Bonus episode: "My whole life is a lesson in perserverance": author Anne Broyles

We're bringing you a bonus episode of The Curious Cat Bookshop today: the recording of our event from August 2024 interviewing picture book author Anne Broyles about her writing life and how she ended up writing picture books for children after a life of service in the clergy and a career writing a variety of different kinds of work for adults. This audio episode has been edited for length. We also want to note for listeners that Anne had some visual aids in this episode, so if you'd like to see the photos and art she was showing, you can go to the full episode on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/vDsvK14OJ80.

We spoke with Anne about her latest picture book, I'm Gonna Paint! Ralph Fasanella, Artist of the People. We discussed artist Ralph Fasanella's history with union organizing and why he chose to paint workers, Anne's journey to publication, advice for new writers, and more. 

Buy I'm Gonna Paint! Ralph Fasanella, Artist of the People on our website

Buy Eating to Save the Planet on our website

Anne Broyles is a world traveler, vegan cook, hiker, art lover, avid reader, and children’s book author. Her published books for children include Arturo and the Bienvenido Feast, Arturo and the Navidad Birds, Priscilla and the Hollyhocks, and Shy Mama’s Halloween, which have won International Latino Book Awards, Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People, and Bank Street College Best Children’s Book of the Year. Anne is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. She lives in Portland, Oregon in a multi-generational household that also includes three cats and a dog named Clover. Find out more about Anne at https://annebroyles.com/index.html.

Transcript

1:11

Hi, everyone! I'm Stacy Whitman and I'm the owner of the Curious Cat Bookshop and welcome to our Curious Cat Bookshop podcast! So welcome! Thank you for joining us whether tonight in the live stream or later on in the podcast. We're all new at this so we will get better as we go. Your support of The Curious Cat Bookshop allows us to continue being your local independent bookstore so thank you for supporting events like this. So anyway as I was saying if you love this conversation please consider buying this book which we're gonna be talking about tonight at the link in the description or just searching for it on curiouscatbookshop.com. Thank you for supporting local and shopping small. let us get into our conversation with Anne Broyles, whose book, I'm Gonna Paint! Ralph Fasanella, Artist of the People is her latest picture book for children. It's out now from Holiday House. Anne Broyles writes books and curricula for children and young adults, and her book Arturo and the Navidad Birds received an International Latino Award for Best Children's Picture Book Bilingual. Other books have been named Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People, Bank Street College's Best Children's Book of the Year, and won other awards. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, two cats, and a dog named Clover. Welcome, Anne! Thank you! Thank you. It's great because when this book came out, Stacy and I talked about doing some kind of an online event, we talked about an in person event, and here we are 3,000 miles apart and we've made it happen, and and as Stacy said, this is a new way to do it for both of us. We're both more accustomed to Zoom, so if there's things that aren't seamless, just know that as Stacy said we're learning and we're we're here to be with you. So we've known each other for quite a while. I think we met the first time at a writing and editorial retreat years ago, and so I've known you as a a just long distance friend for quite a while and you're a traveller--you contain multitudes-- you're a traveller, you're also a member of the Cherokee Nation, so you're deeply rooted here, you have cats, you're a reader and a writer... So tell us about yourself and your writing. Okay Well I'm gonna do some screen-- I'm not gonna screen share this but I just wanna tell you a little bit more. Actually, what I'm gonna do first, I'm just gonna show three pictures of me as a young writer and and probably most of you have pictures of yourself something similar like this depending on how old you are and what you enjoyed doing as a kid. So we're gonna go through that one... Okay. Here's a picture of me in first grade, and you can see, writing a note to Santa. Third grade is the one the first records I have of a book that I just went home and folded some pieces of paper in half and wrote a book that has terrible grammar, not much punctuation, but I like that my mom saved it and I can show it at school visits because it shows that anybody can be a writer at certain levels. And then just a piece from 5th grade, which was my amazing year with a teacher named George Williams, who did all kinds of of interesting things to help me develop my writing craft as a child. And then it wasn't until I was-- I went to seminary. I'm also United Methodist minister, and I always found creative ways to do projects, especially writing projects, and then when I was graduating, someone who had graduated before me, was a friend. I thought he said and would you like to write to me, would you write to me, and I said sure! I'll write to you, we'll stay in touch! I didn't know he said, will you write for me, and within a few weeks after me starting as a United Methodist minister at a church in Norwalk