Why do you write?
I write for four reasons:
1. I haven't found anything that makes me feel as good. Nothing. Feels. As. Good.
2. I really don't speak all that well.
3. Being poor makes me immune to plummeting stock markets.
4. My left hand tingles (an uncomfortable sensation not unlike that experienced by those with restless leg syndrome) until I do.
In other words, I write because I have to.
What prompted you to write Amphibian? Where did you get the idea for Phin?
When my son was nine, he jumped off his bike to pick up a plastic bag. He yelled back at me incredulously, "Don't people know sea tortoises choke on this?!" I started wondering what it might be like for kids whose parents aren't so sympathetic when it comes to environmental issues.
What's behind Phin's facination with the animal world?
Phin has a natural compassion for animals. Philosopher and animal rights theorist Tom Regan (www.tomregan-animalrights.com) says there are three classes of people when it comes to relationships with animals. The first he refers to as Da Vincians. They're people who are naturally and deeply compassionate. Apparently, Da Vinci used to tell people "You make tombs of your stomachs" and would often buy birds at markets and set them free. Phin is definitely a Da Vincian.
What do you think we can learn from kids?
I think it's useful to think of adults in society as stuck in a concrete corridor with a number of doors along it. We have free choice in the sense that we have different doors from which to pick, but we have limited free will because no matter how much we might deny it, we're stuck in that corridor. Children's corridors aren't yet concrete -- they're permeable because they haven't been entirely "socialized" -- thus they are more likely to clearly see some of the illogic and inconsistencies in the adult world.
What were the challenges in writing from Phin's point of view? To what extent did you draw upon people you know?
I started writing Amphibian in the spring of 2006 when one of my sons was nine, like Phin. This really helped get the voice right and to know exactly what children in fourth grade were experiencing. There are a few scenes -- like the sea-tortoises-choke-on-plastic one -- that are mined from real life (writers are a little like vultures that way). However, for the most part, Phin's antics, arguments, life situations, musings are his own. My kids, both boys and now 12 and 16, are like Phin in one really striking way, though -- they are incredible logicians. They're nearly impossible to out-argue. Like Phin's mother, Liza, I'm often left sputtering. Writing those scenes was disconcertedly easy for me.
Where did you grow up? Is your writing affected by your own childhood?
I was born in Miramichi, N.B. and grew up in a rural area with the river across the road and a field which bordered a deep, dark forest in the backyard. We had dogs, cats, a pony and chickens. My grandparents had cows and poultry. My grandparents were organic (common sense) farmers. We used to pick beetles off potatoe plants by hand and plop them into little pans of kerosine.
My writing is most definitely affected by my childhood. I feel most at home in nature and least comfortable in manufactured sorts of landscapes. (In a mall, for instance, I feel profoundly lonely and disconnected. I've often wondered how common that experience is.) This is definitely reflected in what I have written and what I want to write.
Why does Phin turn to the animal world as a way of making sense out of the human one?
Our culture has a fascination with science. There is endless information about other animals -- from their physicalities to their social and even psychological characteristics. But curiously we seem to be more reluctant to study ourselves and explain to children why we do what we do. We just assume children will be assimilated and model the behaviour they see without questioning the motives and habits of the human animal. Phin is different (but not alone -- a number of parents have written to tell me they have Phins in their families) in that he's
always thinking -- and has an awful lot to figure out. So he draws on his encyclopedic knowledge of nonhuman animals to help make sense of his world.