Phyllis A Whitney, 1903 – 2008

I came in today expecting to write a review on The Invasion, but when I read the news I changed my mind. Phyllis A Whitney, author of hundreds of stories, died last Friday. She was 104.

The reason I am compelled to write about her is because there is a bit of magic connecting both of us. Back when I was about 13, we were cleaning out the attic. Boxes and sacks were strewn about the garage in piles, all on the concrete and spreading out onto the driveway. Everything smelled like dust and that strange, scratchy concrete smell. I’m sure plenty of nosy neighbors wondered if we were having a garage sale.

This was the time when I had just started to take writing seriously. I had been writing stories as far back as I can remember, but that was right when I really started writing and doing it to make something. I was on my own, as I had no idea that anyone would write articles or books on what makes good writing.

But in the midst of cleaning out the attic, I found a box filled with books. And jammed in the side of that box was a thin one with a red hardcover. The title read: Writing Juvenile Stories and Novels, by Phyllis A Whitney.

It was like in the movies when the kid finds the book of magic. Having just taken a serious interest in writing, and having no clue that people wrote anything on the subject, this red book seemed to me like a thin map that arrived just in time. It might as well been called How To Reach Your Dreams. It was published in 1976 – 12 years before I was even born.

The magic is that no one knows how that book got there. No one in my household at that time had much interest in writing novels, and no one remembered packing it up there. So the book from the attic that arrived just in time for me is still a mystery. I read this little red book from 1976 dozens of times, practically memorizing the instructions she wrote. The moment I found that book- the mere impossibility of it being there- was a sign that told me what I was destined to do.

I still own it. The book’s advice has long been out of date, and I was forced to move on to newer, crisper books on the craft. But I still keep it, just the same as back then, and even though I never met Phyllis herself, maybe now she knows how much she helped me.