California I got a writing assignment to write for a magazine for teens on ethics. So with that, I had my first publication where I really had to learn how to write conversationally, how to use cool language and interesting ways to talk to high school students. I went on then I took a class at a local community college and I was so impressed because the teacher came in with magazines and then taught us how to use Writer's Market, and some of the basic things that I had no clue about. I then wrote articles for the Los Angeles Times It wasn't just my travel experience in Argentina seeing whales, for instance, but I had to let other--the readers know what-- how they would do that so I honed my research skills there, then I wrote lots of different curriculum for for children and youth and adults. And all of them came to me with a theme and a word count, so it got me to be brainstorming how to write for kids with eight different learning styles. And I still use some of that knowledge in writing children's books, more subconsciously than anything. I then wrote for a book packager and if you don't know who that is that's some-- Yeah, a lot of people might not know what they are, yeah-- They they you basically it's work for hire and they want writers that can write specific things with a lot of latitude that they want them fast. So that I would get something like once I did a book on angels, so they said here's our paragraph about what we want. Write us a proposal-- they looked at whoever however many proposals. If they accepted mine, they would say okay, we need 50 to 70,000 words in three weeks. And so I learned-- This is nonfiction? This was nonfiction. So I learned to write really fast to somebody else's specifications and working with a variety of editors without really having a relationship with those editors. Then I did a really cool curriculum that was current events based, and on Monday there'd be an editor, a writer, and a researcher would meet. We would say, "What's going on in the world?" Like, was it is it time for the Olympics? Was there natural disasters or something politically that adults would wanna be engaged about? And then the researcher had a day to do all kinds of research about that and then the writer had and make it creative and questions and engaging, and then that went out by email on Friday and adults would use that in churches on on Sundays, so... Yeah that's an interesting way to look at it, yeah. and and and and interactive, so I learned about collaboration, and how to think outside of the box, how to take somebody else's ideas and make them my own. And then I wrote for some regional kinda glossy regional magazines and that's where I found the story of the book that came out this year, and that gave me interview skills I have all kind you know-- I would do review this pizza restaurant, or go to this play, or this art exhibit, or write something about the witches of Salem, So did you, as part of that, did you go to one of-- this is a question that I was gonna ask you later but let's ask you now did you go to one of Ralph Fasanella's exhibits for that? I did, I did. I'd never heard of him. And there was some big exhibits nearby and it was the Merrimack Valley outside of Boston, and so I went to the exhibit and I was fascinated because his work is very unusual once you know it you're gonna recognize it so many places and his life story was-- And we'll show samples later. Yes, yes, his life story was fascinating. I was just gonna say that none of these skills required me marketing myself, but I think they helped me gain confidence, so when it came time to start submitting to editors I actually had a good sense of how how to write a query letter, for instance. Exactly. And then my first my first adult books didn't come out till 1988. And then I published, I think, I don't know 15 or 17 books in the religious field for adults. When did your first children's book come out? In 2000. That was--let's see if I can-- this one doesn't fit in. It was Shy Mama's Halloween. And that is-- the book, it's a book about a Russian immigrant family's first experience of Halloween so that yeah and that one is one that I-- SCBWI, for those of you who don't know, is the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. It's-- it's an amazing amazing organization. this publisher wants this this publisher wants that, and luckily I--it was accepted very quickly, like in two weeks which is amazing. And it came out in a year and a half, which is also amazing. It gave me very unrealistic expectations. For those of you who don't know, a picture book tends to take quite a bit longer than that because the illustrations can take upwards of two to three years just alone, not part of the editorial process. I mean you know, it can be a year, but-- Do you know why it was so fast? There was a woman named Leanne Moran who worked in their business department and she heard about the manuscript and got excited and said can I try to write it? (*illustrate it) And they they gave her one day off a week for a short period of time and then she spent a lot of time in her free time and she got that book done in a very short period of time and we got it out fast. Oh, and and she went on to-- Do you mean write it or try to illustrate it, you mean? She illustrated it, and she she went on and did other illustrations for other books as well. Awesome! So you told us a lot about how you started writing, so I'm skipping that. Hold on. I'm also trying to read my notes at the same time. You--you