What I discovered is that each time you look at the world and the people in it closely, imaginatively, the effort changes you. The world, under the microscope of your attention, opens up like a beautiful, strange flower and gives itself back to you in ways you could never imagine.

Because of Winn-Dixie is the result of that effort. It is a book populated with stray dogs and strange musicians, lonely children and lonelier adults. They are all the kind of people that, too often, get lost in the mainstream rush of life. Spending time with them was a revelation for me. What I discovered is that each time you look at the world and the people in it closely, imaginatively, the effort changes you. The world, under the microscope of your attention, opens up like a beautiful, strange flower and gives itself back to you in ways you could never imagine. What stories are hiding behind the faces of the people who you walk past everyday? What love? What hopes? What despair?

Trey Greer did know what he was talking about. Writing is seeing. It is paying attention.

I think of it this way: my characters sing songs and I stop to listen to them and when the song is done I give them my money and they say, “God bless you, baby.”

And I feel that I have been blessed. Over and over again.

Kate DiCamillo

Where do you get your ideas?

Every writer in the world gets asked the question. And the answer is so obvious! We get our ideas from listening and looking and eavesdropping and imagining. Stories are everywhere. All you have to do is pay attention.

Kate DiCamillo