Judy Blume
Issue #26
The children’s books author discusses banned books, Miranda July, and menstrual belts. On a visit to her New York City apartment, we find the literary icon in full Blume.
By Marisa Meltzer
Published: December 1st, 2005 | 3:34pm
Mention that you’re on the way to interview Judy Blume and even your most jaded friends will squeal with jealousy. For those of you who somehow got through puberty without a dog-eared copy of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret?, Judy Blume is the author of 25 books that are popular with children and young adults. Writing steadily throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Blume’s books have sold more than 65 million copies and have been translated into 20 languages.
Her young-adult novels were among the first to tackle such formerly unspoken topics like masturbation (Deenie), teens having sex (Forever), divorce (It's Not the End of the World), and every girl’s favorite magnum opus of menstruation, Margaret. Her books are as funny, awkward, and ambivalent as real life, which has earned her high praise and awards but also a fair share of censorship. While she’s a frequent target of the religious right, she remains an advocate for free speech and speaks out frequently against censorship.
Blume spent her childhood in Elizabeth, New Jersey, with the exception of two years when her mother relocated the children to Miami Beach, Florida, because her brother David was diagnosed with a kidney infection. She graduated with an education degree from New York University in 1961 and published her first book, The One in the Middle is the Green Kangeroo, in 1969. The rest is literary history.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Forever. Are there special editions coming out?
The U.K. edition came out and an American edition is coming out soon. The interesting thing is that both editions are ultra pink. I said to the editors, “You’re turning off the guys!”
Do guys read your books?
Oh yeah, they’ve always read them. They read Fudge and Then Again, Maybe I Won’t and Forever. But not with these new covers.
Do you think they’re just targeting these stories to girls?
I do. I think it’s because they’re in business to sell books and make money.
What inspired Forever?
I wrote it because my daughter, who was 14, asked me for a book like that. There were a lot of what we called “the pregnant books”: A girl did it and had to be punished. She had to be whisked away to live in another state to live with Auntie Mae. Or she had an illegal abortion. Girls weren’t allowed to enjoy their sexuality in books and they were punished for it. My daughter said, “Couldn’t there be a book in which two nice kids do it and nobody has to die?” That’s a terrible reason to write a book. But it got me thinking. I thought, “I’m going to write a book linking sex with responsibility.”
And wasn’t it banned when it came out?
The reaction was better then than it would be now. The 1970s were better for new writers and for young readers. It’s harder after so many years. People know so much more. When I wrote Margaret, I knew truly nothing except what it was like to be 11 going on 12 years old. And I was so desperate. You know, “Would I get it, would I get it…”
I was talking to a friend on the way here and we were both remembering how frightened we were of the menstrual belts in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Oh, I scared you! I’ve changed that. It’s the only thing. We updated the equipment. There are a lot of people who are angry about that and say, “Don’t mess around with a classic book.” And I say, “Look, I’m not messing around with the characters or feelings of the story. I’m just taking it out so it doesn’t stop the story dead.”
Is Margaret one of your most popular characters?
I hear about Margaret, I hear about Deenie. We have a deal to do Deenie with Disney. This summer we were looking for a writer-director and I said, “Please ask Miranda July.”
She would be really good! Will Deenie be the first major movie — I know Forever was a TV movie.
Yes, and I’m a producer. The hard part is that it’s so internal, and we have to figure out a way to show that.
You’re so well known for your fiction for teens, but you’ve also written several novels for adults. Was that a different experience?
The writing process is the same. Summer Sisters almost killed me, though. The original idea came to me on a kayak on a lake in Martha’s Vineyard. I knew it would be two girls from Santa Fe with very different backgrounds. I thought it would go from ages 12 to 17. I didn’t know at the time they were going to grow up. Ultimately it was the happiest experience, but it was so painful.
How so?
The writing and the rejection of it by several of my longtime publishers. It was three years and 20-something drafts.
You did a big book tour to promote it.
I met all the 20- and 30- and even 40-somethings who grew up on my books.
It seems like people have a really personal reaction to you. What are your interactions with fans like?
They don’t accost me in public. Even if somebody recognizes me, it’s rare. It’s very sweet. At a shop I’ll give my charge card and they say, “You have the same name as a writer.”
Do you often not know how a book will end when you begin writing it?
I usually know where I’m starting and where I’m going, but I don’t know how I’m going to get there. That’s the good part or the scary part, depending on the day. It’s much harder after you have success because you worry about failure. It’s not the writing itself that gets harder. But finding that freshness and finding something new to say gets harder.
Do you think about that a lot?
I think about not writing anymore a lot.
You certainly could retire knowing you had made your mark.
But what do you do when you love to go into that little room and write? After Summer Sisters, I said, “I’ll never write another book again.” Then I said, “I’ll never publish a book again. I’ll write but not show it to anybody.” The games we play with ourselves! And now I’m doing something I’ve never done before. It’s for very young children and it’s based on The Pain and the Great One. It’s short stories.
Do you keep up on teen culture? Maybe I should? I like to know what’s going on. I have a lot of young friends and I have a lot of friends who are writing young-adult novels.
Do you read a lot of young-adult fiction?
I hate that label. I never thought I was writing “young adult.” Today Forever would be young adult. It was published as adult, but no one knew what to do with it.
Do you have books you feel closest to?
Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself was the most like myself. I wrote it because I got a letter from a teacher who said she was working on a book and was writing people in creative fields to find out what they were like as children. I was so close to Sally when I wrote that.
Why is that?
I have this theory that the reason I love living in Key West so much is because it takes me back to living in Miami Beach for two years. If you were to ask me what years were most important, I’d say those two years. My mother, who was very anxious, was less protective and less anxious there. I adored my father, but he wasn’t with us because it was a whole community of women with their children and their mothers. The dads were in Boston or New York or Philadelphia and would come home for major holidays — you didn’t just fly around then. I loved it, and yet I became ritualistic. I had special prayers and I had to make bargains with God, not unlike Margaret. I had this private relationship with God that went on for a while. But my characters are like my babies. If you say any title to me, I can put myself back to the moment where I was writing.
I think parents use your books as sex education. How did you deal with sex ed for your own kids?
My books may raise the subject, but they don’t answer the questions. I think it’s great if a parent and a child read a book together and the parent can answer the child’s questions.
Do you think that actually happens?
Ideally. It would be nice. My books don’t replace sex ed. They let the kid know that what they’re thinking about is OK — other people have the same questions. I had a lot of curiosity about sex. More curiosity than questions because I never asked the questions. And when I started to write, that was on my mind. I vowed that when I have kids that they would know whatever they wanted to know.
Where do you get ideas?
That’s the children’s favorite question. I used to hate that question. It scared me. I still don’t know. I mean, where do we get ideas? I analyze it because I’ve had to analyze it. They come from your own life and your children’s lives and everything you see and hear. And this great thing called imagination. Where you’re surprised by it. You can’t explain it. It doesn’t get easier.
Life?
The writing. Life does get easier. But the writing gets harder. It’s not the writing itself that gets harder, but finding that freshness and finding something new to say gets harder. I don’t know how anybody could think otherwise.
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