Interview with Jen K. Blom, author of children's book 'New Pony Day!'

Jen K Blom is an international award-winning author living in Berlin, Germany with her daughter, husband and hairless cat Yoda. Visit www.pony101.de to get all sorts of great updates and activity sheets featuring Josie, Floki and Pasta!

Her latest book is the children’s picture book, New Pony Day!

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Visit Jen K. Blom’s website.
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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?

I blame it all on my horse-crazy daughter. She’s five, and when this idea first snuck into my poor brain she was 3. She’s ridden since she was 8 months old, and wanted to have a picture book about a kid and her pony. But I couldn’t find one…until I thought, ‘Hey, I’m an author too, why not…’ and the rest is history. It’s chock-full of her favorite things (in an upcoming book in the series, ALIEN VS PONY, she is a girl superhero fighting an alien who gets a bad rap) and it’s so much fun to read them with her. She has a ball figuring out what is just for her.

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?

The writing was challenging, as I hadn’t ever written a picture book before, much less one that quasi-rhymed. However, there’s a lot of great stuff on the internet so it wasn’t too bad. The real challenge were the illustrations. I initially planned to draw them all out on paper and scan in, but the quality wasn’t what I was expecting. And I wanted bold, bright, almost comic-like pictures. So I learned how to do it with a graphics program and then we were rolling.

Q: Who is your publisher and how did you find them or did you self-publish?

I actually self published, because in the end, this is a book for my horse-crazy girl. A publisher, however well meaning, might have wanted to change certain aspects of the book that I would not want to change. I have traditionally published books and that is great too, but for this series, it was me all the way.

Q: Is there anything that surprised you about getting this book published?

I thought the hard part was creating it. Nope! The hard part was getting it into all the digital types of files it needed to be in! Whew.

Q: What other books (if any) are you working on and when will they be published?

Right now I’m in the depths of ALIEN VS PONY, the second book in the series. From there we have a grooming book, and I have a Middle Grade I’m working on for my agent.

Q: What’s your favorite place to hang out online?

Twitter. J twitter.com/jenkblom

Q: Finally, what message (if any) are you trying to get across with your book?

This book is for the horse crazy kids that dream of their own pony, and have imagination.

Q: Thank you again for this interview! Do you have any final words?

No! Thank you! J

About the Book:

Today’s the day Josie gets her new pony – if she can find him, that is! Her cat Pasta’s along for the ride, too, but there’s no telling if he’ll help or not – he’s a cat!