Category: Author Interviews

Author Interview: Mifflin Lowe

On By Only Picture BooksIn Author Interviews

This month’s author interview is with local (to me, at least!) writer Mifflin Lowe who’s an author, singer, songwriter, and musician.

Without rambling on about all that, I’ll just offer this–since a picture’s worth a thousand words, here are three pictures (ergo 3,000 words) that are positively Mifflin-esque.

Okay, let’s zip ahead to the interview to discover a bit more about this imaginative picture book maker!

Mifflin’s website

Mifflin’s Facebook

RVC: When did you first consider yourself to be a writer?

ML: I had to write a paper in seventh grade. I did it late Sunday night, and when I finally finished, I was so tired I fell into bed. My mother saw my bad handwriting so she copied it to make it legible. The teacher called us both in and accused my mother and me of cheating. My mother had not, in fact, changed a single word but he didn’t want to believe that. Since my mom had been an English major in college—and he thought she’d written it–that’s when I knew I was a writer.

RVC: Wow.

ML:  I couldn’t wrestle. I couldn’t climb the rope in gym class. But from a young age, I knew I could write.

RVC: If it makes you feel any better, I couldn’t climb that darn rope either.

ML: And let’s not even talk about rope burns!

RVC: Rumor has it that you went to college for something other than writing.

ML: When I was a freshman at Princeton, I took Modern European Literature in this huge class, about 200 students. At the end of the semester, the professor held up two papers and said, “These are excellent.” I’d written one of them–on Kafka etc.. My roommate, who’d just assumed I was a nincompoop, was blown away. Knowing what I know now, I should’ve majored in English, but the emphasis at Princeton at that time was on 18th-​century English literature, and I didn’t feel like spending four years reading or thinking about that.

At any rate, I took an art history course and loved it, so I chose art history as my major. My father was, naturally, horrified that he was spending a reasonably large amount of money to train me in something essentially useless.

RVC: I assume he recovered when you got a “real” job after college. What did you end up doing?

ML: I got a job as a copywriter and later a creative director for advertising agencies.

RVC: What did you learn there that would prove helpful in your later work as a kidlit author?

ML: Working in advertising taught me a lot about writing. It told me that you had to have a concept. Without a fundamental idea, it’s just a heap of words.

RVC: How did you go from that to writing books?

ML: Very few people actually want to be advertising writers. That included me. I was always thinking about other projects.

I remember driving across Newport Bridge, and I had an idea–The Cheapskate’s Handbook. I realized this could be a book. This could sell. I wrote it and sold it to Price Stern Sloan, which was known for humor and novelty titles like How to Be a Jewish Mother. They got me immense amounts of publicity. I was on a couple of national TV shows and got interviewed for magazines. Along the way, I met Dudley Moore, Erma Bombeck (a wonderful person), and Tom Clancy. It was all great. Price Stern Sloan was definitely the right publisher. We sold 220,000 copies in English, and the book was published in three other languages–Swedish, Danish, and Italian.

RVC: What a fantastic start to a book-​writing career!

ML: I started to think I wanted to write children’s books and create music to go with it, kind of like “The Point” by Harry Nilsson.

By the way, someone once asked me how I could write for children since my wife and I didn’t have kids at the time. I said, “Well, I was one.” With any luck, you don’t forget what it was like to be a kid.

RVC: Music seems to be a big theme throughout your life. When did you first get the music bug?

ML: My love for writing and music happened more or less at the same time. I mean, when you’re a young guy, who doesn’t want to be in a rock band, right? I was in some really good rock and roll bands in New Brunswick and New Jersey. Do you know the song “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”?

RVC: I do indeed.

ML: When they were putting the group together, I was invited to be the singer. But I was going to school in Princeton and commuting to New Brunswick all the time. It had gotten to the point where I didn’t want to travel so I said no. I kind of regret that, a little bit. It could’ve been fun.

RVC: Speaking of regrets, what’s your biggest regret as a writer?

ML: I was invited to be on Oprah Winfrey’s show. This was well before she launched her book club, though. Her producers called me on a Monday and said, “Can you fly out here to Chicago for a show we’re shooting on Tuesday?”

I’d have to scramble to make all my own arrangements to get from Rhode Island to Chicago. I thought about doing a layover in LaGuardia Airport and all the hassle, and I just said, “Nope, I can’t do it.”

Everybody has at least one egregiously stupid thing that they do in their lives. That was one of mine, for sure.

RVC: In retrospect, that had to hurt.

ML: You’re telling me! I might have sold books in a few more languages.

RVC: Tell me more about how you made the move out of advertising and into the world of writing books?

ML: I started a music company that made jingles for TJ Maxx and other companies. That was fun. But I had two types of writing going–I was doing the children’s books, and I freelanced three days a week on advertising just to make money. One of my children’s book projects was a “ ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” kind of story, twenty-​four pages of rhyming couplets. I sent it around, and it actually got a good response from Maurice Sendak. He was so encouraging and nice.

Around that time, I talked to a publisher and they said, “Well, we already have a story like yours in the backlog from established writers, and, honestly, the chances of breaking into this area aren’t good.” I didn’t quit. I just kept pursuing it. Perseverance is the most important thing in writing, other than some degree of talent. And that was when I came up with the idea for Beasts By the Bunches. It was poems and songs about the names for groups of animals, like a smack of jellyfish, a knot of toads, a watch of nightingales, and so forth. Doubleday bought it.

As someone who was in advertising, I used to work with art directors every day. So when the editor showed me the artist they wanted for the book,  I told them I wanted someone else–somebody with a real cool, distinctive style like Chris Van Allsburg. They got very huffy and made it instantly clear that they didn’t care what I thought about the artwork or the artist. I was astonished. I came to realize that this was how it worked. You send the words, they buy the words, and then it’s “See you later!” while they put the book together on their own with whatever artist they pick.

RVC: What happened next?

