Book Festival Surprises? Funny You Should Ask.

A bit later, we heard Brian Haig tell a somewhat different story about becoming a writer. We also wondered: Are we the last to learn that the son of Gen. Alexander "I'm in control here" Haig -- Richard Nixon's chief of staff during Watergate and, briefly, Ronald Reagan's secretary of state -- now makes his living writing thrillers?

"I was an Army officer, a career officer, for about 22 years and had absolutely no training as a writer," Haig said. Then "one night my beautiful wife, Lisa, turned to me and she said, 'Hey, stud, I'm pregnant with the fourth kid.' "

Haig promptly sat down to study a book by Tom Clancy.

"I read the book and then the next day I read that Tom Clancy was worth $500 million," he explained. "I said, 'Hey, honey, I'm going to become a writer. If I can be 10 percent as good as this schmuck, we're going to be in good shape.' "

Edward P. Jones -- who won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel "The Known World" in 2004 -- offered yet another take on writerly inspiration.

Jones started out reading comic books, he said, although "in Washington they don't call them comic books, at least when I was a kid, they called them 'funny books.' " At 13, he ran out of funny books at his aunt's house and happened upon "a real book, with no pictures." It was called "Who Killed Stella Pomeroy?" and what fascinated him about it "was the fact that I could read something and create my own pictures in my head."

He was raised by his mother, who washed dishes to support the family. "Of course her salary wasn't the best," he said, "and we ended up moving from place to place. We'd move into one rathole and in about a year or so, we would move to another." He'd make friends in each new place until at some point, in his early teens, "something took hold of me and I didn't go out and make friends anymore."

Books replaced them. "Had I been a kid of the streets," Jones said, "I'm not sure if I would be standing here talking to you today. I think the books sort of saved me."

At the Children's pavilion, Rosemary Wells got into some call and response.

"Where's our 'W' word?" Wells asked the audience packed in to hear her read "Max's ABC," starring her most beloved characters, the persistent toddler Max and his bossy older sister, Ruby.

"Woo woo!" came the reply.

Then Wells switched gears and read from her new young adult book, "Red Moon at Sharpsburg," about a girl's experience during the Civil War. "We live in a time of war," she said, "and it is often difficult to try and explain to young people what that exactly means."