author interview

By Gabrielle.

Are the young readers in your house always looking for a new series to sink their teeth into? There was such angst in ours when Harry Potter ended, and then again with the Twilight series, and then once again with The Hunger Games. Next up? Ally Condie’s trilogy: Matched, Crossed, and the forthcoming Reached. They’re addictive. Friends, I’d love for you to meet Ally. If you haven’t already, you’re going to be hearing her name a lot!

Q: We always imagine a creative person’s childhood was surely magical, ridiculously happy, or tragically lonely! Please describe yours.

A: One of my favorite quotes is the first line of Agatha Christie’s autobiography: “One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life, is, I think, to have a happy childhood.” The dream of my life is to help my kids have a happy childhood. I certainly did. I had wonderful parents, a beautiful place to grow up (the small town of Cedar City, Utah), and lots of books to read.

However, I think most creative people have a place for loneliness inside, even with a happy upbringing. I have always felt that — and I think part of being creative is acknowledging and exploring that loneliness, letting it be a part of you, and accepting it as much as we accept happiness and magic.

Click here to learn more about Ally!

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Peter Brown would make the best dinner party guest. He’s witty with even a minimum of words, has charming stories from his childhood (The first line of his entertaining bio reads: “I was born and raised in Hopewell, New Jersey, which is a great place to live especially if you like mosquitoes and poison ivy.” Ha!), and would be the absolute best teammate for a post-dinner game of Pictionary. These same qualities make him a pretty wonderful children’s book author and illustrator, too. When he describes his process — “I say as much as possible with my paintings, and whatever I can’t say with the art I say with words. My stories don’t have many words, but it takes me a long time to think up the words that I use.” – it makes me want to choose my words more thoughtfully. I’ll start with Peter Brown’s ever so thoughtful ones! Please enjoy them.

Q: What’s the one childhood memory that still seems as clear as the day it happened?

A: I’ll be honest. I don’t have a good memory. But my childhood memory that stands out most has to be during one of my family’s summer trips to a little island off the coast of Maine. I was returning to the house from a morning spent picking wild blueberries. I used my shirt as a basket to carry the berries when a deer walked out of the woods (the deep, dark, scary woods) and right up to me. The deer just stood there looking at me, a few feet away, so I grabbed a handful of berries and reached out. The deer licked the berries right out of my hand, and then walked back into the woods. I was about five years old.

Q: What qualities do you think contribute the most to your success in children’s book publishing?

A: I think my ideas for stories are unusual enough to be interesting, but familiar enough to be relatable. I’ve had good luck creating characters that people seem to really enjoy. My pictures don’t make sense without my words. And my words are useless without my pictures. This makes for an engaging reading experience.

Click for more Peter Brown!

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Raise your hand if you’ve read every single Skippyjon Jones book aloud to a little one. Keep it up if you did so in a truly authentic cat-who-believes-he’s-a-Chihuahua voice! We can all thank Judy Schachner for these unforgettable moments and, with every new Skippyjon Jones book she releases, our well-honed and probably pretty hilarious Spanish accents! Friends, I loved getting to know Judy. Her understated response to my first question floored me, and I’ve since softened my tone when reading Junebug Jones’ words out loud. I hope you enjoy her, too.

Q: I always ask about childhoods. For some reason, we all imagine that a creative mind like yours was inherited! How would you describe your upbringing and early family life?

A: I grew up in an Irish Catholic working class family where money was as tight as our apartment was tiny. My brother Kevin, who was six years older than I, was the funny-bone of the brood. My brother Ted, who was eight years my senior, was always considered the family artist. My Dad, a man as decent and honest as they come, was a machinist, and my musically gifted Mother was a homemaker. She was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer when I was eight.

Anxiety was always the elephant in the room and my way of not getting trampled was to escape through my imagination. I sketched thousands of characters on long sheets of shelf paper taped to the wall of our one and only bathroom. But as I’ve come to realize, it was never really about the art; it was more about being able to morph into every creature that I put down on paper.

Many of my characters’ stories began in orphanages or convents. I loved drawing nuns in their habits…I loved rags to riches stories with incredibly happy endings…it’s what I wanted most for my own life. Other potent themes in my secret world of morphing centered around beautiful women of questionable virtue, with exotic accents, tragic lives, and fabulous wardrobes. On the other side of that bathroom door, little Judy was smoking her pencils and drinking water like it was champagne.

Q: We would love to hear about your studio and where you’re most creative; what’s your view while you work?

A: I have a brand new studio in my home which for me is a dream come true. It has great windows and plenty of storage. I have a large drafting table and several work tables that are usually covered in projects, reference materials, and art supplies. There is also a floor-to-ceiling bulletin board wall which doubles as a painting area for larger works.

I am surrounded by things that inspire me: toys, textiles, books, and taxidermy (somebody’s got to love those poor creatures). My studio is on the second floor, up in the trees, and it’s beautiful during a snowstorm. I listen to all kinds of music, including my daughter Sarah’s compositions, which she scores for film and television. I’m a huge fan of all things NPR, as well.

Don’t miss the rest of Judy’s interview! Just click to see it.

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When I send off the questions for my favorite authors to answer, I do so with my fingers crossed. Will he be as creative as I imagined? Will she be as whimsical as her words? Magical? Witty? One-of-a-kind wonderful? Oh, I have impossibly high hopes for all of them, and yet they somehow always turn out to be true! Children’s book authors are a very cool breed! So here is my latest revelation: Liz Garton Scanlon is just as open-hearted, just as joyous, and just as imaginative and charming as her books. More so. I know you’re going to enjoy her answers. Her response to where she’d choose to live for one year touched me so…and made me miss my sister even more. Please enjoy Liz!

