When I was in college, Madeleine L'Engle was a guest speaker for a writing and literature conference.  In fact I believe she came rather frequently.  And what a sight to behold! She was larger than life with a wide face and clothes that draped softly over her and she seemed more to fly than walk, but her gestures were large and her walk was in slow motion.  At least that's how I remember it.

I remember her great expanse of creativity.  She could write anything.  I don't remember the first time I heard her name or the first book of hers I read.  "A Wrinkle in Time" was published the year I was born, I believe, so it is quite possible that I grew up with a smidgeon of everything.  I loved her Wrinkle books.  I don't believe I read the Austin family series, though my sister probably did.  I thoroughly love (still) the Crosswick Journals.  If you haven't read them, do.  I believe their titles are "Circle of Quiet," "The Irrational Season," and "Summer of the Great Grandmother," probably not in that order :o).

It was my privilege to be able to proofread a couple of her manuscripts that are quasi theological, though she never ever wanted to be considered a theologian.  She was a creative writer, story teller, with questions of God...and enjoyed pursuing "what if" answers. 

Oh, her other stories that I was quite taken with, specifically, were "The Small Rain," which was her first novel.  Then she wrote the sequel something like 20 years later--"A Severed Wasp."  Such a good book. 

The story of her first book being written on trains and backstage of broadway or off-broadway productions as she worked as stagemanager, and later wrote in the brain-dead hours of night after putting her kids to bed have left me with great guilt when I feel I can't get to the story.  I'm glad, however, to have had such an example at a relatively young age that there are no excuses.  Gotta keep writing.  I have a friend whose mantra is "keep chipping away at it" and that has become my life's mantra, as well.

I think I read that L'Engle wrote 60 books.  Then I have barely read any of them.  Seems like.  How awesome to have shared the planet with her if only for a handful of decades.