Writer Spotlight: Arjun Yetukuri Has an Engineer's Brain and a Poet's Heart, Helps Create the Upcoming Conference

 

Charlie Barshaw coordinates our quarterly Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI-MI. In this piece, meet Arjun Yetukuri, engineer by day, storyteller by night, and someone currently helping to set the table for the SCBWI-MI Spring Conference, open for registration now and (virtually) live April 23-25. For more information on the conference and to register, click HERE.

You are an accomplished person, with a PhD. and several patents granted in automotive seating, vehicle electronics and autonomous vehicles. So how do you now find yourself involved with children's books?

I loved telling my kids made-up stories at bed time which I had to do almost every night for years! Seeing them enjoy and smile as I told them was rewarding. I am hoping to see more kids smile as they read my stories.

How does your work as an innovative engineer intersect with your desire to write books for kids?

Both require method and creativity. Many picture books are super creative and cute, if I may say so. The authors, illustrators, agents, art directors, and editors that touched those books must have been methodical to create such master pieces of art.

Describe your early life. How did it help shape the person you are today?

Watching my parents in my childhood through now, their work ethic and determination gives me the will to keep trying.

 When did you discover you wanted to write books for children?

My interest in writing PBs started when I read ‘Pigs Aplenty, Pigs Galore!’ to my kid – she enjoyed it so much that I had to read it several times for her – the fact that a kid could be so fascinated by a PB inspired me to extend my love for storytelling to writing PBs.

Are there any titles or authors which inspired you?

There are so many awesome authors like David McPhail, Jessixa Bagley, Mike Boldt, Pat Z. Miller and our own Laurie Keller, Leslie Helakoski, Carrie Pearson, Jodi McKay, and from my childhood, Georges Remi, (Hergé) author of TinTin comics, Albert Uderzo, René Goscinny, Jean-Yves Ferri authors of Asterix comics, Lee Falk author of Mandrake and Phantom comics. They bring back so many wonderful childhood memories!

Laurie Keller

When I first decided to write children’s books, I reached out to Laurie Keller. She was super helpful with her encouragement and advice and lead me to craft-related books to start with. Later, I discovered SCBWI and learned the craft (actually, still learning!) from many amazing authors, agents, illustrators, and editors that share their knowledge and experiences.

 On Arjun Yetukuri @ ReviseLoop you’ve charted word count per page in picture books. What did your study reveal?

It is ongoing – my second batch of charts will be released soon. You could dig for patterns in the numbers on any chart. What’s interesting is that there are many PB’s that have pages with zero word count. It highlighted a crucial aspect of a PB for me. A PB is a magical combination of text and illustrations. Kids enjoy the text as much as the illustrations. Pages without words give the kid a pause from the text to enjoy the illustrations. They give the illustrator an opportunity to express and also tell part of the story.  

 What genre do you hope to write?

 PB - MG

 What are you working on now?

I just finished two PBs that have been professionally critiqued and are ready for submission.

One is about a baby polar bear who plays hide-and-seek with her mother every day. It always hides close to their den, but chose to hide somewhere else this time. Worried mama bear has to find her baby before it’s lost. I wrote the outline for this story at one of SCBWI conference sessions by Linda Ashman. She showed a picture of a bear and a kid and challenged us to write a story outline. Luckily, I was the first to complete and read to the audience and won a signed copy of one of her books!

During my research for the book on bears, I read about Polar bears and the potential decline in their numbers due to climate change (polarbearsinternational.org). So I kept the original outline and weaved the story around Polar bears to bring awareness.

The second PB that I just finished is also about a search and rescue mission. This time it’s a baby who discovers his bellybutton during an infamous diaper changing session. But the baby can’t find its bellybutton when his mom puts on a fresh diaper and thinks that it’s lost. Baby sets out to search for the lost bellybutton with the help of its pets.

 What details can you share about the upcoming SCBWI-MI virtual conference you are helping to run?

I have to tell you that it’s going to be a super exciting conference with a great variety of topics. The good old cliché “There is something for everyone” meets reality here. The organizers crafted sessions keeping in mind genres, craft, diversity, and inclusion with 3 goals in mind: education, networking, and fun! You don’t want to miss this conference. The faculty are stars. Successful and with wealth of knowledge to share.

For more information and to register click HERE.

 Being the co-chair of a conference forces you to wear many hats. What are some of the things, in order to prepare, that you’ve done for the first time?

It has been an eye opening experience for me. The heavy lifting is being done by the MI chapter leaders and a dedicated set of volunteers. I had the opportunity to identify some of the potential faculty, reach out to them to participate, coordinate their responses, prepare tutorials on Zoom, test the registration site, and I will also be helping out with managing critique submissions along with another volunteer. I have never done any of these tasks before, so it has been an exciting learning journey, Start to Finish!

 What special challenges come with a completely on-line conference

Many of us during the past year have used Zoom on a regular basis either for work or for seeing our families. Yet, managing multiple concurrent sessions, recording breakout sessions, and making them available post-conference are some new challenges, but not showstoppers. Despite the challenges, we have included lively sessions like Socials, Coffee Chats, Lunch and Journey Stories along with rich educational sessions. So, this conference is going to be awesome for many reasons and you don’t want to miss it for any reason!

 You can follow Arjun here:

 @ReviseLoop is my social media handle for Instagram and Twitter; ReviseLoop.com is my website