Virtual Book Tour Guest: Interview with Children's Book Author Anne Sawyer-Aitch
It's a pleasure to have children's book author Anne Sawyer-Aitch here with us today! Anne (pronounced like the letter “H”) is a
puppeteer and stilt-walker. When she decided to create her first book, Nalah
and the Pink Tiger, she began experimenting with different styles of
illustration, and
For
More Information
- Visit Anne Sawyer-Aitch’s website.
- Connect with Anne on Facebook (author) and Facebook (book)
- Find out more about Anne at Goodreads.
- Contact Anne.
About the Book:
Title:
Nalah Goes to Mad Mouse
City
Author: Anne Sawyer-Aitch
Publisher: Magic Lantern Press
Pages: 44
Genre: Children’s Picture Book
Format: Paperback
Author: Anne Sawyer-Aitch
Publisher: Magic Lantern Press
Pages: 44
Genre: Children’s Picture Book
Format: Paperback
The adventures of Nalah continue! One day Nalah finds
herself bored and lonesome because all of her imaginary friends have gone away
on vacation. But wait – not all. Mad Tooth, the little mouse who lives in her
sock drawer, is still busy munching away on her knee-highs. When she finds out
why Nalah is sad, she offers to take her down through the sock drawer into a
mouse metropolis. The result is a tale of wild dancing, cousins and mice, taffy
and a sock monster.
“Gorgeously illustrated with a process I've only seen before
in Anne Sawyer-Aitch's 1st book, Nalah and the Pink Tiger. My 4-year-old
particularly enjoyed the x-ray view of the stilting guard of Mad
Mouse City,
and was inspired to make several of her own versions of the illustration.
Another fun story with a relatable young girl as protagonist and vivid
fantastic characters she encounters.” – E. Bestrom, Good Reads reader
For More Information
- Nalah Goes to Mad Mouse City is available at Amazon.
- Discuss this book at PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads.
Q: Welcome to The Writer's
Life! Now that your book has been
published, we’d love to find out more about the process. Can we begin by having you take us at the
beginning? Where did you come up with
the idea to write your book?
Nalah Goes to Mad Mouse City is the second in a series of picture
books I’ve mapped out. I have a little niece who is a crackerjack. By that I
mean she is wild and funny and amazing. She is always up to hijinks that seem
to create big messes. She is the unbridled inspiration for this series.
The first book, Nalah and the Pink Tiger, came out of a
noisy game of Let’s Pretend. Nalah claimed there was a pink tiger in her room.
He jumped from the dresser to the curtain rods to the closet. Every time we
tried to catch him, he moved to another locale.
That night at 3:00 AM, I woke up with bed head and the story fully
formed in my brain. So I scribbled it down with stick figures, storyboard
style. Then I fell to sleep again. Fortunately, I was able to read my
hieroglyphics in the morning.
From there, I had to settle on an
illustration style. I’m a puppeteer - yes, that is how I make my living – and
decided to borrow from a technique that I use for color shadow puppets
involving layers of color and cut out designs. I photographed these on a light
table. I call the style “illuminated illustration.”
My current book, Nalah Goes to Mad Mouse City is about
another animal in her busy little world. One day Nalah finds herself bored and
lonesome because all of her imaginary friends have gone away on vacation. But
then se discovers that Mad Tooth, the
little mouse who lives in her sock drawer, is still busy munching away on her
knee-highs. When she finds out why Nalah is sad, she offers to take her down
through the sock drawer into a mouse metropolis. The result is a tale of wild
dancing, cousins, mice, taffy, and a sock monster.
Q: How hard was it to write a
book like this and do you have any tips that you could pass on which would make
the journey easier for other writers?
Sequels are a little more
challenging than the bolt-of-lightening stories that come in the middle of the
night. I wanted to keep the loose zaniness of the first book while maintaining
some sense of continuity in her world. Seemingly at odds with that second goal
is the need to have the book stand alone in its own right.
I’d say there was more mental
composting involved in Nalah Goes to Mad
Mouse City. I put lots of ideas and sketches in a notebook at first. Then I
was lucky enough to get a Tofte Lake
artist retreat fellowship in northern Minnesota.
I had a week away from distractions to take all those bits and pieces and shape
them. I don’t feel very qualified to give advice, but I will say that it was
very helpful to not have constant and immediate access to the Internet during
that retreat week. We had to walk about a quarter of a mile to the main cabin
to get any kind of service. That took care of the immediate temptations of
email, Facebook, and general noodling around on the Internet.
Q: Who is your publisher and how
did you find them or did you self-publish?
I have self-published and been
published by a small press called Scarletta. I found Scarletta because I read
an article in a newsletter about somebody who worked in a company owned by the
same people. It took me 3 weeks to get up the nerve, but I called them, article
clutched in my sweaty little hand. That led to an appointment, where I showed
my ideas and portfolio. Before I knew it, the book began to happen.
Self publishing is another great
way to go. It gives you artistic control, for one thing. There are lots of
companies out there, like blurb.com, Lulu, and Lightening Press that can help
you from start to finish. And it is becoming more and more common for people to
self-publish and market their own works.
Q: Is there anything that
surprised you about getting your first book published?
Just how good it felt. There will
always be things that you look at later and think, “Oh, I wish I had done that
differently.” But mostly, I thought, “Hey, why didn’t I do this years ago?” I
was the only one stopping me.
Q: What other books (if any) are
you working on and when will they be published?
Nalah is going to go to Paris
to visit her piggy friend Percival. Percy has a thing for wigs, and has left
Nalah’s bathroom sink to pursue his dream of creating porcine poufs in the City
of Love. That book, as yet
untitled, will probably appear somewhere in 2016. I’m also working on a toddler
board book about sleeping baby animals.
Q: What’s your favorite place to
hang out online?
Currently it’s http://www.wirefoxrescuemidwest.com/
because I’m planning on adopting a doggie sometime soon. I grew up with wire
hair fox terriers. They are the madcap jokers of the Universe. You just can’t
keep a straight face on for long around them. Also, I’m designing a new
studio/home, so I’ve been visiting http://tinyhouseblog.com/
quite a bit.
Q: Finally, what message (if any)
are you trying to get across with your book?
I don’t know if there’s any
message, but the central theme in the Nalah adventures has to do with
playfulness and imagination. Remember when you were able to entertain yourself
with a shoebox or a pile of sticks? How about the games of pirates, runaways,
or cops and robbers you played with neighbor kids? We had a game called Sea
Monster. I think a lot of kids are missing out on that precious, wild time in
their lives now. Too much screen time, not enough playing with sticks. There.
That’s me off my soapbox now.
Q: Thank you again for this
interview! Do you have any final words?
Thanks very much, and to anyone who is thinking about
creating something, whether it’s a book, a birthday card, or a banana split,
get busy. Don’t wait for someone to tap you on the shoulder and say “It’s time
now.” You’re the one who is going to make it happen.
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