Corinne Demas has written many books in a variety of genres. A violinist herself, music has influenced her work. She is a Professor of English at Holyoke College and Fiction Editor of The Massachussets Review.  

Welcome to Blogcritics Magazine, Corinne. Let's start by talking a little about your violin-related children's book, Nina's Waltz. What is it about and what was your inspiration for this story?

School Library Journal — in a wonderfully insightful review, called Nina’s Waltz “A hymn to the transforming power of music,” and it’s a perfect description of what I hoped to do in the book.

Nina’s dad, Nick, writes her a fiddle tune as a birthday gift “a tune that would get inside you without you realizing it — the kind of tune you’d find yourself humming when you walked along a country road on a star-filled night.” They head off to a fiddle contest together, where Nick plans to play the waltz and win the prize money, which the family desperately needs. But he gets stung by wasps and can’t play. Nina is terrified of performing in front of an audience, but she gets up on stage to play the tune in his place.

I wanted to write about a father who couldn’t afford to buy his daughter an expensive present for her birthday, but gives her something of far greater value. What better gift that music? Nina’s gift to her father is that she overcomes stage fright so “Nina’s Waltz” can be heard.

When did you start playing the violin? Do you still play?

I started playing the violin when I was in elementary school, and have been playing — on and off — ever since. I started taking lessons again when I began teaching at Mount Holyoke College and heard Professor Linda Laderach play Bach in a recital. She kindly took me on as a pupil. (All my bad techniques had years to solidify.) When my daughter started Suzuki violin at age four I went through the course of music with her. She’s now a far better violinist than I could ever hope to be.

What is it about the violin that is so alluring and mysterious when you compare it to other instruments?

I had started taking piano lessons when I was child, and began the violin later. In my memoir, Eleven Stories High: Growing Up in Stuyvesant Town, 1948—1968, I describe the difference between the two: the violin was “an instrument,” the piano “seemed more like a piece of furniture.” With a violin “you had to create the notes. At the piano you simply pushed down the keys. I loved the violin, the way the wood curved and the grain rippled in the light, the S holes that let me peer into the secret depths.”

Have you written any other violin/music related books?

That’s an interesting question. As I look over the books I’ve written I see that music plays a part more often than I’d realized.

Two Christmas Mice is a picture book about two lonely mice who discover they are neighbors on Christmas Eve when Annamouse plays “Silent Night” on her violin, and Willamouse, hears her playing through the wall (“Only a mouse could play that well”). Both mice claim “Mouzart” as their favorite composer, and Santamouse brings Annamouse a silver violin charm. Stephanie Roth illustrated this story and her violin-playing mouse is adorable.