ML: I wrote I Hate Fun. It was a humor book, not  a picture book, but ironically, I had a great deal of fun writing it. I loved it. (Still do.) I spent nine months polishing it and getting it just perfect. A big-​time agent got me a deal with a New York publisher. The publishing people said, “We like it. But can you change this, that, and a few hundred other things?” I was used to getting requests for changes in the advertising world, so I tried to do that.

With a humor book, if you take one sentence out of a paragraph, all of a sudden, it’s not funny anymore. You take one word out of a sentence, poof…the magic disappears. I tried and tried to rewrite it, but finally told them that I couldn’t do it. They passed on the project, but I got to keep the advance. Since they’d given me back the rights, I sold it to another publisher myself. Hah hah. I won…but the agent was not happy at all. I guess I’d made him look bad to the publisher.

RVC: It sounds like you’ve had mixed experiences with publishers.

ML: That’s right. For my next few picture books, I decided I was just going to self publish them. I have this one called Cowboy Howie: The Adventure of the Central Park Coyote and Thanksgiving Day Parade. It’s the amazing adventures of a Black kid in New York City who wants to be a cowboy. I thought that was a great concept. I actually wrote it as a movie which won an award down here in Sarasota.

RVC: For those who want to hear the songs he wrote to go with it, here they are!

ML: I really wanted Cowboy Howie to be an animated film. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I moved to Sarasota–I wanted to be near Ringling College of Art and Design. The illustrator I found for the book version was a graduate from there, Martina Crepulja. She’s terrific.

RVC: A picture books of yours that I find charming is also self published and has art by Martina. Little Dog, Big Bark. Could you talk about that one?

ML: The title, Little Dog, Big Bark is a concept, right? As I said, I always have to have a clear concept before I start writing. In terms of how I write, I get up in the morning, walk the dog, have breakfast, and then write for four or five hours. But it always starts with a concept. I’m sure you emphasize this in your classes–you don’t just sit down and start spewing out words. You have to have an idea, a concept behind it so that it that goes somewhere. The idea was generated by our dog, Phoebe, a Bichon Frisee who thought she was the biggest, toughest critter in the world, while my mom had a HUGE Great Dane that was sweet and gentle. I found the concept of two dogs being the opposite of what people presumed was funny and touching. In the end, the two dogs in the story realize they each “complete” each other and they become friends.

RVC: You’ve moved back to working with publishers with picture books like True West: Real Stories About Black Cowboys, Women Sharpshooters, Native American Rodeo Stars, Pioneering Vaqueros, and the Unsung Explorers, Builders, and Heroes Who Shaped the American West.

ML: The art director I had for The Cuddle Book was just great–David Miles. He left that publishing company and he went off to start Bushel & Peck Books on his own, and this new company has a great social impact–for every book they sell, they give one away to an underserved school, library, or neighborhood. And David’s art direction is just terrific. He and I really hit it off.

I sent him Cowboy Howie to see if he’d pick it up and redo it. We decided that I should do a similarly themed nonfiction book because people were really interested in the subject of Black cowboys. And so we did True West, which has brief biographies and photos and information.

The book is doing so well that David has ordered two more books from me. One is about the forgotten founding fathers–all the women and people of color involved in the Revolutionary War, of which there were quite a few, you know. The other is a kid’s encyclopedia of art, which connects back to my degree in art history. So, if my dad was still around, I could say “See? Art History isn’t completely useless!”

RVC: How do you measure success as a kidlit author?

ML: As a musician, I used to do 200+ school and library visits a year. I’d play, sing, and tell stories. I always measured my success by the looks on the kids’ faces. I remember going to one library, for instance, and the librarian said, “Oh, God, please just keep them happy.” Apparently, an author had come in the week before and just read a book to them. Do that, and you lose kids in two or three minutes. They’re bouncing off the walls, they’re not paying attention to you, they’re running all over the place.

My mantra was always this: you don’t perform at kids, you perform WITH kids.

You can always tell if it’s going well because kids will respond if they’re treated like human beings. So, I worked hard to make them part of my show. If they sing along, dance, laugh, or smile back at me, I’m doing fine.

RVC: Kids are the best audience.

ML: Kids are also the toughest audience. If they don’t like what you’re doing, they don’t hide it. On the other hand, if they’re into it, you can see it in their faces.  People send me pictures of kids reading my books. For example, a local tennis teacher’s son LOVES The Cuddle Book. He insists that it be read to him every night. He even told his mom he wanted to take it into the bathtub with him.

RVC: Clearly, The Cuddle Book is that kid’s favorite. When people ask YOU which of your own books is YOUR favorite, what do you say?

ML: The humor book, I Hate Fun. It just amuses me.

RVC: Okay, it’s time for the speed round. Fast questions and even faster answers. Mifflin Lowe, are you ready?

ML: Oh jeez. Let’s do it.

RVC: If we overheard you singing in the shower, we’d hear…

ML: The Donovan song, “Under the Greenwood Tree” (lyrics by William Shakespeare!). Or maybe The Beatles’ “Hello, Goodbye.” Lately it’s been “Amanda Jones” by The Rolling Stones from Between the Buttons–an underappreciated album.

RVC: Your favorite local place for oysters?

ML: Crab & Fin in St. Armand’s Circle.

RVC: If Netflix made your life story into a movie, who’d play the role of you?

ML: Ben Stiller. Or maybe Steve Martin.

RVC: Your picture book philosophy?

ML: To make kids smile.

RVC: Who’s your picture book hero?

ML: Maurice Sendak. And Chris Van Allsburg, too. He gave one of my books a real good blurb, and his art is just great. Amazing.

RVC: What’s the best thing a kid ever said about your writing?

ML: The kid who wanted to take a bath with The Cuddle Book is at the top of the list. I mean, he insisted on having it read to him every night. That’s what an author wants to hear. It doesn’t get any better than that.

RVC: Thanks so much. This was a real treat!

Author/​Illustrator Interview: Todd Sturgell

On By Only Picture BooksIn Author Interviews, Illustrator Interviews, Picture Book Debuts

This month’s interview is with Todd Sturgell, an author/​illustrator whose first book, Except Antarctica, hits bookshelves this month. While he’s originally from Ohio and then spent some time in Texas, Todd now lives in the North Carolina mountains with his “wife, kids, and an overactive rescue dog named Max.” Yes, the dog’s name comes straight out of Where the Wild Things Are.

