'Right now, if I never get another idea, I have more story lines to work on than my lifetime probably permits.'īoth Edgar Allan and Lisa, Bright And Dark, were selected as among the Best Books of the Year by the New York Times. I get ideas from everywhere: from the newspapers, from radio, from lunches and talks I have with friends.

It, too, was a success so there was no turning back.Although I do write books for adults, the ideas that stimulate me always seem to come to me in the form of a story for young readers. The minute Edgar Allan was launched successfully, I sat down to write Lisa, Bright And Dark. 'And when it was, everything fell into place. I didn't know that Edgar Allan would be regarded as a children's book.'It was.

'But what I wanted to do was write a short book, full of emotion and detail and excitement, for readers of all ages. She gave me an outline for a story she thought I could write well. 'In 1968, an editor from a small California publishing house and I hadlunch. In fact, I was fired from my first job for spending more time on my own projects than on the publishing house's. 'I moved to New York and worked in a publishing house. I started writing early, and badly, sending off short stories to national magazines when I was ten or eleven. Watch if you must and if you do at least you can seen Anson Williams and Erin Moran before they went to work on 'Happy Days'.'I always wanted to be a writer. But the ending and the intervention just seemed slapdash. With a small re-write, this would have been an excellent film and alerted folks to teen mental illness and parental neglect. What's also confusing is the end.which just seems abrupt. Her friends care and try a wacky intervention that left me confused.and it will really confuse you as well. The layman would say she's having a nervous breakdown and she keeps upping the ante in a desperate attempt to get her parents' attention.with little success. After all, she's been lighting things on fire, slashing her wrists and has been in a stupor. While the stupid and self-absorbed parents (Anne Baxter and John Forsythe) deny that she's having serious difficulties, it's obvious to anyone who cares that Lisa is a mess. Through the course of this film, Lisa (Kay Lenz) is unraveling mentally. In some ways, it's really well made.but in other ways the movie really drops the ball. 'Lisa, Bright and Dark' is a frustrating made for TV movie to watch.

Lisa, Bright and Dark by John Neufeld