Author/Illustrator Spotlight: Eric Rohmann

 

Steam shovel, page turn, earthly delights, Oxford, giant squid, and a sketchbook: author/illustrator Eric Rohmann

Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI-MI. In this piece, meet author/illustrator Eric Rohmann, esteemed faculty member of the 2014 Mackinac Island conference.

Eric from his website

You mention on your bio page some of the children’s book makers you admired. The two well-known males, Maurice Sendak and Robert McClosky, the female names unfamiliar to me. Wanda Gag at least has a website, but Virginia Lee Burton has an expired link. What can you tell us about the works of these two female author/illustrators?

Wanda Gag (pronounced Gog) was of Czech heritage—like me—and if you look at her books you will see the influence of folk art and culture in the images.  The book which enchanted me as a child was called,  Millions of Cats.  The pen and ink drawings are unique, bizarre and wonderful.  The story itself is rather absurd, and that’s always a good thing. As a boy I found myself wanting to believe every word.  That’s the thing about books—they make the impossible, probable.

Virginia Lee Burton was a spectacular book maker and artist. Have a look at The Little House or the Illustrations from Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. Like Wanda Gag she was influenced by folk art, but had a modern sensibility that was clearly influenced by the art of the mid 20th century.  

I love these artists because they understood how pictures fit into a book, how to use page turns and tell a story with clarity.  I also love them because their work is nothing like mine and so seems forever fresh.

In a video interview you talk about your childhood struggles with reading, and even today you read slowly. Have you been diagnosed with a reading disorder?

I think my struggle was due to having never developed the habit of reading early on.  My mother read romance novels and mysteries, but we never had many books in the house. 

Later in life my father discovered he was Dyslexic and he finally discovered why he couldn’t stay focused on a book.

I ask this because your own picture books seem word-scarce, or wordless. Have you ever “read aloud” one of your wordless books to an audience of kids?

“Word scarce”!  I Love that. 

Most of my stories begin as pictures and I find that as I am working the images often do most of the talking.  I add text when it’s needed because words and pictures do different things.  

Often, I use text in a way that allows the reader to visualize the moment. The last thing I want to do is rob from the collaboration between story and reader.  And yes, I have “read” my wordless books to children, but of course, allowed them to tell the story back to me.

Page Turn. Go.

The singular characteristic that makes a picture book a picture book,  the page turn takes collection of words and images and makes it into a narrative.  When we turn the page we recall the page we just left— and we then imagine what will happens next. As we turn the page we fill in the moments  in our imagination thereby linking one page with the next.  The page turn is the confluence of anticipation and surprise.

How did a mid-western boy like you end up in Arizona?

I wanted to study artist books and fine bookmaking.  I got into four programs— Wisconsin, Iowa , Michigan and Arizona State.  I figured, why not try the desert for a while (and they had a wonderful program—as did the other schools!)

Death of Sardanapalus? Wikipediae. It’s in my notes. Does it mean anything to you?

The Death of Sardanapalus

That crazy Wiki page!! Eugène Delacroix painted The Death of Sardanapalus in 1826 or 1827, inspired by Lord Byron's play Sardanapalus.  I saw the painting in the Louvre and was stunned by its energy, color and subject matter.  It’s one of the paintings I keep coming back to. Others include, The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch, Goyas’s “Black Paintings”, Breughel’s Hunters in the snow, Pollock’s Autumn Mist… and about a hundred more!

Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights

Oxford the dog keeps popping up in any conversations from Candy or you. He was your three-mile-a-day walk. Was he inspiring in other ways?

Oxford and a friend's portrait

There is an old saying that says, I want to be the person my dog thinks I am.  He was always a positive presence, a model for a many pictures and animal personalities, and always a way to connect with the playful part of my nature.

I loved the origin story for your collaboration with Candy, GIANT SQUID. Started with a napkin at a restaurant?

In true cliche fashion I scribbled sketches on a napkin while having lunch with our editor Neal Porter!  The idea was to divide the squid into parts…tentacles, beak, fluke etc. on separate spreads.  I made drawings and Candy wrote from those images—a truly backwards and inspired collaboration.

I’ve only known you as Candace Fleming’s partner. How did two children’s book creators, one of them an illustrator, meet and fall in love.

Honey Bee rough sketch

I wish I could say our meeting was more romantic, but we met at Children’s book panel event for Booklist.  After that we became friends and a few years later became that and more.

And collaborate afterwards, creating together, I’m guessing, more than half a dozen books. Candy talks about taking her manuscript up to your office, but also hearing you use colorful language in your workshop in the basement. Is that you, upstairs and downstairs?

Final art
part of a three-step process

We have a small house so where I work is divided between part of an upstairs room and the basement.  My work area in the basement is directly below Candy’s office and so the curses and lamentations are crystal clear through the floorboards.

Does it seem like you lucked out in life, with a talented, adventurous partner, getting to make art for kids?

Yes and yes.  I live a fine life because I have worked hard and paid attention to what I do. But having a brilliant writer and story teller like Candy in the same house has made me a very much better artist and maker of books.  Lucky, indeed.

Have you done an audio book? What’s it like?

I have not… I did some promo spots for the animated version of My Friend Rabbit and have great respect for those who record stories…I was pretty bad.

Eric in Egypt

What’s on the drawing board?

A friend and I put together a show of drawings influenced by Goya's prints that we are trying to get museums and galleries to exhibit

I am also working on paintings, prints and drawings influenced by our time spent in South Africa working at conservancies.  And, I always keep a sketchbook and that where book ideas are incubated and born.

