Author shares debut novel in Winter Park
Margaret Mincks still has the rock that inspired her first novel. “I ran across this kid who was selling rocks,” said the Windermere author. “I have a policy where I always stop to listen to kids that are trying to sell me things. And he had a little brother there who was trying to give me the rocks. I thought it was a funny dynamic of this entrepreneurial little boy and his brother who was undermining him.”
From that encounter, Mincks got the idea for her debut children’s book, “Payback on Poplar Lane.” The Virginia native will be reading from and signing the book Saturday at Writer’s Block Bookstore in Winter Park (3 p.m., 124. E. Welbourne Ave., free, writersblockbookstore.com).
The story follows business-minded young Peter and his neighbor-turnedintern-turned-competitor Rachel as they battle for neighborhood market dominance.
“I always thought business speak was so funny,” said Mincks. “I would write it all down. So I wanted to develop a kid who is on the path to becoming like that. And I wanted him to learn that business isn’t all about numbers and success isn’t all about money.”
With a background in improvisational theater, Mincks, 38, first began writing the characters as monologues. This turned into a shifting first-person perspective throughout the book, letting the reader inside the mind of each character.
The book, released last month, is intended for ages 9-12, a demographic Mincks became familiar with while working in Chicago for Spider Magazine, a spinoff of the popular children’s magazine Cricket. “I just developed this love for the kids,” she said.
She remembers that age being significant to her reading development. “That to me was a big turning point when I couldn’t get enough of reading. I just fell in love with authors.
“It’s when you’re not really a kid, and you’re not really a teen. You’re just learning that adults are human beings and they’re not perfect, and you’re learning what your own values are.”
Writing was something else that she picked up at a young age. She recalls the beginning of her love of writing being in elementary school with a young authors contest. A relative who worked at the Library of Congress got one of her poems registered in the federal library.
“I thought that was really cool. I could be a real author,” she said.
Mincks began writing the book shortly before moving to Orlando in 2011. She completed the first draft while she was pregnant in 2015. “Having my daughter was really the inspiration to finish the first draft,” she said.
Mincks is already finishing the sequel to “Poplar Lane.” She notes that books for this age can have a lasting impact. “I hope to get across as a legacy that kids can change the world,” Mincks said. “It’s been my philosophy ever since I was editing that I don’t want to talk down to kids. In terms of truths, I think they’re the same.”