About the Author
Author: Sherry L. Ross
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The Vinetrope Adventures: Return of the Vinetropes, Book One is the fulfillment of a childhood dream. I grew up in a home where writing and art was a daily process. My younger sister Rochelle and I were encouraged to read, write, draw and paint from an early age. Our mom, Marjorie Olson, had written and published 40 or so romance stories in various magazines when we were little and we didn't even know about it! Our dad, Leon Lazarus, who eventually wrote freelance, started out after the II War working for Stan Lee in comics. He told us that he wrote over 800 comic stories during the early days of his career and he had many funny stories to share with us about working with Stan. Dad also wrote several golden books for children and in one he made me and my cousin James the hero and heroine. That was very exciting to us.
Our dad’s brothers, Sidney and Harry Lazarus, were artists and illustrators, illustrating many books, and several were for children, a few of which they both wrote and illustrated. Sidney, who passed in 1972, had a beautiful retrospective of his work in 2016 and more recently in 2019 at Shepherd W & K galleries in NYC. |
So writing and art was a natural and daily event for us and the sound of our dad typing at night would often be the last sounds we heard before falling asleep. The apartment was small and our parents were night owls. Yet writing and art was something the adults did and it wasn't till I was 12 and read the novel, At the Back of the North Wind, by the 19th century Scottish author, George MacDonald, that I knew I wanted to write too. That book had such a profound effect on me. I cried at the end when Diamond died and went to the back of the north wind and I carried a lump of grief in my throat for several days, maybe as much for the story being over, that beautifully written story, as for Diamond's passing. This was the book that made me want to write. I felt that if I could move one child half as much as I was moved by MacDonald, I would consider my work a success.
It wasn't until later, after reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, re-reading the Alice in Wonderland books of Lewis Carroll, and of course C. S. Lewis's Narnia Chronicles that I came to learn that all three of these most beloved fantasy authors were deeply influenced by George MacDonald too. In fact, Lewis Carroll was a close friend of the MacDonald family. It was MacDonald who encouraged him to finish his first Alice in Wonderland book and to get it published. MacDonald tested the story out on his own children and they loved it. C. S. Lewis so loved MacDonald that he credits him with changing the direction of his life, away from the dark and into the light. Lewis wrote that MacDonald is one of the greatest myth makers of all time. And Tolkien is often cited as saying that MacDonald was one of his most beloved authors as a child and that The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie were two of his most favorite childhood books. Even Edward Eager, one of my favorite 20th century authors, who wrote The Time Garden and Half Magic, said that he was deeply inspired by George MacDonald. And still later I learned that the poet W H Auden, Madeleine L’Engle of The Wrinkle in Time, and E. Nesbit of Five Childern and IT, all claimed MacDonald to have been a meaningful influence and much loved author. So, when 12, I guess I picked the right mentor. I hope I have made MacDonald proud.
It wasn't until later, after reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, re-reading the Alice in Wonderland books of Lewis Carroll, and of course C. S. Lewis's Narnia Chronicles that I came to learn that all three of these most beloved fantasy authors were deeply influenced by George MacDonald too. In fact, Lewis Carroll was a close friend of the MacDonald family. It was MacDonald who encouraged him to finish his first Alice in Wonderland book and to get it published. MacDonald tested the story out on his own children and they loved it. C. S. Lewis so loved MacDonald that he credits him with changing the direction of his life, away from the dark and into the light. Lewis wrote that MacDonald is one of the greatest myth makers of all time. And Tolkien is often cited as saying that MacDonald was one of his most beloved authors as a child and that The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie were two of his most favorite childhood books. Even Edward Eager, one of my favorite 20th century authors, who wrote The Time Garden and Half Magic, said that he was deeply inspired by George MacDonald. And still later I learned that the poet W H Auden, Madeleine L’Engle of The Wrinkle in Time, and E. Nesbit of Five Childern and IT, all claimed MacDonald to have been a meaningful influence and much loved author. So, when 12, I guess I picked the right mentor. I hope I have made MacDonald proud.
