Talking with Authors

Kate DiCamillo: "Raymie Nightingale"

October 17, 2019 HEC Media Season 1 Episode 11
Talking with Authors
Kate DiCamillo: "Raymie Nightingale"
Show Notes

This is the eleventh episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.

Our author this time is a two time Newberry award winning writer Kate DiCamillo. We spoke with her at the Ladue Middle School in Ladue, Missouri as she was on her summer book tour in 2018.  We talked with her about her then most current book, “Raymie Nightingale” by Candlewick Press…as well as her then upcoming companion book, “Louisiana’s Way Home”.

New York Times Best Selling author Kate DiCamillo’s wildly popular first published novel “Because of Winn-Dixie” was eventually adapted into a movie in 2005.  Her first Newberry award came for her book “The Tale of Despereaux” in 2004, and she repeated the accomplishment with the book “Flora & Ulysses” in 2014. In the world of children’s literature she writes picture and early chapter books, as well as novels, like “Raymie Nightengale”.  She knows how important it is to keep the voices of her characters true to what her young readers will accept…and that’s usually putting the stories in the third person. But one of her characters for a subsequent book kept calling out to her and made her break format and write a book in the first person for the first time since "Because of Winn-Dixie".

That book went on to be “Louisiana’s Way Home”, a stand-alone, companion novel to “Raymie Nightengale” the main subject of our interview. We’ll also talk about the road to becoming a published writer and how this self-described introvert loves getting to see the young readers she writes for in-person. All of that and more on this episode of Talking with Authors from HEC Media and HEC Books featuring the award winning, New York Times Best Selling, and former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Kate DiCamillo.

Our host and interviewer this time is Brenda Madden.

HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri.  With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.

Host of this episode - Brenda Madden
Photography - Peter Foggy and Quinsonta Boyd
Editor - Kerry Marks
Graphics - Greg Kopp
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Production Support - Jayne Ballew and Christina Chastain
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Editors - Paul Langdon
Podcast Host - Rod Milam

Special thanks to Ladue Middle School

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