7-Year-Blogiversary! Kudos to Our Team and a Fond Farewell from Co-Editor Kristin Lenz

 

It's been seven years!

When I transitioned the SCBWI-MI members-only newsletter into a public blog in August 2014, I wanted to continue many of our beloved Mitten traditions, but I was also energized to create something new with a reach beyond our Michigan membership. Here was an opportunity to nurture our community and showcase our members’ writing and artwork beyond our SCBWI borders; a chance to connect and interact not just with each other, but with teachers, librarians, booksellers, and readers around the world. Mitten newsletter co-editor Jodie Fletcher left to pursue other projects, but first she set us up on Blogger. (See what Jodie’s been working on since then at Devicconnection.com. Her new book, The Journal of a Spiritual Seeker is out now!). Nina Goebel and Patti Richards joined me to form our first blog team, and we met at a coffee shop in Royal Oak to discuss the shape and vision of this new blog-to-be. 

Over the years, our blog team has grown and shifted in new directions. Patti moved on to run the Farmington Hills Shop Talk and other projects (including her own blog and several published books!). After writing numerous guest posts, Charlie Barshaw stepped up to cover the Writer Spotlight interviews. Sarah LoCascio took on the Hugs and Hurrahs. Jodi McKay created the Book Birthday celebrations, which Lauren Nyquist later jumped into when Jodi became co-RA. Lauren moved out-of-state this summer, and Christy Matthes recently came on-board. Isabel Estrada O’Hagin and Angie Verges started the Equity and Inclusion Corner. Meanwhile, Nina continued to coordinate every aspect of the quarterly Featured Illustrators, even when she returned to school for a master’s degree in art therapy and pursued a new career. Congrats, Nina!

Our community is so generous. You’ve shared your time and knowledge and experience on our blog every week, including on-going features such as Dear Frida Pennabook (Jay Whistler’s alter ego), Ask the Editor by Katherine Gibson Easter, and Painless Self-Promotion by Debbie Gonzales. There are too many contributors to name, and I know I'm forgetting some because... 7 years! To date, over 400 posts have been written by Michigan members with hundreds of thousands of views!

My favorite part of the job is corresponding with members from around the state—learning from you, helping you learn, and feeling inspired by your growth and success. Mitten posts have been written by seasoned professionals making my job a snap, as well as novice writers who took my requests for revisions in stride as they earned their first publishing credit. Way back when I was a new SCBWI-MI member and the Mitten was a snail mail newsletter, I submitted my first article, Cook Your Book, to editor Kris Remenar. She responded with interest and encouragement, and asked me to add “more meat.” She was a good role model, and I’ve shared her advice many times.

Nina and I had planned to hand over the blog reins a couple years ago, but new partnerships continued to develop, and then the pandemic turned everything upside down. 

Alas, it is time. 

The Mitten blog needs the fresh eyes of new leadership, and I’m excited to see the changes that develop from the enthusiasm of new co-editors. They’ll be walking into an established routine with a supportive team but will have the opportunity to create new features and explore new directions and formats.

What’s next for me? I’m still writing everything from YA novels to poetry. My agent has one novel on submission (please send good vibes!), I’m drafting another, and I have a poem in a forthcoming anthology (Rhyme and Rhythm: Poems for Student Athletes). But I’m also excited to move in some new directions, including teaching a Creative Writing Workshop for Social Workers. I’ll still be here for SCBWI-MI events (I’m presenting on a poetry panel with Shutta Crum and Heather Meloche on Sept. 11th for the Farmington Shop Talk), and I’m looking forward to writing an occasional Mitten blog post - something I rarely had time for as co-editor!

Who will be the new Mitten blog editor(s)? I can’t wait to find out! 

Look for the position descriptions and application link in the SCBWI-MI monthly newsletter that RA's Carrie and Jodi will email to all members next week. I’ll be standing by to answer questions and provide as much support as needed during the transition. 

Thank you again to everyone who has contributed to our SCBWI-MI blog over the years. What a grand team effort! The blog calendar is already filling up for fall, but we're always looking for guest posts. Learn more on the Submissions page. 

