Clare Vanderpool (B.S. in Elementary Education, B.A. in English) has been a reader since she was five and a writer since she was six. Ever since her first grade story was selected for publication in her school newspaper she had the bug.
In her summer writing camp for kids, Clare teaches her students that good writing comes from good reading and a lot of observation. The main influences in Clare’s writing were set in motion as a young girl. Wonderful books, parents who loved to travel, and growing up with a strong sense of place. Her imagination was taken far and wide through characters like Huckleberry Finn, Anne of Green Gables, and Meg Murray in A Wrinkle in Time. Through family summer RV trips, Clare’s parents introduced her to history, culture, and how to get along with six people in a camper for three weeks at a time in their travels throughout the United States and Canada. But there was always home to come back to and Clare’s roots and memories are deep in Kansas.
Historical fiction is a favorite of Clare’s, to read and to write – stories rooted in a strong sense of place and time. Her first novel, Moon Over Manifest, is set in the small town of Manifest, Kansas based on the real town of Frontenac, located in southeast Kansas. Her maternal grandparents were both from this area and through stories she heard as a child, along with research in town newspapers, yearbooks, history books, and graveyards, Clare was thrilled with the rich and colorful history she was able to draw on for her story.
Clare lives in Wichita, Kansas with her husband and four children.