ran into Ralph Fasanella's work as part of the rest of your work, but what drew you to him to write this story? Is this a story that you had been working on for a while? Did you return to it? Because that was quite a while ago that you first ran into his work, right? It was 2007, and I--I I got the idea, and thought,"Am I the right person? Should I write this book?" It was actually at a Kindling Words retreat in Vermont that I emailed, I did some sleuthing, and found his son was a SUNY professor in New York. So I wrote to his son, and said,"I would love to write a book about your father." I think I didn't start with that I think I led with,"Has anyone written a children's book about your father? If not, are you thinking of writing a children's book about your father? If you're thinking of writing a children's book about your father, would like you like a cowriter? And if not can I write about your dad?" And he immediately wrote back and said,"Oh, we have so many books about my dad, but I would love one for kids." And he has been a great a supporter, encourager, and collaborator ever since. Wonderful. Do you have, in your art that you're gonna share, do you have samples of his work or... I-I do. I don't have as man--I have some samples of his--yeah. A couple of his work, and some of the illustrator's work as well. I was gonna say because at the back of the book and that's one thing that I wanna talk about with you is writing nonfiction for children is really an interesting form of writing, whether you're talking about a picture book or older readers because not only are you writing his story-- so let me just... So you you know, you've got the story, the main story that is a narrative, but at the end, most nonfiction writers are gonna include back matter. And can you talk about-- Well let's just talk about all of it. Like the-- your research process, how you choose what you put into a story like this, how and why we do the back matter, that kind of thing. I started writing the book in 2007. I didn't submit it till 2020. I would write for a while put it away, write, put it away. I had different titles, different ways into the story, but I really couldn't find the right way into the story. Because as you said, Stacy, it's--it's about-- you wanna get some of the facts of the person's life but you really wanna get their personality. You want the kids to know who they are, and whether they like them or not. Be attracted to that person's life enough to read a book about them. Right. And so it wasn't until when Covid hit I thought I can't be writing some of these longer works. I need something short. I picked that. I had a new critique group that we did online and I just went for it, and within a few weeks had it, sent it in to Della Farrell at Holiday House, and then she accepted that one in two weeks, which is also unheard of! We can talk about that later. But haha I--you know I really had a hard time knowing how to get in the story, and it wasn't until I really hit on that Ralph was a daredevil, he was someone who didn't give up, and that he was brave, and that he underwent some really hard things. Like he spent the years from 10 to 14 in a reform school, away from his family. He never graduated from high school, he was abused by a priest, he did not have a good experience. But it didn't sour him on life. so I think that then when I finally got to start the story with him-- true story that-- with it with in his like four-story-high tenement building, he would be-- if someone dared him to jump to the other building, and sometimes people died-- kids died during this. If his friends dared him, Ralph always took the dare. And then I took that as a throughline, that Ralph taught himself to read because he was always playing hooky and not going to school. He learned to read by reading on the subway, And then he taught himself to paint later on. So that's I finally put it together it took from 2007-- He just up and quit his job one day, right? He did, and that's where the title comes from. He says, listen, I'm gonna paint, and his coworkers are like, What are you, crazy? You know, you didn't--somebody who's trying to support their family did not just quit-- up and quit. But to give credit, his wife, Eva Lazorek Fasanella was a school teacher and she didn't quit her job. So that's what that's one reason what-- How they survived. Yeah, and his siblings helped him as well. Gotcha. But then over the course of his life he went from a guy learning how to paint to somebody who was like-- wasn't he doing installations and exhibits at all sorts of I think you said he's a-- under the folk art movement? Yes, like the American folk the-- yes that would be one of the things. Or social realist is the other-- the other description. He was at a time like Diego Rivera A lot of different people, and part of the back matter is telling about some of the other social realist artists. A lot of people were looking at the world and thinking, we don't wanna just paint pretty things about how the world could be. We wanna show what the world is now. And Ralph was-- his mother was a union activist. The story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was important to his history. The 1912 Bread and Roses Strike was one of the stories that she told. And so he became-- Was she involved in that strike? She was not because they had just moved from Italy-- Ah right--right around that time. But she was an organizer and it was kind of-- like--? She wasn't an organizer, but she was an active