Writer Spotlight: Audrey Glassman Vernick

Gross assumptions, The Morning Glory War, why baseball? and teaming up with Liz: MG and PB writer Audrey Vernick

Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI-MI. In this piece, meet 2013 Conference co-presenter who's gone on to write amazing things, Audrey Glassman Vernick.

You grew up in Whiteston, NY, with two sisters in the Glassman family. In the bio you take pains to describe a pet as being “a not very bright small white dog”. Surely this intellectually-challenged-but-with-redeeming-qualities canine tunneled into some of your stories?

There are dogs in my books, but none based on him. The most famous example of his intellect: he routinely hid under a glass table.·

Let’s deal with the buffalo in the room: you are height-challenged. Apparently, your school lined up kids by height, and you were always toward the front. What was your childhood like, always being the short one? You’ve absolutely overcome that bump in the road. When and where did you find your “tall” attitude?

Well, Charlie, you have fallen victim to a gross assumption right here. I was not always the short one as a child. In fourth grade, I was just about the height I am now, and in the taller half of girls in my class. Also, I always felt large and awkward because my two older sisters are tiny little dolls.

Audrey Vernick

What influenced young Audrey to write children's books?

There was a dearth of Audrey-aged kids in my neighborhood--my older sisters were blessed with so many on-the-block friends. 

I tended to find my friends in the pages of my books when I was very young. I still think of Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet and Vicky and Martha from Ursula Nordstrom's The Secret Language and Jane Langton's Grace Jones as the kids I grew up with.

What was it like, what were you like, when you first broke into the book writing business?

I was so stubborn. I believed so strongly in my first children's book, co-written with my sister, and was so deeply frustrated by all the rejections (26). 

I had started my writing life with literary short fiction, occasionally published in literary magazines no one had ever heard of, so I knew my way around rejection. 

There's a seven-year learning curve in my publication history--2003, then nothing until 2010. And then at least one book a year--I was frustrated and stubborn as hell while grudgingly admitting I had a lot to learn. 

My hunger for getting my books published was acute--I keenly empathize with writers at that earliest stage, when you feel like you just need that first break to get you going.

What is the story of the book you finished with your sister that started your writing career. Was it something your writer Mom had started?

Halloween 1967
Says Audrey, I'm the littlest one (but currently the tallest
of the three sisters on the right), 

You have conflated two things--but still, what a good memory!

Before she died, my mother had had her first novel, a middle-grade, accepted for publication by Dutton. With my family's help, I did all the revision editing prior to publication of The Morning Glory War.

My sister Ellen Gidaro and I wrote an unrelated-to-that picture book, Bark and Tim: A True Story of Friendship.

 

Water Balloon was your first mid-grade novel. You had a few picture book titles out then, too, so you were lucky enough to qualify for our 2013 SCBWI-MI writing retreat. (I won a what?) Which books had you published by 2013, and what do you remember about the book-selling process ten years ago?

I had published Brothers at Bat, She Loved Baseball, Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten?, Teach Your Buffalo to Play Drums, So You Want to be a Rock Star. My sense of the book-selling process is that it’s always hard in different ways. And that luck plays a bigger role than you’d think.

In 2013, were you already doing school visits? Those who’ve done them know the students can be the toughest audience you’ll ever face. Next toughest, 40 hungry children’s book writers? How were your presentation skills in 2013?

I was doing visits then, but I have a feeling that I wasn’t doing great ones—or at least not ones I was confident in. That confidence, and the ability to do it better, has developed over time. I think I still got scared before presenting in 2013 and I rarely do now. One thing I’ve learned—which should have been obvious—is that I’m only a nervous presenter if I don’t fully know/understand the subject matter. When I’m talking about my own process, books, etc.—that’s easy stuff these days.

school visit Audrey in action

School visits, if you’re like us, are a major way for an author to earn money and sell books. Do you travel a lot, or do you take gigs closer to home? Are there busy times and slow? Do you ever turn down appearances? How do you handle the school visit part to being an author?

I was traveling a lot more before the pandemic—visits in more than a dozen states. Thankfully, New Jersey is bigger than it looks and many elementary schools here have long histories of bringing in authors and plan to continue that tradition. These are volatile times and I know author-visit numbers are declining, but I feel lucky to live in a state that, so far, has been less inclined to succumb to the kind of societal pressure that keeps some schools from engaging with authors.

