Perogies & Gyoza: This is
your second children's book, and second collaboration with
Isabelle Arsenault, after
2010's award-winning Spork. How did the second project come about?
Kyo Maclear: When I was in highschool a
boyfriend gave me a copy of The Waves and I instantly fell in love (with
Virginia Woolf… the boyfriend and I were ill-suited.) I have continued to adore
and admire Virginia ever since. A few years ago I came across a childhood photo
of her playing cricket with her sister Vanessa Bell and it started me thinking
about their relationship. Shortly after, I started working on this story. When
it was finished I sent it to my wonderful editor, Tara Walker, who shared it
with Isabelle. To my delight, Isabelle signed on immediately.
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Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell Stephens |
PG: My image of a children's
book is that an author writes a book, submits it to the publisher, and then
the publisher chooses an illustrator who then develops the second part of
the story. However for both of your books with Isabelle Arsenault, I get
the feeling that it is more collaborative than that. Can you speak to the
process of working with your illustrator?
KM: I consider Isabelle a dream
collaborator and artistic soulmate but the funny thing is we’ve never met in
person. With both Spork and Virginia Wolf, my editor served as the primary
go-between. I think I forwarded a few pictorial notes but the rest was up to
Isabelle. At some point in the early stages, she sent us a “Mood Board”——a
large page filled with character sketches, Bloomsbury period photos, Liberty
fabric patterns and palette swatches. It was so beautiful, the first thing I
did was frame it and put it on my bedroom wall. On one page, Isabelle had
managed to convey the entire emotion and aesthetic of the book. It is
incredibly magical to work with an illustrator with such sensitivity and
metaphoric intuition. I’ve been so lucky.
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Virginia Wolf Moodboard, copyright Isabelle Arsenault |
PG: Was there any difference in
the way you approached Virginia Wolf, since it is loosely based on real
people, compared to a book like Spork which is all from your ideas?
KM: Yes, “loosely based” is the
key word here. Of course, there was more preparatory research with Virginia
than there was for Spork. For example, I re-read Woolf’s memoir essays (in
particular, On Being Ill and Moments of Being.) But then I set what I read
aside. I quickly decided that any references to Virginia Woolf’s real life
would need to be as light-handed as possible so as not take away from the
story: an imagined episode in which one sister tries to help lift the other out
of the doldrums. In the end, there are a few true-life details that may satisfy
older readers and Woolf-afficionados but they are extraneous to the plot (and
will sail over most children’s heads.) If I set myself any goal of fidelity
when it came to my source material, it was to be true to Virginia’s love of
language.
PG: Virginia Woolf is perhaps
most famous for her struggle with mental illness, as well as being an
author. You have tackled that in Virginia Wolf, but that's not a very
common theme for picture books aimed at children. Did you
specifically want to tackle the issue of mental illness or did it come about
organically by showing the relationship between
Vanessa Bell and Virginia
Woolf?
KM: I saw the relationship
between Vanessa and Virginia as a chance to take both a literal and metaphoric
look at depression. As a parent and a former child I know that kids have
intense moods and can suffer from lingering sadness. Having said that, I admit
I was a bit nervous when I first submitted the story because I knew I was
treading on sensitive ground. What amazed me was that no one balked (not the
publisher, editor or the illustrator). No one felt the idea was too gloomy for
children. (Had I stumbled upon a melancholic pocket of the publishing world?) I
have been really heartened by the response so far.* I think people recognize
the love and playfulness in the sister relationship and this—along with
Isabelle’s exquisite illustrations—helps temper any adult fears of encountering
a “difficult subject.”
* I especially liked JuliaDanielson’s Kirkus column.
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Black & White Test for Virginia Wolf, copyright Isabelle Arsenault |
PG: You have made a trailer for
each of your children's books so far. Is this
a necessary part of
marketing a children's book today, or just a fun extra?
KM: I love doing trailers. As you
may know, writing can be somewhat lonesome. At the risk of becoming
socially-inept, I always jump at the opportunity to collaborate, especially
with my musician husband. As for the role trailers play in marketing, I think
everything helps. (These days, books need a biodiverse ecology to thrive. That
means all forms of social media + devoted booksellers + word of mouth, etc.)
PG: What is the difference
between writing a children's book and an adult book?
KM: Good question. I think I’d
have to say the main difference is economy of language. Believe me, writing
shorter is not always easier! I’ve learned so much about distillation through
my work for children. The other difference is the place of illustration. In my
mind, the best books allow the pictures to do some of the talking. Books where
the images are simply parroting the text tend to bore me.
I've become so enamored of
visually-driven books that I've found illustration seeping into my adult
fiction. My new novel, Stray Love, which will be published this March, features
a boy named Marcel who grows up to be an illustrator. The novel includes two
gorgeous drawings by Canadian artist Heather Frise.*
*( Kyo Maclear's new novel is published as Stray Love in Canada and appears in Australia/New Zealand as A Thousand Tiny Truths.)
*( Kyo Maclear's new novel is published as Stray Love in Canada and appears in Australia/New Zealand as A Thousand Tiny Truths.)
PG: What books did you love as
a kid, and are there any kids books you love as an adult?
KM: I loved The Peanuts, Shel
Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends, anything by Richard Scarry (I loved his
encyclopedic detail), Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book, Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant
(and any story where children know more than big people.) As an adult, I’m a
big fan of The Treehorn Trilogy by Florence Heide Parry, The Very Persistent
Gappers of Frip by George Saunders and Lane Smith, The Three Robbers by Tomi
Ungerer, and for sheer rhythmic readability Charlie Parker Played Be Bop by
Chris Raschka.
PG: Are you multilingual? If
so, do you have any tips for parents like me raising multilingual kids on
how not to stuff it up?
KM: I speak Japanese like a four
year old——i.e. I can ask for toys and cookies fairly fluently. Japanese was
actually my first language but growing up in an English-speaking country and a
bicultural home, it quickly fell by the wayside. (The wayside is also cluttered
with my highschool French and undergraduate Spanish.) In retrospect, I wish I
grew up with two languages moving through my brain on a regular basis. That
kind of code-switching seems healthy and miraculous to me.
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Bloomsberry from Virginia Wolf, copyright Isabelle Arsenault |
PG: What's next? Any more collaborations
with Isabelle Arsenault in the future?
Virginia Wolf is in stores now, and Stray Love, Kyo Maclear's new novel, will be released on March 20.
My interview with illustrator Isabelle Arsenault can be found here.
Oh my goodness, what a charming and lovely discovery! I posted to my blog. The idea of "if the wolfish mood is yours" is powerful, because many of our moods and thought aren't really ours! Oh so charming, I watched the trailer many, many times. RICH! thank you so much!
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