I used to hope I had an identical twin because I certainly was not like the others kids at Melrose grammar school. There I was with glasses, the first child to have braces on her teeth, and I loved to read instead of playing hop scotch.  I had no twin but loved meeting and knowing them.

In recent years I read about identical twins, separated at an early age yet remained exactly alike in many ways. They both married a girl named Carol, drove a Chevy, and had a dog named Buddy. It made me wonder if we are programmed, like the butterflies who emerge from a cocoon and, with a brain smaller than the head of a pin, know to fly to an exact small town in Mexico.

These two ideas—identical twins and whether we are programmed —floated around in my head, pushing me to write a story. One day I had an “A-HA” moment. What if one was raised white and the other was raised black? And if their father was a jazz artist? Jazz had to be in there, of course. Finally, about two years ago I began to write. Something like the butterfly who just knows; the story wrote itself.  I didn’t create Grandmère and Alice, Uncle Albert, Rodeen, and JJ. They just turned up, full blown and invaded the story.

Now “The Color of Music” has been published. I enjoyed writing it and am delighted that the few people who have seen advance copies have told me they couldn’t put the book down. I hope others will read and enjoy my book.

Interviews with author Claire P. Gordon

Listen to Claire Gordon being interviewed on September 27, 2010 by Dave Congalton of KVEC 920 in San Luis Obispo, California