Via AmoXcalli comes the sad news that Madeleine L’Engle has died at the age of 88.
A Wrinkle in Time was rejected by 26 publishers, a reminder to all of us not to give up.
At age 12 or so, I went to my local children’s bookstore and waited for ages in a long line to get my copy of A Ring of Endless Light signed by Ms. L’Engle. When I got to the front of the line, she was so kind, and I felt like she really saw me, as opposed to just going through the motions of signing book after book after book. I’ll always remember that. It’s one of the few book signings I’ve ever gone to, and I feel so much like I’ve grown up with her books, grown up with Vicky Austin and Meg Murry and Polly.
Here’s to Madeleine L’Engle, and the ring of endless light she’s gifted to generations of readers. Cheers!
Not another writer!!
I remember A Ring of Endless Light and The Arm of the Starfish, and some awful Hallmark Hall of Fame or Lifetime movie just made a hideous tv movie out of it lately… but I have so many of her books; her fiction, her journals. I am grateful that she was so prolific, and readable…
Tadmack– I read in an article (Newsweek?) that someone asked L’Engle what she thought of the tv movie version of A Wrinkle in Time, and she said, “It met my expectations” i.e. awful.
I’m glad we’ve had Madeleine L’Engle for this long, but I miss her all the same.