Let’s be honest–anytime you start naming your pets (or children!) after famous picture book characters, you’re committing to a certain path in life. And we’re glad Todd did because his debut book looks terrific. Let’s find out more about it right now!

RVC: When did you realize you were going to do art for a living?

TS: I was either going to be an artist or a paleontologist. Around 10 years old, I settled on art. Up until then, it could’ve gone either way.

RVC: Did you go to school for art or are you self-taught?

TS: I went to East Texas State (now Texas A&M University-​Commerce) for art direction, specifically advertising and design. I’ve really enjoyed all the opportunities I’ve had to illustrate within the advertising and design world. Eventually, I admitted that I’ve got a calling to make picture books, and I needed to get after it.

RVC: How’d you end up in North Carolina?

TD: I worked at a very large advertising agency in Dallas and wanted a change. Since we always loved visiting the North Carolina coast, I started looking for smaller design firms there. I found one, so we moved out. And then the economy tanked, so it didn’t last.

I wasn’t going to go back to a big agency again. I’ve been freelancing since.

RVC: Let’s get to the book, which is called Except Antarctica (Sourcebooks eXplore). What’s it like being a debut author/​illustrator whose book isn’t yet out?

TS: I vary between panic and joy. I’m like, “Am I doing enough? Do I need to reach out to more people? Am I posting enough on social media?”

If I let myself sit back, take a deep breath, and hold my advance reader copy? Then I’m delighted. I’m so happy to be a part of the picture book world.

RVC: The “Am I doing enough?” question is one many writers face. What ARE you doing to help get the good word out about your book?

TS: I have a great marketing team with Sourcebooks–they’ve really reached out to a lot of people and made a lot of connections.

RVC: To people like me. That’s how I learned about you.

TS: That’s good to know! You can see why I’m kind of just following their lead. They find opportunities and ask if I’m interested. And I’m almost always interested.

I’m also part of STEAMTeam Books–it’s a group that supports each other with STEAM-​related book launches. And they’ve been doing this for a couple of years now. We lift each other up and share each other’s social media posts, that kind of thing.

RVC: That’s a terrific idea. But let’s talk about the post-​contract reality a debut author faces. What has surprised you the most about the whole process AFTER signing on the dotted line?

TS: How slow everything moves at the start. And then, when it all comes together, how fast it speeds up. You feel like you’re waiting and waiting and waiting, and then suddenly, okay, it’s almost here, and now you have a million things to do.

I would also say that debuting here on the back end of the pandemic has been something. I don’t know how typical my experience has been in 2021. Is it always this crazy?

I think my next book will feel as much like a debut as this one because the whole process could be so different.

RVC: That’s a good point. Plus, who doesn’t want to have two debuts, right? Back to your book. What’s the elevator pitch?

TS: What if you were watching a nature documentary, and the animals suddenly started doing the opposite of what the narrator says they’d do?

RVC: You’ve got a fun book trailer for Except Antarctica that explains a bit of this, but let me ask it outright–how did the idea for this book come about?

TS: I love nature documentaries, so I tried to expose my kids to as much of that as I could. And the phrase “except Antarctica” crops up over and over. There are so many species found all over the world, and you’ll hear the narrator say, “they’re found on every continent except Antarctica.”

One day, I was watching a show about owls. The narrator said that phrase, and I’m like, just yesterday, I heard that about turtles! Once I connected the concept of habitats to the idea of animals going off script, Except Antarctica was born.

RVC: What’s your favorite thing about the book?

TS: Even though the animals realize maybe they’ve made a mistake, I’m rooting for them the whole way. I especially love how they get to the ocean and the narrator’s like “Yeah, you’re done!” but on the very next page, they’re crossing the ocean! I loved putting that illustration together.

RVC: In terms of Except Antarctica, how will you measure success?

TS: Gosh, I already feel like a success just getting this far!

I hope that it’s successful enough to let me keep making more picture books. But I think the most important measure of success will be if kids–either having this book read to them or reading it themselves–laugh out loud. That’s the win right there. That’s the best type of success for me.

RVC: What was your pre-​contract experience with this book? How did the drafting process go?

TS: I have three other authors in my critique group who really helped the manuscript along. When I first started out, I knew the animals were going to break the mold. Still, it took a couple of versions until I got to the point where they were defying the narrator directly. Once I came up with that, the manuscript in its current form almost wrote itself. I’ve actually been shocked at how few changes I’ve had to make in the text since that point. There was a lot more emphasis on helping me develop the illustrations for these characters.

RVC: So, having a critique group made a real difference.

TS: Absolutely. I had a real sense of the stumbling blocks within the book thanks to valuable input from a lot of helpful people. The interaction with the narrator solved almost all of them! Utilizing a “meta” concept isn’t new or unique, but it was absolutely the right decision for Except Antarctica.

RVC: How many drafts did it take to get to the point where the book wrote itself?

TS: A lot. You’ve got to try different things. There was a point where I had a character who could be found on any continent except Antarctica AND Australia, but he wanted to come along. The others said, “Hey, maybe you should go to Australia first!” because they were afraid of him. That was an interesting little thing, but it really bogged down the book. I had to work that out and get through it before finally dropping it. I go through a lot of these moments where I try different things, and I pull back to see if it works or not. It’s a process.

RVC: Speaking of a process, care to reveal a bit about the actual process you use to produce a picture-​book manuscript?

TS: I’m drawing and writing at the same time. I don’t do one and then the other. It’s not like I develop characters and write or develop the manuscript, and then draw the characters. It all comes together in a storyboard format, rather than a Word document. For me, the art and the writing move forward together.

RVC: Any advice for young writers or illustrators?

TS: When they get started, a lot of people feel very competitive, very protective of their own ideas. The quicker you figure out that most of the people in the kidlit world want to lift each other up and make everybody better, the sooner you start to feel comfortable here. This is a great community. I love almost everyone I’ve met since starting this journey.

