And the book seemed to take off after that. Years ago I had used a coal mine theme in Wrestle the Mountain and the more I thought about it, that theme fit perfectly with the story I was trying to compose about the two different girls. And then Michelle Poploff, my editor at Delacorte, mentioned a recent mine disaster in West Virginia and suggested I do a coal mine story. I’d been thinking for a long time about doing a book based on “The Prince and the Pauper” story, so I decided I wanted to write a novel about a rich girl who goes to live with a poor girl, and vice versa. I loved the names of the Baptist churches, the rickety swinging bridges over the Kentucky River and the signs outside luncheonettes: “Soup, Beans and Corn Bread.” I had a wonderful time writing this book. I had set books in West Virginia-my husband grew up there-but still had all my notes from visiting Kentucky and it was great to use that research. My father came from Mississippi and I’ve always been drawn to southern culture. Many, many years ago I received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and used it to visit West Virginia and Kentucky and I just soaked up the atmosphere. You know, sometimes books are long in the coming.
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