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Cynthia Rylant
Cynthia Rylant’s life is a bit of a Cinderella story, appropriately enough.
She was born in Hopewell, Va., in 1954. Her parents divorced when she was 4, and she lived with her grandparents in Cool Ridge, W. Va., while her mother went to nursing school. Her father, whom she had little contact with, died when she was 13. Growing up in 1960s Appalachia meant a hardscrabble existence. Her grandparents lived a rustic life - no electricity, running water or car. But no cruel stepmother, either. She remembers a humble but loving experience with her grandparents. She was reunited with her mother after a few years, and they moved to a Beaver W.Va., apartment that had running water and electricity.
She fell in love (not with a capital “L”) with Beatles bassist Paul McCartney. As she wrote in Something about the Author Autobiography Series (SAAS): “The Beatles gave me a childhood of sweetest anticipation. Our country was falling apart with war and riots and assassinations but the Beatles gave me shelter from these things in their music and in the dreams they caused me to dream.” The title of her autobiography, But I’ll Be Back Again, comes from a Beatles song.
“They say to be a writer you must first have an unhappy childhood,” Rylant wrote in But I’ll Be Back Again. “I don’t know if unhappiness is necessary, but I think maybe some children who have suffered a loss too great for words grow up into writers who are always trying to find those words, trying to find a meaning for the way they have lived.”
Appalachian influence
When I Was Young in the Mountains, inspired by her years in Appalachia, won the American Book Award in 1982 and illustrator Diane Goode won a Caldecott Honor. Her first book, it reportedly took one hour to write (but considerably longer to illustrate and publish).
After high school, she attended what is now the University of Charleston in West Virginia. She earned a master’s degree in English at Marshall. She eventually landed a job in the children’s section at the Akron Summit County Public Library, where she read many children’s books. She earned a master’s of library science degree at nearby Kent State University. Rylant donated her manuscripts to the Kent State University library in 1993, about the time she moved to Oregon.
A mentor
Rylant has a unique tie to another author featured at the Ohio Center for the Book, which sponsored this exploration of Cynthia Rylant. In the 1980s, Rylant was the mother of two young children and needed a nanny to help raise them. Enter Angela Johnson, who had enrolled at Kent State University. Eventually Rylant discovered that Johnson was a talented writer, and took the young writer under her wing a bit, introducing her to agents and so forth.
Writes Johnson in Cynthia Rylant, a Gentle Mentor:
“As the years went on, Cyndi and I remained friends as I watched her boy when she traveled for her writing. She was there for me in ways that are incredible to behold, sending a story I wrote to her editor and being happier than I was when the book was accepted. She was there to encourage me to write more than picture books. She knew I had a story in me.
“I learned through Cyndi to embrace a writer’s life. It seemed that everything I saw, felt, or tasted contributed to the craft of writing.”
Johnson is now a successful and established author herself, and a few years back, bought Rylant’s home in Kent. Rylant moved to Oregon in the early 1990s. For more on Angela Johnson, CLICK HERE.
Rylant is a prolific writer, having produced 30-plus titles in the Henry and Mudge series alone. She says that although her books are mostly children’s books, she doesn’t write down to them (Indeed, Cinderella has a maturity about it that you often don’t see in children’s writing). She hopes her books appeal to readers of all ages.
Appalachia figures in several of her books, including Appalachia: The Voices of Sleeping Birds and Silver Packages: An Appalachian Christmas Story.
Her books have won numerous awards, including the Newberry Medal for her novel, Missing May, and a Newberry Honor for A Fine White Dust.
Sources: Wikipedia, Educational Paperback Association’s 100 Top Children’s Authors, Simon Says, About.com, West Virginia Wesleyan College Library, Suite101.
