From: Davis, Jill <JIDAVIS>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 10:26:15 -0500

My name is Jill Davis, and I am the editor (Viking) of SECRET LETTERS FROM 0 to 10. Before the discussion gets started I wanted to mention that I wondered whether it was a chellenge to find this book after the Batchelder honor was announced-?cause the first printing sold out before the announcement. The second printing only just came in. If people found the book hard to locate, it would be understandable. (at the same time, Amazon probably had enough for you to order--so, who knows . . .) Anyway, this book was a joy to work on, and for those of you who don't realize, the author is a native of New Jersey who moved to France thirty years ago. Her writing always combines a spectacular combination of the American zest for life
(Victoria) and the delightful sometimes eccentric flavor of the French
(Ernest). I hope she will contribute to this discussion and offer up her own secrets about how this heartwarming story came about. If not, maybe I'll chime in again later. One interesting thing about the author--people keep asking, if she is American, why didn't she translate it herself? A very good question. Susie is a writer and not a translator of her own work (though she has translated from Hebrew to French!!), and she knew that her dear friend Gill Rosner, who is British, and who also lives in Nice, would be able to
"make her sound like Shakespeare." I guess it's a matter of knowing your strengths.

Thanks,

Jill Davis
Received on Wed 17 Mar 1999 09:26:15 AM CST