Writer Spotlight: Darcy Pattison

 

New Mexico, homeschool, revisions, Publish, Mim's House, and quilts: Author, presenter, and publisher Darcy Pattison

Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI-MI. In this piece, meet author, writing teacher, and publisher,  Darcy Pattison.

You were born the fifth child of seven on a ranch in the hills of New Mexico. Your upbringing runs like a “thread through much of what I write.” How so?

Coming from a large family means I had independence at an early age. It was impossible for my parents to keep track of everything that every child did every minute of the day. Choosing a career as a writer draws upon that independence as I choose what to write about and how to write about it. I’m also aware of family dynamics in a story, how siblings and parents relate to one another. My daddy was a cowboy—a real cowboy—and my mom tried wild ideas to earn money. I think I still have that attitude of working hard to earn something.

You were always a reader, but it wasn’t until you were homeschooling four children that you began to write. The advice was: if you wanted to teach children how to write, you must write in front of them. What else did homeschooling teach you?

Homeschooling taught me children’s literature, as I sought out the best books for my kids. I loved the teaching of Charlotte Mason who said that literature can teach kids in rich and diverse ways.

It also taught me that there are many ways to live out your life and values. 

I started homeschooling at a time when it was questionably legal. I went to legislative committee meetings to lobby for new legislation to allow us to homeschool. 

Once approved, I still faced years of people asking me why I was homeschooling. It helped clarify my goals for homeschooling, while also helping me see that there are many options. Later when I chose to indie publish, I think the homeschool experience gave me courage to move forward.

In a bio blurb, it’s mentioned that, before you were ten years old, you came within 20 yards from summiting the Continental Divide.  The reason you didn’t: you didn’t have the necessary gear to scale the last vertical yards. Did you climb the mountain just because it was there?

Ha! I climbed because my older brother said we should. The Continental Divide was right in our back yard, less than a mile from our house. I think HE did it simply because it was there! But I did it because I was told to—until the last bit was just too steep, and I turned back. I’m joking about the necessary gear!

In the same paragraph, it’s mentioned that your bucket list included kayaking off the coast of Hawaii, and eating curry in Mumbai. Still on the list? Is there anything more you’ve added?

Yes! I’d still love to kayak the NāPali coast of Hawaii. We were there years ago, but it was the wrong season because the winds and waves were too high. I’d love to go back. And yes! I’d love to eat curry in Mumbai. This year, we traveled a lot, spending a month circumnavigating Colorado (and climbing a 14-er, a mountain over 14,000 feet tall), and then a couple weeks in Czechia and Poland. Traveling, seeing new places and meeting new people, is an important part of my life.

When a student complained they didn’t know what to write, you’d tell them to write that they don’t know what to write, over and over again. Very soon, they’d find something more to write. “Words breed more words,” you said, and you use the same technique on yourself. You’ve got more than 70 books out, so it obviously works. Why is that?

I taught Freshman Composition for about seven years and that strategy—just write something!—worked over and over. These were intelligent young students who had thoughts, just no courage and confidence that they could express themselves well. 

My job was to teach them to write a five-page essay with confidence and competence. When they handed in their first essay, it was common to hear them comment that it was the best thing they’d ever written. Duh! It was the only time they’d ever revised ten times!

We did five in-class hand-written revisions, and then they had to go home and type it up. That essentially was another revision, though they didn’t realize it. So, a total of ten revisions. 

Their daily grades were a check mark: they either did the revision and had a typed version or they didn’t. By doing revision that targeted one, and only one thing at a time—opening, closing, using great verbs, writing complex sentences, or using sensory details—they could focus on strengthening one thing at a time.

I’ve learned to do the same thing: write something, then revise. 

Sometimes, I still do targeted revisions. For example, I might look at the timeline of events and work to get that straight. But my subconscious mind always works on the whole piece. 

I think it’s a good trick: give your “left-brain” something to do to stay busy, while your “right-brain” takes over and does the real job of revision. The left brain is happy: Hurrah! I got the timeline right. And the right brain is happy: Hurrah! I used a great phrase to connect the opening and conclusion, and by the way, did you hear the language I used here?

In 2014, you were at a career crossroads. You’d published eight books with traditional publishers over a decade. What was your Eureka moment when you embraced independent publishing?

September 2025

I turned 59. I realized that I didn’t have an editor waiting with bated breath for my next book—and never would. I attended a master class on self-publishing and realized that I had to decide. Either quit. Or bring books to market myself. I came home and drew a line in the sand and bought 1000 ISBNs. I was committed.

Then, I put my head down and worked for five hard, wonderful years, publishing books that I loved, just because I loved them. When I finally looked around, I had over twenty books published and a thriving career: starred reviews, NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book awards, and more.

I’m actually a hybrid author and think that every book is a decision point for how to bring the story to the market. My default decision is that Mims House Books will publish my stories. 

But I also have three popup books with a small religious press, Dayspring Books, a division of Hallmark. Because the popup mechanisms are more complicated to produce, I’m glad to leave these to Dayspring’s expertise.

When laying the foundation for the success of a new indie publication, why are the cover and the metadata so important?

Amazon and other book distributors are, at their heart, just big search engines. Everything we do online depends on the search engines to deliver our books in their results. 