With much gratitude,

Kristin Lenz

Kristin Bartley Lenz is a writer and social worker who has lived in Michigan, Georgia, and California. Her debut young adult novel, The Art of Holding On and Letting Go, was a Helen Sheehan YA Book Prize winner, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and an honor book for the Great Lakes Great Books Award statewide literature program. Her fiction, poetry, essays, and articles have been published by The New York Times, Writer's Digest, Hunger Mountain, Great Lakes Review, The ALAN Review, Literary Mama, Women On Writing, and The New Social Worker. She also writes freelance for Detroit area non-profits and manages the Michigan Chapter blog for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).

Learn more at www.kristinbartleylenz.com

Our humble beginning seven years ago: 

https://scbwimithemitten.blogspot.com/2014/08/welcome-to-mitten.html

Our first Featured Illustrator and blog banner from Heidi Woodward Sheffield: 

https://scbwimithemitten.blogspot.com/2014/09/illustrator-interview-heidi-woodward.html

Neal Levin shared dozens of his Kiddie Litter cartoons:

https://scbwimithemitten.blogspot.com/p/kiddie-litter.html

Flash back to a few of our most popular posts with thousands of views:

• Self-Publishing Success: https://scbwimithemitten.blogspot.com/2020/01/self-publishing-success.html

• If You're Blogging and You Know it, Raise Your Hand: https://scbwimithemitten.blogspot.com/2018/04/if-youre-blogging-and-you-know-it-raise.html

• Writer Spotlight: Fatma Al Lawati: https://scbwimithemitten.blogspot.com/2018/09/writer-spotlight-fatma-al-lawati.html

• Back to School: MFA Week (a 7-day series!): https://scbwimithemitten.blogspot.com/2016/09/back-to-school-mfa-week-day-seven-thats.html

*Find posts on any subject using the search box in the right sidebar.

Coming up on the Mitten Blog:

Kidlit horror, faith-based writing and publishing, plunging into Michigan history, website tips, a Writer Spotlight, Book Birthdays, Equity and Inclusion Corner, and another round of Hugs and Hurrahs. We want to trumpet your good news! Please send your writing/illustrating/publishing news to Sarah LoCascio by Sept. 7th to be included. 

Writer Spotlight: Dionna Roberts Makes SCBWI and MRA Better

 Baskets of Poetry, Little Free Libraries and Summer Writing Camps: Dionna Roberts

 

 

I was lucky enough to interview you for the Michigan Reading Association’s blog (Read it HERE) Your mother taught you to read before Kindergarten. Was she your first inspiration to be a reader and a writer?

My mother equipped me with the foundational skills needed to be a capable reader, but moreover, she gave me an appreciation for stories. I enjoyed those she told from books, but it was the family stories of down south and her growing up that inspired me most! I wanted to write stories the way that she told them with an authentic voice, dialogue, and people who were like us. I looked for stories like this to read growing up. Needless to say, they weren’t always easy to find.

In fourth grade, you also experienced your first male teacher, Mr. Hayes, who you said “made everything we learned cooler than COOL.” Now you teach fourth grade. Is cooler than COOL your goal for your students, too?

Cooler than COOL has never been my goal. However, I strongly believe that when teachers put building relationships at the heart and as a top priority of their teaching, “being cooler than cool” or “ice cold” as Outkast rapper Andre 3000 would say, becomes an unintentional, positive outcome. I decided to ask a former student of mine from the 2003-2004 school year if cool would be a word they would use to describe me as a teacher.

Their response: “If cool means relatable; yes. You were good at teaching at grade-level, but made things easy for all of us to understand whether we were at grade level or not. Your approach was on point because you took the time to get to know us and our cultures. This allowed you to relate to and communicate with us effectively. We loved you and knew you loved us This is better than just being cool.”

Teachers seem to have influenced you throughout your life, so much so that you remember their names. In second grade, Mrs. Kaye instilled in you a love of poetry. Do you still keep notebooks full of poetry?

I do. I have notebooks and journals that live in baskets and on the bookshelves in my home. Each school year, I set up and use writer’s notebooks alongside my students as I model what it looks like to be a “teacher as writer” during our workshop times. There are also random ramblings and pieces of poetry that take up space in the notes app of my phone. You never know when inspiration will present itself.