RVC: What’s something you know now that you wish you knew back when you first started out?

TS: Worry a lot less about agents and the business, and spend more time focused on craft. Thinking about submissions and gatekeepers felt overwhelming–it probably slowed me down quite a bit in trying to figure it all out. If I had just let some of that fall off, I think I would have enjoyed the process more.

RVC: Last question for this part of the interview. What are you working on now?

TS: My contract with Sourcebooks is for two books. They’d really like to see some of the elements from this book in the next one, so that’s what we’re looking at right now.

RVC: Alrighty. It’s time for the Speed Round. Are you ready, Todd? We’re looking for the opposite of turtle-​slow Q&A here!

TS: Ready!

RVC: Favorite place to go hiking in North Carolina?

TS: Graveyard Fields.

RVC: Best place to get North Carolina BBQ?

TS: North Carolina BBQ has too much vinegar in it for me. There’s a place around here called Haywood Smokehouse that has good Texas BBQ. I love that.

RVC: What secret talent do you have?

TS: I play a pretty mean pirate. I was a pirate guide for a ghost tour one summer!

RVC: Five things we’d see if we sneaked a peek at your writing and drawing studio?

TS:

  1. A mess (incredibly annoying!).
  2. Koh-​I-​Noor drawing pens that I have to clean incessantly, but they’re so great I can’t let them go.
  3. Lots and lots of books.
  4. Club soda. All the time.
  5. My dog, waiting impatiently for me to take him out on a trail.

RVC: What’s a recent picture book that really got your attention?

TS: The Wanderer by Peter Van den Ende is stunningly beautiful.

RVC: Your mission as a picture book creator?

TS: I want to connect with readers the same way that my favorite picture books connected with me when I was a kid.

RVC: This was terrific, Todd. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your story with OPB. Best of luck with Except Antarctica!

Author Interview: Nicola Davies

On By Only Picture BooksIn Author Interviews

June’s Author Interview is with English zoologist and writer Nicola Davies, who was one of the original presenters for the terrific BBC children’s show “The Really Wild Show.” Nicola got her first pair of binoculars at age eight, and she’s been gazing out at the world of animals ever since, from geese in Scotland to humpbacked whales in NewFoundland to chameleons in Madagascar to bat-​eared foxes in Kenya to saltwater crocodiles in Australia.

Oh, and she’s written a good number of things along the way, including novels, poetry, and picture books. A few OPB favorites include:

That’s it–thinking about those books again has me excited to hear from Nicola. Let’s get right to the interview!

RVC: Which came first—the love for animals or the love for stories?

ND: I don’t think I could separate them. I came from a family which loved both. My father trained as a biologist and was a keen naturalist but he loved poems and stories too, so information was always imparted in some kind of narrative. My mother was a natural storyteller and instinctively packaged information in narrative. So I grew up with nature poetry and story twined together.

RVC: What inspired you to combine your love of stories with the love of animals?

ND: Entirely intuitively. The natural world is full of ready-​made stories…seasonal cycles, life cycles, nutrient cycles, food chains–all of these are narratives ready and waiting to be retold.

RVC: On a scale of 1 to 10, how interested are kids in animals?

ND: Oh, about 12! I’ve never met a child who wasn’t instinctively connected with and interested in nature. That is the connection that I seek to deepen and strengthen into a lifetime bond.

RVC: Most of your kidlit seems to blend nonfiction and fiction. How do you find the balance?

ND: Narrative is a psychological carrier bag–it can carry real facts and invented ones. But with an invented narrative structure that carries real facts, the narrative itself also has to reflect reality and the factual content you want to deliver. With my hero of the wild series, real conservation stories are told through the medium of invented characters and storylines, but both character and plot are very closely based on real people and events.

The Lion Who Stole My Arm is based on a real conservation project in Mozambique, in the Niassa reserve, and the child at the centre of the story on a real child who was attacked by a lion. The only things I changed were the location of the child to just over the border in Tanzania; the age of my character is 10, the real one 5; and which arm he lost, with the real child losing the left and my character the right. Then I engineered the plot to reveal other background aspects of the real situation. It’s like patchwork!

I did the same with Ride the Wind–a story about a Chilean fisher family who catch an albatross on their long line. It conveys information about the catching of endangered sea birds but also about how some S and C American families are affected by migration to the US. Ditto my book about Hummingbirds.

RVC: Ideally, where do you want those books shelved in the library or at a bookstore?

ND: Anywhere where kids will find them! Ideally two copies–one in fiction and one in nonfiction.

RVC: You’re the first person I’ve interviewed here who worked with/​for the BBC. How did you get that gig, and what was it like?

ND: I was working on a PhD on bat feeding ecology at Bristol University, just a five-​minute walk from the NHU’s home at the BBC in Bristol. When it became obvious that the Tory government were cutting grants for primary research and that, in any case, research would be “preaching to the choir,” I jumped ship and knocked on their door until they let me in. But I wasn’t really cut out for TV–it was very competitive and I’m not good at competing.

I did discover that I could write, so I started writing scripts for the programmes I presented.

RVC: You’ve said before that “while every book is a story, every book also has its own story of how it came to be.” What’s the story behind Gaia Warriors, which is a book about climate change?

ND: My publisher was approached by James Lovelock who wanted to collaborate with a children’s writer to do a book about climate change. I was reluctant to work with him but I was persuaded, and in the end he just left me to it and we got on fine.

I wanted to do a book that gave children:

  1. the arguments to use to put forward the case to climate change deniers,
  2. hope that action is possible,
  3. examples of interesting ways to live their lives that would be stimulating, satisfying, AND fight CC.

RVC: What’s the most important thing writers should know or understand about creating a picture book that deals with a tough topic?

ND: Do your research. Talk to people who have experienced what you write about even if you also have your own experiences to draw on. Be sensitive, be brave, and remember there are as many ways to tell the same story as there are threads in a spider’s web. Find your way.

RVC: Your book Just Ducks! came out just a few months back. How do you go about writing a book like that so it’s more than just a pile of duck facts? 

