Cynthia Kadohata

“I hate thinking about writer's block! I don't have writer's block much, knock on wood, but if I do, I think it's usually because I haven't done enough research and am therefore unable to create a fully realized world.”

“Why would a book in which hardly anything happened for most of the time eat at me so much? It was the weirdest thing”

“At the time I was writing 'Weedflower,' my friend Naomi Hirahara was writing a book about Japanese-American flower farmers. She knew quite a few elderly farmers and put me in touch with four or five of them who had been in camps during WWII. Some, like my father, were reluctant to talk about their experiences.”

“I try to find my deepest, often hidden feelings about what's working and what's not. This is difficult because I do lie to myself without being aware that that's what I'm doing.”

“It took seven years from the day I decided I wanted to write fiction to actually getting a book published.”

“I have so much respect for people who do blue-collar work because I come from that background myself.”

“It sounded so weird when people called shoyu "soy sauce." It made it sound like Tabasco or something instead of the clean and perfect thing that it was.”

“The blue of the sky is one of the most special colors in the world, because the color is deep but see-through both at the same time.”

“You feel almost a part of the wheat when you're sitting in a combine.”

“I love writing about people on the road.”

“In 1982, when I was almost 26 years old, I decided I wanted to write fiction. I'd majored in journalism in college, and I'd always assumed I would write nonfiction.”

“'Weedflower' was already in the copyediting phase when I heard about the Newbery award, so it didn't really influence my writing of that book, but since then, I have become more aware of having an audience.”