On winter evenings I shared an armchair with my father while he read
Hiawatha and
Evangeline to me. I read the stories of my mother's childhood and every book in our little library in St. Albans. I wanted to write. Always." Her favorite childhood books included
Little Women, The Secret Garden, and series novels such as the "Black Stallion," "Sue Barton," and "Nancy Drew" books. Giff has noted that she was such an avid reader as a child that her sister had to literally tug the book from her hands to get her attention.
From Teacher to Writer
After graduating from high school, Giff enrolled at Marymount College, where she studied the classic authors of English literature, such as Keats, Poe, Pope, and Dryden. Intimidated by such masterworks, she changed her major from English to business, "and then to history, where I listened to a marvelous man named Mullee spin tales about the past. I fell into teaching because my beloved dean, who had no idea I wanted to write, saw that it was a good place for me." Teaching would be her main focus for close to two decades, her time too full of work and family to grant a place to writing.
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