Diana Wynne Jones was for a time my Favorite Living Author, at least until Hilary McKay came along, and then they shared the honor. Along with Anne TyDiana Wynne Jones was for a time my Favorite Living Author, at least until Hilary McKay came along, and then they shared the honor. Along with Anne Tyler and Larry McMurtry. Ah well... The odd thing is that the other three authors write realistic fiction and DWJ wrote speculative fiction and it's only after I read this book of essays that I understood just how realistic her fantasies are. As well as how inventive and brave and wildly original, because, except maybe in the last few years of her life, she never wrote the same story twice. Even when I first started reading Diana Wynne Jones in the 1980's, I was impressed by her range. Now we're in an age when a series can go on long enough to take you through an entire alphabet of titles and I wish others could or would follow her example.
I don't know whether reading Reflections on the Magic of Writing will be a roadmap (or multiverse map) for other writers. But I do know that reading it excited me to the point where I almost got my own back with my husband by reading so many bits out loud to him. (He is always, ALWAYS, reading me bits from reviews in TLS.) Best of all, I now have a mental list of all the Diana Wynne Jones books I want to re-read....more
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