union member. Ah, gotcha. Ralph became a union organizer once he got out of reform school and tried a variety of jobs. And he was always a social activist. And so he was--he was painting-- his subjects were the working people around him, right? Exactly. He always said, "I-- I don't paint my pictures for some-- to just hang in some rich man's living room. I want my-- I want the common people to see that they have worth, that they are important, that they are the backbone of society. And so he really wanted his paintings hanging in union halls, which has happened. Some still have his paintings. And they were even in some national build-- of one of the National Labor Building in Washington, DC until Ronald Reagan came into office and somehow that painting was moved. Yeah. Many people don't know what it's like to work with a publisher. So I'd love for you to talk about the process on your picture work picture books specifically whether you're gonna talk about this book or any of your other picture books-- What is it like for you as the writer to work with a publisher, to work with your editor, how the process works with the illustrator, and how your-- cause we've talked about this a little bit-- your--your work with the illustrator is a little bit different from how it normally goes, but that is an interesting thing for us to talk about, as well. Well, let me say first that I was working with-- an agent at the time that I submitted this book. And there's something called Manuscript Wishlist online, and if you go there you can see what editors want, what agents want-- And most editors at really big houses won't even take a submission from someone without an agent, but I found Della Farrell, who said--what--a long list of things she wanted. But one of the things was she was looking for books on social movements and labor unions, which is a very very specific thing. Yeah. And so I wrote to her, and like I said, she got back to me in a couple weeks. Her dad was a labor union member and she felt like kids did not know much about that. Which I agree, and having this book come out with all the resurgence of the American labor movement-- Oh, yeah.--with a lot of big successful strikes last year was a bonus for me for sure. So-- so then Della and I worked. We didn't have to make a lot of changes but I think the writer really needs to trust the editor. Obviously, if she had asked me to make a change that felt just antithetical to what I believed or that I thought the story needed, I wouldn't do that, but she has this very deft touch of saying,"Of course you don't have to do this, but I wonder if..." so that I never felt threatened at all and and basically I would say most editors have great ideas and are trying to be collegial and are trying to be true to the author and the story. But the goal is to have the best book and that way and that's what you kind of have to assume that your editor may know something about that. And your editor is your first reader. They're giving you that reader feedback. Exactly. Della-- then she actually let me look at three different illustrators' styles, which I've not had happen before, and I was scared to get attached to any of them because I had felt burned of with another book in a process before. So I'm like, oh, whatever you think, whatever you think. But I had sent her three choices to my family members, and my critique groups, and they all chose the same one. And we were just lucky that Victoria Tentler-Krylov was available. She's an amazing illustrator. She's having a moment too. She's had five New Yorker covers in the last year. I'll--I'll show later she does all kinds of research. You know, her art won the silver medal of the Society of Illustrators. It's gone on-- it's gone on to Bologna to win awards. She really is an amazing illustrator. So then you have-- but what you have is usually an editor with an author, and with an illustrator, and the editor is supposed to kind of be the bridge without those two meeting. I'm a very relational person, and so every time, I have ignored that. If I had a way to get a hold of the person, the write-- the illustrator-- partly because since I've written some historical things like with my Priscilla and the Hollyhocks book, I had actually been to some of the places in the story. That-- Right. So I sent her those things. With Victoria, we went back and forth a lot and that and and so even if we weren't even if we had stayed separate the editor--once the illustrator does the work and sends it to the editor-- the editor sends it usually to the author, who then can make comments. Like, my only negative comment was it feels like Ralph has awfully long legs for what he really looked like. But that's part of Victoria's style. You know, that was-- right That's my only-- So it's her-- like her style is to exaggerate certain features, you mean? Yeah. So then we-- there's a lot of back and forth between the editor, author, and illustrator, however that becomes a team, then the editor has to keep taking it to people at the publishing house. Right. You know, to be sure. She had to take-- I should have said this part once I send a manuscript in to an editor, if the editor falls in love with it and doesn't mind reading it a bajillion times-- which is what it takes even for a short book-- then that editor has to take it to a committee. Other people, including marketing people, who will say,"Oh, this sounds great!" i.e., we can sell enough copies of this to make it worth publishing a very expensive picture book.

