Interviews
Author Essay
In 1997, while returning from a speaking engagement, I spent the last moments of my flight skimming the airline's complimentary magazine. There I came across a filler about the Ku Klux Klan in Vermont in the 1920s. I read the item, shaking my head in disbelief. "The Klan in Vermont?" I thought. "Couldn't be." Then I did something totally out of character. I removed the article from the magazine and tucked it into my bag.
Back home I wasted no time in attempting to disprove the article, but to my surprise it was correct. The Klan had indeed gained a toehold in Vermont in the 1920s. Maudean Neill had documented it. I bought and read her book, corresponded with her about her research, then tried to imagine how I might take this episode in history and craft a compelling story for young readers. Hitting one dead end after another, I finally tucked the idea into the back corner of my brain and moved on.
Fast forward three years. Jean Feiwel, in search of a new project we might work on together, sent an email with the subject line, "Book Idea?" The message which followed read simply, "Remember Spoon River Anthology?" Suddenly the back corner of my brain flooded with light. I had performed Spoon River in high school. That was it! The path to the Klan project had been there all along, blazed by Edgar Lee Masters.
Over the following months I ferreted out books discussing the Klan in the '20s. I read nonfiction, fiction, plays, short stories, and poetry from and about the period. I drove around Vermont, haunting libraries, poring over microfilm. Altogether I composed over 550 poems in the voices of 13 distinct narrators. Arriving at the end of that "first draft," I culled the unwieldy stack, cutting the book in half. Another 100-plus pages, and two of the original narrators disappeared as revisions progressed.
My gut knotted as I wrote from the point of view of characters whose lives were rooted in bigotry and intolerance. But there were also narrators who made my heart soar. Disabling my censor, allowing each character to speak his or her mind, I have, in Witness, attempted to piece together a mosaic of community giving birth to its conscience. (Karen Hesse)