by Bruce B.VanDusen

Faeries and Once upon a time last fall, it came to our was completing her undergraduate years she and her illustrator, Tony DiTerlizzi, memories of bells tinkling under beds, attention that one of our 1994 graduates on the Ewing campus. met at a book signing. The children— voices from a closet, a cat that Goblins and Changelings – is an expert on faeries. Moreover, while After high school, Holly had followed Jared, Simon, and Mallory Grace— disappeared, a suspicious path across a she admits she’s never seen one in the her boyfriend, Theo Black, to related an amazing and complex story lawn, and (for younger children) direct flesh, her writings about faeries already Philadelphia, where he attended art about what happened after the three sightings after dark are not uncommon. have cast a spell over tens of thousands school and she enrolled at Temple moved in with their aunt Lucinda and She never questions or scowls at such of youngsters who can read them in any University. Two years later she uncle Arthur Spiderwick. The children reports but remains interested and of 27 languages worldwide. transferred to the College and majored said the uncle had given them a “field enthusiastic. After all, they are coming For her predominantly 8- to 12-year- in English while still commuting from guide,” a book that explained all about from her readers, her fans. old audience, Holly Black is one of the Pennsylvania. faeries and how to protect oneself from In person, Holly appears both child- most wonderful writers in the world and About Tithe, she told the students them. They shared their subsequent like and a bit mysterious. She has dark her five-volume faerie adventure, The during her campus visit, “I worked on it adventures with Black and DiTerlizzi eyes and black hair that, on the day she Spiderwick Chronicles, may be the most in fits and starts over five or six years, and the result was the five volumes of came to campus, was highlighted with a gripping, satisfying tale they have ever and in the beginning it was going to be The Spiderwick Chronicles. Its short very slight purple sheen. Clothed read. From the time the first volume was a fantasy novel for adults. Finally I had chapters with cliff-hanger endings and entirely in black, save for the white available in 2003, the series has been enough done to show it to a friend who fascinating illustrations have made it lettering on her tee shirt that advertised high on The New York Times children’s was a librarian—which is what I wanted highly popular with new, elementary a Manhattan night spot known for its bestseller list, as well as other lists of to be at the time—and she said it really school-age readers. “underground” hard rock music, she was recommended children’s literature. was a young adult novel. I was surprised In the past two years, Holly has quick to flash a wide, inviting smile. As a writer, Black, who was Holly because there is a good deal of cursing spoken with scores of groups of Although Holly claims not to have been Riggenbach until marrying Theo Black in in there and sexuality and alcohol. But youngsters and their parents, most of prepared for the amount of public 1999, has risen to prominence in an she said I had to understand that books whom asked the same question: “Do speaking that being a published writer impressively short time. Her first novel, for ‘young adults’ were being read by you believe in faeries?” Rarely is she entails, she clearly enjoyed telling her Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale, was kids 12 to 14 years old and up, and asked that any more, because she always student audience how difficult it was published by Simon and Schuster in those topics are relevant to them.” anticipates the question and offers this getting started as a writer. 2002 to very favorable professional Tithe’s heroine is a 16-year-old girl observation: “I don’t have any personal As a child, Holly loved the books her reviews and ecstatic responses from who always feels like a strange outsider evidence that they exist, but a lot of mother gave her. Filled as they were youth. It was followed immediately by and leads a grubby life with her people have told me stories in which with magic and mystery, they whetted the Chronicles, which was available in wannabe rock star mother. When she they have seen them or have seen her appetite for fantasy, reading, and stores in 2003 and 2004 and has been returns home to New Jersey and rescues evidence of their having been there. I writing. She wrote a lot of poetry in high optioned for filming by Nickelodeon/ a handsome young man, she discovers can’t invalidate all those experiences of school, she said, and produced one Paramount. A new novel, this one for she actually is a changeling faerie and people I have met. I have to believe “terrible” novel as part of a gifted and the young adult (ages 12–25) market, gets caught up in a battle between two they could exist, and I have seen lots of talented class in West Long Branch. will be out this summer under the title faerie kingdoms. Critics described it as things that might have been left behind Much later she realized she had known of Valiant. At 33, Holly is well on her “dark,” “edgy,” and “beautifully written.” by faeries—a piece of cloth, a little shoe, nothing about the value of more than way as an author of children’s and The New York Public Library put it on you know.” one plot or the need to weave layers of young adult fantasy. its list of the “Best 2002 Books for the Many children—and some adults— character development, dialogue, and Happily we caught her between book Teenage,” and teenage readers cried out have told Holly in detail of their setting into a logical whole so that the projects at the beginning of the year. She for a sequel. experiences with faeries at book signings ending is the understandable result of visited campus in February to meet with In preparation for Holly’s visit to around the country. She says their what has gone before. some children’s literature and creative TCNJ, Jean Graham, professor of writing classes and to check out what’s English, had read, and encouraged her “I planned and tried and wanted to be a writer, Oh, My! happened to her old school. What we students to read, The Spiderwick discovered is that Tithe, the book that Chronicles. It’s an adventure story, Holly but I never, ever thought I would be able first brought her professional writes in the introduction to the book, recognition, was conceived while she that was told by three children whom to live off my own writing,” she says.

