Writer Spotlight: Diane Telgen

 Encyclopedias, black belt, Monty Python, WFH, ghosts, and fart jokes: Author and long-time Michigander Diane Telgen 

Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI-MI. In this piece, meet author and long-time Michigan resident  Diane Telgen.

Diane Telgen

Diane says: FYI,  I was born in Ann Arbor and spent almost all of my next 45 years in Michigan. I served as website coordinator for SCBWI Michigan in the 2000s. 

Tell us about the young Diane who loved reading. When did the writing come in?

My mom taught reading, so I learned pretty early and was devouring classics like Little House on the Prairie by the time I started kindergarten. I couldn’t check out enough books from the library to match my appetite for reading, so my go-to material was the set of World Book encyclopedias we got from my teacher-grandfather.

You could often find me browsing entries like “dog”—so many breeds!—or “human body,” which had these amazing see-through pages that showed the various systems stacked atop each other.

But the Childcraft part of the set probably had the most influence on me. I practically wore out the spines on the first two volumes, Poems & Rhymes and Stories & Fables, the latter of which started me on my lifelong love of fairy tales and fantasy.

The other volumes covered subjects like “how things work” and “people to know.” These volumes taught me that stories about real life could be just as fascinating as those about dragons or spaceships.

Diane at age "7 or 8 (with my dog Jojo), visibly annoyed I'm being asked to stop reading to look at the camera"

I always joke that I read encyclopedias so much as a kid, that’s probably how I ended up writing them when I grew up! But I knew I wanted to write my own stories from about sixth grade onward. I’d go overboard with any English assignments involving a creative writing aspect, then finally tried a novel after college.

*Bonus Material: Random Real-Life Facts about Diane* 

Diane writes: "Despite being an absolute klutz growing up, I took up taekwondo in my thirties, became a black belt, won a national championship, and became a 4th-degree master."

You could write a book and I hope you will. But what drove you into martial arts?

I started taekwondo training back in my thirties because my son and I could take classes together and I was trying to encourage him to stay active with a sport. I ended up falling in love with its mix of structure (the patterns of forms) and creativity (combining self-defense moves), and it taught me how to fall and fail and get back up again—great lessons for an aspiring writer!

While my son quit after getting his second-degree black belt, I continued training for over fifteen years, competing nationally and eventually becoming a certified instructor and fourth-degree master. 

My cement break at my taekwondo testing for 4th-degree master in 2015

At our dojang, black belt tests involved an intense full-day examination, then several weeks of rehearsal before putting on a public demonstration. My love for the sport and my fellow students kept me going, despite bumps and bruises and the occasional dislocated toe—I even tested for fourth degree while living four hours away from the dojang!

But after I moved even further away and suffered an unrelated foot injury, I had to retire. I do have a YA manuscript based on my experiences, though!

Gale was first a man who founded a company with his name. And somewhere in suburban Detroit, Gale was a publisher who collected bio facts about authors and illustrators. You got to work there, fresh out of school. What was it like rubbing elbows with the literati?

I loved working in downtown Detroit in the Penobscot Building for Gale, compiling biographical entries and writing essays about authors. I once spent an entire month writing about Monty Python, both collectively and individually, but nothing topped getting responses from my favorite authors when I sent them their entries for review.

I’ve still saved personal letters I received from the likes of Arthur C Clarke, Isabel Allende, and R.L. Stine—the latter a fellow Python fan who said I was the first to notice he’d taken a pseudonym from a Python sketch!

Much of your published body of work is work-for-hire. The Haunted series, as well as two historically-researched titles. How would you explain work-for-hire to a novice writer? I know some WFH authors who won’t sell their books because they get no royalties. How do you square book sales if you aren’t financially rewarded for them?

Kidlit book cover collage:

Basically, work-for-hire projects happen when a publishing company or book packager comes up with an idea and then hires a writer to flesh it out. Your name is on the cover as the author, but the publisher retains the copyright and all the profits. You get paid when you turn in the manuscript, and that’s it—no royalties.

Transitioning from a publishing company employee to a freelancer doing work-for-hire felt pretty natural for me, because I was used to writing to someone else’s requirements and having them retain the copyright. 

I can make a little extra from my work-for-hire projects because the publisher of my Spooky America books sells them to me at a sizable discount; I then resell them online or at events, keeping the profit.