You’ve attended nErD Camp and MRA conferences, paid attention and took notes. Works by Donalyn Miller seem to have  changed your style of teaching. Can you explain?

Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp changed what teaching reading looked like in my classroom tremendously. They both provided me with a profound revelation of the power of building reading culture and community in my classroom. Going back to my belief that building relationships and getting to know my students should be at the heart of my teaching, this is inclusive of getting an understanding of their reading lives.

I learned from Donalyn and Colby how as teachers, we need to provide young people with choice and access to a wide variety of texts. We must make space and opportunity for independent reading and book sharing each day. They reminded me that read-alouds are magical times of connection between the stories being told across pages, a teacher, and their students.

After learning from them at various conferences, including those you mentioned, I saw the importance of being intentional with building and organizing an accessible classroom library reflective of the readers in my classroom and what they were interested in reading rather than simply displaying and housing books on shelves.

I was inspired to breathe life into the act of reading by making being a reader in my classroom an unforgettable, positive experience.

You helped to start Little Free Libraries throughout Kalamazoo and lower Michigan. (Read more about it HERE.) How did you become involved in this project?

The Art of Planting Little Free Libraries is a collaborative project that is the result of my passion to “end book deserts” in my community and my colleague, Kellen Deau’s desires to lift up the work of community artists and use art as a way to inspire a love of literacy.

When brick and mortar schools were initially shut down as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, some of my immediate thoughts were, what are my students reading and how were they going to have access to books with schools and libraries being shut down indefinitely. That thought then grew deeper and considered not only the students at my school but the families in my neighborhood.

I remembered the story in the book Game Changer: Book Access for All by Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp, and how Little Free Libraries provided book access to families within a small community. I wanted to be a catalyst for making this happen in ALL neighborhoods in Kalamazoo, regardless of the socioeconomic status of families who live there.

I designed a t-shirt and hosted an online fundraising campaign through www.teespring.com during July 2020 in hopes of raising money to purchase and install at least one or two Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood, just as I’d seen in more affluent parts of town.

Well, I did that. By October 2020, two LFLs had been planted in my neighborhood and were stocked with quality texts for young people.

However, it wasn’t until Kellen Deau and I talked in early Fall 2020 about expanding this effort more widely, submitted grant applications that were awarded in full, that this amazing movement took root and began to really bloom!  

To date, 23 Little Free Libraries have been built by a local carpenter, The Dapper Hammer, painted by a host of talented local artists, planted and stewarded by book-loving community members, and stocked with books provided by individual donations, and support from our local independent booksellers at Bookbug/This Is a Bookstore.

You are on the Board of Directors for Read and Write Kalamazoo, and you conduct summer programs for creative writing for children. Why?

There was a quote shared online by the organization We Are Teachers that reads: Reading is like breathing in, writing is like breathing out. I serve as a board member of RAWK and support youth in creative writing camps deeply believing in this idea. I want to help facilitate and advocate for programming and spaces for our young people to be able to breathe in this way. I understand the power of it, having been a young person who benefited greatly from spaces such as these growing up.

How about your own writing? What are you working on now?

I am currently working on building routines and habits for myself as a writer. I have found it challenging to write consistently while also taking care of my family and working full time. I do love it though. We make time for what we love, right? There are two solid drafts that I am giving considerable attention to. One is a book of poetry inspired by students I’ve known over my 19 years in education and the other is a picture book about studious, socially awkward groundhog named Gideon and their backyard adventures. I also recently became part of a critique group through SCBWI. My goal is to build accountability to myself as a writer, by working alongside and sharing with other writers.

You are a member of SCBWI and MRA. If your life was a Venn Diagram, what would be at the intersection of those two organizations?

 At the intersection of both of these organizations is the love of literature and the empowerment and celebration of individual stories. I am grateful to be a part of both.

Follow Dionna: 

Blog: www.literacyadventures.com

Twitter: @Deesigned2teach

IG: @dee_the_teacher

Facebook Page: @LiteracyAdventures

If you've got a suggestion for a future Writer Spotlight interview, contact me, Charlie Barshaw, at cjbarshaw523@aol.com.

