Maggie O’Farrell Reflects on Stammering in New Kids Book: ‘Don’t Think I Would Be a Writer Without It’ (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Maggie O' Farrell and the cover of ‘When the Stammer Came to Stay’.Photo:Murdo Macleod 2017; Walker Books US

Murdo Macleod 2017; Walker Books US

Walker Books US

O’Farrell originally set out to write a children’s book about two sisters who learn to accept their differences, but Min’s speech impediment soon took over the story.

“It’s very rare in fiction, any kind of fiction, to meet a character with a stammer who’s taken seriously,” says O’Farrell, who has a stammer herself. “Often, it’s played for laughs. We’re invited as audiences or readers to laugh at this person who has a kind of verbal disfluency, or we’re invited to think of them as weird or weak or nervous or anxious.”“But actually, stammerers necessarily aren’t those things,” she says. “I wanted to write something which takes a stammer seriously and talks about what exactly it’s like and the bad things about it, but also the things that it can possibly give you.”

Her own stammer, she says, was influential in becoming an author herself. For one, O’Farrell learned how to “rewrite” sentences in her head while speaking, in order to avoid letters or words that might be difficult for her to say.“I always have problems with M, which is difficult when your name is Maggie,” O’Farrell says. “You have to launch off a different sound. You are always thinking of about five or six different ways to say the same thing … I don’t think I would be a writer without it.” The act of writing itself, O’Farrell says, was also a liberating experience.

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!“I still remember, as a child, watching my pen moving in these sentences and words just coming out onto the page, and it’s such bliss,” she says. “I still find that amazing, the idea that there’s nothing stopping it. I can just say whatever I want, however I want to say it, and I’m not going to have any problems with it, and no one’s going to judge me or laugh at me.”

Maggie O' Farrell.Murdo Macleod 2017

Murdo Macleod 2017

“It’s a bit like looking at the sun,” O’Farrell says. “You don’t want to look at it too much because you think if you look at it or think about it or dwell on it too much, that it’s going to come back, it’s going to get worse. So in a way, I was nervous writing about it. But it was good to. It’s good to face up to these things.”O’Farrell also credits other writers with stammers, like David Mitchell, John Updike, Margaret Drabble and Colm Toibin, for portraying the speech condition in a positive light in their work. She has her own message to share with readers of her new book, too.

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.“We all have challenges in life, but some of our struggles or challenges are more visible than others,” she says. “And so, we have to treat each other with compassion and kindness because we have no idea what’s going on in other people’s lives.”When the Stammer Came to Stayis now available from Walker Books US.

source: people.com