Hi, Elodie!

Thank you for your kind words about "The Star Shard"--I'm delighted that you really love it! I agree with you that Emily's illustrations are wonderful!

As to your question about what a "star shard" really is, please keep reading the story. :-) I think you'll find out in the part that's coming up next! (Or very soon, anyway.)

Fred

Hi, Amy!

Thanks for writing! I LOVE fantasy, too! As to your question: several readers have written in to ask that, so if you'll read through the other letters here, you can see how I've tried to answer it in a couple different ways. The final answer, though, is that the idea didn't come from just one place, and it didn't come all at once. For me, that's how it often works: I'll have a general idea for a story, and when I start writing it, I find out little by little what the story is really about.

It's kind of like how it must be to dig up a dinosaur bone. First you see a little part of it, and you know something interesting is there, hidden under the soil. So you dig very carefully, brush and blow away the sand, and do all you can not to break the bone. You remove the parts that aren't the bone. Sometimes what you discover is a small bone; sometimes it's part of something very large. You never know the full picture of what you've got until you get it all out of the ground.

Writing a story is a lot like that! :-) You explore your basic idea, keep asking yourself more questions about it, and let your characters behave like themselves. Once you start the story moving, it usually starts rolling by itself -- you just have to stay out of its way and make sure it doesn't run over your foot!

Fred

Hi, Kimberly!

Thank you for your very kind words about "The Star Shard"! I'm so glad you like the characters and the story!

Yes, it is really something to see all of the issues of Cricket since 1973 all together in one place! I started out keeping them in a wooden credenza with doors that pull outward. My mom would read every issue, too, and sometimes even my dad. When we were all finished with one, we'd add it to the stacks in the credenza--month by month, year by year. About five years ago, the whole credenza got so full that I couldn't fit in even one more issue! So I had to start on a new wooden case. Two years ago I had to move the collection from one room to another, and it was a MAJOR job!

I'm like you: I have too many favorite fantasy books to count! From your list, I also love The Hobbit and Andersen's fairy tales. I adore Watership Down (I think it counts as fantasy, although nearly all the characters are rabbits). When I was in lower elementary school, I loved My Father's Dragon, by Ruth Stiles Gannett. As I got on into junior high and high school, I fell in love with The Lord of the Rings and the work of Lord Dunsany.

Computers can be so frustrating! They're wonderful when they're working right, but when they "eat" something we've worked on for hours and hours. . . . I've had such experiences, too--now we know to save often and keep hard copies as we go along, don't we?

I'm glad to hear you're writing! Please keep at it! And thank you again for letting me know you like this story!

Fred

Hi, Hayley!

Thank you for your very kind words about the story! For a writer, just about the most exciting thing is hearing that a reader is hooked on the story.

The place to find the rest of "The Star Shard" is right here in Cricket Magazine! It will keep running in every issue until the story is finished. But also, as I've said to some other readers (above), we hope it will be a book someday before too long--a book called The Witching Wild. My agent is talking with some book publishers who are reading the story. The book-length version is actually much longer than "The Star Shard"--so if you like this story, you'll be able to read more about the characters in the book. But anyway, for "The Star Shard," Cricket is the place to be every month!

Thank you again for your encouragement!

Fred

Hi, Carl!

Thank you very much!

At the college I went to, in the chapel services, cantors led the liturgies by chanting; lectors read aloud lessons from the Bible, and acolytes lit and extinguished candles. (There were also crucifers who carried the cross in special processions and lucifers who carried candles--yes, "light-bearers" are really called "lucifers"!)

The sacristan's job was to see that all the other jobs got done. Sometimes we had to make schedules of which people were assisting in chapel on which days. And if, for example, a lector didn't show up on a certain day, the sacristan on duty would have to step in and be the lector for that day. It was a lot of fun!