Or: 22:56

it sounds great-- The acquisition committee. but we can't--yeah-- The acquisition committee has a lot of power. And they have to say yes. So they said yes before Della could offer me a contract. Right. And and just I'll add a note that as the editor-- cause I don't know if many of you know who are watching this who are not personally acquainted with me I am also an editor at a different publishing house and we think of the editor as the advocate for the book within the house to get everybody else excited about it. Della did a great job at that. Then you had mentioned to me that Victoria did her own research as part of the making of this book. She did. Let me let me just go to screen share just a minute. So this just shows a little bit of of her style and I love that this is taken there's a photograph of Ralph looking sort of like that so it's-- she was very true to him. But for instance, here is something that she sent to show remember I talked about Ralph jumping from one tenement building to the next? This shows some of that. And then in the upper right hand corner it's a very tiny picture but Ralph-- that's a Ralph Fasanella painting that shows the bridge and everything. So then, look here look here so you're seeing here on this one you see some boys of the kind of clothes they're wearing oh yeah that distance that they have to jump across. And then the laundry down in the bottom left corner comes up in some of her paintings. And then you see this one and that's how she took the research she did and then made this beautiful painting. It really shows the period, and shows Ralph's personality as well. If you look in the left up here you see more pictures of what the houses might have been like and in the upper right there is Ralph's picture Family Supper which is actually hangs in Elvis Island and then you see what she did in the bottom right to show on the left how they had to put quarters into a machine in order to get light and then she's taken a little bit of the Ralph Fasenella, this picture up here and then she's put what her view of what the family might have looked like. This I love because one of things Holiday House did that impressed me was they took two of Ralph's paintings and you need to know that Mark Fasanella gave me a right to use all of his family photos and all of his dad's work which was an amazing thing so here can you see the cursor yeah okay if you look here you see women in in basically a sweatshop. And this is Ralph's work on the left? Yes. This one you can't see it very well but yes. this is Ralph's work on the left of his mother and sisters and if you his work had a lot of things hidden in it. So you would-- his mother and sisters are here, and their little sewing boxes have their names on them, and there's a sign that says remember the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, and other things. But if you see you think of this center, this is what Victoria did. And she did the same thing, only then she centered in on Ralph and his mother here. But if you see the windows here on the right, and you look at Ralph Fasanella windows, you can see the whole book is really an homage to Ralph's work. So I think that's the main main thing. But yeah. So she--she did an amazing job, and made my job a lot easier and a lot more wonderful for sure. That's awesome. And you--you've experienced this before, right? You mentioned that with Priscilla and the Hollyhocks, that you had an illustrator who had done some photo research as well? Yes. Yes, that one-- I don't have a picture of that one, but I thought it was really interesting because she-- when I saw the final art for Priscilla and the Hollyhocks, there was a scene right around the time that Priscilla's getting sold-- And let's get some context, what what Priscilla and the Hollyhocks is about. Absolutely. Priscilla and the Hollyhocks, here, is about the-- based on the true story of a young enslaved child who is purchased by a Cherokee owner and walks the Trail of Tears, and ends up being rescued by a stranger's kindness. And so in that-- I might as well show you--in that, there's one picture that I thought was-- my words for it were sort of "over the top" because this building here says "auction and Negro sales." And you can see it's a whole street scene but Anna showed me that it was she did that from a library of Congress picture. So it was not just that and-- I just love the detail that our illustrators go through to make sure that they are reflecting the story that you're telling. Exactly. And I mean I feel really strongly that if someone reads one of my books that may be the that may be the only book on the trail of cheers they read, is Priscilla and the Hollyhocks. The only book on Ralph Fasanella be--may be I'm Gonna Paint! So I want them to know that in cocktail conversation they can bring up what they learned and know that it's true. As true as I can make it. That's wonderful. And that is a really fascinating point where you're talking about cocktail conversation