ND: Find the true narrative that carries the facts. In this case it was easy…I really did live in a house by the river (the river Exe in Devon ) and I heard ducks every morning. So everything in that book happened to me multiple times. All I had to do was imagine it happening to a young child.

RVC: You’ve got a very strong view on what narrative is. Care to share it once again?

ND: It’s a piece of writing with a shape. A beginning, a middle, and an end. It should be memorable–i.e. psychologically portable. It should have a clear voice that speaks to the reader. And I like narratives with answered questions and open ends that the reader can think about and engage with.

RVC: I’m guessing that the reason you sometimes rhyme—as you do in The Secret of the Egg and other books—stems from your love of poetry. What are some strategies for getting rhyme to really work in a picture book?

ND: Well, the first is to have an editor who lets you do it. Not all allow it.

The second is don’t let the rhyme dictate the thought. Don’t use words you’d never otherwise use just to rhyme (unless you can make a really good aural joke with it). Be super careful with meter…don’t cheat!

RVC: One last question for this part of the interview. In all your experience in writing children’s literature, what has surprised you the most?

ND: I’ve had many lovely surprises from children who respond to and remember bits of my books, identify with characters, and point out things I’ve never thought of. It’s the BEST part of writing for kids.

RVC: Alright. Here we go with the Speed Round! Six fast questions coming at you, starting with…most underappreciated animal?

ND: All the ones that we allow to go extinct before we even named them. All the unseen insects and soil invertebrates that hold ecosystems together, on whom our very lives depend and which we totally ignore. Darwin understood this. That’s why he spent so much time studying earthworms.

RVC: Most underappreciated Welsh food?

ND: Lava bread. It looks a bit like fresh cow poo but is wonderful and very good for you. (It’s seaweed!)

RVC: Which animal would you most want to write a picture book biography about you?

ND:The tiger in my new novel The Song That Sings Us. He’s called Skrimsli.

RVC: Your favorite animal picture book of 2020?

ND: The Lost Spells by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris.

RVC: Your one-​sentence mission as a picture book author?

ND: To fan the spark of childhood curiosity into a lifelong bonfire.

RVC: Best compliment a child reader ever gave you?

ND: About my book The Promise, a very disadvantaged child from a school in Boston said, “THAT BOOK WAS ABOUT ME!” 

RVC: Thanks so much, Nicola! This was terrific.

Author Interview: Bridget Heos

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This month’s Author Interview is with Kansas City-​based writer Bridget Heos—pronounced HEE ose—who’s written more than 120 children’s books (with most of them being nonfiction). She got her start in writing kidlit because one of her four children wanted to read more books about turtles, so Bridget wrote one.

She never thought she would write picture book fiction, but then Bridget read every book on a “Top 100 Picture Books” list and got inspired. Soon after, she got the idea for Mustache Baby.

OPB LOVES the Mustache Baby series. But we’re also fans of these books, too (among many others of Bridget’s).

Clearly Bridget figured out how to write picture book fiction at the same level as her terrific nonfiction writing!

So, without further ado, here’s the April 2021 Author Interview with Bridget Heos!

(If you want to check her out on social media before diving into the interview, here’s what you need–enjoy!)

Author website

Twitter

Facebook

 

RVC: You’re said that you grew up in a family that told lots of stories. What was that like and what type of stories were YOU telling?

BH: I loved listening to their stories. My mom told scary stories that were meant to teach a lesson, like the time her cousin sunbathed for too long. She fell asleep and ants crawled in through her ears and started eating her brain. She was scratching so bad she needed a straightjacket! I can’t tell you how many times I repeated that story as the God’s honest truth I THOUGHT it to be.

My dad told quieter stories of growing up. But I’m not sure what stories I told. I was kind of shy growing up. I think that’s why I wanted to write my own stories down.

RVC: That ant story gives me the willies. Wow!

So, what was your writer’s journey when you first started writing those stories down? And how has it changed since then?

BH: In the beginning, I was writing like crazy. I was doing mostly work-​for-​hire books and had to write a certain amount each year because writing was my full-​time job. By the time I looked up, I had written more than 100 books! I was also woefully behind in all the non-​writing stuff you’re supposed to do as a writer. Now I write fewer books each year but pay more attention to connecting with readers and other children’s book people. I’ve especially loved doing school visits—before the pandemic, I got to travel all over the country!

RVC: What are a few school visit highlights?

BH: I love when I get there and everybody is wearing a mustache for Mustache Baby! A lot of times they’ll have done art or made a welcome sign related to one of my books. It’s all very touching. My favorite part is getting to connect with people after the talk, whether it’s me signing their books or them coming up to ask a question afterwards.

I thought the virtual visits would be different. Honestly, I worried that the kids would be bored. But they have been so much fun. At the end of one, a student unmuted and said, “I’ll miss you.” Then another student unmuted and said, “We’ll all miss you.”

I think that, when they’ve read your books, they feel like they know you a little bit, and I would agree. Most of what happens in my fiction stories happened in my real life and most of what I write about in nonfiction is stuff I think is interesting. During the visits, I encourage them to think about that in terms of themselves:

What in my life could I put in a story?

What topics do I want to learn more about?

RVC: Let’s talk about critics—both internal and external. How do you deal with them?

BH: In terms of inner critic, mine is not too bad. I know that I put my heart into every book. Step by step, I do the work that needs to be done and make the decisions that make the most sense at the time. Criticizing myself because of how someone interprets that seems unfair. I’m not a fortuneteller!

As for outer critics, a bad review hurts but doesn’t surprise me. I’m more surprised when I get a good review, like, “Oh, wow. I finally did something right.” If it’s really scathing, I’ll complain to my husband and then he’ll read it aloud in this pained voice, as though I have hurt him personally by writing such a poor book. It makes me laugh.

RVC: It sounds like he’s a great writing partner.

BH: Yes, he is very supportive. It takes a long time to build a writing career, and he saw me through all that! Although, it’s funny talking about writing to someone who is in a different business. He’s in construction. Once I was talking about all the revisions I had to do and he said, “Well, that’s a change order. They need to pay for their change orders!”

