What is she trying to tell me? What’s she concerned about? What kind of kid is she? Because you see, you can’t write a story with plot, until you know what the characters are like. I am creating, writing, or maybe it’s better called ‘pre-writing.’ I daydream. I do that a lot! But I am not simply staring. You might find me, during my writing time, staring out a window. (I have one daughter, but I also have four sons, so I know quite a bit of what boys are all about.) And so the character in my head begins to come to life for me. It’s most often a girl, probably because I am a girl, but sometimes my main character is a boy. So I’m quiet, and I hear the voice of a character speaking to me. It is, rather, a crucial part of our lives. Some people think hearing voices is a sign of insanity, but for authors, it is not. I have to listen for the voices inside my head. Where do you get your ideas? I think kids ask me that more often than any other question: Where do your ideas come from? Well, my honest answer is this: I don’t know! It just happens. If she ever fails to have a purse full of them, our friendship is off! Pat will kid and tease with the best of them but she takes her work quite seriously and she’s one of the best in the business.

Every year I ask Pat to show me her latest family pictures. Every year Pat Hermes and I sit next to each other at the signing tables during the Children’s Literature Festival in Warrensburg, Missouri on the campus of Central Missouri State University.

Our strange new land by patricia hermes