Writer Spotlight: Lindsey McDivitt

 South Africa, no stamps, The War of Art, Gwen Frostic, and "A is for Aging, B is for Books.": Non-fiction picture book author, Lindsey McDivitt

Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI-MI. In this piece, meet unapologetic late bloomer, author Lindsey McDivitt.

An SCBWI-MI conference helped you get published. Please tell us how it happened.

Thank you for all the terrific questions Charlie. I feel a bit like I’m back in beautiful Michigan! 

It’s still a little unbelievable to me that my first book contract was for a picture book of President Mandela! But at the time I felt absolutely compelled to write about him after a trip to my birthplace, South Africa. 

Picture book bios fascinate me and I garnered many tips on writing them from blog posts by Kathleen Merz, editor at Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. 

Fortune smiled when I landed a conference critique by Kathleen at a MI-SCBWI conference in 2015. Her editing and stunning illustrations by Charly Palmer helped create our book A PLAN FOR THE PEOPLE: NELSON MANDELA’S HOPE FOR HIS NATION. It was published in 2021 as my third picture book.

As a child, you visited your family in South Africa regularly, but there was a gap of a quarter of a century before you returned as an adult. Nelson Mandela had recently died, and the country mourned his passing and celebrated his leadership. What was it that spoke to you about his life that started you reading, and ultimately writing A PLAN FOR THE PEOPLE?

Growing up in America it seemed unreal that South Africa was finally rid of hateful apartheid. That visit with my teenaged kids made me realize how ignorant I was about my birthplace—it was so difficult to explain how it took so long for SA to become a true democracy for people of all colors.

We visited Robben Island where Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison. I was astonished to learn of all he accomplished while behind bars. And how convinced he was that white South Africans could change—that they had created a kind of prison for themselves. 

Lindsey's research stack

Coming home I read everything I could by Nelson Mandela and about him. It was a scary thing to write about him, but I came to believe a story focused on his adult life and decades in prison needed to be told.

Your fictional story, Christmas Fairies for Ouma is based on a true story linking South Africa and your new home in America. A young girl draws Christmas fairies on a card and mails it across the world with “no name, no street, and no real stamps.” Somehow, from the hand of one stranger to another across 10,000 miles, the card makes it to Grandma. This is actually based on your own experience, when you and your sister “mailed” a picture with an incomplete address and Gold Bond stickers as postage. In the story you account for the improbable journey with the magic on contagious kindness. Does anyone know how the card actually traveled all that way?

No one knows! Our homemade card (actually with princesses and no envelope) landed at my Ouma’s doctor’s office three months after mailing. The nurse knew my grandmother had grandkids in America and asked if it could be for her! The last in a chain of luck. My mom’s theory was that our picture got stuck to medical journals. But I imagined kind people seeing our card, obviously created by kids, and passing it on—one by one. Wouldn’t you? At Christmas time?

 

You worked for many years with stroke survivors and developed support and educational programs for them and their families.  How did you end up in this career?

While studying Speech and Hearing Science in college I learned about aphasia, the complex communication disorder that can occur after stroke. I met many stroke survivors in my first jobs in long term care. And I learned about the importance of peer support—people in the same boat helping each other. I started several stroke support groups and eventually worked in a hospital, a rehabilitation center and with the American Heart Association.

SCBWI is another terrific example of peer support. I’m incredibly grateful to the Michigan Chapter of SCBWI, Carrie Pearson, Leslie Helakoski and so many fellow MI writers. What a long arduous journey it is—you absolutely need support.

In the winter of 2008, in the depths of a recession, you were let go from your job. You were securely into middle age, in frigid Minnesota. How did you find the courage to choose writing as a new career?

Honestly? It was partly my desperation to get out of the house! January in Minnesota, with a move to Michigan on the horizon. I took my laptop and hung out in cozy coffee shops. A project at my job gave my confidence in my writing. Three of us had edited a set of stories by stroke survivors—peer support in book form.

My fellow editor, Jacquelyn Fletcher, gifted me The War of Art: Break through the Blocks andWin Your Inner Creative Battles. After years of dreaming and reading about writing, I learned it was Resistance keeping me from actually putting pen to paper (Resistance with a capital R).