because these are books for children but I highly recommend if you wanna learn about a subject, read a children's book. Read a children's nonfiction. Because that will give you cocktail conversation bullet points that you need to know about the subject. Yeah, exactly. I agree. I absolutely agree. So some of our audience might be writers and wondering how to get published. And so I'm wondering what advice would you have for new writers and when you're a new writer how do you learn what you don't know or how do you know that you don't know what you don't know? Does that makes sense? I think first assume you don't know. Assume that you may, your whole life, people may have said, "you're such a good writer, you should get published!" and that may be true. But if you're a children's writer, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators is the place to go because they have workshops and they have retreats and conferences and all kinds of things to help you. If you're a romance writer, they have a comparable organization. You find your people. Take a community college course, of any-- anything, libraries sometimes have writing courses. But you really you really need to know that--that your work is good before you submit it. It has to be really good as in editors don't have time to take a sort of a well half assed manuscripts and fix it up. Unless there's something in it that's extraordinary that they see. Editors in general--and Stacy you can tell me if you think this is true-- are overworked and don't have time to do all the work that they even would like to do. Because editors don't just sit there and work on manuscripts all day! They have to go to meetings, they have I mean-- A lot of editors do most of their editing after hours, actually. Right, so the way for me that I know if something is really ready to send is I'm in several critique groups and let me just tell you the first time I tried a critique group was when I lived in California and I went with what I now realize with like this little dribble of an idea a few pages that I thought was a whole book.'Cause I didn't get the whole picture book concept of 32 pages, and it has to have beginning and middle and end, it has to have a narrative arc... I had I had nothing, nothing. And I took it to this group of women that I have no idea who they were because I never saw them again. They gave me some very gentle comments, and I don't think I left in a huff, but I think I left like, "what do they think-- what do they think they know?" And I wish I had stayed with that group. It wasn't was until several years later that I did join a critique group, and I've been in critique groups ever since. You know, you-- you need people who want to help you make the story the best it can be and that means you need writers who have their own skills and are willing to tell you the truth in a gentle way. And you've got to be ready to take suggestions. I'm not saying that every suggestion you say, "oh yeah, I'll change that if you say to!" but you need to be willing to look at a manuscript and say,"hmm... you know, if four people tell me that this isn't working, it's probably not working." And I've been in groups with writers have said no but it's clear I've already put that in there and then everyone in the group says we didn't get that and then that writer would say well that's your problem! Well no, it isn't, it's the writer's problem. So I think being humble and open-- Because as the writer you are a communicator and if you're not communicating with your audience... Exactly. If you can't get adults and adult writers to understand what you're writing you're sure not gonna get in my case children to understand. And so often it's not even so much the suggestions that they make that are the solution it's just they're telling you a problem exists and you need to find a solution for it that works for your story. Exactly and there may not be just one solution, but you gotta find something. Exactly. So you've had this come out this year, and you've got another book coming out next year? Right? I have a 2025 book also with Holiday House with the same editor who by the way one day said can we just brainstorm ideas-- This is Juju, and she has just cleared my sorry hold on I just lost my entire desktop because Juju cleared it um sorry okay and I just had a we are we have very curious cats in this house. Yeah I just had a seven year old come in the house so I've shut my door too, so. Sorry about that. So your next book. Della one day said can we have a phone call and just brainstorm book ideas together and that was pretty amazing. One of the ones I told her I would like to write was about my one of my childhood heroes who I did a third grade book report on Albert Schweitzer but I said I know this isn't the right time to write a story about what could look like a white savior going to Africa. And I don't think that's who he thought of himself being, but it's just it's just not the time to write that book. But I said something