were crossing a bridge, the shore was
burning behind us, and we had to get to
the other side. And from then on, we
never did anything else but write or act.”
Ends were met, but barely. Will carried
a change of clothes so he would be pre-
pared for the next audition, used pay
phones to call his agent. Mary sold a book,
wrote another one and kept writing … on
her rooftop, in libraries, whatever worked.
“I remember the first year or two,”
Mary said, “I’d be out on the street in the
middle of the day, and I was certain a tru-
ant officer was going to pull up and say,
‘You have to go to work like everyone
else!’ I’d feel guilt that I was not doing it
the way others were.”
She had published three heavy-themed
young adult novels and was working on a
fourth, about a runaway, when the first
seedlings for the Magic Tree House plot
sprouted in an unusual place.
Osborne taught writing at a runaway
shelter in Times Square, and the teens’
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