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Jeanine Kitchel's avatar

How excellent, Claire! Best of luck with/ your new book! And I love how you take us through your decades and your emergence as a writer. Writing in 2 languages (or more) -- wow! That in itself is to be congratulated. Kudos!

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Claire Polders's avatar

Thank you, Jeanine. The emergence is forever undergoing.

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Brent Hartinger's avatar

Great trajectory! Literally finding your voice. 🙂

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Claire Polders's avatar

Thanks, Brent!

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Michael Jensen's avatar

Wonderfully evocative and really captures what your journey has been like. And Brent also wrote and published a newsletter/newspaper back in elementary school!

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Claire Polders's avatar

Thanks, Michael. I think most of us writers have such modest beginnings along with our huge ambitions. In my youth, I believed I would be the next Astrid Lindgren.

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Michael Jensen's avatar

In the 6th grade, our class project was to create a book from scratch. I think we were divided into teams of six and I seized control of that project so fast heads were spinning. The book wound up being an underwater extravaganza with mermaids, talking fish, the whole shebang. Our group had Martha, the best artist in class and I think that really made the book.

I still don't understand why it didn't get me an agent...

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Claire Polders's avatar

Oh, I bet it was glorious!

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John Hammond's avatar

I love how you've captured the stages of your writing over time. And congratulations on your new book. Compared to you, I was slow to move into writing, but I know it started with poetry and then prose. The path toward writing has to be different for each of us, which makes for more interesting and diverse results. Thanks for sharing your story.

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Claire Polders's avatar

Thank you, John! The path toward writing is surely different for all of us. And it keeps changing. It's quite possible I end up as a poet a few decades from now.

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