Madeleine L'Engle was born on November 29th, 1918, and spent her formative years in New York City. Madeleine was an American writer best known for her young adult fiction, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters. Her works reflect her strong interest in modern science: tesseracts, for example, are featured prominently in A Wrinkle in Time, mitochondrial DNA in A Wind in the Door, organ regeneration in The Arm of the Starfish, and so forth.
SHE STARTED WRITING AT A VERY YOUNG AGE. Madeleine L'Engle was the only child of a pianist mother and a writer father who embraced creativity. They gave her the space to read, write, play music, draw, and otherwise inhabit an internal dream world. “I’ve been a writer ever since I could hold a pencil,” she told the National Endowment for the Humanities.
SHE STARTED WRITING AT A VERY YOUNG AGE. Madeleine L'Engle was the only child of a pianist mother and a writer father who embraced creativity. They gave her the space to read, write, play music, draw, and otherwise inhabit an internal dream world. “I’ve been a writer ever since I could hold a pencil,” she told the National Endowment for the Humanities.
HER FAITH INFLUENCED HER WRITING. L'Engle, who converted to Christianity in adulthood, was clear about her dedication to religious faith and its impact on her work. Her fantasy and sci-fi writings are sprinkled with Biblical references, and she published several reflections on the Bible. A Wrinkle in Time is her counterargument to stiff-minded German theologians who had no room for seeing things differently and, as she told The Washington Post, acted as her "affirmation of a universe in which I could take not of all the evil and unfairness and horror and yet believe in a loving Creator."
A WRINKLE IN TIME WAS REJECTED 26 TIMES. When L'Engle began pitching A Wrinkle In Time to publishers under the working title Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, they were unimpressed. Editor after editor declined the opportunity to print the novel that would go on to become a powerhouse of popularity. Though she remained convinced of the book’s potential, the dozens of rejection letters fractured her confidence as a writer for the rest of her career. Still, she refused to significantly alter the book just to see it in public (one editor suggested she cut it in half!), and she was right to remain so steadfast. John C. Farrar of Farrar, Straus and Giroux agreed to publish it in 1962, and it was an instant hit.
SHE DECIDED TO QUIT WRITING AT 40 ... BUT KEPT WRITING ANYWAY. L’Engle felt guilty about all the time she spent writing that didn’t amount to a paycheck. She had published three books in the 1940s—The Small Rain, Ilsa, and And Both Were Young—but a series of failures shook her so badly that she resolved to stop writing altogether when she received yet another rejection letter in 1958, on her 40th birthday. Against her own promises, she continued writing anyway. And two years later she published Meet the Austins, which kicked off the most prolific, successful era of her career.
SHE HAS HER OWN CRATER ON MERCURY. If you’re visiting the south pole of Mercury any time soon, be sure to stop at the L’Engle crater. The International Astronomical Union officially named it in 2013 to honor her just after the Messenger Spacecraft finished mapping the planet’s surface.
SHE REFUSED TO SAVE A CHARACTER THAT HER SON DIDN'T WANT TO SEE DIE. Some writers see themselves as the all-powerful architect of a story while others see themselves as conduits for emerging truths. L’Engle was in the latter camp. This tendency led her to keep story details and whole characters who popped up from outside her best laid plans, and forced her to kill Joshua in The Arm of the Starfish—even though her son begged her to save him.
SHE HAD A PERFECT RESPONSE WHEN TOLD A WRINKLE IN TIME WAS "TOO DIFFICULT FOR CHILDREN." L'Engle firmly believed you had to trust children, especially because they would be more willing to go along with the kind of outlandish story elements at which adults might scoff. Even when A Wrinkle in Time found a publisher, they told her to expect low sales because it was “too difficult for children.” Her response? “The problem wasn’t that it was too difficult for children. It was too difficult for adults."
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