Louisa and the Crystal Gazer by Anna McClean
Interview of Anna McClean Please tell me about your background. First, thanks so much for hosting me! I was a small town kid who spent an awful lot of time daydreaming and reading…and never outgrew that need to live many, many lives. As a young adult, I studied literature and traveled in Europe, filling my eyes and my imagination, and as soon as I settled down again – first in Boston, then in the Finger Lakes area of New York State – I started to write. I’ve worked as a waitress, apartment rental agent, hotel maid, bookkeeper, journalist, and college professor…in that order. But always, always, I was writing. What inspired this particular book? Louisa May Alcott herself. Her character, Jo from Little Women, was my role model when I was young. I was delighted to realize that Jo, for Louisa, too, represented a combination of real and fantasy life. Louisa, like Jo, was devoted to her family but also fiercely independent. And she wrote s