 

 

Congrats to the 2021 SCBWI-MI Illustration Mentorship Winners!

 

SCBWI-MI congratulates the winners of the illustration mentorships!

Rebecca Howe won the middle grade/young adult illustration mentorship with Bea Jackson.

V Gray won the picture book illustration mentorship with Dow Phumiruk. 

Runners-up are Rachel Seeger and Anna Lunt.

Here's a message from SCBWI-MI Mentorship Coordinator, Ann Finkelstein:

Thanks to everyone who applied. The judges commented on the high quality of the submissions. Putting your work out for review requires courage and strength. I applaud you. 
Thanks to the judges (Heidi Sheffield, Brianne Farley and Amy Nielander) for writing detailed and constructive comments on each submission. I feel like I took a graduate level illustration class by reading the judges' feedback. 

The 2022 mentorship will be for middle grade and YA novelists. It's never too early to begin preparing! Stay tuned for more information via email, social media, and our SCBWI-MI website.

Summer Vacation!

It's summer vacation for the SCBWI-MI blog team! We're taking time off to be with our families and work on other projects, but we'll be back and re-energized in a few weeks. We already have posts planned for the fall, and we'll be checking email for any Book Birthdays or queries in the meantime. Find our submission guidelines here: 

https://scbwimithemitten.blogspot.com/p/submissions_18.html. 

We look forward to hearing from you!

Happy reading and writing, and see you soon!

Equity & Inclusion Corner: What is Casual Diversity?

 

As E & I Corner blog Co-Hosts these last two years, Angie and I want to thank you for all of your support and interest. My term as E & I Team Leader ends July 30th, and that date will also mark the end of Angie’s term on the E & I Team. Building the E & I Corner blog from the ground up has been a great experience, but it is time for new leadership to step in. The next round of E & I Team members will be announced later this summer.

 

We appreciate all of our blog contributors and those who joined the dialogue in our comments section. We also want to thank Kristin for her commitment to her leadership as Editor of The Mitten. It's been a rewarding experience to work with her and our RAs, Carrie Pearson and Jodi McKay.

 

Today's post is from former E&I Team volunteer Lisa Rose who served for two years during the launch of this committee and numerous initiatives. Thank you for sharing your time and experience, Lisa! Stay tuned for our next blog post in October with the author, Shanna Heath.

 

Cheers!

Isabel Estrada O’Hagin and Angie Verges

What is Casual Diversity? 

By Lisa Rose

 

Betsy Bird, in a 2014 blog post, defined casual diversity as “diversity that is just a part of everyday life.” 

I go a step further. To me, casual diversity happens when diversity is depicted in the story, but the focus of the story is not about the diversity. In my view, the first casual diverse book is also one of the most famous diverse books.  

One morning many years ago, a little boy in Brooklyn named Peter woke up to an amazing sight: fresh snow. Peter was among the first non-caricatured black boys to be featured in a major children's book. But Keats, who wasn’t black (He was Jewish), wasn’t trying to make a statement about race.

"He said, well, all the books he had ever illustrated, there had never been a child of color, and they're out there — they should be in the books, too.”

The book didn’t say 'I am a black child going out into the snow today.' It was just a child's experience of the snow. However, the impact was monumental. Black children could begin to see themselves in stories. This story gave them a “mirror” in which to see themselves. For non-black children, these “mirrors” were “windows” through which they could see black children as also having similar interests and experiences not unlike their own. These children can connect that this seemingly different child is not that different from me. Peter likes snow, just like me.

Jabari Jumps, by Gaia Cornwall, works in a similar way:

If you just look at the text of the book, there is nothing that indicates that the book has anything to do with diversity. However, diversity is presented in the illustrations. 

Picture book creators can have the visual show diversity.  

One of my favorite books is Hello Goodbye Dog by Maria Gianferrai.  Not one word in this book describes the child is in a wheelchair—it is just who she is—just like she happens to be someone brown hair.  The wheelchair is only shown in the pictures.  This is story about a dog.  This is not a story about a wheelchair.

