Great interview with Kate DiCamillo

Kate DiCamillo is author of several wonderful books. Among them: the Mercy Watson series, Because of Winn Dixie, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and The Tale of Despereaux. She has a new book out called The Magician's Elephant (and she was just at the Seattle Public Library).

Cynthia Leitich-Smith interviews her at her blog, Cynsations. Here's the start:

What do you love most about your creative life? Why?
What I like about the creative life is that it demands that I pay attention.

I learned to pay attention for the crass reason that I was looking for ideas, for stories.

But the longer I looked and the more carefully I listened, the more I learned that the work of paying attention is a gift in and of itself, a way to love the world, to be present in it, to celebrate it.

Read the rest.