Maureen McQuerry: The Girl Who Asked Questions

Poet and novelist Maureen McQuerry decided at age six that she would be a writer. She was in her forties before her first novels came out. In between, she was the neighborhood kid called "question box," a closet poet in high school, and a teacher who chose the classroom because writing felt too risky.Maureen talks with Terry Heath about the fear that kept her from long-form fiction and how she got past it. She describes the phone call when Abrams bought three books at once, and the family history behind Between Before and After: her father became a flu orphan at ten during the 1918–1919 epidemic and survived on the streets of New York. The novel came out in 2019, just before a new pandemic, and then lost its editors and publicist, leaving the book orphaned too. Soon after, her agent of twelve years left the industry and she moved across the state to Bainbridge Island, where she knew one person.They also discuss finding two brothers she never knew she had, one at the front door and one through a DNA match. The conversation covers the green man carving that became a poem and then a middle-grade duology, why poems and novels should open questions rather than answer them, the terror of release day, what writing costs, and the question under all her work: what does it mean to live well?Highlights00:36 Deciding at age six to become a writer01:37 Spying on the neighbors with a notebook02:11 A closet poet in high school03:14 From poems to novels, and being a role model for her kids05:16 Getting past the fear, bird by bird06:17 The phone call: Abrams buys three books07:13 Her father, a 1918 flu orphan, and Between Before and After09:19 An orphaned book: two editors, a distillery, and a fired publicist11:36 A brother at the front door, and another found through DNA13:57 Myth, fairy tales, and Celtic legend15:07 Every story starts with a question, and the green man17:38 Rift and climate refugees19:11 "Question box"19:40 Why she chose teaching20:40 The turn in a poem21:29 Hope that denies universal defeat22:45 How few answers there really are24:38 Terrified on release day25:51 The story her father wanted told26:49 Walking Brooklyn with a guide in his nineties28:01 Telling her brother who their father was29:40 Isolation and community31:57 Milestones don't change you; the work does34:19 The dark night of the soul36:01 The influenza orphan36:10 Rebuilding, and a back-porch book club37:53 What she still wants40:27 What writing costs42:22 What isn't two-sided43:25 What it means to live wellBooks by Maureen McQuerryThe Peculiars (Abrams/Amulet), ISBN 9781419712067Time Out of Time, Book One: Beyond the Door (Amulet), ISBN 9781419714931Time Out of Time, Book Two: The Telling Stone (Abrams), ISBN 9781419719165Between Before and After (Blink/HarperCollins), ISBN 9780310767282Big Ideas for Little Philosophers Box Set, with Duane Armitage (G.P. Putnam's Sons), ISBN 9780593111703Rift (forthcoming)Find Maureen: maureenmcquerry.comBOOKS: 9781419701788, 9781419710162, 9781419714948, 9780310767381