By Anne Brennan
I enjoyed doing the review for Angela Johnson’s “Wind Flyers.” What a beautiful book. It’s fascinating to know that a MacArthur fellow lives in Kent, Ohio. Who knew? I don’t know if it’s a requirement, but author Angela Johnson seems as reclusive as Cormac McCarthy, another recipient of the “genius grant.” (For a look at the ultimate uninterested interviewee, check out Oprah’s painful session with McCarthy at www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_RpXe2Taug&feature=related

I like Johnson’s honesty about her writing process in a vistingauthors.com article:

“When I had trouble deciding what I was really doing with my days, the daylilies would bloom, a great movie would show up at the Plaza Cinemas, or children would suddenly appear and stay awhile, letting those thoughts fade away.
Through all of these distractions, who was to make me stay in my office, finish ten pages of that novel, or round out that picture book that had been staring at me each time I walked by it for a month?
The answer was no one. But miraculously, a few times a year I would indeed let some kind and patient person in another state know that I had somehow done it again. Magic. A book.
So, it came to me the other day that all of my days are what I do. All of my days have everything to do with how and why I write. You see, every time I have ever tried to sit in my office overlooking the flower garden and try to force myself to write for a couple of hours a day, I’d just end up watching an old movie or going for a walk.
I need the walks, the gardening, and the day-trips as much as my word processor to enable me to write. Now I know this.
So, I am indeed a writer, and other things too, thankfully. Thus, I happily try to make all the distinct parts work for me. They have everything to do with me being a writer.”

Contrast that with bestselling phenom Nora Roberts’ nose-to-the-grindstone style. Why it’s just like my writing habits…sorry, gotta go. “Oprah” is on.

A little boy learns the story of his great, great uncle, who loved to fly. As a child, his uncle’s dream landed him in a pile of hay after leaping from a barn, but later spurred him to become an airman with the 322nd, one of just four African-American squadrons during World War II. Author Angela Johnson’s poetic language and illustrator Loren Long’s painterly images evoke the peace of flying as well as the “magic” of soaring among the clouds and “into the wind,” as “Uncle” would say.

“It’s what heaven must be,” Uncle says to me. “With clouds, like soft blankets, saying, ‘Come on in and get warm. Stay a while and be a wind flyer too.’”

To discover more about Angela Johnson and “Wind Flyers,” CLICK HERE

I’m doing official DelMio work, having picked up a copy of Walt Disney’s Cinderella, Retold by Cynthia Rylant. Rylant is a former Kent (Ohio) resident and a pretty well-known children’s book writer. She’s no Madonna, but there’s only room in this world for one Madonna, and Madonna has it.

Anyway, a story to file under “Small World,” it turns out that two of the six books we’re exploring for the Ohio Center for the Book have authors who not only knew each other but one helped the other get started in the publishing biz. Rylant had two small children a decade or two ago and she hired Angela Johnson to watch her kids. Various bios describe the job alternately as “nanny” or “baby sitter.” In any event, Rylant eventually discovered Johnson’s writing talent and helped shepherd the young writer through the publishing jungle. And then Johnson went and bought Rylant’s house when she and her partner, “Captain Underpants” author Dav Pilkey, moved out of Kent.

Johnson has a reputation for being a recluse. No listing in the phone book. No personal Web site or Facebook entry, apparently. She has been interviewed, but does not play the publicity game much. I guess she prefers to express herself through writing.

Dave Wilson is the Grand Pooh-Bah of Editorial Content at DelMio.com, a site developed by SunLit Communications LLC. He also is at times janitor, chauffeur, chief cook and bottle washer. Once upon a time he was a metro editor and copy editor at the Akron Beacon Journal. Send love letters and trash talk to dave.wilson@delmio.com. Or post a comment. Whatever.