I Can't Single Out One Of My Books Or Characters As A Favorite. In The Same Way That I Don't Have A Favorite Kidney, My Books Are Organically All Part Of Myself. I Might Even Say That Put All Together, The Books Are One Ongoing, Developing Story - Which, Not Coincidentally, Happens To Be My Own Lifestory.
Paradoxically, In Fantasy For Young People I Was Able To Express My Own Deepest Feelings And Attitudes More Than I Had Ever Done In Writing For Adults.
I Came To Fantasy Fairly Late. For Some Ten Years, I Had Been Happily Writing Fiction And Non-fiction For Adults. But I Always Loved Fantasy, Whether For Adults Or Young People; And At That Particular Point In My Life, I Wanted To Try It, To Understand It, As Part Of The Process Of Learning To Be A Writer. The Results Were Beyond Anything I Could Have Foreseen. As I've Said Often And Elsewhere, It Was The Most Creative And Liberating Experience Of My Life.
Ever Since Human Beings Learned To Talk To Each Other, We've Been Fascinated With Storytelling Of Every Kind. Blessed (or Cursed) With Insatiable Curiosity, We Have To Know What Happens Next.
Favorite Books And Authors While Growing Up - I'd Need A Book To List Them All. For The Sake Of Brevity: Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain, Victor Hugo, World's Mythology, The Arthurian Legends. And The Unabridged Dictionary. And They're Still My Favorites. They Get Better Each Time I Read Them.
It Was 1943. The U.s. Had Already Entered World War Ii, So I Decided To Join The Army.
The Prydain Companion Is More Than A Quick Reference Or Handy Glossary, Though It Is All Of That As Well. Instructive, Certainly. But, Like Any Good Companion, A Pleasure To Be With Over A Long Period Of Time.
My Family Pleaded With Me To Forget Literature And Do Something Sensible, Such As Find Some Sort Of Useful Work.