Interview: Graduate Leah Henderson
Leah Henderson is a Your Personal Odyssey graduate and the author of many critically acclaimed books for young readers, including The Magic in Changing Your Stars, The Courage of the Little Hummingbird, and Together We March. She holds an MFA in Writing and is on faculty in Spalding University’s graduate writing program. Because she has serious wanderlust, when she isn’t creating stories, she’s off someplace in the world getting lost, then found, discovering new ones.
Can you talk about your pre-Odyssey writing process? What kind of writing schedule, if any, did you keep?
Before Odyssey, I had been a pretty diligent writer for a while and then hit a snag around the pandemic. My writing time and focus shifted. I was still working, but I didn’t feel like I was truly doing a deep dive into the stories I wanted to create. So yes, I was sitting down to write, but there were lots of stops and starts, and my direction faltered a bit. I would write for a couple hours most days and was always juggling multiple ideas and projects.
What made you decide to attend Your Personal Odyssey?
I had just finished taking one of Odyssey’s shorter courses and was impressed by the structure and instruction in the course. So when I received a newsletter announcement sharing what Your Personal Odyssey was about, I was intrigued. While my focus has never been on fantasy, sci-fi, or horror, I had a project I hoped to figure out. A week before the deadline, I took the leap. I wanted to dive deep into craft while reimagining the story I’d been working on, so I thought, Why not? What could it hurt to try?
I’m so glad I did!
How do you feel your writing and writing process changed as a result of having attended YPO? What insights did you gain into your own work? How did requesting and studying a custom module help you hone in on the weaknesses in your writing?
Whoa! Where do I begin? I learned so much during my time in YPO about myself and my work. But one of the biggest things was how outlining could work for me and the way I think about, conceive, and write stories. I’ve always been more of a discovery writer, wandering around endless bends and winding up in a number of ditches along the way before I came to my story. And while that has never bothered me before, with my shift in perspective and writing time, discovery started to feel more like clueless stumbling in the dark. Something had shifted in the way I was thinking about how to tell a story, and it was making it harder to trust the discovery process would lead me where I needed to go. Don’t get me wrong, I will always love a little wandering, but talking everything over with Odyssey Director Jeanne Cavelos while applying it to the assigned work in each module was amazing!
While I had a sense of my strengths and weaknesses on a surface level, YPO pushed me to figure out how to build on my strengths and push past my weakness, to find a stronger way into my stories.
The custom module was my favorite by far. Everything felt like it was exactly what I needed, when I needed it. It enabled me to spend dedicated time tackling my weaknesses while still moving forward while flushing out my project based on the assignments I was given.
During YPO you met with and received detailed feedback from Odyssey Director Jeanne Cavelos, received and gave critiques, and had the opportunity to virtually attend lectures. What did you find the most helpful about the workshop?
Honestly, all of it. But by far, my time working one-on-one with Jeanne was an incredible experience. I trusted her insights, and we had many layered conversations about my characters, stories, hopes, and concepts learned during virtual lectures and critiques. The time with Jeanne alone would have made YPO worth it. But to have the opportunity to learn from so many knowledgeable instructors while also having one-on-one guidance was invaluable.
I know I will be using many of the tools I learned through YPO for many years to come.
You’re an established children’s author with experience in presentations for young audiences. How do you find that teaching and nurturing young writers enhances your own writing? What do you think adult writers could learn from young writers?
This may seem strange, or maybe obvious, but young writers (and readers) make me want to be truly honest with my words—brave actually. They deserve our best stories. To stand in front of a room of young people with their pens poised or laptops open, ready to devour your every word, you really want to deliver. You might be their first and only encounter with an author, or voice of encouragement, or the first perspective they’ve heard shared on a certain topic. It makes me want to do my best work—always. A story they read can stay with them forever, helping to shape their perspective or introduce them to something they may come to love or appreciate. There is immense power in that.
I’m sure each of us has a favorite childhood book that we still carry in our mind and heart.
Your extensive travels give you plenty of ideas for stories. How do you choose which idea to pursue? How do you progress from idea to a fleshed-out story?
Travel is such a huge part of who I am. It has shaped so much of the way I think, and yes, it has shaped so many of the stories I decide to tell. But the ideas that make it past the “oh, that’s cool” stage are the stories, sparks of ideas, and curiosities that don’t let go. I’m serious. They pretty much follow me around, sticking to me. They often surprise me in different ways and in the most unexpected places. It’s almost like the idea is the strongest magnet and, as I go about my day, it sits in my pocket or head, collecting so many possibilities that get attached to it. And it is the ideas that keep collecting that have me taking notice.
After that magnet of an idea has collected so much that I can no longer ignore it, I sit with the idea for a while, tossing it around in my head, trying to figure it out and hear the characters and the possible stories it wants me to share. Then, in the past, I have just started writing. And rewriting. And rewriting some more. Post-Odyssey I am leaning on my newfound outlining chops to sort through the jumble of possibilities before I truly dive in. It’s still new, but I’ve discovered a number of interesting techniques because I am open to the idea of plotting it all out before I even put down one word. So we shall see how it goes.
What’s next on the writing-related horizon? Are you starting any new projects?
After crickets on the writing front for so long (just before attending Odyssey), I think the pressure cooker of reading, writing, thinking, conceiving, and dreaming during YPO had me writing nonstop during my time in the program. I actually finished a couple of non-Odyssey-related projects during my YPO using the tools I was learning in real-time. It was kind of amazing. I feel like I went from 0 to 90 in two seconds once I became intrenched in the rhythm and brilliance of YPO. It was a TON of work, but I like to think I came out the other side a smarter, more intuitive writer, already juggling a few new projects beyond the ones I started at Odyssey. But I guess only time will really tell where it will all lead. I’m hopeful and excited to see where my journey will take me from here. YPO has set me up for a fascinating ride.
