Kammeraad, puppy dog eyes, Little Steps, Our Show, Defauw and rooster: author/illustrator Ryan Hipp
Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI. In this piece, meet author and featured illustrator Ryan Hipp.
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| Ryan's inspiration for this banner: "My daughter and I play called ‘Alligator Walk’ where she pretends to be a little bird sitting on my back." |
What was life like for young Ryan? Where did the urge to draw and create come from?
That’s really where it all started, right? I think probably for a lot of us. I have like 4 or 5 vivid milestone moments that always come to my mind, and I don’t really remember which one came first.
One very early one was realizing that before I could write letters and words, I had a better ability to draw what I meant to say - and people understood what I was drawing. So this exploded because I knew I could communicate visually.
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| early art |
Another moment that really aided my passion was my love of books with pictures. I was obsessed with the structure of Richard Scarry books, and how everything was meticulously labeled - which is why I am probably the way I am now.
I do very much remember the moment that I discovered that Roger Hargreaves, the author and illustrator of the Mr. Men and Little Miss books was not in fact a kid. That tipped my apple cart. Those books reinforced that I could write and illustrate books.
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| more early art |
Early on you paired with Kevin Kammeraad to create The Tomato Collection. Tell us about this collaboration. How did you meet Kevin?
I met Kevin right at the start. We were both in college - he was finishing up at GVSU and I was at GRCC. I had just made the decision to follow my dream of becoming an author and switched to the Graphic Design major. Kevin was in film school and I met him at a party - I worked at a Grand Rapids comic book store called Tardy’s with Kevin’s roommate.
He was sitting on the floor on a shaggy rug, long flowing hair, wearing a white linen shirt, and there were like 4 or 5 really pretty girls sitting with him with puppy dog eyes as he was showing them his manuscript and dummy book for the Tomato Collection.
He was reading them his poems and they were just enamored. So I turned to my buddy and said, “This was not what I was expecting”, to which he responded, “Yeah, this is what it's like every time we have a party”.
I was at Kevin’s grand release party for the book, and it was really a proud moment - At the time, we were like, I don’t know 22 or 23? So this was a big deal for me to know that kids our age could really do this. It was an infectious motivation and I knew I more than ever I wanted to focus on this.
Shortly after his book was released, he had already started project #2 which was to turn the entire book into a music album, and he openly invited me to help him and that is really where I first established myself in the kid-lit world - I wrote and performed about 8 or 9 tracks on his album and did filler instrumentation on other people’s tracks - and that helped solidify my credibility in this path to kids books as a kids musician.
You’re a musician? What instruments do you play? How does your musical ability come into play with your art and writing?
Yeah - 8 years of band in school paid off - once you learn how to read music and if you have a good ear for music, anything is possible. Although playing live gives me anxiety, I am a wizard in the studio, I can usually get a song right in several takes with the power of editing. I play trombone, drums, ukulele and organ.
You also collaborated with Kevin Kammeraad to produce A Curious Glimpse of Michigan. What was your goal for this book?
Before I talk about Curious Glimpse, here's a good segue - Kev and I often would daydream of being one of those famous duos like Lane Smith & Jon Szieska. I joke about being paired with Kevin, but its really a point of pride to me. I really love Kevin - he is my family.
So Kevin and I were at Book Expo Chicago several years ago, and in an elevator on our way to an exclusive event we got a secret invite to from Harper Collins - it was a charity auction of original picture book art - and it was a literal who’s who of the industry - and who were we on the elevator with? Lane Smith and Jon Scieska! I think I made a joke about pressing the emergency stop button. Kevin said “we only have 40 seconds to tell these two guys how important they are to both of us”. They signed my autograph book. They even saw us after the gala and said, “Hey, Michigans!” We did give them a copy of Curious Glimpse.
So back to that - I had just started doing school visits with Kevin and also my first ones solo, and Kevin had met our publisher EDCO at a a teacher’s conference - and they really wanted to do something that was “like The Tomato Collection, but supporting the Michigan 4th grade curriculum”.
I think what happened was Kevin wasn't really sure what that would even be, so he asked me for help. The plan was he and his wife Stephanie would write it, and he and I would co-illustrate it - and it really worked - we ended up all blurring the lines to make it what it was.
This was a huge door-opener for me because we had to re-pitch the idea to EDCO, and they trusted us. The book sold 20,000 copies regionally, and we did our signature treatment and turned the entire book into a music album - 49 tracks!
We spent about 6 months making the book, and about a year making the music album. This is also where I met another collaborator Jim “ScribbleMonster” Dague, who wrote some of the songs on our album for us.
