"I wrote
Weetzie Bat as a sort of valentine to Los Angeles at time when I was in school in Berkeley and homesick for where I grew up," the author once stated in an interview. "It was a very personal story. A very personal love letter. I never expected people to respond to it the way they have. I never imagined I could reach other people from such a very personal place in me."
But reach people the stories have. Block's "technicolor lovesong to Los Angeles," as Publishers Weekly writer Diane Roback described Weetzie Bat, sold steadily through several printings. There have been three sequels to that original novel and a fourth is in the works, each one focusing on a different character and exploring new variations on the theme of the curative power of love and art. "The whole experience is magical," Block said of the success of her series. And there is something a little magical about Block's life as well. Born in Hollywood, the center of the modern fairy tale industry, she was exposed to the power of art and creativity from an early age. Her parents were both artists: her father, who died in 1986, was a well-known painter and teacher and one-time special effects technician and writer for Hollywood studios; her mother is a poet who once wrote a children's poetry book.
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