ReadWonder: An Inside Look #443 (Author INTERVIEW)

An Inside Look with Gregory Maquire)

(Author of Cress, Watercress)

*Season #ONE (June of 2016 to March of 2017)

*Season #TWO (Summer of 2017)

*Season #THREE (School Year 2017/2018)

*Season #FOUR (Summer/fall of 2018)

*Season #FIVE (School Year 2018/2019)

*Season #SIX (Summer 2019)

*Season #SEVEN (Fall 2019)

*Season #EIGHT (Winter/Spring 2020)

*Season #NINE (Fall 2020)

*Season #TEN (Winter/Spring 2021)

*Season #ELEVEN (Fall 2021)

*Season #TWELVE (Winter/Spring 2022)

*Season #THIRTEEN (Summer 2022)

*Season #FOURTEEN (Fall 2022)

*I'm excited to present season #FIFTEEN with brand new interviews/authors.

*It has been such an honor to connect with authors and "chat" about their novel, characters, and thoughts about the story.

*This is the NINTH interview in which I'm calling Season #FIFTEEN.

*Thank you to Gregory for being the Two Hundred Forty-Third author I've had the pleasure of interviewing. I truly appreciate it.

Cress Watercress

by Gregory Maquire

(March 29, 2022)

How did you come to know Cress?
I began to joke that the only rabbit I almost knew personally lived in a hutch in Geneva, Switzerland. On the day that our family arrived in Geneva to visit old friends, our host told us his kids were in the back garden with their rabbit. Our three young kids, jitters in their legs from a long car ride, went pummeling around the corner of the building to meet the rabbit. The creature in its hutch, at the sound of a thundering herd of American kids driving straight toward it when it had no escape route, promptly fell over and died of fear. By the time I get there all that was left was the rending of garments and the gnashing of teeth. Joking aside, I do think that maybe a dozen years later, when CRESS came to me, I perhaps was secretly reviving that poor rabbit and giving it a second life in a storybook.

What do you think is Cress’ most admirable quality?
Cress is not afraid to feel, and that is her central strength. Throughout the book she is mournful, sad, timid, frightened, brave, loyal, funny, imaginative, frustrated, impatient, angry, and thoughtful. Her ability to still be CRESS while her feelings shift and change constantly is what I admire most about her—and about people in general, especially kids.

Is there anything you wish she would have changed or done differently in her story?
It would have been nice, if sort of old-fashioned and maybe a little bit dishonest, if Papa could have come home at the end. But the story really exists in order to show that we stay ourselves even THROUGH such big changes as the loss of a loved one. I’ve had many people (including grownups) wanting me to write a sequel where Papa comes home. But that would feel like cheating to me.

What do you think Cress can offer to other “animals” that are experiencing similar situations to what she went through?
I believe Cress’s strong sense of loyalty to Kip, to her mother, to Finny, even when she is annoyed at any or all of them, is a great example of what to do in a crisis. In a crisis, hang around. In a crisis, show up. Cress is not a grown-up or a teacher, but she has inherited some qualities of her mother: a bit of cunning and a lot of courage.

How did you research Cress and the circumstances she found herself in?
For this book I didn’t do any research, except that which is conducted by trying to loosen up my imagination and let it go where it wants. I write stories organically, meaning I plant a seed and then see what it grows into. I did know a few things when I started CRESS—I knew that it would be about the recurrence of emotions—not the single experience of this emotion or that, but the growing awareness that emotions are cyclical. You might get over being sad now but that doesn’t mean you won’t be sad again. The only thing I was sure of was that Papa was not coming back. Many of the characters in the story just showed up as I was writing—like the Final Drainpipe and also Fricassee Sunday. And Nasty, the other rabbit! A friend of mine hearing about the book said, “Put me in it!” Her name is Natacha. Natacha became Nasty, and suddenly there was another rabbit I hadn’t expected to find in that story.

Do you and Cress share any similarities?
I think I have a pretty big supply of emotions and I think I am pretty honest with myself about what I am feeling. I also am not scared to be sad (although I don’t like it, who does?). I perhaps am more anxious than Cress, but then I’m a parent and she isn’t. I am also a writer and that is what Cress turns into by the end of the book. I’m a loyal friend and I’m rather private, like Cress is. And I’m a loyal brother, and Cress is a loyal sister. So there’s that too. But I would never go on a raft with a picnic lunch.

What was the hardest scene to write about her?
The chapter called “Lullaby for a Moonless Night,” when Cress comes home from her adventures and has been scared out of her wits, and accepts comfort from her mother—that wasn’t necessarily the hardest scene to write, but it was the most important scene in the book, I think—that’s the centerpiece of the book. So I took great care to make it a rather short chapter, so the point would be clear.

Who do you think was her biggest supporter and why?
For sure, precious Mama is Cress’s defender and supporter from start to finish. I love that it was Mama who came to rescue Cress and Finny when Lady Agatha Cabbage had kidnapped them and locked them in the wine cellar. Mama works her paws to the bone to make ends meet for her children. Even when Mama is impatient with Cress she still cares about her safety and her whereabouts. She will be on Cress’s side forever.

Why do you think some young “animals” (and/or people) have the strength, courage, and perseverance to do the right thing and fight for a positive outcome?
This is a good question. I wrote this book with a certain reader in mind, someone of my acquaintance who seemed to be stuck in a cycle of sadness. I thought, “If only this person had had a book when younger, one that taught out loud the fact that sadness and worry ebb away and flow back again, and that’s not sickness, that’s normal.” Why do all books resolve problems at the end, when part of the reality of life is that learning to live with a cycle of concerns is what LIVING is really all about? I set myself the task of trying to write a different kind of animal fable in which the reality of lived emotions was rendered more honestly. I think knowing that our feelings are endlessly changing and repeatable is part of what gives us strength to do the right thing—by which I mean the strength not to give up when we are sad, downtrodden, anxious, frustrated. These are normal feelings and they don’t last forever; we have to keep going toward the next time we can feel triumphant, brave, and clear-sighted about what we need to do.

What do you think Cress is doing at the present time?
I am in the middle of a new adult novel, but now and then my mind does swing back to Hunter’s Wood and my group of friends there. I don’t know if there might be another story to tell about them. I do know this, though, that none of the younger animals in the forest ever go to school, and if anyone ever opened a classroom to teach the young their letters, their numbers, and their manners, I wonder who it would be? Maybe Fricassee Sunday, who doesn’t know anything about anything?

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Monday, March 13, 2023

An Inside Look #443 (Author INTERVIEW)

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