Similarly, when I created the Star Powers chapter book series, it was important to me to make it a story about a second-grade girl who loved science and not about a girl in a wheelchair. Her wheelchair was discussed when it was central to the plot—like when she was figuring out how was she going to get to the top of the observatory. However, overall, it is essentially a story about a girl and not a story about a wheelchair.

In fact, all of my picture books demonstrate casual diversity.  Shmulik Paints the Town is a story about a painting dog.  However, readers are also learning about Israeli Independence Day.  The greatest compliment I received about the book was from our own Jodi McKay. She was concerned she wasn’t understanding something and asked why Shmulik was considered a Jewish book. Exactly! I didn’t write Shumlik the Paints the town only for Jews. I wanted everyone to read it and enjoy it.  A Zombie Vacation which is also set in Israel and is also published by a Jewish press is also an example of casual diversity.  This book is about a Zombie who lost his zombie groove and decides to go on vacation to come back to dead.  What is the perfect place for a Zombie vacation? The Dead Sea—LOL! Readers learn about the special properties of The Dead Sea water and the area surrounding it.

You could say that casual diversity is subtle. As a Jewish girl, I always wondered why every story had a Christmas tree. Why did every family on TV celebrate Christmas? Why can’t the book have a menorah on the table? Why can the argument be on the way to Temple or Mosque instead of church? We don’t have shout: THIS FAMILY IS JEWISH, MUSLIM, AFRICAN-AMERICAN, INDIAN, CHINESE, LATINO…etc.  It can be depicted in an illustration in a picture book or a sentence in a novel.

To illustrate my way of looking at casual diversity, I’ve coined the phrase, “Beyond Rudolph.”  Everybody knows the story Rudolph and the Red Nosed Reindeer—poor Rudolph is bullied because he is different—UNTIL—what is different is exactly what saves the day. This savior act allows everyone to finally appreciate the fact that the thing that makes Rudolph different—is also what makes him valuable. Often, perhaps too often, diverse stories are only about what makes the main character a “Rudolph.” However, casual diversity helps creators get “Beyond Rudolph” and tell a story where diversity is depicted without being the subject of the story. 

Instead, stories that employ casual diversity include readers simply as they are: an essential part of our diverse world.

Lisa Rose’s latest picture book The Singer and The Scientist is about the friendship between Marian Anderson and Albert Einstein was released on April 1, by Kar-Ben Publishing. She is also the author of A Zombie Vacation (Apples & Honey Press, 2020) and The Star Powers chapter book series (Rourke Educational Media). Her first picture book Shmulik Paints the Town (Kar-Ben Publishing 2016) was a PJ Library Selection in May 2016 and 2020. It was sent to over 50,000 homes in North America. Lisa founded the Missing Voice Picture Book Discussion Group, whose mission is to highlight new picture books and their creators featuring diversity and little-known subjects on a monthly basis. Learn more at https://lisarosewrites.com/.

The SCBWI-MI Equity & Inclusion Team is energized to create a stronger SCBWI-MI community that includes, engages, and embraces disparate voices. Learn more about the E&I Team on the SCBWI-MI website, and read our previous blog posts at the Equity & Inclusion Corner.

Ask the Editor by Katherine Gibson Easter

 

Welcome to our quarterly Ask the Editor feature! Katherine Gibson Easter is an editor at Zonderkidz and was previously at Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. She's collecting questions from SCBWI-MI members and sharing her answers with our community. Did you miss her previous Q&As? See the link at the end of this post.

Here's Katherine:

Hi there! Thanks so much to everyone who sent me their questions! I’ve answered them to the best of my abilities, and I hope you find this post helpful and informative.

As with my previous Ask the Editor posts, I humbly ask that you take my comments in the spirit in which they’re intended. The advice here is meant to be friendly and helpful; I sincerely hope that no one finishes reading this post feeling vulnerable or discouraged.

Also, a general disclaimer that my thoughts are my own; I do not speak on behalf of my publisher or the publishing industry in general. I would not be at all surprised to learn that you’ve heard an editor or agent say something that directly conflicts with my perspective. Everyone in publishing has their own views and preferences, and I can only be honest about my own.

If you have any questions about writing, editing, or publishing that aren’t addressed here, please reach out to me. I’m always happy to gather questions for my next post!

