I had the pleasure of meeting Katherine Paterson at Vermont College while studying for my MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. I knew she was coming months in advance and, as she planned to speak informally following a brief talk, I spent hours researching what had been written about her, reading reviews of her books, reading those books she'd written that I had not read and rereading the ones I had read. I was intent on not asking a dumb question and not wasting the precious moment I had to ask a question and so I wrote my question down, repeating it over and over in my mind.

Think about it. If you were given the opportunity to ask one question to one of the greats in your field of study, how would you behave? I mean, if readers are truly co-writers through the gift of subtext, then an astute student would read the most brilliant writers in order to have the most satisfactory conversation possible. This woman, this Katherine Paterson, is one of the most celebrated writers in the field of Young Adult Literature. She wrote two Newbery Award winning novels, Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved as well as one Newbery Honor Book, The Great Gilly Hopkins. The Newbery is the highest honor an American writer of Young Adult books can receive. Her book, The Same Stuff as Stars is my youngest daughters favorite book. She reads it every year and she is a Junior in High School. I'm certain she has memorized it by now.

Anyway, I wound up asking a deep question and anticipated her answer with reverence. It was a many faceted question:

I first quoted a critic's analysis revealing what I considered brilliant insight into the methodology of Paterson's spirit and how it inspired her stories.

Then I asking her respond from her inmost soul as to whether this statement was correct.

Finally, assuming it was, I wondered if she consciously injected her spirit into her writing and if so, how did she do it?

...Or some such complicated garbage.

The question came at her out of context and she stared at me for a moment, her expression unreadable. I had been completely sincere, spouting my dissertation, and sat patiently, waiting to hear something inspired.

With humility and a great deal of sympathy, Katherine Paterson responded in the range of, "I am so sorry, but I am unable to read all the reviews of my books and am unfamiliar with the particular critic you quoted. What she meant by the statement you read is unclear to me. I cannot answer that question."

She moved on to the next question.

Had I read Paterson's books with less awe, I would have recognized the wisdom of being present. Take this paragraph from Jacob Have I Loved. It is the work of a professional.

"I would come in from a day of progging for crab, sweating and filthy. Caroline would remark mildly that my fingernails were dirty. How could they be anything else but dirty? But instead of simply acknowledging the fact, I would fly into a wounded rage. How dare she call me dirty? How dare she try to make me feel inferior to her own pure, clear beauty? It wasn't my fingernails she was concerned with, that I was sure of. She was using my fingernails to indict my soul. Wasn't she content to be golden perfection without cutting away at me? Was she to allow me no virtue- no shard of pride of decency?"

Consciously or unconsciously, Paterson invites readers into the conversation, while controlling our subtext. Her questions direct our responses and reveal a Caroline even our protagonist- Carolyn's twin- cannot see. We discover in this paragraph that Caroline is not the sweet innocent golden girl her sister sees, but a manipulative girl harboring insecurities of her own.

In fact, I am formulating the untested hypothesis that Jacob's protagonist Louise or Wheez complained often about how unfair it was that the family sacrifice for her twin, "Oh, Caroline. Caroline's different. Everything's always been for Caroline. Caroline the delicate, the gifted, the beautiful. Of course, we must all sacrifice our lives to give her greatness to the world!" But she never really recognized the human nature of her sister. She put her on some kind of pedestal and never removed her. It's hard to love someone on a pedestal.

I feel sure I could have simply listened to Katherine Paterson's talk that day in Vermont and arrived at a more effective and satisfying question. Reading the quoted paragraph for the umteenth time, I am filled with fresh insight.

This is especially helpful, considering my Potato Pickers story is about twins like Caroline and Wheez. In my case, the point of view character is a combination of Caroline and Louise- of superiority and of sacrifice.