The Girl in the Well Is Me (11 page)

Acknowledgments

When I was working on this book, my daughter Lola (then seven) asked me what I was writing. I told her, and she said, “That doesn't sound very good, Mum. You should add a talking dog.” So I added one, as well as some zombie goats and other creatures. Thanks, Birdy-girl.

One day I clicked on a story on my Facebook feed about Baby Jessica (who is now an adult), who fell down a well in Midland, Texas, in 1987, and I immediately remembered how powerful that news story was and how we talked about it on the playground and how the whole world was caught up in her rescue. And then I thought, “What if I wrote a book from the point of view of a girl who is stuck in a well?”

On my dining room wall, I painted this quote from Roald Dahl's book
The Minpins
: “
Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.” I encourage everyone to never forget to use their own glittering eyes. Ideas are everywhere. They are sometimes fleeting, but
sometimes they stay tangled with your own imagi­nation, and then they come together and form stories. That is where magic lives: in the weaving together of something you remember and something you heard and something you dreamed and something you saw once on Facebook and a character who you can suddenly see with perfect clarity, who is waiting to tell her own tale.

Thanks to the brilliant and lovely Jennifer Laughran; to the astonishingly wonderful people at Algonquin Young Readers; to my readers; and most of all, to every librarian and bookseller in the world: You are all my favorites.

KELSEY GOODWIN

KAREN RIVERS has written novels for adult, middle-grade, and young adult audiences. Her books have been nominated for a wide range of literary awards and have been published in multiple languages. When she's not writing, reading, or visiting schools, she can usually be found hiking in the forest that flourishes behind her tiny old house in Victoria, British Columbia, where she lives with her two kids, two dogs, and two birds. Visit Karen online at
karenrivers.com
.

Published by

Algonquin Young Readers

an imprint of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Post Office Box 2225

Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-­2225

a division of

Workman Publishing

225 Varick Street

New York, New York 10014

© 2016 by Karen Rivers.

All rights reserved.

eISBN 978-1-61620-589-8