve dealt with tragedies, pain, and, more significantly, happiness after heartbreak, you’ll get it. I think “Shrek” got it right about the onion thing. Layers, upon layers, upon layers.

Enjoy the wit and deep insight of her books when you can. Until then, take heart in what she offers through the interview, and relax. Like her novels, this interview is part seriousness, part humor, and a hundred percent Jacquelyn Mitchard.

CWF: Every book an author writes has an effect on their life. If Cage of Stars affected you in unexpected ways, what were they?

JM: I grew in respect for Mormons, whom I had believed, along with most people, were “weird” in their beliefs. And I reached a different audience. But mostly, I felt that this book was written the way I wish to write…does that make sense? It made me more “me” as a writer.

CWF: Which book has affected you the most, and why?

JM: THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN gave me the privilege to tell stories for my job, a privilege few people, and few writers, really have. I still do a great deal of journalism to make ends meet, but I support my family this way.

CWF: In The Breakdown Lane, Julie was an advice columnist. As a newspaper columnist, did you relate to her?

JM: SURE. But not in the advice aspect, so much as woman-to-woman. Julie was vain, giving, funny, self-pitying, brave and protective of those she loved. She held the blinders firmly in front of her eyes. She could have been any of us, or all of us. Or me.

CWF: If you could teach one thing to everyone on the planet, what would it be?

JM: Don’t give up. When the going gets tough, TAKE A RISK.

CWF: What do you love most about Wisconsin?

JM: I love that in Wisconsin, if someone sees you stalled by the side of the road and comes toward you with a tire iron, that person is usually going to fix your tire.

CWF: If you could go somewhere you’ve never visited, where would that be? Why?

JM: Tahiti or Bora Bora. I’d dive and dive and dive. I’ve dived in Australia, Hawaii, St. Lucia and The British Virgin Islands. I LOVE warm water SCUBA…

Jacquelyn chose to answer several of the quirky questions, and the answers were great! Enjoy!

#7: The phone rings. You hear someone breathing, but they don’t speak. It’s a crank call, of course. It rings again. The caller ID shows a different number, but it’s the same breathing. This time, there’s the sound of dripping water beyond the breathing. You hang up. It happens over and over, each time with a different number on the ID, and with a different, eerie noise in the background. Just when you’re ready to call the police, the phone rings again. This time it’s a phone number you recognize… What happens?
I know exactly who this caller is -- the deeply disturbed husband of a neighbor who believes I "jilted" him during my single days, and has vowed revenge. I dial 911; but then I send each of my children, with with older ones carrying the little kids, down through the fields from a back door, to a copse of trees where the tall grass will hide them. I then run, as fast as I'm able to fun -- which is fast, in a panic -- and throw open the gate of our paddock, where I summon my 2,000-pound, 17 hands Clydesdale mare, Black Magic, who has a notoriously bad temper with strangers. From my seat on the gate, I swing a leg over Maggie's broad back, and when the assailant appears, with a chunk of wood he would use as a club, I nudge Maggie into a gallop and charge him like a medieval knight in a joust. Being crazy, but not stupid, he runs for the road. The police are waiting -- their car blocking the driveway.

#11: What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done with a can of soda?
The Mentos experiment, in which we added handfuls of crushed Mentos to cans of Diet Coke, and then stood back while all twelve erupted like Old Faithful.

#12: White, pastel, or neon index cards, or PDA all the way? Why?
PDA. Office machinery gives me a rush I find a little eerie and embarrassing....

#13: What cartoon character: A. Do you identify with the most? B. Would you LIKE to identify with the most?
I identify most with Angelica, the bossy, wicked fashion mag editor-in-training on Rugrats. I WISH I identified with Bugs Bunny, because he is the rodent equivalent of Frankie Valli and Frank Sinatra -- he's the king of cool, with a fine sense of sarcasm and a great accent.

#14: Where’s the best place to eat a PB&J sandwich? If you can’t have milk, what would you drink with it?
I would never disgrace peanut butter -- my favorite food -- with jelly. And I don't drink milk. But the best place to eat a peanut- butter sandiwch on rye bread is in the crux of the crabapple tree, along with a bottle of iced tea.

#15:Where / what is the strangest place you ever visited?
Well, the strangest place I've ever visited is a park in Sydney, Australia, where the flying foxes swam all night through the air, their great leathery wings making a sound that reminded me a little of a novel by Abraham Stoker..

#16: Where do all the missing socks go?
That's easy. There is a noun world, a parallel universe, where all the socks have animated lives -- along with the contact lenses (speed racers), the pacifiers (babies everyone else cares for) and the reading glasses (wise leaders akin to the Wizard of Oz). The athletic socks gather around a street lamp and sing doo-wop, a la Dion and the Belmonts. The screenplay is already in development.

#17: What is your favorite conspiracy theory?
This is serious, not a joke. I think drug manufacturers knew all along about the risks of synthetic hormone replacement therapy and continued to push it -- knowing that women would hope that the drugs would restore the glossy hair and supple skin of girlhood. as well as banish the symptoms of menopause.

#18: What’s the best practical joke you ever pulled?
I once had a visit from my then-editor, Jennifer. We drove my old golf cart across our farm to the more than 100-year-old farmhouse that my assistant and her husband were rehabbing for their home. At the time, they had an absolute crazy-looking dog, which brought to mind the hound of the Baskerville. I told Jennifer that the house was haunted, and that, though I didn't believe nonsense, some people said that they glimpsed a white dog with one white eye in an upper window.
As we wandered about, Buddy, of course, appeared in the window. I pretended to be terrified, though I insisted I didn't see any dog, and hustled her back for a wild and bumpy ride through the fields. I didn't confess for a whole night.

#19: What’s the best practical joke ever pulled on you?
I had inordinate pride in a new red sofa. My oldest son bought a terrifically authentic plastic pint carton of melted ice cream and put it down on the seat. I didn't notice it was fake until I'd stopped screaming.

#20: What’s the most bizarre food you have ever eaten?
For a story on edible wild plants, everything from dayliillies and sorrel soup to sauteed mushrooms with dandelions, skunk cabbage and ditch asparagus.

7/15/2006

Photo by Liane R. Gersich

Visit Jacquelyn's Website at:
www.jacquelynmitchard.com

Photo by Liane R. Gersich