TCNJ MAGAZINE / SPRING 2005

Holly’s field is fantasy; “I planned and tried and wanted to obviously successful author. really want. What the critics seem to sees as too often unequal and hurtful. with three friends to the mid-winter be a writer, but I never, ever thought I In recent months, Holly has taken to want are clearly stated, positive lessons Perhaps the best way to get to know meeting of the American Library not the science fiction would be able to live off my own settling down with her laptop and writing for young readers to take away.” Holly Black is to sample her online Association in Boston. Their mission, writing,” she says. in a local coffee shop in Amherst, MA, But the truth, she says, is that young journal. She admits to being an Internet she told her worldwide audience, was to or aliens-from-outer- Holly’s field is fantasy; not the where she and Theo have just bought an readers are not entertained by such junkie and to “wasting” hours and hours come away with as many free advance science fiction or aliens-from-outer- old house. Other writers often hang out writing. They want a thrilling adventure, chatting with people when she might reader copies of new books as possible, space sort of story, space sort of story, but the far more there and Holly, who has nicknamed in settings they can imagine and believe, better be writing. Her journal (found on “even though we are not librarians.” Her but the far more believable genre that involves real herself the “queen of caffeine,” says the and with endings that make sense based her Web site, www.blackholly.com ) journal friends were treated to details of people whose lives occasionally intersect atmosphere is congenial and productive. on what happens before. They like allows her to invite bosom buddies and the campaign strategy and celebration believable genre that with a variety of good and evil beings: “Having another person in the room having some violence and want to know perfect strangers to follow along as she of victory. faeries, hobgoblins, unicorns, ogres, who’s doing the same thing helps me more about sex at a level to which they reports on nearly every aspect of her life. Holly doesn’t hold much back from involves real people boggarts, elves, brownies, trolls, or keep some focus,” she says. “What can relate. And when they are engaged A posting (they vary from two or three her journal commentary. After a while a whose lives occasionally bogeys. (Uncle Spiderwick’s “field guide” people say about the loneliness of by a well-told story, the fact that good to a dozen or more a month) very likely reader imagines himself as her lays all this out for readers of the writing is true. It’s the kind of lonely triumphs over evil is not lost on them. will prompt a chatty response from a psychiatrist, listening as she unloads a intersect with a variety Chronicles.) where talking to friends doesn’t help, As for her books for young adults, fellow writer, which then becomes range of confessions, opinions, worries, Over the years she immersed herself but sometimes just sitting next to Tithe and the forthcoming Valiant, she’s available for everyone to read and and joys as if she were a patient on a of good and evil beings: in the classical myths and legends that someone who’s also writing does.” firm about including sexual situations. respond to. couch. She chatters on, in moods have intrigued and entertained ordinary Just because her stories depend upon She says, “The sex should be there. Teens Holly’s journal thus can be seen as ranging from “bouncy” to “bored,” faeries, hobgoblins, people since before anyone could write. faeries and goblins does not mean need to deal with it, but at a level that a crafty device for priming the pump about her friends, her fellow writers, her unicorns, ogres, W. B. Yeats’ retelling of the ancient tales reality has no place in her work. Her works for them.” She is well aware of the of public reaction to her work and trouble getting started on a story, her of Ireland and Britain, Katharine Briggs’ goal is to create characters—whether changing behavior of teens and is both nurturing a growing network of fans. It delight over the latest rankings of her boggarts, elves, Vanishing People: Fairy Lore and Legends, they be schoolchildren, father figures, understanding and scornful of the keeps her human and accessible to her books on best-seller lists, her exhaustion superstitions through the ages, and trolls, or old maids—who are believable. “hooking-up” habits of today, which she readers. In January she reported on a trip from book signing tours, and her (usually brownies, trolls, collected folk tales common to many Likewise with places: Holly may change or bogeys. cultures—all have nurtured her work. the names or the geography, but when More recently Holly has been reading she writes of a street scene, a subway, or Holly Black’s Journal: Just before Thanksgiving, 2003, Holly was starting her second novel, Valiant, due out what she views as the modern classics: a decrepit mansion, she has been in this summer. The work was not going well and she wrote in her online journal: the graphic novels and comics of Neil places just like it. Her characters talk and gems on being a writer “I wrote some more ... I started the first chapter. I have been pushing around some Gaiman, the romantic fantasies of Ellen behave as do people she knows. For words on that for a while. I need to get my groove on, like they do in the movies Kushner, and stories of magical beings example, parts of young Jared’s attitude about writers where there is a swell of music and the writer begins to grin insanely in conflict with urban dwellers by and experience in The Spiderwick and pound at the keyboard. But first, a home to clean, a turkey to touch Charles de Lint. Keeping up with the Chronicles are borrowed directly from inappropriately, and stuffing to stuff myself with.” competition and being aware of her husband’s boyhood. Last year she was able to see the proofs of Faery Reel, an anthology of fantasy tales changing tastes are essential to writers in Of course, reality is rarely squeaky containing one of her own short stories amid those by some big-name writers. Her the growing, shifting niche of young clean or simple. In her young adult reaction: “Kill me now and I will die a happy girl.” adult and fantasy literature. books, characters often curse; they fight How much does she like writing? In May 2004 she confided: “What makes me A major challenge, Holly told TCNJ and hurt one another, and Holly makes really happy is a lovely line of description. It also makes me sit there admiring it and students, has been to find helpful no apologies for that. When some not writing anything more. ... Ellen Kushner: She is one of the few authors that I criticism of her work in progress. Writing particularly emotional pet owners raised would cut off both my hands and write forevermore with my toes if I could craft groups, in which budding writers meet hob about the gratuitous killing of a cat sentences like hers.” and critique one another’s efforts, did not in one book, her response was: “What After a period of semi-discouragement early last year, she rallied to describe ... work well for her. Once her first book, do you expect? A goblin killed the cat “My moment of Zen. I just realized something: My job is to make up stories Tithe, was published, she became the de and goblins do bad things!” and write them down. How cool is that? It is exactly the job I always dreamed facto expert in such groups. Everyone She observes that “When some of and it is mine, mine, mine for—at least—four years.” then looked to her for comment, and people complain ‘there are no good held off making any suggestions to an books for kids,’ they forget what kids

