It was making me feel so much better about myself. It was on its last legs when I submitted the piece-they never did pay me-but they published me and said, "Do you want to keep writing?" I said sure because I was enjoying it. The magazine no longer exists but it had a huge circulation when the sport was at its height, back in the thirties and forties. The theme that runs through this story is of extraordinary hardship and the will to overcome it. So I wrote an essay and mailed it to Turf & Sport Digest. I had an idea watching the Kentucky Derby in 1988, something I could write about that hadn't been discussed much. I spent the first year of my illness pretty much bed-bound and when I began to improve a little bit in 1988, I needed some way to justify my life. Getting sick derailed that plan completely. I was intent on getting a Ph.D., becoming a professor, and writing on history but I got sick 14 years ago when I was 19. In terms of writing about horses, I fell backwards into that. I didn't do my homework so I could write. All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers. How did you first come to write about horses and horse racing?įor me, being a writer was never a choice. "Seabiscuit" is currently the country's number-one bestselling paperback. Laura Hillenbrand, now 36, remains disabled by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. This interview first appeared on Beliefnet on May 21, 2001.
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