You've written a number of books about baseball: forgotten heroes, women players, even a family of baseball players. But, why baseball?

I've learned that I'm very inarticulate at explaining why I like anything, including pizza, ice cream, soft pretzels, etc. But I can say that there are many reasons, including genetics (my dad played in high school, college and in the Army during the Korean War).

And some legendary stories--my dad was a Yankees fan as a child and his dad rooted for the Cubs. As you can imagine, his dad was baseball-depressed because his team was not a winner, to word it generously. So my dad suggested they switch--my dad would root for the Cubs and his dad could have the Yankees. 

To this day (my dad is 92), he kept up his end of the deal, and one of the greatest things ever is that my sisters and I brought him to a World Series game at Wrigley Field in 2016. That was one spectacular event, even though they lost (it was the last one they lost in that series).

Add to that the fact that baseball is a sport filled with the best kinds of stories...there's really no end to them. And that's about the best explanation I can offer.

Baseball has been very, very good for you, and you for it. You’ve got a library shelf full of books about the lesser-known luminaries of America’s Pastime. Have you ever considered doing a book about writing your baseball books, and what it took to create them? Can you tell us a story behind the story?

I cannot imagine a person who would want to read a book about me writing baseball books, so no. I’ve always loved the stories in baseball, and feel very lucky to have shared some of the lesser-known ones with young readers.

Speaking of baseball, how about them Yankees? As a Tiger’s fan, I know about disappointment, but the Yankees tantalize every spring. And they have, on occasion, wrenched your heart out and then whiffed when trying to hit it out of the infield. So, how about next year?

Audrey and family at a
Yankee's game

Ugh. I keep bragging about all the free time I have now that my team is awful. I don’t watch every game because they make me sad and angry. My husband and son root for the Phillies and I have a lot more free time than they do.

Then you’ve got the picture books with fellow author and agency-mate Liz Garton Scanlon. You two have collaborated on at least four picture books: Bob Not Bob, Dear Substitute, The World’s Best Class Plant, and Five Minutes: (That’s A Lot of Time) (No, It’s Not) (Yes It Is). Ruth and I have tried to collaborate, with no success. How do you and Liz do it, again and again?

I think the key to our success is magic. (And there are two more in the pipeline: Homesick, with Neal Porter Books, and The Family Tree with Beach Lane Books, coming out in a couple of years.)

Audrey and Liz

Actually, we really do believe that the way we stumbled into creating manuscripts together works really well. One of us starts, and at some point—after a few lines, after a page—sends it to the other. We do not track changes. When the manuscript is with me, I can cut anything, add anything—it is mine, until I send it back, and then it is Liz’s. It really does work like magic for us.

And your hilarious book titles, like Take Your Octopus to School Day, and I won a What?, and Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten?, and Edgar’s Second Word. Humor is your not-so-secret weapon. Asking for a friend, how do you do it, come up with a ton of fun picture books that get published?

Lately I feel like my true talent is coming up with a ton of fun picture books that don’t get published. When I think of my writing life—the challenges, the growth—I am aware that voice was my starting point. I’m often told by writer friends as well as casual readers that when they read my books, they absolutely hear my voice. And I think the humor’s a lucky built-into-voice piece for me.

On top of that, you’ve continued to write middle grade novels, like Water Balloon and (my personal favorite) Screaming at the Ump, Two Naomis and Naomis Too (with Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich) and your latest, After the Worst Thing Happens. How do you pivot from punchy picture book prose to heart-tugging yet humorous mid-grade language?

I don’t think I’m writing middle-grades anymore. They don’t come as naturally—I think I have a picture-book brain that I stubbornly forced to work on longer works. Maybe I exorcized that demon.

What’s next for Audrey Venick?

I have three books in the pipeline—the two with Liz I mentioned, and When I Redraw the World, with Random House Studio. I haven’t had a ton of luck in these pandemic and post-pandemic years—I had three books come out in the pandemic and they sank. And it’s been hard to sell new manuscripts. I’ll keep writing, of course, but it’s frustrating.

So what’s next for Audrey Vernick is more frustration, most likely.

Please share any social media links:

@yourbuffalo on twitter,

audrey_vernick on Instagram,

Audrey Glassman Vernick on facebook