Pythagoras Eagle & The Music of the Spheres won Mayhaven's Award for Children's Fiction. The author lives with her family near Anchorage, Alaska.

I don't need to ask how you were inspired to write Pythagoras Eagle & the Music of the Spheres. You said your husband is a math teacher and you wanted to write something for children interested in mathematics. But there are other important elements in the book that must have been inspired by other things. Can you tell us a bit about how you created this story?

Pythagoras Eagle & The Music of the Spheres has received several five-star reviews.

A: In the early 1990's, I discovered a quote by author Guy Murchie. "Our bodies which we have always thought were material because they are formed with atoms, fade away . . . turning out to be only waves of energy, nodes of melody being mysteriously played in our time." This was my first introduction to quantum physics. I was in my late 30's, had always considered the study of math and science to be completely beyond my comprehension, and suddenly, with this one quote, found myself encountering another world of imagination. I thought I had stumbled across something brand new. As I picked up more books on quantum theory, I was completely amazed to discover the concept is older than Aristotle. In more recent history, Heisenberg described an atom as being both a wave and a particle. The atom "forms a world of possibilities rather than one of facts." Quantum Theory has been alive and thriving in the western scientific world for over a century. So, why, I wondered, are students still taught the old Newtonian version of the atom? Could such a concept like quantum mechanics be introduced to young readers in a novel? I decided to give it a try. After the novel was published by Mayhaven Publishing, I received a letter from a doctor who is an avid researcher of quantum physics. He sent an envelope filled with his notes, dissecting Pythagoras Eagle & the Music of the Spheres page by page, explaining how a description or dialogue or passage related to quantum theory. It was very interesting. I hadn't realized how many aspects of this theory were buried, without my conscious attention, in the text.

How do you go about getting your thoughts to paper?

That is a difficult question.When I am not passionate about a theme, thoughts do not settle on paper very well at all. It must have something to do with pursuing a dream . . .or glimpsing a fantastic island paradise on the horizon, and deciding to build a boat that will take people there. Once the boat-builder catches the scent of that island paradise, the boat gets built very rapidly. Thoughts or images are constantly jumping to mind, mostly out of sequence, but very vivid. I keep a file of notes, and jot down impressions as I think of them. Later I tackle the task of weaving them into the storyline.

Doesn't your book focus on the descendents of people who settled in Alaska early on?

In Pythagoras Eagle & the Music of the Spheres, Shawna's grandmother had married a Creole of Russian and Koniagmiut descent. Alaska is the home of many distinct indigenous Eskimo, Aleut, and Indian groups. When Russian fur traders reached the island of Kodiak and adjacent Alaska Peninsula, they discovered the Koniagmiuts (Koniags) or Pacific Eskimo. In 1784, the population of Koniags was estimated to be 8,000. In the 19th century, that number dropped to 2500. Today the Koniagmiuts are nearly extinct. Groups in Alaska are trying to document and preserve the culture of this unique "Island People".

A reader told me it had been a long time since she had read a writer who wrote "up" to a young person. Do you understand what the reader meant?

I went to lunch the other day with a student at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She is writing a children's book, and was baffled when someone told her there would be restrictions in word count and vocabulary selection for her story. "I grew up on those Serendipity books," she told me. "Serendipity became my favorite word when I was 4 years old. It's still my favorite word. In fact, it describes everything about me." A child can soak in whatever information we wish to offer. But we must start young. My husband tells me most of the students in his 7th grade class do not know the meaning of the word "rapid".

The family in your book has problems. How did you happen to select the scenario you created?

I think it is true that your characters dictate the course of the story. A writer can have a very good outline in place, but once dialogue begins, everything changes. It becomes obvious that the character is going to react to something which has been said, and many times that reaction is quite different than what was originally envisioned. An author never knows his/her character completely at the beginning of the story.

And the characters. Were they inspired by what you've observed?

When a writer begins a story, many themes emerge that parallel what is happening in an author's personal life. At the time I was writing Pythagoras Eagle & the Music of the Spheres, my older sister was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She is a talented poet and writer; we were very close. I began to wonder why so many creative and brilliant people seem to struggle with mental illness. I had never intended Procopius, or Pythagoras Eagle, to manifest mental illness. This entered the story because of questions I was mulling over. I wrote the story in 1993, long before I heard of John Nash. Years after I had completed my novel, a friend gave me Sylvia Nasar's book, A Beautiful Mind, which describes the life of Nash, the mathematical genius diagnosed with schizophrenia. I read the prologue, and it made my spine tingle. I thought . . . there he is. There's Pythagoras Eagle.

This isn't your first publication, is it?

No, although it is one of the first novels I have written. My first published novel, Dear Future People, was written after Pythagoras Eagle.... This is historical fiction, based on the life of Hypatia, a scholar who worked at the Library of Alexandria during the decline of the Roman Empire. I wrote a nonfiction article which describes this ancient library and its influence on the world, and it was published in Cricket magazine. This article was bought by Holt, Rhinehart & Winston, and published in their 2003 Holt Language Arts textbook for grade 6. It will be reprinted in Holt's 2005 Language Arts textbook. One article can move to many places. This same article was sold to New South Wales Department of Education in Australia, and was also posted in "Measuring up to New York State Standards" diagnostic practice test. My second published book is an adult novel, Rysaland, which describes the birth of Russia under the Viking leader Vladimir.

If you had to list a couple of really important impressions made on you regarding writing, what would they be?

Words are very powerful tools. Words can make people feel differently about issues. Words can completely change the outcome of a situation. Words can save someone's life. I am always looking for people who talk about this power, who believe that when you write from your heart, you can move the world. Vaclav Havel, Madeleine L'Engle, Robert MacNeil, Nicholas Roerich, Norma Marks Davenhauer, Annie Dillard. . . they all speak about the value of storytelling in an age of increasing fragmentation. Joseph L. McCaleb describes story as 'medicine'. Twenty percent of kids age nine to seventeen (this from the Surgeon General) have mental disorders. About ten percent of these children have a "serious emotional disturbance". What can we do to alleviate their pain, confusion and isolation? Every child deserves the gift of the storyknife.

What hint would you give other writers?

Nicholas Roerich says: Neither sun nor frost will destroy you.You have been given something to say, and your words will be heard in spite of all the conditions in the world.