You went solo, wrote and illustrated a children’s book Little Steps. This book arose from a difficult period in your life. Care to elaborate?
Yes, thanks for asking this question - I always talk about this openly because I want kids to know authors are humans too, and talking about our feelings is healthy and we heal when we address our issues head-first.
It was October 2010 when the first block toppled - about a week before an SCBWI-MI Fall Retreat - my then-wife-now-ex-wife dropped a bomb on me out of the blue that she wanted to get divorced. No discussion. It was decided.
I felt powerless to fix things. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t eating, but I kept trying to hold everything together. When I showed up to Writing Camp, I just couldn’t fake it any more and I told Ruth and Charlie who really went above and beyond for me at that event and for months and months after. In time, things got easier in some ways, and other blocks would fall in other ways.
One really great thing that happened is I was able to put all my focus on my kid-lit career - I joined SCBWI-MI’s AdCom (Advisory Committe), became the Regional Illustrator Coordinator for my term, helped plan big events, made great connections, doubled (maybe even tripled) my school visits, and in 2012 received the Gwen Frostic Award for fostering literacy, (and I am so proud of the legacy of heroes and friends I am on that wall with).
But despite all of the good, I still felt like a hole was still there inside me - that I still felt broken, anxious, uncertain, lost. The irony is even at the time I was doing my best work for kids, I was a mess.
Even the letter I received informing me I was to receive the Gwen Frostic award sat unopened for a few weeks. I was just not really experiencing a lot of joy, and I knew I needed help - so I started seeing a counselor to help me process everything .
At this point what I was dealing with was much less about the lost relationship, and more about the fear of my future path being no longer clear... and I said, “why isn’t there a book about all of this?”
(Side Note - haha I KNOW there are MANY books that help with these topics - but for dramatic effect and for the dramatization version of this autobiography, there were no books on the planet that could help with this - so I decided to write one). Little Steps really is about recognizing that life is going to be really hard, but we really do grow and learn to handle what comes our way.
You may have left Kevin Kammeraad behind, but you embraced his puppetry. You produced a number of short YouTube videos with Finley and Max. What did filming puppets teach you about storytelling?
Although I have made a concerted career effort to come into my own and not be so tied to Kevin in people’s minds, I will never have left Kevin behind.
Sure, is it kind of annoying sometimes to be at an author event, and see a peer, and the first thing they ask is “Where’s Kevin?” I usually remind people we are not Bert & Ernie. But also we definitely never had a Hall & Oates falling-out either. Or for my fellow elder Millennials, we never had a Drake & Josh beef.
The story of Finley & Max is an incredible full circle. Finley & Max came about from an opportunity that I had to pitch a show idea to our local PBS Public Media station, and just as Kevin had given me so many opportunities, I knew I wanted to throw Kevin a bone and wanted to do this with him as well.
We produced 2 pilot episodes and 9 mini episodes and due to contractual conflicts at the time, our PBS affiliate maybe got a little spooked about the commitment, and they never aired on TV.
I was still incredibly proud of the accomplishment, I created a cinematic universe and a series bible for not only these two characters, but all the characters they would reference, I designed the puppets based on my drawings and hired Avenue Q puppet-maker Jarrod Boutcher to fabricate the puppets. A fun-fact about Jarrod, is he has created perfect muppet replicas for many notable puppeteers of the Sesame Street cast.
So fast forward to now! The fire has been re-sparked. My Curious Glimpse of MI colleague Jim Dague had been connected to my Finley & Max director at WGVU Phil Lane - and now Jim, Phil, Kevin, myself and a host of others have begun our new children’s television adventure Our Show Today! Which airs on Saturday mornings on WGVU PBS Kids
All of our old Finley & Max segments are finally airing in a sub-segment called “Our Show Yesterday!” haha
Its really been so fulfilling to see decades of work and passion and collaboration finally find its way into the sun.
Ryan cares about animals, loves cartoons & comic books, science fiction & fantasy, collecting toys, playing classic video games, and skateboarding.
That list of likes was from a while ago. I imagine you don’t skateboard as much as you used to. What do you care about now?
Haha. I feel attacked! In fairness, you are not wrong! I gave my adult nephew all four of my skateboards about 8 years ago. I think Tony Hawk is still skating in his late 50s, but I need to insure this body with better coverage if I am going to risk all. If I break my drawing hand, I’m in trouble.