Q: I always ask about childhoods. For some reason, we all half-believe that a creative mind like yours was inherited!

A: I grew up in Colorado with a lot of wild space and what we now call “unstructured time” at my disposal — both of which feed the creative imagination, I think. While neither of my parents are artists per se, my mother is a lover of the arts — she introduced us to music and dance and theater — and has a highly developed and enviable aesthetic. And, she could make anything — strawberry jam, candles, clothing, curtains. My dad is an adventurer, a risk-taker, a man of strong passions. I think some combination of those influences translated into art being a viable choice for me, which is a really lucky thing. I don’t know if they’ve been surprised by what I’ve chosen to do, but they’ve been immensely patient, supportive and proud.

As for my own kids…wow. Their creative chops far exceed my own. They’re both musicians (thanks to hard work and their dad’s genes), they both sew beautifully (and fearlessly), one knits, one is becoming a terrific photographer, they make these amazing stop-motion videos. And, I know I’m biased here, but they’re both becoming very fine writers. I’m totally inspired by my daughters.

Click to read the rest of this lovely interview.

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I’ve been a huge fan of Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith for many years – I wrote about The Stinky Cheese Man back in 2007 – so I’m more than a little star-struck that their words are now gracing the virtual pages of my blog! Creative collaborations, when done right, are so perfectly intertwined that it’s difficult to identify when one artist ends and the other begins. That’s the way with Jon and Lane; to me, The Stinky Cheese Man, as well as their other collaborative projects, make sense only when you’re looking at Lane’s illustrations while you’re reading Jon’s words.

So naturally, I couldn’t interview them separately! Friends, I’d love for you to meet Jon and Lane. Enjoy!

Q: What’s your earliest memory of being creative? (And did you get into trouble for it?)

Lane Smith: My brother Shane and I were always making little books, building forts, making music. Unlike today’s kids we never called it Being Creative, we called it Goofing Off.

Jon Scieszka: That would have been the time I melted a vinyl record in the oven, bent it into a fluted bowl shape, then spray-painted it gold. And I did not get in trouble because I did it in Cub Scouts for Mother’s Day. And because it was so beautiful.

Click for more of Jon and Lane’s words. They’re so good! I promise.

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I don’t read Nikki McClure’s books. I absorb them. Her art is precise, thoughtful, and every other synonym for exquisite. I could probably effuse about her elegant mastery until next Thursday, but her sweet interview below says it all far better than I ever could. Friends, I’d like you to meet Nikki McClure, the author and illustrator of a few of my favorite books. Enjoy her words!

Q: Nikki, I’m fascinated by your art and utterly floored by its intricacy. How long is the process, from concept to finished papercut? And what’s your favorite part of the process?

A: Thank you, Gabrielle. The process takes as long as it needs to. But I also tend to wait until the last minute! So I usually give myself a week per image. Sometimes the papercuts take longer, but I don’t like having half-finished work around.

Click for more Nikki McClure goodness.

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I love Mem Fox’s books. If you haven’t been lulled to sleep by Time for Bed or wishing for a moment or two of invisibility like Hush does in Possum Magic, you are definitely missing out! Her website is wonderfully full, too. And entertaining! I was so tickled to read Ms. Fox’s list of Loves and Loathings. Among her loves are green paper clips, world peace, and a clean kitchen sink. Among her loathings are cleaning up dog vomit, racial intolerance, brown clothes, and mobile phones in airport lounges. Agreed. Friends, I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did.

Q: If you close your eyes and think back on your earliest memory of your youth, what’s the one image that springs to mind?

A: Playing a game with stones, a game that included a chanting rhyme, with other little girls on the mission I grew up on in Africa. The others were all African. None of us noticed.

Click here to read the rest of the interview.

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I’ve long thought that Dallas Clayton is pretty awesome, but I was still completely floored when he answered my questions with the most staggeringly thoughtful answers and observations. Awesome doesn’t even begin to cover it. If you enjoy this interview half as much as I did, you’re in for a wonderful day! I promise.

Q: For some reason, we all think the most creative writers had either ridiculously happy or tragically lonely childhoods! How do you remember yours?

A: Having a child has made me realize how much of our youth we don’t remember at all. My son is eight years old, which is right around the age my real memories of my childhood start to kick in. This means I’m missing eight whole years of experiences that were probably super fun from my memory banks. If someone created a service to help explore those memories via Universal Studios’ virtual reality simulator, I’d certainly sign up for that! Maybe there would be some good creative-writer back stories locked away in those forgotten years. Otherwise, the rest of my youth was great. Lots of climbing things and throwing things at other things, and then in my teens lots of angry music about the government, and also spray painting.

Click here to read more of Dallas Clayton’s magical words…

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Your bookshelf no doubt contains at least one or two of Mo Willems‘ infectiously happy books, doesn’t it? Hopefully more! I love how every one of his stories has wonderful lessons to share in a simply enjoyable way, whether you’re stifling giggles while reading one of the Pigeon’s hilarious lines or just marveling at the heart-breaking, grown-up generosity of Trixie. Without exception, they’re all so much fun to read aloud, even though I personally find it difficult to compose myself when Edwina shows Reginald Von Hoobie-Doobie what kindness and friendship truly mean. Oh, that sweetheart dinosaur!

Mo was kind enough to answer a few questions in between his Happy Pig Day! tour and launching a new Pigeon app, and I’m so grateful to him. I love his answers, but I knew I would!

Q: Was your childhood as creative and full of funny moments as we imagine it?

A: While by no means tragic, my childhood was mostly lonely. I suppose that’s why I enjoy writing for kids; I want to show them that someone is on their side. I was lucky, however, in having spent much of my childhood reading comics and traveling, for which I am very grateful.

Click here for the full interview.

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