What is your definition of magic? What has happened in your life that is magical or unexpected?
I guess my definition of magic is something very close to the definition the magician gives toward the end of the story: “Magic is always impossible. It begins with the impossible and ends with the impossible and is impossible in between. That is why it is magic.” I would add, though, that while magic is impossible from beginning to end, it is also possible. Somehow (who knows how?) the impossible gets turned into the possible. That’s magic.

Which leads very nicely into the next part of this question: What has happened in my life that is magical or unexpected? Telling stories seems like magic to me; it seems both impossible and possible in that same way. And what has happened to me and my stories--people reading them, liking them, and me getting to make my living telling them--well, talk about unexpected. Talk about magical.

The Magician’s Elephant features an animal character. This is a common theme in your novels. Why an elephant this time?
I didn’t think, Oh boy, I’m going to put an elephant in a story. I guess it happened this way: The story began forme with the magician and the fact that he wanted toperform real magic, true magic. That magician appearedbefore me in the lobby of a hotel in New York City. Ihad, in my satchel, a notebook that I was going to give asa gift to someone. The notebook had an elephant on thecover. And when I went into my bag to get mynotebookto write a description of the magician I had just caughtsight of, I happened to see that other notebook, the onewith a picture of an elephant on the front of it.

Was there a specific place that inspired the setting for the city of Baltese?
No, but after I finished writing The Magician’s Elephant, I saw a movie that took place in Bruges, and I couldn’tconcentrate at all on what was happening in the moviebecause I was so struck by how much Bruges looked likethe city of Baltese, the city I had imagined.

The fortuneteller tells Peter that “truth is forever changing.” Why is this an important line in the story, and why did you want to share it with children in general?
I think this comes back to the whole idea of the impossible suddenly becoming the possible. We have to remain open to those moments when everything can change. I actually think that children are much better at doing this than adults are because they are much less likely to see things in a black-and-white way. All of us, children and adults, need to remind ourselves that the impossible can become possible. That’s one of the great gifts of stories.

What was your predominant feeling while writing this book? Was it faith, or fear? Do you know how your endings will turn out when you start?
Oh, I’m always afraid when I’m writing. And I never know how things will turn out. This time around it was particularly terrifying because there were so many different balls up in the air, and I had no idea how I would catch them all. But even though I was terrified, I was also, in a strange and wonderful way, healed by the telling of this story. I got out of my own way and let the story tell me how it would all come together. At the same time, I felt something come together, kind of knit itself, inside of me.

How do you feel about the illustrations? Have you ever met Yoko Tanaka?
I think the illustrations are an astonishment, a wonder, a marvel. They literally take my breath away. They are haunting and otherworldly and just exactly right. I have never met Yoko, no. And yet she painted the world I imagined.

Isn’t that strange and wonderful?
Impossible, but true.

Interview by Candlewick Press.