If you visit the website of Frances O’Roark Dowell, you’ll find three informational sections about her:

• Biography
• Inspirations
• Journal

The first consists mostly of lists. The next talks about her start as a writer and provides background to her books. The last lists questions that students have asked her, but so far doesn’t contain any answers.

Today I’ll share from her biography. The rest of the week, I’ll talk about her inspirations especially as they relate to her fantasy Falling In. Then on Sunday I’ll post a review of that book. Save the date: January 29!

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Despite being born in Germany, Frances O’Roark Dowell is American. How? Well, her dad served in the American army. For that reason too, she has lived in lots of places in both Germany and in the United States.

As part of her biography, she lists favorites:

• books
• poets
• writers
• bands
• musicians

Books, she lists by those discovered as a child and those discovered as an adult.

• As part of my Wednesday questions, I’ve already asked: What is your favorite book from childhood?
• How about a new question: What is your favorite young people’s book that you discovered as an adult?

There are a few of Dowell’s favorites I have yet to read. How do you decide what books to read? For my selections, I might turn to lists of awards or Good Reads groups. I often have Advanced Reader Copies and review copies that I need to read. Otherwise, I like to browse my personal bookshelves or those of my local library.

Writing Life

To my surprise, although Frances O’Rourke Dowell started writing poetry in the primary grades, her career choices didn’t even include author. She wanted to be a cartoonist, painter, radio disc jockey, to name a few of her aspirations. In college, she actually planned to go into radio, but fell back under the influence of poetry and ended up majoring in English. Around the age of thirty, when rereading some of her favorite children’s books, Dowell decided that she too wanted to write books for young people.

You might find it interesting to know that Dowell first wrote a practice novel, then a draft of Dovey Cove, and eventually revised the latter to submit to HarperCollins. Editor Caitlyn Dlougy rejected it, but gave her advice for revisions. A year later, Dowell did. Despite this time having Dovey Cove accepted, Dowell still faced more edits! Writing, revising, and even publishing can take a long time. In the meantime, Dowell worked at a variety of jobs, including motel housekeeper, legal secretary, and arts administrator.

Now Dowell lives the life of a writer. When working on a book, she gets up, makes breakfast for her children, drives them to school, returns home and walks the dog, and then sits down to work. If she’s working on a first draft, she’ll stick to it for a few hours. When she’s revising and it’s going well, she works for longer stretches.

First Fantasy

This weekend, I’ll review Falling In by Frances O’Rourke Dowell. While dropping her son off at his school on a rainy day, Dowell imagined the idea of a girl who discovers a school beneath her school. A few year ago, she decided to write that book. Thus, Isabelle Bean was born.

Dowell admits that it took a long time to figure out the story. After all, because it was a fantasy, she had to figure out the rules. For instance, when you fall into a whole new world, what’s happening in the world you left? Does anybody know you’re gone? Does time stop when you’re away?

However, she also loved writing Falling In, because it was so different from her other books. Being in third-person narrative, she could play around more with the narration and the language. Dowell doesn’t know yet if she’ll write another fantasy. I hope that she will!

Related Posts

• Review of Falling In

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