And my Ghostly Tales have allowed me to do school visits, where I talk about my books and especially how to do research. I love talking to kids about writing, and school visits can provide a little more income, as they do for traditionally published authors.

Your writing job in the Haunted series of books, as I understand it, was to take the stories from a previously-published adult collection and make it palatable for kid readers. How much writing versus editing was involved?

My Spooky America books are “adapted” from Arcadia’s local ghost-story collections for adults. I brought editing skills to the project by choosing only the stories that I thought would appeal to kids—ones involving disasters, child ghosts, and the like—and excluding those that seemed too violent or confusing. I used the originals for the basic facts, then did additional research.

Finally, I wrote my version of the stories entirely from scratch, because I knew I needed to provide a lot of historical context for kids to understand who these ghosts were and where they came from. I really consider these books half-local history, half-ghostly tales—as I sign my books, Ghosts are just history trying to get your attention! 

Is this title yours: Latinas! : women of achievement / Diane Telgen, Jim Kamp, editors ; foreword by Nicholasa Mohr.  If yes, what was involved in editing and compiling this collection?

Photo of selected books from my reference book career as editor, author, or contributor:

This title was adapted for the general market from a biographical directory I edited at Gale, Notable Hispanic American Women. The work is mainly gathering suggestions for listees from an advisory board, collecting research, and assigning entries. Not super interesting work, but I did get to personally interview an Olympic diver for the project.

“Hellmuffin”?

It’s weird where ideas can come from. My first published short story, “Hellmuffin,” came from a friend’s social media post complaining about her cat: “What the hell, Muffin?” This immediately brought to mind the idea of a devil-cat, and my friend granted permission for me to steal the word.

When a fellow Vermont College of Fine Arts grad announced she was seeking stories for a YA Halloween anthology, I drew on my experiences taming feral kittens and spending time on my grandparents’ farm to flesh out the initial concept.

You lived in the U.K. for four years. This is another book, (most of your life experiences would make a good story). Do you still have a passable accent? What kind of cultural shock to you and your family?

While that chance combination of words inspired a full story, other life experiences somehow don’t spark my muse. I spent four years as an expatriate in London and it became a huge part of my identity—I was the lone American in a local community band, for instance.

It gave our whole family new perspectives through the people we met, travel all over Europe, and daily exposure to British culture, but I’m not sure that experience will ever end up in a story. But I never say never! 

Me at a sixth-grade author visit in 2023: 

“[M]y inner child is a 9 year old boy who loves fart jokes.” Have you matured innerly?

My motto has always been: “You’re only young once, but you can be immature forever!” I delighted in bringing fun facts about 19th-century sanitation into one of my Ghostly Tales books in order to explain why so many people left cities like Milwaukee and Chicago in the summer to sail to lovely, clean-smelling western Michigan.

 Angelella Editorial?

After graduating from Vermont College of Fine Arts with my MFA in writing for children and young adults, I gave up reference book work to focus on my own writing. But as I’m sure many readers will be aware, it’s hard to break into traditional publishing.

So when one of my classmates invited me to join her freelance editing company, Angelella Editorial, I thought that would be a great alternative outlet for my knowledge and experience.

Me on my magical graduation day in 2017
 with my MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts

I worked on everything from rhymed picture books to adult fantasy series, with some clients who were just starting out and needed coaching to others who were experienced indie authors who just needed copyediting. One of my picture book clients got an agent who sold the book I helped edit at auction!

I’m mostly retired from Angelella Editorial now, with one or two legacy clients I’m still coaching, because I want to devote my working hours to my own writing. I still hope to find an agent and get a traditional publishing deal, and I’ve had champagne rejections with a YA fantasy and a nonfiction picture book. I still hope those projects see the light of day someday,

What's next?

I've been a member of SCBWI since around 2000,
 attending my first conference in Greece in 2002.
Here I am at the 2017 LA conference
dressed in costume for the Silver Linings Gala.

I’m currently working on a fantasy romance for adults with the intention to indie publish if I don’t find a traditional publisher. The industry has changed so much since I attended my first SCBWI conference in 2002, but I haven’t given up my writing dream yet!

Share your social media platforms:

Goodreads: author page for Diane Telgen

BlueSky: ‪@neglet.bsky.social‬

Instagram: Diane Telgen (but it’s mainly cat pictures)

Website: dianetelgen.com

I have a Twitter/X account but I don’t use it; it just exists so no one else can take it over: @neglet_