RVC: At one point, you taught writing in junior high. How did that happen, and how did it help your own writing?

BH: An editor friend was teaching there, and he reached out to me because they had another opening. I think it got me thinking about how picture books are really for all ages. We did a unit where the students wrote their own picture books. As research, they read picture books. I read some aloud to them, too, and you could have heard a pin drop.

RVC: So, you’re offering free virtual class visits Sept-​Dec in 2021 to celebrate/​promote four new books—Treemendous, Triceratopposite, Santa Jaws, and Good Knight, Mustache Baby, the latest installment in the Mustache Baby series. What are some other things you’ve done PR-​wise to help get the word out about your many new books?

BH: In the fall, I’m going on a seven city virtual book tour! It will be much like a traditional children’s book tour. I’ll do virtual school visits for free and the schools will sell books through their local bookstore. I’m also trying to share more on social media.

The first book to come out this year was Treemendous, and the illustrator, Mike Ciccotello, has a great mind for promotion. We made a trailer and activity pack and all these downloadable inspirational posters. Then we shared them on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I hope to keep this up for the other new releases, too!

RVC: It seems like you’re a fan of punny things, or at least clever wordplay. At what point in the writing process does that come into play? Do you start with that, or are those more often revision-​level additions?

BH: I usually start with the puns. For Stegothesaurus, Triceratopposite, and Treemendous, the wordplay titles were the ideas for the story. And then within the story, it’s just how I write. It’s my writing voice.

RVC: At what point did you realize you had your own writing voice?

BH: I think you’re right that it’s something you realize vs something you create. It’s like what Dorothy learns in the Wizard of Oz.

I realized at some point that my writing voice was not as serious as I thought it was. I’ve always been pretty serious about writing so I’d take these writing workshops and read my very serious essays out loud, and people would be chuckling. I was perplexed, but I thought maybe I should lean into that. Not everyone is meant to be a serious writer, and I didn’t really care either way. I just wanted to write!

Then I was in a music room in a school where I was substitute teaching. There was a sign that said, “Be it ever so humble, there is no voice like your own.” I took that as a sign (It was a sign!). I leaned further into my own voice. Of course, it changes a bit, based on the character.

RVC: Love it. Thanks for that! Now one last question—a series of short questions, really—before we move to the final part of this interview. I’ll say a word or two, you say a word or two in response. Here goes: rhyme.

BH: As long as you keep time!

RVC: Page turn.

BH: Suspense.

RVC: Fairy tale.

BH: They literally wrote the book on endings!

RVC: Sloppy draft.

BH: Very, very sloppy. Terrible. Always.

RVC: Mustache.

BH: Baby!

RVC: Awesome. Thanks for that, Bridget! I promise that no one will try to psychoanalyze those free association questions. 🙂

BH: Great!

RVC: Now I KNOW you’ve been waiting for what’s next because I’ve been waiting for what’s next. EVERYONE has been eagerly waiting for this, their mustaches a‑twitter with anticipation. It’s…THE SPEED ROUND. Speedy questions and spry answers. Ready?

BH: Yes!

RVC: Best place in Kansas City for BBQ?

BH: L.C.‘s Bar-​B‑Q. It’s by the stadium.

RVC: Weirdest job you ever had?

BH: Assistant to a bathtub refinisher.

RVC: Five words that describe your writing process.

BH: Slow, confusing, fast, fun, hopeful.

RVC: What’s your biggest time waster?

BH: Worrying–it wastes prime daydreaming time, and yet I still do it!

RVC: What’s a recent picture book that WOWed you?

BH: For fiction: Escargot.

For nonfiction: Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes.

RVC: Something you hope all readers take from your picture books?

BH: A sense that everything is going to be okay.

RVC: Thanks so much, Bridget! It was great getting to know about you and your work. You’re welcome to come by OPB again anytime.

BH: Thank you!

Author Interview: Sy Montgomery

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I’m a sucker for authors with great personal stories, and Sy Montgomery shares this on her website:

To research her books, films, and articles, Sy Montgomery has been chased by a silverback gorilla, embraced by a Giant Pacific Octopus, and undressed by an orangutan. But she is perhaps best known for her 14-​year love affair with Christopher Hogwood, a runt piglet who grew to a 750-​pound great Buddha master.

So, yeah. We’re having Sy in for this month’s Author Interview. No doubt about it!

Here’s a bit more bio-​wise about Sy. She’s a naturalist, documentary scriptwriter, and author of more than twenty acclaimed books of nonfiction for adults and children, including the National Book Award Finalist The Soul of an Octopus and the memoir The Good Good Pig, a New York Times bestseller. The recipient of numerous honors—including lifetime achievement awards from The Humane Society and the New England Booksellers Association—she lives in New Hampshire with her husband, border collie, and flock of chickens.

And since I’m a world-​class animal fan, I know we’ll get along famously.

With that, let’s get to it!

Sy’s website

Sy’s Twitter

RVC: Some of the picture book authors I interview have a zillion different books about a zillion different topics. You seem to have gone another way and committed more fully to a specific focus. What’s the common denominator with the kidlit—all the books, really—that you write?

SM: Everything I write, for adults and kids, is inspired by and in service to animals.

RVC: Clearly you must’ve had a meaningful early encounter with animals. What was it?

SM: I don’t even remember this, but my parents told me: When I was younger than two, my parents took me to the Frankfurt Zoo, in Germany (where I was born–not in the zoo, but in the city of the Frankfurt!) I broke free of my parents’ hands for a few moments and disappeared. When they found me, I had toddled into the hippo pen—right next to a 3,000-pound hippo, considered the most dangerous animal in Africa.

My parents weren’t happy, but clearly, both the hippos and I were fine about it. I always felt comfortable with animals—far more so than with most people.

RVC: That’s amazing. When did you go from being an animal pal to becoming a writer (not that you can’t do both, as your career demonstrates so well)?