Thank you, and happy reading!

I recently paid for a critique, which was very helpful in revising the manuscript. However, in the comments, the author expressed the opinion that fiction is very hard to sell right now. She implied that agents/editors are not seeking fiction stories like they did in the past. Do you think that’s true?

 

Interesting! The author may have been referring to the fact that there’s been increased market demand for juvenile and YA nonfiction since the start of the pandemic, so many agents and publishers have been paying special attention to acquiring new nonfiction content. But of course, children’s fiction still outsells nonfiction, and in fact it’s growing now that the nonfiction market is starting to cool off a bit. So I wouldn’t worry about children’s fiction going away anytime soon.

 

Or maybe the author meant that there’s a glut of fiction manuscripts circling around right now. Agents would feel this more than editors, so I’m making a bit of an educated guess here, but with so many people staying indoors last year with newfound time on their hands, many of them probably spent their time writing manuscripts and are now trying to sell them. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if agents were being inundated with queries right now.

 

All that being said, I think the writing world is always going to be competitive. You can try to time your submissions based on trends or circumstances, but I personally feel that what matters most is simply having a good manuscript that hits a felt need. If you have a polished manuscript that you really believe in, I’d say send it out. Life is short, and even if this author is correct and everyone you query tells you no, you’re no worse off trying than you’d be if you’d left the manuscript in a drawer. 

 

I'm having a hard time finding agents to query who are Christians. Do you have any suggestions or website resources?

 

I’d definitely recommend checking out The Christian Writers Market Guide. They come out with a new edition every year, and it’s a great list of agents, publishers, periodicals, etc. that specialize in the Christian market. 

 

Another good thing to do is to look at the Christian books you’ve read and loved and find out who the publisher and agent were. (You can usually find the agency listed in either the copyright page or the acknowledgments page.) Then look into that agency and publisher and see what else they acquire to see if you’re a good match.

 

Really though, I think there are lots of agents out there who don’t specialize in the Christian space who would still be willing to take on a religious manuscript if they felt that it was the right project. Try looking for books that address the same themes as your manuscript, then see if the agents who represented them would be willing to consider your project as well.

How do American publishers decide which foreign titles are worth translating into English?

Often if it’s a bigger publishing company that has imprints in multiple countries, the American publisher will simply look at their foreign imprints’ best performing titles and translate those books into English for the American market. For smaller publishers (ones that don’t have affiliated foreign imprints) looking to license the English rights to a book, subject matter is key. Since the original author and/or illustrator probably won’t be available for many marketing and publicity efforts (since they likely don’t speak English/won’t be in-country), publishers have to make sure that the book gets attention another way, usually by tapping into a strong felt need in the market. 

For picture books, the illustration style matters a lot too. Foreign picture books tend to be more avant-garde with their artwork than American picture books, which could be off-putting to readers who are used to seeing books crafted especially for the American market. Sometimes unusual or striking illustrations help the book to pop on the shelf, but generally, the more the artwork falls in line with what readers expect to see, the more likely it is that people will pick up the book.

I just finished writing my first picture book and I want to secure an agent. Do you have a list of reputable agents who specialize in children’s books?

 

Great question! There are lots of great resources out there for finding agents, but I’ll list some of my favorites here. First up is (of course) SCBWI’s The Book. Not only do they have a great directory for publishers and agents, but they also include tips on how to put together a query, how to publicize your book, and so much more. 

 

I also love the Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market. It’s got lists for agents, publishers, magazines, fellowships, etc., and there are multiple indices in the back to help you find what you’re looking for. 

 

And since you’re specifically looking for an agent, I’d recommend spending some time looking through Manuscript Wish List and QueryTracker. Those are great tools to help you find out what specific genres/subjects agents are looking for, whether or not they’re currently accepting queries, and how to pitch them. Lots of luck to you!

Katherine Gibson Easter is an editor for Zonderkidz, having previously worked for Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. She graduated from the University of Denver Publishing Institute in 2013 and has spent the last eight years editing and publishing award-winning children’s books, including Sibert Medal and Caldecott Honor book The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus and Plume, which was a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book.

Thank you, Katherine!