FAERIES AND GOBLINS AND CHANGELINGS – OH, MY! TCNJ MAGAZINE / SPRING 2005 dismal) progress in learning the latest We are indebted ... computer game. She discusses her to Simon & Schuster, publisher of The shyness, her body, her plotting problems, Spiderwick Chronicles, for permission to her deadlines, her taste in coffee, her use a number of illustrations from the contacts with her publisher, her meetings series by its co-author and illustrator, with movie producers, the books she’s Tony DiTerlizzi. A native of South reading, the evidence she’s gathered Her goal is to Florida, DiTerlizzi attended art schools suggesting her Amherst house is haunted, there and turned to freelance illustrating create characters— and her plea for recommendations on a in the gaming field on projects such as very good school for writers. “Dungeons and Dragons,” and the whether they be In brief, her journal reflects her trading card phenomenon “Magic the personality: funny, talkative, imaginative, schoolchildren, Gathering.” It was through the gaming open-minded, insatiably curious, industry that he met Holly, who worked father figures, trolls, modest to the point of self-deprecation, for a while at d8, an independent clever, and very cool. gaming magazine, in New York City. or old maids— America is sure to be hearing more Later he turned to children’s books, about Holly and her faerie worlds. A who are mostly fantasy. Critics loved his own follow-up to the Chronicles is due out book, Jimmy Zangwow’s Out-of-this-World about the time this article is published. believable. Moon Pie Adventure, and his work for To be called the Spiderwick Notebook, it Mary Howitt’s The Spider and the Fly, for will be an interactive workbook, with which he won the 2003 Caldecott very short stories to spark the young Honor Medal and a best-seller readers’ interest and projects for them to reputation. Tony lives near Holly, as explore possible areas of faerie activity in does everyone else in the small college or near their homes. Also this summer, town of Amherst, MA. Simon and Schuster publishes her second novel, Valiant, which is set in the same world as Tithe, but with different characters. This fall will see publication of Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You, reportedly to contain all one needs to know to keep ahead of “the little people,” and sure to give younger fans a fresh fix of fantasy after digesting the Chronicles. Next, but certainly not finally, Holly will begin work on Ironside, the sequel to Tithe for which its readers have been waiting since 2002.

Bruce VanDusen is editor of TCNJ Magazine

FAERIES AND GOBLINS AND CHANGELINGS – OH, MY!