SM: When I began to read, my father, an Army General and my hero, used to help me read animal stories in The New York Times. Back then, in the 1960s, most of the animal stories in the newspaper were about how animals were going extinct due to poaching, pollution, and human overpopulation. I was horrified! Even as a little kid, I realized that people were at fault here, but the good news was that people could also be the solution. If only people knew what was happening! If only people understood that animals have thoughts and feelings, and love their lives as we love ours!

Up to that point in my life, I’d wanted to be a veterinarian—to this day, it’s a vocation I consider almost holy. But I realized as a child that I might be able to help more animals as a writer by getting people to care about animals.

RVC: You were a triple major in college. How did that happen, and how did it prepare you for a life as a writer (and adventurer)?

SM: I just was so hungry for knowledge about EVERYTHING—which is a great thing for a writer. My majors were magazine journalism, French language and Literature, and Psychology. I would have quadruple majored, adding biology, but the school wouldn’t let me!

RVC: I’ve been there. I finished 2.5 undergraduate majors myself and would’ve kept accumulating more had someone not told me, “Hey, just go to graduate school, silly!” Which I did. 

Let’s get to your books. I’m a big fan of Inky’s Amazing Escape: How a Very Smart Octopus Found His Way Home. How did that book come about?

SM: In 2015, my book for adults, The Soul of an Octopus, was published, and became a surprise national (and later international) bestseller and National Book Award finalist. So when a very smart octopus who lived in a New Zealand aquarium escaped from his tank and slid down a drain back into the ocean he’d come from, all sorts of news outlets turned to me for comment. It seemed like this would make a fabulous book for children!

RVC: Besides telling Inky’s escape story in that book, you share interesting octopus facts. They’re such interesting creatures—how do you know which things to share, and how much is too much? That’s something many nonfiction picture book writers struggle with.

SM: Kids absolutely LOVE octopuses! Really, space on the page—not my young readers’ interest—was the limiting factor!

RVC: Why are octopuses so special to you?

SM: I love how these creatures are so different from us that you’d have to go to outer space or science fiction to find something more different from us—and yet, you can become very good friends with an octopus. We both like to play!

RVC: I’m now second-​guessing myself, grammatically speaking. Should I be saying “octopi” instead?

SM: “Octopuses” is the correct plural, though “octopi” sounds cooler!

RVC: Gotcha–thanks!

Let’s talk about the octopus book you just mentioned–The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness. Wow, what a book! Honestly, it’s the first one of yours I ran across. I’ll bet you hear that a lot.

SM: Thank you! That book sure had legs! (or arms!) It was my second national bestseller. The first was The Good Good Pig, a memoir (for adults) of my life with a 750-​pound pig who was really a great big Buddha master.

RVC: What was the most difficult aspect of writing that book?

SM: I had such fun researching and writing The Soul of an Octopus. The only difficult part was my own self-​doubt that I wasn’t worthy of telling my octopus friends’ stories. But when I can’t trust myself, I can trust my teachers, in this case the octopuses and others (including people) who showed me that if I have a soul, an octopus has one, too.

RVC: You wrote about an octopus as well in the New York Times bestselling book How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals. How did you go about adapting that 208-​page into a 40-​page picture book, Becoming a Good Creature? What was the process?

SM: In addressing the struggles that adults face—finding a passion, building a family, learning to forgive, to survive despair, to start life anew–How to be a Good Creature dealt with some mature themes (child abuse, suicide) that weren’t appropriate for very young children. But we must remember that even very young readers face equally dramatic challenges in their lives. I thought about these, and about what animals a young child might like to meet. Clearly I needed to put lions and tigers and sharks in there, too! And hyenas! So the picture book has fewer icky grown-​up problems and more animals.

I was very lucky to have Kate O’Sullivan, my fabulous editor, to help me with this book. (And Becca’s artwork is so amazing that I honestly think this title would have sold if all I’d done was copy 40 pages from the phone book.)

RVC: Rebecca Green illustrated both the adult version and the picture book. You’re right–she’s very good. What appeals to you most about her work?

SM: The tenderness that she shows in depicting the animals is what I love most about her work. She doesn’t portray animals as cartoons. Many books about octopuses, for instance, have the head in the wrong place. That drives me nuts. Becca’s respect and affection for the animals shines through every illustration.

RVC: It seems to me that you think that we should—need to, in fact—interact more meaningfully with the animal world.

SM: Absolutely! Limiting your friendships to just one species is just as impoverishing as eating only one food, or listening to only one piece of music.

RVC: You’ve got a new book coming out in a few weeks—The Hummingbirds’ Gift: Wonder, Beauty, and Renewal on Wings. Congrats on that! While it’s not a picture book, it’s definitely kid friendly. In all your experience putting that book together, what surprised you the most?

SM: In that book, I had the great blessing of working with hummingbird rehabilitator Brenda Sherburn helping to raise and release orphaned baby hummingbirds. What amazed me is that these tiny delicate babies—they are little more than bubbles wrapped in light–can survive at all. Even for a mother hummingbird, raising a baby is a Herculean task. But for a person to do it? Consider this: they have to be fed every 20 minutes or they starve. But feed them too much, and they can actually pop.

RVC: That’s amazing. What’s the biggest misconception people have about hummingbirds?

SM: Most people love hummingbirds, and don’t realize how many we inadvertently kill. They are killed in shockingly large numbers by our pet cats. They are killed by pesticides we use on our lawns and gardens. (They don’t just need nectar; they need hundreds of tiny bugs every day to survive.) They are killed by pollution, by climate change, by the destruction of their habitats for homes and offices and stores. So it was a great privilege to try to fight that tide by working with Brenda to literally help bring some nearly-​dead hummingbird babies back to life!

RVC: I’m a shark fan, too, so of course I really enjoyed your The Great White Shark Scientist, which is part of the Scientists in the Field series that includes other titles of yours such as Condor Comeback and Amazon Adventure. What is the most important thing people should know or understand about sharks?