To submit a publishing question, email Mitten blog editor Kristin Lenz with "Ask the Editor" in the subject line, and she'll forward your question to Katherine. Or, stay tuned on the SCBWI-MI MichKids listserv – Katherine will ask for questions a few weeks before her next post.

If you missed any of Katherine's previous Ask the Editor posts, go HERE to browse through all the questions and answers.

Coming up on The Mitten Blog:

Another thoughtful post from our Equity and Inclusion Team, and then VACATION! We're entering our summer slowdown season when the SCBWI-MI Blog Team will be enjoying time off with our families and friends. Keep sending us your queries and Book Birthday requests—we'll still have occasional posts throughout the summer, but not every week. We'll continue to alert you to new posts via the listserv and social media.

Book Birthday Blog with Baxter Bramatti

                         Welcome to SCBWI-MI's Book Birthday Blog!

Where we celebrate new books from Michigan's authors and illustrators

Congratulations to Baxter Bramatti on the release of

Shadow Songs

This was the write up in the latest “Hugs and Hurrahs”: Baxter Bramatti’s second self-published picture book, SHADOW SONGS (illustrated by Taylor J. Graham), will be released on June 15. It's a rhyming fantasy tale about a girl who awakes to a mysterious melody coming from a nearby forest. Guided by fireflies, she searches for the source of the sound, but what she sees in the forest might not be what they seem. Care to elaborate further?

 

Shadow Songs is a fun story that uses the element of surprise in a simple way. The main character is a girl named Flora Figglesworth, who wakes in the middle of the night to a song she can hear coming from a nearby forest. She enters the woods and encounters many different animals that she thinks are playing instruments, like a frog playing the drums or a woodchuck rocking out on guitar. But all she can see is the shadow of the animal with the instrument. Then, fireflies add light to her view and, as a reader, there is an anticipation to turn the page to reveal what Flora actually sees. 

As she journeys through the forest and the fireflies light her way, it seems as if all of the animals are snoozing with something near them that looks like the instrument she thought she saw. So, maybe that frog wasn’t playing the drums, maybe it was just sleeping among some mushrooms. Or that fox, it’s just sleeping by a fallen tree trunk that happens to look like a piano. Right? Maybe. I mean, she can still hear the music when she returns home. So maybe those critters really are having a jam session? The end of the book reveals the truth; I don’t want to spoil it for anybody.

 

Your first picture book was titled MOON PUPPETS  What did you learn in the publication of the first book that helped you put together the second?

 

Dimensions mostly. But that’s boring stuff. Although I really do like the actual designing of the books, the layout and all of that. Oh, and to look everywhere for errors. Then there were things I feel like I should have learned but didn’t. Like a timeline to release the book: when to submit to reviewers, when to start announcing and start promoting, when to schedule a release date in reference to submitting final files to IngramSpark and KDP to allow time for checking proofs. After two books, I still don’t feel like I’ve learned all that. Then there were things we thought we learned, like color, i.e. RGB v. CMKY, but had to relearn for different reasons with Shadow Songs because of the unique shadow/lighting aspect of the book. Designing on a screen and printing on paper can be drastically different.

 

SHADOW SONGS is a rhyming tale. Why did you tackle the added layer of difficulty of rhyme and meter in telling this story?

 

My first draft of the story was a poem. Same with Moon Puppets. It was suggested to me to switch the stories to prose. I did it with both and I thought they were terrible. They became too technical and lost their fun. For me, with projects like these two books, I feel that not having them rhyme is the more difficult way to go. I read stories to my kids most nights, and books like On a Magical Do-Nothing Day by Beatrice Alemagna and Big Wolf & Little Wolf by Nadine Brun-Cosme are brilliantly told with no rhyming and I’m wowed by the simplicity and preciseness of the words.

I guess I feel the music-ness comes a little easy to me to start with. And once I get  going with an idea, I can fit my words into a pattern, sort of hiding behind that rhyme. Maybe if I come out of that rhyme in a short story or children’s book, I falter.

 

What was your inspiration for writing SHADOW SONGS?

