A while back, I had the pleasure of visiting the elementary school library at H-Farm International School in Vicenza, Italy. The kids were fantastic and shared so many ideas and dreams of their own writing ambitions. Afterward, the librarian Filippo sent me interview questions about my books and the writing process. He recently shared the link with me to where the interview was published! I’ll post the link below as well as an excerpt, as I truly appreciate the school’s focus on building imagination and courage in children.

Library Talks: Jesse McCreed – H-FARM International School

1) Your stories follow teenagers who discover their strength while navigating extraordinary worlds. What inspired you to write about this moment of life, when everything feels possible and uncertain at the same time?

I think I have been drawn to writing about the preteen and teen years because that is when life takes a big shift. At least when I was young, everyone was keen to tell you how your hormones and your body would change, but for me, that wasn’t the biggest shift. The biggest shift was in my mind. It was how the simplicity of childhood and the (very often) one-dimensional explanations one receives for various aspects of life no longer fit.

It happens at different times for each of us, but I remember being around ten years of age, and feeling completely bewildered by the actions of others, and the incongruity between espoused values and actions. This observation opened a door for me, so to speak, where I grew increasingly curious about what was actually real, what matters, what is honest. And also, how does one face challenges and remain kind and strong and intelligent without becoming trampled or, alternatively, a bully?

As teen years went on, these questions grew increasingly important to me. I didn’t really realize it at the time, but it was through reading that my quest for these answers was not just permitted, but encouraged. In stories, you understand the unique plight of the characters, of the challenges they face, and of the repercussions that follow from their choices. At least in my experience, I never really had that kind of honest clarity when speaking to human beings in real time. Only in books do you gain that kind of insight. Books provide this magic key, not just to other worlds, but to the moral and psychological permutations in those worlds.

For the entire interview, click the button below!