Interviews

Interview with Linda Sue Park: Writing The Firekeeper’s Son

How do you begin the research for a sto­ry set long ago? I go to the library. I live in New York state, which has a won­der­ful inter­li­brary loan sys­tem. My local library can get me books from any­where in the state. Many of my sources have come from the East Asian col­lec­tions of university

Untamed: the Wild Life of Jane Goodall

Beautiful Books: an interview with designer Marty Ittner 

For young writ­ers who aspire to write infor­ma­tion books of their own, or read­ers who will enjoy the expe­ri­ence of read­ing more, we’d like to help them under­stand how a book design­er works. Mar­ty Ittner designed Untamed: the Wild Life of Jane Goodall and gra­cious­ly agreed to answer bookol­o­gist Vic­ki Palmquist’s ques­tions. When you start the process of designing

Interview with Anita Silvey: Writing about Dr. Jane Goodall 

For young writ­ers who aspire to write infor­ma­tion books of their own, we’d like to help them under­stand how a writer works.   When do you remem­ber becom­ing aware of Dr. Jane Goodall? I worked at Houghton Mif­flin when many of her books were being pub­lished and knew her edi­tor well. The first time I heard

Interview: Candace Fleming 

Bulldozer’s Big Day is a per­fect read-aloud, with won­der­ful sound and action oppor­tu­ni­ties on most pages. Did those moments affect your deci­sion about what verbs to use? How love­ly you think it’s a per­fect read aloud. I worked hard at the story’s read­abil­i­ty. Not only did I strive for a pace and cadence, but I

Interview: Eric Rohmann 

Bull­doz­er’s Big Day writ­ten by Can­dace Flem­ing illus­trat­ed by Eric Rohmann Atheneum, 2015 inter­view by Vic­ki Palmquist What’s the illus­tra­tion tool you turn to more than any oth­er? Graphite pen­cil. Sim­ple, effi­cient, erasable, feels good in the hand, makes a love­ly line with infi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties for line vari­a­tion. Did I men­tion that it’s erasable? Always

Interview: Ann Bausum 

With Courage and Cloth: Win­ning the Fight for a Woman’s Right to Vote Ann Bausum Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, 2004 inter­view by Vic­ki Palmquist You state that you weren’t taught women’s his­to­ry in school. (Nei­ther was I. I remem­ber read­ing and re-read­­ing the few biogra­phies in the library about Mol­ly Pitch­er, Clara Bar­ton, and Flo­rence Nightin­gale.) When you went

Interview: Rita Williams-Garcia 

Inter­view by Vic­ki Palmquist When you wrote One Crazy Sum­mer, did you already know you had a longer sto­ry to tell? And if you didn’t know then, when did you know? I was so focused on telling the one sto­ry of children’s involve­ment in the Black Pan­ther Move­ment. As I dug into my char­ac­ters’ backstories

Chasing Freedom

Nikki Grimes: Researching and Writing Chasing Freedom

Inter­view by Vic­ki Palmquist Chas­ing Free­dom writ­ten by Nik­ki Grimes illus­trat­ed by Michelle Wood Orchard Books, 2014 Did you know more about one of your two char­ac­ters when you con­ceived of the book?  Yes. I knew a fair amount about Har­ri­et Tub­man. Hers was one of the few sto­ries about African Amer­i­cans brought out every

cover image

Kekla Magoon: Writing Historical Fiction 

inter­view by Ric­ki Thomp­son RICKI: Kekla, thanks so much for join­ing me and your oth­er fans (old and new) on Bookol­o­gy! Your nov­els have been described as “well-paced,” “deeply-lay­ered,” and “ele­gant­ly craft­ed.”  I espe­cial­ly admire the uncom­fort­able issues you con­front and the risks you take in your sto­ries. You’ve authored a num­ber of engag­ing books, but today

Avi and Gary D. Schmidt

A Conversation Between Avi and Gary D. Schmidt 

When Avi pub­lished his 1950s’ era nov­el, Catch You Lat­er, Trai­tor, he ded­i­cat­ed the book to Gary D. Schmidt, fel­low author, fel­low read­er, fel­low con­nois­seur of noir detec­tive nov­els and his­to­ry. The Bookol­o­gist is priv­i­leged to lis­ten in on this con­ver­sa­tion between two authors who are so great­ly admired for the depth and tex­ture within

Shadow Hero

Interview with Sonny Liew 

The Shad­ow Hero writ­ten by Gene Luen Yang illus­trat­ed by Son­ny Liew First Sec­ond, 2014 Grow­ing up in Malaysia and Sin­ga­pore, what were the pop­u­lar com­ic books? Well in terms of what you’d see at the news­stands , there was Old Mas­ter Q or Lao Fu Zhi from Hong Kong. In schools, there’d always be someone

Shadow Hero

Interview with Gene Luen Yang 

The Shad­ow Hero writ­ten by Gene Luen Yang illus­trat­ed by Son­ny Liew First Sec­ond, 2014 What qual­i­fies a comics char­ac­ter as a super­hero? You’ve asked a ques­tion that lies at the very heart of geek­dom.  I don’t know if there’s a sol­id answer.  Most super­heroes have super­hu­man abil­i­ties, but not all.  Most super­heroes wear col­or­ful costumes,

Catherine Thimmesh, photo by Lori Dozier

Catherine Thimmesh: Researching Paleoartistry 

 How did you learn about pale­oartists?  While I was work­ing on my book Lucy Long Ago, part of that research revealed the work of a pale­oartist who recon­struct­ed liv­ing crea­tures from paleo times based on fos­sil evi­dence, includ­ing the hominid, Lucy.  How did you decide which pale­oartists to con­tact? I researched the world’s top pale­oartists — as

Oh_Prophecy Trilogy

Ellen Oh: Researching and Writing the Prophecy Trilogy 

  Bookol­o­gist’s note: Last month we fea­tured Cather­ine, Called Birdy and an inter­view with the author, Karen Cush­man. In that inter­view, non­fic­tion writer Claire Rudolf Mur­phy asked Cush­man about her research and incor­po­ra­tion of his­tor­i­cal fact into her fic­tion. Con­tin­u­ing that explo­ration, this month Bookol­o­gy vis­its with nov­el­ist Ellen Oh. King, the final vol­ume of

Lowriders cover

Cathy Camper: Writing Lowriders in Space

Lowrid­ers in Spacewrit­ten by Cathy Camper illus­trat­ed by Raul the Third Chron­i­cle Books, 2014 When did you first become aware of (or involved in) lowrid­er cul­ture? Prob­a­bly in the ear­ly 1980’s, when I vis­it­ed a friend of mine who lived in the Mis­sion Dis­trict of San Fran­cis­co. There were a lot of lowrid­ers in the

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