like, the reason I don't kill spiders, the reason I don't eat meat, some of that is because of him. And Della said, well, we're going to do we're doing a books for a Better Earth series would you like to write a book on climate change? I said, no way! I'm not--I have no science background! Surely you can find a better writer than me to do that. There are so many good science writers. I even gave her some names. But she said, well what about writing a book on veganism and how that would affect climate change? And that book became Eating to Save the Planet, which is the what's the difference between you know why would a vegan diet possibly help this stop a lot of climate change one what can we do to-- what can we do about it? I think it's like-- it starts small, it starts one place at-- one plate at a time. So it's for for middle grade readers who are curious about climate issues who might consider looking at least at eating less meat, it's that kind of a book, and I can't say who cause they haven't signed the contract yet but it's gonna have really cool spot art that will make it kind of a fun and hopefully an energetic looking book. And I tried to make it conversational and fun. Awesome. And then I have. Sorry I was gonna say in 2026 I have a book that I can't say who it is with because we have not signed the final contract, but it is the one that I started-- I've worked on this book 35 years, which does date me, I can't help it, off and on. And the book Priscilla and the Hollyhocks I found out about that while doing this other research. And it's it's about the Cherokee Trail of Tears, based on a real life young woman who survived the Trail of Tears. So it's historical fiction and it will be in 2026. And that's for middle grade as well? That's middle grade, yeah. I just wanted to know for our audience--okay. We'll come back to that in a moment I just wanted to note for our audience who's in the livestream, who are-- because I think there's a little bit of delay to get to YouTube and so I'm seeing comments from when Juju interrupted us a few minutes ago now. So if you have comments go ahead and ask them now, and then when we finish up with this, we'll have them there waiting for us.

It's the book of your heart: 35:55

why? Because it's my own heritage, and I grew up hearing stories of the the Trail of Tears. I've worked on it so long. Let's just say my life is like a whole lesson in perseverance. I've had a dry period for a little few years that I didn't have an agent I hardly even sent anything out I just tried to make a body of work and anyone with common sense or who didn't have a spouse who had a regular income and health insurance-- anybody else would have quit. And I didn't and now I'm having a resurgence. And I'm glad that I persevered. That's wonderful! This is the first time I'm hearing the term 'back matter.'" So maybe we can return to that a little bit. Let's talk about what back matter is. In nonfiction in particular, it's gonna be a little bit more robust than it might be in a novel. A novel you might get a note from the author, you might get the author's biography, you might get maybe a glossary for children. What kinds of things are you putting in the back matter for nonfiction? Okay, well for this book, I wrote more about who Ralph was, and got some family photos in there, so you can learn more more about him and his effect-- effect on the world. And then I also was able to put a couple of his paintings in, which again, is amazing. I did a whole timeline of Ralph's life and because he painted a lot from American history, so I wanted to show not only his story but how his story intersected and his paintings intersected with the Kennedy assassination or the Mississippi murders or things like things like that this also has a page on-- on seeing seeing history. Which one is it? No. Seeing history through his paintings and then more for more information and-- Further reading? Further reading is the one that's about others other social realist authors and then a bibliography. You know, just a lot more information because I I feel like with children's picture books the picture book is the intro-- beginning introduction and for if that book was read to a 5- or 6-year-old, they would be fine. But what if there's a 10- or 11-year-old or even 8-year-old who thinks,"oh, I wanna learn more." That's that's what goes into that, and I was really happy that Holiday House let me take a 32-(page) picture book, and because I've written so much back matter, make it into a 48-page book. Oh, nice. And then teachers and other educators are gonna be able to use that in the classroom as well and extend. Not just-- it's a story to be read to the children, say for an elementary classroom, but it's something that they can extend the activities around-- Exactly.