PHOTO: Clare Vanderpool, author of the Newbery Medal-winning novel Moon Over Manifest, pictured near her Kansas home where many of her stories find their roots.
Stories Rooted In Memory Imagination And Heart
Clare Vanderpool shares insights into her writing process, the influence of place and memory, and how her acclaimed novels explore themes of belonging, discovery, and emotional truth.
Clare Vanderpool writes with a quiet power that lodges deep in the reader’s heart. Her stories carry the resonance of true places—those we remember not only for where they are on a map, but for how they make us feel. With Moon Over Manifest, she introduced the world to a small Kansas town filled with secrets, memory, and longing. In Navigating Early, she took readers to the windswept coast of Maine, where two boys set out on a journey both epic and inward. Across vastly different landscapes, Vanderpool’s voice remains rooted—steady, lyrical, and profoundly human.
What sets her work apart is a rare blend of historical richness and emotional insight. She doesn’t just research a time or place—she walks it, breathes it in, and listens for its whispers. And it is this careful listening that finds its way into her characters, especially the searching, determined voices of Abilene and Jack, who uncover the past as a way to make sense of the present.
Memory is central to Vanderpool’s craft. Not only the memories she draws from—family stories, childhood summers, the familiar pulse of her Wichita neighbourhood—but the memories she plants in the minds of her readers. Her books stay with us. They become part of our own story, speaking to what it means to belong, to seek, to remember.
There is something deeply comforting, even redemptive, about Clare Vanderpool’s storytelling. Her novels remind us that while the world may be big and often disorienting, there are still true places to be found—if not on any map, then surely in the heart.
How did your upbringing in Wichita influence the creation of Manifest in Moon Over Manifest?
I’ve lived my whole life in one zip code! But this does not mean I’ve lived an insular life. My parents took us on long road trips every summer in a Holiday Rambler travel trailer. I’ve been to all 50 states and many countries abroad. But when it comes time to go home, I always know where home is. Living in the same neighborhood where I grew up, I’m surrounded by the familiar – the grade school where I went and my children also attended. My church, the pool, the sledding hill. I love all of that and have always had a strong connection to place. So Abilene’s story in Moon Over Manifest of drifting from place to place was very different from my experience. I felt like my role was to be a companion on her journey to Manifest, KS and her search for home.
What inspired the character of Abilene Tucker and her quest to uncover her father’s past?
I came across a quote from Moby Dick – “It is not down on any map. True places never are.” That got me wondering. What is a true place? What makes a place true or not true? I had my idea of a true place – my home, my neighborhood. But what would a true place be for a girl who had never lived anywhere for more than a few weeks or months at a time? That’s when Abilene Tucker stepped into the story and we sort of set off on a journey together. She arrives in Manifest, KS and is looking for clues about her father’s past. What brought him here as a boy? Why did he leave? And most importantly, is he coming back? During the writing of the book, I wasn’t sure what Abilene’s definition of a true place would be. Would it be an actual place where she could put down roots and be a part of a community? Or would it be going back on the road with her dad as her one constant? That’s the exciting part about writing. The writer discovers things right alongside the characters.
In Navigating Early, how did your research trip to Maine shape the novel’s setting and atmosphere?
I did go on a research trip to Maine with my sister and a friend. I wanted to see and feel what my characters would see and feel. The spray of the ocean on my face, gritty sand in my toes, the crunch of leaves on the Appalachian Trail. But you never really know what will find its way into the story. Definitely all these experiences in Maine informed the setting and atmosphere of the story, along with the research I did from home about regattas, boats, bears, constellations, and the question of are there venomous snakes in Maine. Conventional wisdom says no, but I needed a venomous snake, so that question became part of the story. Early is convinced there are venomous snakes in Maine, and he (and I) finagled just enough to make that happen!
What challenges did you face transitioning from writing about Kansas to setting a story in Maine?
Switching the setting from Kansas to Maine did present some pretty big contrasts but that was exactly the reason for the switch. Jack is a Kansas kid who finds himself lost and without bearing at the beginning of the novel. The challenge for a writer is how to depict loss and absence. I decided the best way to do that would be to uproot Jack and put him where he would be most lost and out of place. Where better to put a landlocked kid who suffers from motion sickness than on the literal edge of the country staring into the constantly moving ocean? Thus sparking the beginning of the first chapter — “The first time you see the ocean is supposed to be either exhilarating or terrifying. I wish I could say it was one of those for me. I just threw up, right there on the rocky shore.” That seemed like an accurate depiction of Jack’s interior and external state at the beginning of the book.
How do your personal experiences and family stories influence your storytelling process?
I like to talk about writing as a story stewpot. You throw in all your ingredients – inspiration, memory, research, imagination. I draw on all of these to one degree or another throughout the writing of a book, and there is a lot of interplay between them all. I do think the one that takes on added significance is memory or the writer’s own life experience because this provides the emotional authenticity of the story. In the case of Navigating Early, I’ve never been uprooted from my home and placed in a boys boarding school in Maine. But I had a similar experience of uprooting in that I went to a different high school from all my friends, and I did feel very lost, alone, and without bearing. I don’t think I even realized that similarity until after I’d written the book, but in hindsight I know it was from my own memories that I was able to relate to Jack’s experience. There’s so much of that kind of emotional connection in storytelling and I think it has to come from our own memory and experience. I do have a good memory which I’m realizing, as a writer, is also a superpower.