 

You wrote a picture book about GwenFrostic, an up-north Michigan artist. She specialized in nature prints, carving her art into linoleum blocks and producing stationery in her studio/printing press. You were enamored of her art while in school, but what led you to investigate her life as a writer?

I stumbled upon a brochure for Gwen’s shop near the amazing Sleeping Bear Dunes area! A quick internet search told me Gwen Frostic overcame stereotypes of disability, gender and age in a very challenging era. She became an incredibly inspiring artist, advocate for the environment and business woman. 

And again a strategic conference critique made all the difference—this time from Sarah Rockett at Sleeping Bear Press. (She confided she’s visited Gwen’s shop in Benzonia many times.) Sleeping Bear published NATURE’S FRIEND:THE STORY OF GWEN FROSTIC in 2018. 

Michigan, you have given me so much.

 

You’ve “adopted” at least four students far from home, in part, I suppose, because you grew up in their shoes, coming from another country to settle here. How do you find them? What would a typical “adoption” entail? Have you been able to keep in touch?

Some of the family

When all your extended family is 10,000 miles away, you definitely need “found family.” The University of Michigan has thousands of foreign students also far from home. There was not an easy connection, but an off campus ecumenical center helped. Also a neighbor taught English at U of M. It began with Thanksgiving, then Christmas in Ann Arbor, and I now have two young people from China who call me their “American mom.” Over ten years we’ve traveled to spend time together—including holidays and weddings.

 

Explain your “pack a day” habit.

Ha! Post It Notes™ I love them! But I have eased off. I’m using far more scratch paper and used envelopes now to save trees.

 

Early Christmas in America

Nelson Mandela spent decades in prison and became President at age 75. Gerald Ford was 61 when he assumed the U.S. presidency. Gwen Frostic opened her printing shop on her 58^th birthday. Your biographical subjects all were late bloomers, as were you. You were 60 when your first book was published. Coincidence?

I am most definitely drawn to late bloomer stories. I’ve been so fortunate to have tremendous and creative older role models, including many thriving stroke survivors. It really didn’t feel like a big deal to reach for a new career in my mid-fifties. And since I started writing I’ve met scores of late blooming writers. (You can read some of their posts on my blog AisforAging.com)

 

You found in reading picture books, that the older characters were often clichés of forgetfulness and frailty. Publishers often wish for the protagonist of that genre to be a child solving a problem, how do you suggest writers approach older characters?

I’m passionate about this topic. Thank you for asking Charlie. 

So many picture books contain age stereotypes like witchy, grumpy, lonely, sad, sick & forgetful. Often heartwarming, empathetic picture books are entirely based on negative age stereotypes. Naturally kids need to learn empathy, but much of what we think we know about aging and older adults is myth and stereotypes.

Older adults are actually more different from each other than children, due to life experience. And I’ve learned that well regarded research shows age stereotypes harm us all, beginning in childhood—our physical and cognitive health and longevity (Becca Levy Ph.D. et al). In fact, the World Health Organization recently declared ageism a global health threat.

In the same way we have a responsibility as writers to research when writing of race, ethnicity or religion, we all have a responsibility to look beyond age stereotypes. It’s far too easy to empower a child protagonist by reaching for a stereotypical problems with an older character. My website “A is for Aging, B is for Books” has many examples of picture books that depict aging in all its complexity, beauty and diversity.

 

On the ferry to Robben Island

What’s next?

Another picture book based in South Africa is under contract and awaiting an illustrator—I’m very excited for this one. I’m currently revising a manuscript about stroke that has a rehabilitation focus. And another that’s focused on age stereotypes of young and old.

One of my fantastic critique group members said recently, “Lindsey, you write about such challenging topics!” I have to admit, they’re not easy to get published either…I am still hoping to write a short and simple story in this lifetime!

 

Please share any social media platforms:

Please find me on:

Facebook   https://www.facebook.com/lindsey.mcdivitt.3?mibextid=LQQJ4d&mibextid=LQQJ4d

My website & blog   http://www.lindseymcdivitt.com/

Guest posts by late blooming writers  https://www.lindseymcdivitt.com/?s=late+bloomers

Instagram    https://www.instagram.com/mcdivittlindsey/

LinkedIn   https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsey-mcdivitt-32907034/

BlueSky soon, I think…