Let’s warm up with a True or False Pop Quiz about Story Structure:
Authors & Illustrators Wild About Kidlit!
Let’s warm up with a True or False Pop Quiz about Story Structure:
In the spirit and style of Jeff Kinney’s tell-it-like-it-is antihero Greg Heffley, I will say this: you have to be practically living under a rock if you have not heard of the hugely popular and successful middle grade book series Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
About four years ago, I went after my curiosity and explored the possibility of writing something I didn’t know. Specifically, this happened with my upcoming picture book, GIRLS ON WHEELS, which is inspired by the skateboarding movement in India.
Carol Gordon Ekster: Phaea, more than two years ago Writers’ Rumpus interviewed you about being a debut author when JET THE CAT first came out. Now that you are an established author, what has changed for you?
It had been about a year since my debut picture book, Counting to Bananas (Flamingo Books, April 2022, illustrated by Estrela Lourenço) had been acquired. My editor, Cheryl Eissing, emailed to say her team was exploring the idea of Banana possibly carrying a picture book series. Was I interested? I had never thought about writing a sequel and, as a debut author, never imagined I would be asked to. But was I interested? Seriously? Of course I was bananas about it!
Picture book illustrations are almost limitless when it comes to the materials and techniques used to make them. It’s part of what makes them so