Teacher Interview: Mrs. Pixley

What inspired you to write your new book, Ready to Fall?

When I was growing up, my dad was really sick. He had a really bad heart condition. My family talked a lot about health and sickness. I grew up very worried. I thought a lot about sickness, and my mind was focused a lot on sickness.

I wanted to write about a character who obsessed about illness, and Max came out of the worry I had when I was younger. As a kid I loved theatre, and I loved kids who liked to live life in their own way, and in the book Max becomes friends with the theatre crowd, and they helped him.

I noticed that you use Trowbridge in a couple pieces I’ve heard and read. Is Trowbridge a symbol of something important to you?

Yeah. I never noticed it before. When I was growing up there was an old woman named Mrs. Trowbridge who had an amazing copper beech tree, and everyone climbed on her treen and she let them, and she was nice. I’ve always liked that name and the way it sounds.

Fish in the story has bright pink hair and a crazy personality. Is there anyone in real life that inspired this character?

No one single person. My friends in high school were unique people and had their own way of expressing themselves. They weren’t afraid to be eccentric, and I loved that about them. Fish reflected that. Fish is them and a little bit of me.

Have you ever thought of a sequel where Fish is the main character? Ready to Fish?

No. Fish came later in draft, and Max has always been the main character in the first drafts.

Your thoughts on feminist yoga hens?

I’m in a better mood now. They are feminist because Lydie, their owner, is an all-natural hippie. She would like Debra’s natural gourmet. She loves yoga. Max calls them feminist yoga hens which is his way of making fun of Lydie. They are named after feminist protesters of the 1970’s.

In the first scene of Monk’s bedroom, what what the inspiration, especially for the cow, Bessie?

I don’t know. I like weird things? I like curiosity shops where they have random little strange items. One of the things I like doing is just browsing around in one of those shops. I imagine Monk as a collector of weird things, with Fish being one of them. I would imagine Monk going into one of those shops. Monk is one of those people who, after he loved something, he wants to keep it forever.

The blue china plate?

The blue china plate comes from the same place as Bessie, from my love of antique shops. I love old pottery and plates from China and England. I collect them. If I was a child, I could imagine moving my hands along the paths. I have a house in Gloucester, and when we go on the beach, I find shards, and I imagine what the entire plate would look like. That’s where the shard came from.

You dedicated the book to Writer’s Guild.

I've been writing this book for 4 years, and every year of Writers’ Guild has helped me with the drafting process. The book was really hard to write, and I had a lot of pitfalls, and Writer’s Guild helped me, so this book had to HONOR Writer’s Guild.