I wish I knew. I really do. I believe I finished the first draft of the story sometime in 2014. I could say fireflies inspired me. I always loved those little buggers (pun intended, probably). I just remember that once I had the idea of the shadow of one animal with an instrument, only to be revealed by firefly light that the instrument was something else,, I realized I could repeat the pattern into separate stanzas. I thought of books like Julian Donaldson’s The Gruffalo where the main character encounters different animals in the forest, but the setup of the story and rhyme is basic repetition, albeit brilliant, funny, and exciting at the same time.

 

You’ve got a “Real Job” and a young family.  How do you carve out time to create your stories?

 

Get the work done. Put the kids in bed. Turn off the TV. Attack the ideas if I still have energy. That sounds easy, but in reality all of it’s hard, including turning off the TV. When I get something going, I need to be obsessed about it to see it through. It needs to be the only thing I think about beyond my family (forget the “real job”). I need to eat, drink, and breathe it until it’s taken on its own life and can continue growing.

 

What is your writing and revisions process?

I write a bunch of stuff then never revise it. Or, I revise it once or twice then lock it away forever. It’s not a good process. For the two books I did publish, it was basically write a story in a couple of sittings, then scream “Is this okay? Does this make sense? What’s wrong with this?” at everyone around me for five years or so until I felt comfortable sharing the stories with the world. I do not recommend using my writing or revision process.

 

I interviewed you last year as a new SCBWI-MI member (HERE). What has changed in your life since we last communicated with each other?

First, thank you for that interview and featuring my work. As for what’s changed, I’ve neglected my website. I know most of the time people have positive things to say to a question like this. But for me, all I can think of is that I neglected my website and I’m not pleased by that. I’m hoping to change that soon.  For anyone reading this, I could always use an accountability/writing partner!

 

After two picture books, do you still have stories to tell? What’s next?

Absolutely. What’s next is most definitely a third Flora Figglesworth Fantasy. Success or not, I’ve got another almost-complete tale that I have to share. Taylor Graham, the illustrator for Shadow Songs, is on board with it as well. I also have a draft of a middle-grade novel that is close to being complete after some professional grade edits. I’ve been sitting on it for some time now, but I feel it will do the main characters a disservice if I never share their story.

 

Where did you find your illustrator? Are they the same one who illustrated MOON PUPPETS? What does your working relationship look like?

 

I found my illustrator by asking a random stranger a few awkward questions on the internet. I’m fairly certain that’s how most relationships start these days so it seemed only natural at the time. And yes, Taylor illustrated Moon Puppets and Shadow Songs and I’m grateful he did. As for our working relationship, it looks like a series of text messages. I’ve never communicated with him in any other way, nor have I seen him or know what he looks like. Part of me thinks I’ll wake up one day and he’ll turn out to be a whole Tyler-Durden-Fight-Club concept and I was just having conversations online with myself and that I created all the art alone. But then I’ll remember I have absolutely no drawing capabilities so I’ll be quick to dismiss that theory. 

Taylor lives in San Diego, California, and I was going to visit him last summer, but the pandemic hit and spoiled my plan. Which now just enhances the mystique around our relationship. But I still would like to meet him one day. I mean, we would all like to meet those we admire, no?  And I absolutely admire Taylor. He’s put up with me through the creation of two children’s books and he designed images that brought my ideas to life.

 

A little bit about the author…

Baxter B Bramatti, the author of the Flora Figglesworth Fantasy series, lives in Michigan with his amazing best friend and his loving wife (hint: it's the same person) and their two daughters. He spends his time writing, dreaming, scheming, and eating. He does laundry, too, because food stains are natural consequences of his eating. 

A little bit about the book…

Guided by firefly light, Flora searches for the source of a mysterious melody coming from a nearby forest. But deep in the woods, things might not be what they seem. Is that bear playing the banjo? Or that frog, is it jamming on drums? Join Flora as she uncovers the secrets of the Shadow Songs!

Social media contacts:

Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram: @bbramatti

www.baxterbramatti.com

Where can we buy this book?

Shadow Songs is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, and pretty much anywhere books are sold.

https://smile.amazon.com/Shadow-Songs-Flora-Figglesworth-Fantasy/dp/1736825909/

If you've got a Book Birthday coming up, contact Charlie Barshaw @ cjbarshaw523@aol.com