J. Anderson Coats is the author of The Green Children of Woolpit.From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: The Green Children of Woolpit was based on real 12th century chronicles--how did you learn about the story and at what point did you decide it would be the basis of your new book?--Marshal Zeringue
A: I’m not sure I can pinpoint a particular moment when I stumbled over this story and had an a-ha moment. I was the kind of nerdy teen who had research interests, and since then I’ve read a lot about the middle ages and medieval culture.
Deciding to create my own fictionalized account was a collaboration between myself and my amazing Atheneum editor. I brought up this story pretty much at random during a conversation about potential projects, and she was intrigued. Editors are wonderful people, and vital to the creative process.
Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that particularly intrigued you?
A: I did a lot more internet research for this book than I ordinarily do. Mostly I’m a brick-and-mortar, page-and-cover kind of researcher, but in this case, I wanted to explore not just the historicity of the story, but the considerable amount of folklore and legend that’s grown up around it...[read on]