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MEET ALEXIS O'NEILL
by Bonnie O'Brian

What did you most like to do when you were a child?

Alexis O'Neill

I grew up on a 10-house street in Wakefield, Massachusetts with Warren Elementary School at one end and Moulton Playground at the other. I rode my bike everywhere (but mostly to the downtown library and to the lake), ice skated, swam, played school in our garage, staged plays and sold hand-made crafts to earn money to buy books.

When you were a child did you ever have moments when you decided that you were going to be a writer when you grew up?

 No. I never even thought of becoming a writer. My nose was always in a book, but I never really thought about the authors or how those books came to be. All I wanted to be was a teacher. And that dream came true.

What were your favorite subjects in school?

 Drama, music and art.

 What jobs have you had since graduating from college?

 After graduating from Skidmore College, I taught 4 th and 5 th grade in Oneida, New York. Then I went to graduate school, earned my Masters and Ph.D. at Syracuse University and taught teachers how to teach. I also helped students with writing challenges at Onondaga Community College. Then the history bug bit me and I began to apply what I knew about teaching and kids to a cool new job – working as an educational consultant to museums – the Erie Canal Museum, the Everson Museum of Art, the Onondaga Historical Association, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Museum of Ventura County. Now I write full time and help others learn how to write and publish through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI).

Who inspired you to become a writer?

My 6 th grade teacher, Mr. La Boisierre, gave us lots of writing assignments. He read lots of my stories to the whole class. I loved it when my friends told me that they liked what I wrote -- and I realized that my words could influence not just the teacher, but a larger audience. In college, I took a writing class for fun from Barry Targan. On one of my assignments, my teacher wrote, “I think that you should submit this story to Mademoiselle magazine for publication.” That stunned me. He thought it was that good! He planted the seed about writing to be published. Then waaaaay later in graduate school, Linda Lamme pushed me over the edge in a language arts class: she read kids books with such joy and enthusiasm that it made me want to create a book that a reader would love. I began to devour kids books. From that point on, I decided to learn as much as I could about writing and publishing children’s books and articles.

What are the topics are some of your books?

Each of my books explores friendship from different angles

• LOUD EMILY: Friends are people who accept you for who you are and appreciate your special qualities
• ESTELA’S SWAP: Friends can be any age
• THE RECESS QUEEN: Accepting the hand of friendship from unlikely people can lead to surprising results
• THE WORST BEST FRIEND: Staying friends can be challenging, but true-blue friends are loyal to each other.

How do you come up with ideas?  

All my stories begin with a wonder question. For example, for THE RECESS QUEEN, I thought, “I wonder IF there’s a way to get a bully to stop being a bully?” For LOUD EMILY, I thought, “I wonder WHAT it’s like to be a kid who’s born loud and no one wants to be around her.”

Are your books based on real people or incidents?

There’s a seed of “real” in all my stories: My friend’s daughter was the loudest kid in the hospital on the day she was born. California swap meets and ballet folklorico dancers intrigue me. Bully behavior mystifies me. My dad and his friend were true-blue their whole lives through. These seeds grew into stories after lots of watering and fertilizing!

Have any of your books earned special recognition?

Yes! ESTELA’S SWAP was named a California Collection book by California Readers in 2005 and 2006. THE RECESS QUEEN has won many awards – but I’m proudest of it having been nominated in nine states for a Children’s Choice award and winning Maryland and Virginia. LOUD EMILY was listed as Top Books of the Year by many organizations, and was named as one of Yankee Magazine’s 100 Classic New England Children’s Books. THE WORST BEST FRIEND is brand new, so we’ll see what happens!

What do you most want the students to get out of your school visits?

Fun! Playing with words is fun – whether you write then or say them out loud. From the whirlwind tour of how a picture book is created, kids love seeing my messy drafts and finding the “secrets” in the pictures in the final books. The older kids act out the revision process and are amazed at the patience and persistence needed to find a publisher. And all kids get a kick out of being invited on stage to dress up and “kitz and kajammer” the stories in real life. I want kids to have tools to apply to their own work when they’re back to the classroom – but mostly, I want them catch the joy of reading and writing!