--the learning experience. We had a--the Portland Association of teachers had a strike last year and while I was on the picket line with some other people I talked to one teacher, and she said, she said, I've got two weeks' worth of extra activities out of your back matter. Oh, wonderful! That's--and that doesn't even count like if your-- if your publisher makes you a teacher's guide or something like that. Right, right. That's just what is within the book. We've got a question from Amy. She says, I have a lot of creative ideas A learning disability makes forming sentences feel like tooth extraction. How do I make writing easier? Oh! Amy, that's a hard that's a hard situation to be in. I--I wonder if you have you could partner up with somebody I mean that that seems like you if you might wanna even do a co authoring with with somebody if if they had you had the ideas and they have the skills that you could do something together. That's what Henry Winkler does. I didn't know that! That's why he works with Lin Oliver? That's why he works with Lin Oliver, is because he is dyslexic. Okay, so Amy, good luck. You know I don't know. Anne, this is a personal friend of mine so I know she's very artistic so I might also note that if she's interested in the art side of things she doesn't have to be the writer. Oh, that's true. That's true. I have known authors who sent very bare bones manuscripts, saying I have this idea it could be this this and this but they don't really know how to expand it and it becomes, maybe not a wordless picture book, maybe, but the illustrations do most things. And I've known illustrators who have the illustrations that need to be paired up. So that's a great idea. So if she--if she wants to work on her art, on her portfolio, there are plenty of artists on Instagram and other places that if you want to work on the art side of things definitely just you know create pieces that will show your style. and you wanna be an author the biggest thing that I can say is read what's currently being published and practice writing in that vein if you wanna write them. On the illustration side, practice looking at look at what's out there and practice finding your style that will work for the market that is out there, building a portfolio that will show your style. Does that make sense? It does, and Amy the other thing might be to just use a tape recorder and to record your ideas without writing them down and then find find a way to have that transcribed. If the writing process itself is what's hard. That's actually something that Kevin J. Anderson does. He uses a program called----he's a writer of adult fantasy. You might know his name because of the Dune books. He did a lot of the sequels to the Dune books, and he uses he goes on hikes and he takes his phone with him and he uses a program called Dragon to just tell the story. And that's his first draft. And the thing about writing is that it's a drafting process. It doesn't have to be perfect the first time. It's never perfect the first time ever! Exactly! And then he-- he comes home and he types it out or somebody now types it out for him cause he's a big writer and he has assistants and stuff like that, and then he goes over it again, and he refines it from there. And I know at least on Macs that you can do a vocal thing that that you can just speak into it and it types for you. So check-- There all sorts of really great tools right now. Yes, exactly. I don't think we have any other questions in the chat. I feel like I'm forgetting something important that I was going to ask you about. But I think that's about it. Where can everybody find you online? Tell us about your social media and your website. Okay, my website is just my name, annebroyles.com. On Instagram I'm annebroylesauthor, and I think annebroylesauthor something very similar to that on Facebook. I think I tagged you wrong today sorry about Facebook that's okay Facebook as as well so those are my those are my main my main places. Excellent. And the book is I'm Gonna Paint! Ralph Fasanella, Artist of the People, and again, you can find it online at our bookstore, which is curiouscatbookshop.com. The link is in the description. And the rest of our events can always be found at curiouscatbookshop.com and click on the events tab. Thank you so much for joining us, Anne, that's that's just been a wonderful conversation with you, and thank you for Amy for joining in the conversation with the chat, and I hope that everything went well Thank you! I was glad to be here from a distance. Thank you! Take care. Bye-bye. and this is our first remote event. So with that, and newspaper articles on travel and I had to learn more about research. Wednesday and Thursday to write and so kind of like the adult version of a weekly reader? and that also gave me some more skills. And they sent something out saying Okay, well, as soon as I had a go ahead from Ralph's son, Mark, It made him, like, go with more gusto even for life. reading leftover newspapers. and then Sean and Gordon Parks. It's like the project of my heart. if you have questions feel free to ask them now We've got one comment that says, "Interesting. but how do I get started? we'd love to see you. Thank you so much!