So many of my other same interests are still happening! I still collect pop culture toys and statues, but I now have limited to a very specific curation of higher-end collectables. I have to collect with intentionality now otherwise I go too far. Something fun I do now is unboxing videos with my daughter (who is 4 at the time of this article).
Author and fellow-SCBWI member Danielle DeFauw wrote about the year you worked with K-4 students. What was the stated goal of your job?
I am glad you asked about Danielle - I hope she sees this - Hi Danielle! - Here’s another person that I owe so much to. Danielle reached out to me a few years ago with really an incredible request around the time she was planning her Master’s thesis - to follow me in my author visit touring season journey and observe my approach to working with students over the course of my sessions.
The outcome was more than I could have hoped for, and was incredibly validating to see a scholar’s point-of-view of my work, my impact and my mission to help kids. Really a huge honor!
You’re a Master Certified Coach? What is Hipp-Hop Academy?
So for the last 10 years or so, I have been taking on adult mentorship clients, kind of ad hoc - helping folks that were aspiring authors who had great ideas but really no idea how the publishing industry works learn what they need to do to take the right steps.
My first advice is always the same - join SCBWI first, and then I can help guide you further. I have always loved helping others make their publishing dreams come true, which was what I loved so much about my time on AdCom.
That’s why I have expanded my mentorship in a more official capacity by offering Hipp-Hop Academy.
In 2021, to improve my mentoring acumen, and to take on clients in a more official, certified capacity, I got my Master Certification in Professional Coaching.
From there, I decided to develop a full program based on my entire career - packing all my successes and mistakes in a bottle and then scaling my 1:1 mentor offering into an expanded full curriculum. Sometimes we need someone to take those little steps together.
You met a wonderful woman, and together you save animals.
Tell us about some of your rescue successes. What rescues are currently under your care?
Yes, my wife Rachel is really my soul mate! She and I have been rescuing farmed animals since 2014! At our peak we had over 40 animals - each one getting full veterinary care. Father Time has asked us to say goodbye to so many of these friends, but we were able to give them a safe, harm-free life.
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| Ryan and Luke Cage |
One rescue that is very near and dear to us is our Rooster Luke Cage - a personal rescue we witnessed getting hit by a semi truck, and after taking him to the emergency hospital, he survived unscathed. He is still with us today, the indestructible Luke Cage.
You also have a beautiful daughter. What is this contest you’ve involved her in?
My daughter Lilith is a bit of a celebrity. Her toy unboxing videos are quite popular with a lot of the collectible companies, and Liith took 10th place in Hasbro’s Toddler of the Year contest.
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| Rachel and Lilith |
You joined two powerhouse reading organizations. What did you bring to their tables? What did SCBWI and the Michigan Reading Association do for you?
Where would I be without SCBWI and MRA? Both have given me a wealth of knowledge, experience, credibility, support, friendships, and a 20+ year career. Everything I have accomplished has been a ripple-effect from every opportunity that has come my way and each ripple originates from these two organizations.
MRA gave me a platform, an audience, and a purpose to help kids in Michigan. And SCBWI-MI gave me the tools, the knowledge, the experience, and the credibility to be viewed as a thought-leader in the publishing world.
I would like to think what I brought to both of these organizations was service to young ones and service to those that want to do work for young ones.
Young and untamed Ryan Hipp changed the menu at an SCBWI event he was chairing. He was friendly with conference faculty. He had an uncommon amount of confidence for a big, bald guy with an unusual last name. Is there a quieter, dad Ryan today?
Haha. I will explain myself to anyone that wants to know this whole story! I think I have always had convictions and I think my confidence comes from a place of manifesting the person I want to be.
To this day I think my time on AdCom was some of the proudest moments of my kid-lit career because It felt so good to be of service to so many writers and artists and being someone they looked to for guidance.
I think we owe that confidence as responsibility to our members. And maybe this is the one thing in life that I am certain in my expertise of? Sorry Not Sorry for all my younger shenanigans.
Dad Ryan is maybe even more bold and un-quiet because I am keeping up with my little challenger for the title of Trouble-Maker-Maximus.
So, what’s your plan? Any new books on the horizon?
1. Coaching and Mentoring Aspiring Writers at Hipp-Hop Academy!
2. Traveling the world: Italy! Malaysia! Thailand! Japan! in 2024! Scotland! in 2025!
3. School Visits for the 2025-2026 School Year!
4. OUR SHOW TODAY! Saturdays on WGVU Public Broadcasting PBS!
5. I am writing a Middle Grade Horror Series!!!!
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- Fall webinar with Sheela Chari- Oct. 22nd at 7:00 pm Registration period: Oct 1-22
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