Welcome to SCBWI-MI's Book Birthday Blog!
Where we celebrate new books by Michigan's children's book authors and illustrators
Q#1: How did you come up with the idea for your book?
It all started with a wish. A request. A hope.
Let me explain. Several years ago as I was visiting New York I dropped in on a grad school friend, Jill Davis at HarperCollins. She showed me around, we chatted, and just as I was getting ready to leave for a meeting with my soon-to-be agent, I noticed a picture tacked on Jill’s cork board. “Oh, I love that, so cute!” It was an illustration sample.
She unpinned it, handed it to me. “I love it too, but I don’t have a book to go with it.”
I half-jokingly said, “Well, then I’ll write you a book.”
We chatted more, I snapped a photo of the drawing for inspiration, then I left for my lunch meeting and rode the train back to Baltimore and drove with my family back to Michigan. But that picture stuck in my head. Over the coming weeks and months I mulled, simmered, attempted to collaborate on an idea with a friend (another MFA classmate—look up Peter Pearson—he’s the awesomest) who’d also seen the illustration and wanted write a book. We never made it beyond a few exchanged emails. But that exchange helped keep the idea alive.
What was the drawing? A little girl pulling a wagon, and in the background, an adorable monster.
Q#2: What was the most difficult part of writing this book?
I would say the hardest part was finding the “aboutness,” the heart of the story. I started with the idea of mashing together Boy Who Cried Wolf with Little Red Riding Hood AND Hansel and Gretel with some Where the Wild Things Are for kicks. Does that sound like a mess? Yes. It was a mess.
I had to cut, rewrite, revise, re-envision, expand, cut more. I actually love revision. I can honestly say revision is my favorite part of the writing process. But I could pretty much guarantee that the moment I thought I was “done” with Violet and was fully immersed in my next work in progress (because once a picture book is sold and off to the illustrator, it’s out of my hands) I’d get a call from Jill, “Sketches just came in! Let’s go over the text—I think we need to change some things!”
I do love revising, but I loathe splitting my attention between multiple projects and, as my kids can attest, being interrupted. Which is sort of the definition of a mom’s life, isn’t it? I was surprised to learn that it’s also very much a part of the writer’s life.
Q#3: Tell us what you hope readers will experience or learn while reading your book.
My main goal is to ignite creativity, to inspire and delight. I loved Where the Wild Things Are as a child, and I loved fairy tales. I spent hours upon hours imagining myself away from the challenges in my everyday existence, placing myself in stories, talking and playing with the characters. As a girl, I lamented that I couldn’t create an imaginary friend. I thought my imagination was lacking, somehow. But looking back I see that books were my imaginary friends, only they were far, far more real than they were imaginary. I want to write books that can do that, can become a child’s friend.
Q#4: Who is your author idol and how have they influenced your work?
I don’t think I have one author idol. I’ve crafted a composite mythical goddess shaped from bits of Jane Yolen and her crazy prolific creativity (plus she can knock out a tune, that woman), with a touch of Stephen King’s rigorous schedule (and a bit of his macabre), and an adoration of the intellectual depth behind Tolkein’s world building. I know there are others in there too, a finger from Anne Lamott, a kneecap from Bram Stoker, a spleen from Teresa Bateman because Plump and Perky Turkey is my favorite rhyming picture book ever. The list could go on. And on. And…
Q#5: What are your marketing plans for your book? Where can we find it?
Oy, marketing plan. I am such an introvert. And not just an introvert, but also social-phobe, lover of solitude and QUIET (again, something a mom of many almost never gets). Events of any sort ignite my social anxiety, my OCD need to plan basically every word I say and spend countless hours building a powerpoint that probably won’t work anyway, all to leave me with a buzzing sense of dread from the moment I put the event on the calendar to the day it happens. Then I take a several days or weeks to recover. The event itself always goes fine and I enjoy it—so I keep signing up for things. Like a reading and story time at Nicola’s Books in Ann Arbor. [details]. By the way, I will happily stick around and talk shop if anyone’s interested, so please come!
That’s to say, while I do some events, I try to focus my energies on things I can Make and Do online. Social media: Instagram (RebeccaWritesBooks), Facebook, Twitter (both rebeccagrabill). I also make teachers’ resources like this printable pack created to accompany my first book, Halloween Good Night [link], as well as crafts (so many crafts), blog tours, giveaways, an author e-newsletter (sign up at my website!), postcards, more. I also made a book trailer for my first book which Simon & Schuster shared on their YouTube, and which proved that book trailers really don’t do much, but they’re still fun.
Since Violet and the Woof isn’t a “holiday” book, I’m taking the promo season slow. I’m going to focus on promoting Halloween Good Night (last year’s release) during October, then really hit the streets in November for Violet. So if you want me to come do a reading, workshop, blog interview, Skype visit (or in person, I suppose), I’m there!
A little bit about the book: “Once upon a time,” Violet said, “a brave little girl and her brother set out on a long, long journey. A journey fraught with danger and peril.”
In this contemporary, urban retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, Violet and Peter are making their way to Papa Jean Louis’s to deliver soup, when . . .
they see a wolf in the elevator . . . a shortcut leads them to a spooky cave . . . then something growls in the shadows!
Is Violet’s make-believe story just in her imagination?
With excitement and more than a few surprises, Violet and the Woof will have readers wide-eyed, smiling, and asking for the story again and again.
Illustrated by Dasha Tolstikova.
A little bit about the author: Rebecca Grabill is author of the picture books, Halloween Goodnight (Atheneum, Simon & Schuster), Violet and the Woof (Katherine Tegen Books, HarperCollins 2018), A Year With Mama Earth (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers 2019). Other publications include poetry and essays in a broad range of literary journals. She has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University and is a Sustainable Arts Foundation awardee. Rebecca is represented by Victoria Wells Arms of Wells Arms Literary.
She lives in rural Michigan with her husband, six children, and two cats.
You can find out more about Rebecca and VIOLET AND THE WOOF here:
Contact: rebeccawritesbooks@gmail.com
Release date: October 9!
indie bound link: https://www.indiebound.org/
Congrats, Rebecca!
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