SM: More people are killed by toilets than sharks. More people are killed by toasters than sharks. More people are killed by doctors’ and nurses’ mistakes than by sharks. But nobody wants to get rid of toilets, toasters, or medical professionals!

RVC: You likely don’t know this, but I live quite close to Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium, which was launched in 1955 as the Cape Haze Marine Laboratory. Who started it? Why, Dr. Eugenie Clark, a.k.a. “The Shark Lady.” Did you ever get a chance to talk sharks with her?

SM: Oh my gosh, I would’ve loved to! But I’m very lucky to be good friends with the star of The Great White Shark Scientist, Dr. Greg Skomal, who is the lead researcher documenting the recent and exciting population increase of great whites off Cape Cod’s iconic shores.

RVC: One last question before the final part of the interview. The New York Times has called you “equal parts poet and scientist” and The Boston Globe says you’re “part Indiana Jones and part Emily Dickinson.” Which of those four compliments pleases you the most?

SM: Though I’m a huge fan of Emily Dickinson’s, I think Indiana Jones had more fun!

RVC: Okay, Sy. Here we go. Put on your penguin party hat, because it’s time for THE SPEED ROUND! Zebra-​fast questions and zoomy cheetah answers, please. Are you ready?

SM: You bet!

RVC: Craziest thing you ever ate while chasing animals all around the world the way you do? 

SM: I drank rice wine flavored with the corpse of a fetal deer out of a human skull in Borneo while researching my first book.

RVC: Which animal would you most want to see write a book about YOU?

SM: Octavia the Giant Pacific Octopus. I would love to know what she thought about me, even though my mouth was in the wrong place (should have been in my armpits), I had two too few hearts (octopuses have three) and I could neither change color nor shape. Yet she loved me. Why?

RVC: If you had a theme song that describes your life right now, it’d be….

SM: A‑wimoweh, a‑wimoweh, a‑wimoweh, a‑wimoweh (“The Lion Sleeps Tonight”)

RVC: If you could ask any one animal any one question—which animal, and which question?

SM: I would ask Fire Chief, a 40-​pound, 60–80 year-​old snapping turtle who I work with (and adore) at Turtle Rescue League, what is his experience of time. (He was injured when he was hit by a truck crossing a street, and we are working with him to strengthen his back legs. I’m attaching a picture just for you!

RVC: A recent great picture book about animals is…

SM: Wildlife on Paper: Animals at Risk Around the Globe by Kunal Kundu. The book was inspired by his son, and features artwork he creates from crumpled paper.

RVC: What’s the best thing a child ever said about one of your books?

SM: I want to spend my life helping animals just like you!

RVC: Thanks so much, Sy! This was a a REAL treat.

A Celebration of Jane Yolen’s 400th book (2 interviews and one original poem)

On By Only Picture BooksIn Author Interviews, Illustrator Interviews4 Comments

To help celebrate Jane Yolen’s 400th published book–what an amazing accomplishment!–I felt the need to do more than just review it at OPB. Thus, we have this bonus goody that’s just for you!

I asked Jane and Jen four questions each, and with the productivity and generosity that Jane is so well known for, she offered an original poem, too. Enjoy!

Questions for Jane

RVC: Why is Bear Outside a good book to be #400?

JY: Because it is typical of my picture book style–lyrical, strong young girl who solves a problem, and has a kicker last line.

RVC: What was most surprising about the hubbub around #400?

JY: That I seem to be the most surprised person of all!

Heidi (my daughter and PA) had been counting the books because when I hit 365 we had a big party at the Eric Carle Museum with teachers, librarians, editors, friends, etc. But I thought as I was just reaching my 80s, I would slow down. But a little over three years later, it was clear I was going to hit 400.

RVC: What’s something readers wouldn’t guess about the girl in this story?

JY: She is me in a way, though instead of a bear, I look out through the eyes of story and it emboldens me.

RVC: Your favorite image from the book? 

JY: I think the very last page, when they are quiet, and instead of a child hugging a toy bear to keep herself safe from night frights, the bear is hugging the girl.

Questions for Jen

RVC: Why is Bear Outside a good book to be #400?  

JC: Bear Outside is the result of so many things I never saw coming or anything I could have conceived of when I started my career in illustration. I had worked on bits and pieces here and there, and I got my foot into the door with Little Pea, but it wasn’t until I started creating bodies of work for gallery shows that I really started to develop a visual voice that felt true to me. It has always been a symbiotic relationship, bringing what I learned creating pieces for galleries into book work and bringing the narrative structure of book work back into paintings made for gallery shows.

If you had told 2007 me that this piece of my career would become part of someone else’s artistic milestone, let alone Jane Yolen’s artistic milestone, I would have calmly told you to get off of my lawn. But it is. It exists, it’s here, and it’s an incalculable honor. To have something put out into the world be seen and understood by someone and then be moved to write a story that respects the core of the image with spare, perfect words? It gives me too many feelings.

For me it’s not a good book to be #400. It’s the PERFECT book to be #400.

RVC: What was most surprising about the hubbub around #400 for Jane?

JC: When I received the manuscript for Bear Outside, I wasn’t told that it would be Jane’s 400th book. I didn’t even know until recently. So it’s all a wonderful surprise. I muddled through my own brain and ideas for so long–it’s a real crock pot of a brain. It makes me wonder what it’s like to have a brain that is all “go go go” while also creating beautiful, meaningful stories. It’s awe inspiring.

RVC: What’s something readers wouldn’t guess about Bear?

JC: Probably that Bear is a Taurus sun with a Sagittarius moon.

RVC: Your favorite line from the text?

JC: “I take care of Bear and Bear takes care of me.”

It’s the perfect distillation of the relationship between Girl and Bear. It’s ideally the relationship we should have in others.

Hugging the Bear

At night, in the dark,
he snores and grumbles.
Sometimes he whimpers.
Then I curl around him.
I am here, Bear, I whisper.
Day will come soon enough.
Wear me like a  suit of armor.
Hold me like a sword of fire.
Tell my story over and over
till all night fears go away.
And his mumbles and whimpers
fade into the dawn.

©2021 Jane Yolen all rights reserved