That means you MUST have engaging metadata. The cover, title, subtitle, description, # of pages, author bio, illustrator bio, ISBNs, formats, and so on will help the search engines figure out when to highlight your book, and for which readers. Without accurate, intriguing, interesting metadata—you’re sunk.

In an interview you once compared your career to that of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He followed The Terminator with Kindergarten Cop, and you wanted to do the same with your books. What was your Kindergarten Cop?

I loved looking at Schwarzenegger’s work and realizing that he had two tracks for his work: thrillers and comedy. For me, I love writing science fiction or fantasy. I considered that my main work. My Kindergarten Cop was the nonfiction science/STEM books. They have taken over my career and do much better than my novels. But I still write novels because they are my first love.

While doing your Schwarzenegger business model, you’ve managed to publish multiple books in a year. Do you have a routine for a “normal day”?

No! There is no normal.

You counsel writers, “Don’t let anyone steal your dreams.” Your novel THE WAYFINDER was traditionally published, but a follow-up novel was rejected and languished in your drawer for years. How did you finally resuscitate your dream?

THE WAYFINDER was my first legacy published novel (Instead of “traditionally published,” I prefer the term, “legacy published.”) But my editor left. How many times do you hear that? Too many. It’s rare for an editor to stay in one place long enough to build a substantial list of titles. I got caught in that change of personnel, and the replacement personnel wasn’t as interested in my work.

Still, I had the second book well under way. When I decided to indie publish (Instead of “self-publish,” I prefer the term, “indie publish.”), it was one of my first books to publish, THE FALCONER. The two stories were set in the same world, with the protagonist of the second book the granddaughter of the protagonist in the first book. It felt right to bring her story to life, too.

9-book Moments in Science series

When marketing your non-fiction books to schools and libraries, you realized that Amazon, although a giant in the self-publishing industry, was not the way to go. What did you find was the way to go?

Amazon is the elephant in the room and any marketing must account for it. However, there are many ways to reach teachers and librarians: great reviews, conferences, direct email marketing, review copies, speaking at schools, and more. Everyone can reach out to the educator market in many ways!

Tell us about your Shrunken Manuscript Revision strategy.

In the early days of my writing, I was poor. A friend sent her manuscript for review, and I didn’t want to print the whole thing double-spaced and typical font size because it would spend too much money on paper. So, I shrank it. I removed the double spacing, changed the font to about 9-point font, and removed the extra spaces at the beginning and ending of chapters. Suddenly, a chapter could be a single page. I could start to see the shape of the novel. The hardest thing about novels is their length. How do you keep everything in your head and remember how chapter one relates to chapter nineteen? The Darcy Pattison Shrunken Manuscript technique removed that problem. See this video for a full discussion of the technique.

You and author/illustrator Leslie Helakoski are partners in presenting picture book writing techniques. Leslie said that both of you were stuck in an airport after separately presenting at a Highlights workshop. Why are you such an effective teaching team?

I respect Leslie Helakoski’s books, her working style, and her writing style. We don’t agree on everything, but our goals are always to strive for excellence, while respecting an author’s personality, history, writing style and goals. When we teach together, I interrupt her to add a comment, or she interrupts me to add something. Because our goal is to help the students strive for excellence, the meshing of our teaching works. I am a better teacher because she challenges me and makes me think in new ways. I love working with Leslie!

Why “Mim’s House”? Is there a significance to the name?

Yes! My husband and I own a three-story Victorian house in the historic downtown Quapaw Quarter of Little Rock that we use as office space. When we looked at the house, I agreed to buy it if I could use the funny, weird attic space as my office, while my husband would use the rest as the office for his real estate appraisal company. In the Quapaw Quarter, they name the houses after the family who lived there in 1890. So our house is named the Mims House after the Mims family. I work in the Mims House; I am the Mims House publisher; Mims House is who I am.

You have a passion for quilting. I was going to call it a hobby, but you’ve won awards and been recognized for pieces you’ve created.  A writer friend also quilts, and I know from her experience that it takes storage and space to work. Unlike knitting, it’s not portable. When did you start? Do you have a dedicated quilting space? What do you do with the quilts you create?

Yes, I’ve had quilts in regional art shows, and one quilt on the cover of a quilting magazine. I have an unpublished manuscript about the history of quilting in the US, illustrated with quilts made by or for kids. Maybe I should publish that soon! I quilted until COVID hit, but somehow since then, I don’t do much anymore. Mostly now, I make books, not quilts.

Demonstrating the eclipse 2024

What’s next for Darcy?

Maybe I’ll revise that quilt history manuscript and publish it. In the meantime, coming in September is PUBLISH: Find Surprising Success Self-Publishing Your Children’s Book. For the last four years, Mims House Books has earned over $100K/year, a rare thing in our field. But I think there are many strategies and ideas that can help authors turn their books into a thriving career. I hope to help people draw their own lines in the sand.

 

 

Please include any social media platforms you’d wish to share:

IndieKidsBooks.com – blog about indie publishing children’s books

DarcyPattison.com – personal site

BlueSky - @darcypattison.bsky.social

Facebook – facebook.com/darcypattisonauthor