Each month, we ask one distinguished author or illustrator to write an original post that reveals insights about their process and craft.
If I could have nameless, faceless avatars running around making my plots function, my work would be a lot easier. But no one wants to read that story—including me. Readers want characters that have lives off the page. Characters that feel like friends, or enemies. Characters to root for, and root against. Characters that are […]
As I listened to Ruthie, I discovered the magic of yielding to a story. Memory and fiction became my wings. At times I wrote about things that I thought I’d made up and was surprised when I learned that they were actually true.
Like my mother, I’ve become a collector of objects, especially while I’m writing. As I begin a new project, I gather items that tell me about the subjects or reveal setting, plot, or most importantly, the characters.
When kids ask me where I get my ideas I often say I buy them at the Dollar Store. They generally don’t find this response particularly funny, yet it doesn’t stop me from saying it time and again.
Children are eager for books that validate and empower them. I passionately believe that positive, inclusive stories can inspire all readers, no matter their gender or orientation—but because girls crave books about smart, strong female protagonists, I’m happy to see my middle grade novel Star-Crossed in their hands.
But when I walk into the studio to create art, there is a process (and steps to follow) to reach the result I desire. First, there’s the idea, which I turn into a manuscript. Next, I craft a book dummy book comprised of text and sketches.
It’s difficult, even for adults, to wrap one’s head around the fact that the elephant can weigh 22,000 pounds. So I included a simple infographic, a small silhouette of each animal, alongside another of an adult human (or a human hand, if the animal was small).
One of my favorite words is solipsistic: close your eyes and the world vanishes —there’s no reality outside of your own. We all start out thinking this way. I was in second grade before it hit me that there had been people on this planet before I got here. Abraham Lincoln and Joan of Arc […]
We didn’t all know each other on day one, but writing was the glue that made our friendship stick. We wrote quietly, set aside some critique time, and ended each day on the deck, wrapped in blankets and watching the sun set over Semiahmoo Bay.
Writing books is a very mysterious thing. At least it is for me. I’ve always enjoyed writing, maybe just as much as I’ve enjoyed drawing, but drawings are easier to gauge. When you create a drawing you like, you can look at it and immediately see the reasons why, and you can show it to […]