 

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SCBWI-MI Fall Conference Wrap-up: Christy Ottaviano, Candace Fleming, and Eric Rohmann

The conference on Mackinac Island last month featured a stellar line-up of speakers. Yesterday, Charlie Barshaw gave us an overview from his perspective as conference co-chair. We continue today with a sampling of a few of the sessions. Thanks to Lisa Healy, Catherine Bieberich, and Diana Magnuson for sharing their experiences.


CHRISTY OTTAVIANO by Lisa Healy

I was a shadow. Well, not really. I didn't cast a gray pool on the carpeting behind Christy Ottaviano but I did assist the editor of Christy Ottaviano Books at the fall conference. Imagine what it must be like to have your own imprint! Until then, I’ll commit her submission guidelines to memory and prepare to submit, grabbing the reins of my work as the title of her Saturday session so aptly suggested.

Christy Ottaviano

Ottaviano is looking for a well-written manuscript with a strong voice. “I look at things faster when they have a familiar hook,” she said. “Are you telling me your book is To Kill a Mockingbird meets Charlie & the Chocolate Factory?”

Janet Tashjian, author of My Life as a Book, worked with Ottaviano to produce the series that was a reflection of Tashjian’s son who struggled with attention and reading issues. He used to illustrate his vocabulary words as a visual learning tool, and channeled his talents into the My Life as a Book series. Ottaviano was drawn to the author’s fictional translation of a real world issue.

Elise Broach, another client of Ottaviano’s, is the creator of Masterpiece, a modern day version of The Littles, one of the editor’s childhood favorites. “This book, coming out as a movie in 2016, introduces James, a loner who befriends a beetle,” said Ottaviano, a fan of the arts. “His mother is a socialite and never has time for him. The boy and the beetle get involved in an art heist at the museum.”

This session was further reinforcement that learning more about the person you plan to submit to is a good idea before you send off your manuscript. Does the agent or editor have special interests that are evident in the type of books on his or her list? At the end of the day, I walked away excited to read a wealth of new titles.

Lisa Healy is a writer who has worn many hats, including those of news reporter, newspaper columnist, author, and vineyard owner.  She enjoys Michigan lake life with her husband and daughter, and takes every opportunity to visit her two college sons in Grand Rapids or spoil them with home cooking on their breaks.  She is currently volunteering on the SCBWI-MI advisory committee.  Her writing has been published in numerous local and regional newspapers, A Century of Voices, BLUE Magazine, and MANITOU, and she's photographed both local and national celebrities, including Alan Mulally and Betty White, for TIME Magazine's TIME for Kids. 

CANDACE FLEMING by Catherine Bieberich

Candace Fleming

Candace Fleming was not only brilliant and informative, she was easily one of the most charming presenters I’ve ever had the pleasure of shadowing. Although she knew how to kick back and have fun, she was very serious about history. She made it very clear that, whether writing fiction or nonfiction, accuracy is the most important element. Too often, authors will sacrifice accuracy for the sake of story. Candace stressed that any text dealing with history should be well researched and documented. As authors, we are the caretakers of our nation’s stories, as well as our nation’s children. Both fiction and nonfiction consist of telling a good tale, but there is no reason to fill our tales with fallacies. After all, truth is more often than not stranger than fiction.

Catherine Bieberich lives in Battle Creek, Michigan with her husband, Kent, and her mutt dog, Chloe. She teaches sixth, seventh and eighth grade at a local charter school during the fall and uses her summers to work on Middle Grade and Young Adult fiction novels.

Cathy also coordinated the SCBWI-MI Mentorship competition, and the winners and finalists were announced at the fall conference:

Thanks to everyone who entered the 2014-15 Novel Mentorship competition. It was very exciting to have our mentor, Edie Hemingway, on Mackinac Island with us. She traveled from Frederick, Maryland to enjoy the fudge and our wonderful company. She was glad to meet everyone, especially the contestants who were in attendance.

This year's winners were:

1st place (and a mentorship with Edie Hemingway): Wendy Sherrill "Playing Dead"

2nd place: Ann Finkelstein "The Wind Djin"

3nd place: Magdalena Roddy "Certain Exceptions"

ERIC ROHMANN by Diana Magnuson

Message: STORY is all that matters. Create your illustrations to form a sequence that makes sense all together. Finished art shows how your brain works during the creating process.

Eric Rohman

Eric’s steps to achieve STORY:

1.  He stands, using his whole body to work up big, very, very rough sketches on his ‘least precious materials’ creating up to forty 18” by 24” ‘thumbnails’.

2.  A SKETCHBOOK of drawings, notes, references and color sketches is produced for each book. These first two steps take 95% of his time. “95% of everything we do on a project is ‘crap’.”

3.  Next, a STORYBOARD is created.

4.  Lastly: a BOOK DUMMY to show the ‘page turns’ (to get the reader to want to turn each page).

 Diana Magnuson: 97 books, MFA, now working on her own books and very involved in environment art and writing. She was much relieved to hear about the 95% and the process.

SCBWI-MI website

For more information on upcoming conferences including webinars, go to the SCBWI-MI website. And if you've been dreaming about attending one of the SCBWI international conferences, see yesterday's post for information about Shutta's Scholarship to the 2015 winter conference in New York.







Come back next Friday to learn about an indie bookstore gem in suburban Detroit. Hope you're having a great weekend!
Kristin Lenz