Author Maggie O’Farrell is fascinated by stories that are often pushed to the margins. This is what provided the plots of many of her acclaimed novels, including Hamnetcentered on William Shakespeare’s son, i Marriage portraitof Lucrezia de’ Medici, third daughter of the last Duke of Florence. “It’s not always necessarily celebrities that interest me,” the author tells PEOPLE. “People who are in the shadows are no longer written about; people whose histories are written in water.” O’Farrell’s latest book also highlights an overlooked topic, often portrayed in a negative light. When the Stutterer came to staywhich comes out on December 10, follows Min, a young girl who wakes up one morning to find she can’t say certain words. With the help of her sister Bea, she learns to manage her newfound stuttering and realizes the importance of self-acceptance.
‘When the Stammer Came to Stay’ by Maggie O’Farrell, illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini.
Walker Books US
O’Farrell originally intended to write a children’s book about two sisters who learn to embrace their differences, but Mina’s speech impediment soon took over the story.
“It’s very rare in fiction, any kind of fiction, to meet a character who stutters and is taken seriously,” says O’Farrell, who stutters herself. “It is often played for laughs. We are invited as an audience or readers to laugh at this person who has some kind of verbal disfluency, or we are invited to think of him as strange or weak, nervous or anxious.” “But really, stutterers aren’t necessarily those things,” she says. “I wanted to write something that takes stuttering seriously and talks about exactly what it looks like and the bad things about it, but also the things it can give you.”
Kenya Moore Writes Children’s Book With Daughter Brooklyn, 6, About Their Travels: ‘Reading Opens Your World’ (Exclusive)
Her own stuttering, she says, influenced her to become an author herself. For one thing, O’Farrell learned how to “rewrite” sentences in her head as she spoke, to avoid letters or words that might be difficult for her to pronounce. “I always have trouble with M, which is hard when your name is Maggie,” says O’Farrell. “You have to start a different sound. You’re always thinking of five or six different ways to say the same thing… I don’t think I’d be a writer without that.” The act of writing itself, says O’Farrell, was also a liberating experience.
The PEOPLE Puzzler has arrived! How fast can you solve it? Play now!”I still remember, as a child, watching my pencil move through these sentences and words just coming out on the page, and it’s such bliss,” she says. “It’s still unbelievable to me, the idea that nothing can stop her. I can just say whatever I want, however I want, and I won’t have a problem with it, nobody will judge me or laugh at me.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(499x0:501x2)/maggie-o-farrell-when-the-stammer-came-to-stay-2-120924-3f708d17c6ad4a598e8c1ea47a64b7df.jpg)
Maggie O’Farrell.
Murdo Macleod 2017
O’Farrell is also an author of children’s books Where the snow angels go and The boy who lost his sparkboth of which contain illustrations by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini. The author notes that writing for children has its own challenges, just like writing for adults. The narrative needs to be clearer, she says, but you can’t underestimate the reader, because children are quick to provide “instant editorial feedback,” something O’Farrell learned from reading her work to her own children. “If you’re reading something to them and they lose interest, they’ll just get up and walk away,” she says. With her latest book, however, one challenge was dealing with such a personal subject.
Jenna Bush Hager and her sister Barbara wrote a new children’s book: ‘Ode to being a mom’
“It’s a bit like looking at the sun,” says O’Farrell. “You don’t want to look at it too much because you think that if you look at it or think about it or think about it too much, it’s going to come back, it’s going to get worse. So I was kind of nervous writing about it. But it was good. It’s good to face things like that.” O’Farrell also credits other writers who stutter, such as David Mitchell, John Updike, Margaret Drabble and Colm Toibin, for portraying the speaking condition in a positive light in their works. He also has a message to share with the readers of his new book.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. “We all have challenges in life, but some of our difficulties or challenges are more visible than others,” she says. “And so, we have to treat each other with compassion and kindness because we have no idea what’s going on in other people’s lives.”When the Stutterer came to stay is now available from Walker Books US.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education