Judy Blume: "I Was Margaret"

Over her 40-year career, Judy Blume may have done more for sex education than the last 10 surgeons general. Though Blume wrote her best-loved novels in the 1970s, they endure today because they deal frankly and compassionately with the fears, relationships, and sexuality of young people. (That, and The Hite Report [2] is a lot harder to hide in your desk.) Over four decades, Blume has found herself drafted as a defender of First Amendment rights [3] and as a confidante to youth [4] all over the world. At her appearance last weekend at the National Book Festival, Blume spoke with DoubleX about feminism, censorship, and finding her “special place.”

Several generations of women have found tremendous empowerment through your books. Did you set out to be a feminist writer?

Judy Blume: Totally not. I just started to write. I was young and naive. I didn’t know what I was doing. I wrote what was spontaneous and natural. Probably I was always a feminist, but what did I know? I grew up in the ’50s. When I started to write, it was before the feminist movement—and in suburban New Jersey, the women’s movement came very late. When I was writing about girls then, I was just writing about what I went through when I was growing up.

Not only did your books provide information about puberty and sex, your characters weren't somehow punished for their curiosity.

Blume: I never grew up with the idea that sex was bad. No one ever told me that. I was really excited about the idea of puberty. I couldn’t wait! I was Margaret—talking to God, making bargains—asking for my period and to help me be normal. God was my confidant. When I wrote Forever [5], that was because my 14-year-old daughter was reading a lot of books that equated sex with punishment. My librarian friend called those “the pregnant books.” If a girl “succumbed” to sex, something terrible would happen to her. She would have a grisly abortion; she might die; she’d get pregnant and be sent away to Aunt Betty’s house somewhere far away. There was no such thing to read where a young woman could enjoy her sexuality. Only boys were allowed to have sexual desires and needs.

So Deenie [6], for example, was right out of my own experience. I’d never heard the word masturbation. But I knew I had a special place where I could get that good feeling. And I was lucky, because I could talk to my girlfriends about it. I would have loved to have read a book about a young woman who touched her special place, because while my friends and I talked about it, we never talked about it with adults or had any information about it. I have a friend who, when she read the books, thought her special place was under her arm. She rubbed it and rubbed it and just waited and waited.

What inspired you to begin writing? Did you ever think your books would speak to so many girls?

I had a lot of creative energy locked up inside. When I was a kid at school, I had a lot of outlets for that. And then time passed and I was suddenly married with two babies, and all this creative energy was in there. And I was sick all the time, because I couldn’t let it out. Once I started writing, I could let it out, and I got well again.

If you start thinking about your legacy when you are writing, it’s not going to work. You can’t start thinking about lasting impact or what a critic would say. I write because I can’t not write. I can’t help it. It has to come out. I never dreamed it would turn out to be what it’s been. It’s something I never even fantasized about—and I fantasized about a lot of things!

Several of your books have been on the American Library Association's list of frequently challenged and banned books, right alongside Toni Morrison [7] and The Anarchist Cookbook [8]. How has being censored affected how you write?

When that first happened, I was not prepared at all. I felt alone, frightened, isolated. The publishers in those days, they were caught totally off-guard. Today, my publisher, Random House, does the most incredible work with books that are challenged, putting together materials on the First Amendment for librarians and students and writers. We’ve come a long, long way, but it’s taken us a long time to get organized and stand up. This [Sept. 26, when the interview took place] is actually the first day of Banned Books Week [9]. Read a banned book!

Do you feel that you wrote those early books in a different climate from the one that exists now?

The fear is just contagious. What started with the far right has spread to even the PC crowd. It’s this attitude of I will protect my child from anything I don’t like. You can’t protect your child from the world. The best thing you can do is talk with them about anything that they want to know about. And as they get older, it helps to be able to talk about those things in terms of characters in books.

Young Adult fiction has really crossed over recently, with the Twilight [10] and Harry Potter [11] books. Do you think there’s a difference between "YA" writing and writing featuring young characters?

YA is huge, but I don’t write for that group. We play a game sometimes: If Catcher in the Rye [12] was published today, would it be published YA or adult? There’s a fine line. A lot of YA now is being embraced by twentysomethings who like reading about younger characters. Anything that gets young people excited about reading is a good thing.

Are there youth writers that you admire now?

There are books with young characters published on the adult list that are wonderful for teenage readers. There was a novel out this summer called Swimming [13], Nicola Keegan’s first book. I thought it was the most original voice I’d heard in a long time. I like books that make me work, and this one really went all over the place.

Will we be seeing any of your books brought to the big screen? Is there any hope of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret [14] movie?

Oh, not Margaret; totally not. I’ve been approached, but I’m not interested. But my son and I are collaborating on a screenplay for Tiger Eyes [15]. He’s been approached to produce and direct, and it’s happening rather quickly. So we’re working on that, and I’m looking forward to it!