Jane Yolen
(b. 1939)

Jane Yolen has written more than 200books for children, young adults, and adults, as well as hundreds of short stories and poems. Her many fairy tales have earned her the title of "the Hans Christian Andersen of America," and she has been called "a modern equivalent of Aesop" for her fable-like stories. She moves easily from poetry, folk tales, and songs to fantasy and science fiction. Her books have been translated into 14 languages, including Japanese, French, Spanish, Chinese, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Afrikaan, Xhosa, Portuguese, and Braille.

Yolen was born in 1939 in New York City, the daughter of writers. Her father wrote for newspapers. Her mother wrote short stories and created crossword puzzles and acrostics (a type of word puzzle) for magazines and newspapers. Many of her parents' friends were authors. Yolen says she "just assumed all grownups were writers," and she always knew that was what she would do.

Yolen started writing at a very young age, producing poems and songs before she started going to school. "My first big success as a writer was in first grade where I wrote the class musical. It was all about vegetables and I played the chief carrot. We all ended up in a salad together!"

In junior high, she once wrote an essay about New York State manufacturing entirely in verse. Later, at Smith College, she wrote her final exam in American Intellectual History in rhyme. Her "very surprised" teacher gave her an A+.

Yolen sold her first book the day she turned 21; Pirates in Petticoats is a history book about women who were pirates. After that, she says, she was a book writer for good. She has since written over 200 books and is usually working on several projects (up to ten) at a time.

In addition to being a writer, Yolen has been an editor, a teacher, a storyteller, a critic, and a songwriter, and she is active in several professional organizations. She has been on the Board of Directors of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators for more than 25 years. She was president of the Science Fiction Writers of America from 1986 to 1988. For 20 years, she ran a monthly writer's workshop for new authors of children's books.

Yolen writes every day and says, "Like an athlete or a dancer, I am uncomfortable–and even damaged–by a day away from my work."

To would-be authors, Yolen says, "I have three pieces of advice for young writers. One: read, read, read! You must read every day and try to read a wide range of books. Two: write, write, write! Keep a journal, write letters, anything to keep the 'writing muscles' in shape. Three: don't let anyone stop you from writing. Be persistent no matter what 'naysayers' or critical editors have to say about your writing."

Yolen has been married to Dr. David Stemple, a university professor, since 1962. Even though her husband is the chairman of a university computer science department, Yolen has been using a computer for her writing only since 1997. Before that, she wrote everything on a typewriter, revising and retyping frequently to polish her work.

Yolen and her husband have three grown children and three granddaughters. Most of her stories are written for children, and some of them are dedicated to family members. She gets some of her story ideas from her family members, but she says that ideas come from many sources, such as paintings, other books, eavesdropping on conversations, dreams, newspaper articles, song lyrics, and folk culture. She says that every time she gets an idea, she writes it down and files it in her Idea File. "There is no organization to it; all the ideas are jumbled together."

In The Mermaid's Three Wisdoms, Melusina is very much like a human girl, right down to making a careless mistake. Mermaids in more traditional tales seem less like humans. Such legends and folklore about mermaids abound. In these tales, mermaids (and mermen) are legendary creatures of the sea with the head and upper body of a human being and the tail of a fish. In European folklore, mermaids were sometimes called sirens. The seafolk in these tales were beings that, like fairies, could perform magic and reveal the future. They loved music and sang hauntingly. According to the stories, they lived long lives, but were quite inhuman.

Many folk tales tell about mermaids who could take on human form and marry human beings. In many of these stories, a man takes something belonging to the mermaid, such as a cap, belt, comb, or mirror. As long as the objects remain hidden, the mermaid stays with her human husband, but as soon as she finds the hidden object, she returns to the sea.

In some stories, a mermaid passing as a human will stay with her husband only as long as he promises to abide by certain conditions. If he breaks his promise, she leaves. In one story, once a month a mer-bride in disguise insists on being left alone the whole night through. After a few years, her husband's curiosity gets the best of him and he hides himself to spy on his wife. He is shocked to see her in her true form, lying in a tub of water with her fish tail hanging over the side. When she senses him watching her, she plunges into the sea, never to return.

In some stories, mermaids and mermen are dangerous to humans. If sailors see a mermaid on a voyage, it means that they will have a shipwreck. Sometimes mermaids in these tales lure humans to their death by drowning or hypnotizing them into living with them under the sea.

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