Skywatcher: save the date!

It’s true! My new picture book, SKYWATCHER, will be published on October 5 and my local bookstore, PRINT, will be hosting a virtual book event from 7 – 8 pm. Pretty please: SIGN UP here and join me in celebrating my story about an urban boy’s quest to see the stars. I’ll be in conversation with Charles Fulco, a middle school science teacher in Delaware who is a NASA Solar System Ambassador. I want to see you there!

I’m beyond excited to have my first book illustrated AND written by me since Seven Days of Daisy. When I left my adjunct teaching position at Maine College of Art in May 2018, it was with the goal of making time to pursue my own stories. An article in the Portland Press Herald on May 20 caught my eye.

As an annual contributor to the Lunar Calendar for almost 40 years, I’ve been watching the night skies for awhile, mostly for moon phases. The idea of protecting dark skies was a concept I wanted to explore more. Could it have potential as a picture book? I began to collect reference, much of which I already had, and plenty more came my way.

I read several books, including The End of Night, The Timing of Biological Clocks, and Internal Time. I understood that light pollution was bad for nocturnal animals, but why humans? What I learned would not make a compelling kids’ book, but the nightscape was something I yearned to capture for kids and anyone afraid of the natural dark.

This backstory may be more than you bargained for, but my point is: books don’t happen overnight. I joined a critique group with Maryann Cocca-Leffler, Jen Goldfinger, and Jennifer Jacobson, best move I ever made! These wise critters gave me the most honest feedback, steadily pushing me to craft a better story. Between every monthly meeting, I revised and revised my dummies, back then titled DARK MATTERS.

I attended a Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators writing retreat in September 2019, ready to show my dummy to an actual editor. For any future kidlit folks out there, a membership in SCBWI is worth it’s weight in gold. Lucky me, I landed the amazing Candlewick Press editor, Liz Bicknell, who I sketched during her presentation on Creating Texture in Fiction.

She had positive feedback, but Candlewick had another title on the same topic coming out in 6 months. But she urged me to keep refining it. There’s more than one way to tackle light pollution, so I kept at it.

Here’s an example of a single spread that I reworked. The first was the rough sketch in the dummy.

This was the next dummy, trying to show the presence of a bear as the boy and his mother read about Ursa Major.

This is an early version of the boy and his mother before they leave the city, with devices aglow.

Meanwhile, I was illustrating other things. Coincidentally, a cover of Audio File Magazine about the “stars” of the audio book world.

Marty bought a sky app for his phone and we did more stargazing, and even spotted the International Space Station flying over Maine.

By the summer of 2020, I had sent out two rounds of submissions to publishers with no takers. I swept out the cobwebs in our little backyard clubhouse for a writing shed, determined to reshape my story.

I even placed my carved bear, won in a library raffle, on the front step for good luck.

I banged out a new draft daily for two weeks on our vintage Corona Standard, surrounded by my string of dummies, and any and all objects of inspiration.

During this period, I renamed the book SKYWATCHER, and drew a little comic book featuring Jessica Meir, Maine native and NASA astronaut who had just been on the ISS. This would be the vehicle for the boy’s curiosity about space.

My island neighbor and children’s book creator, Anne Sibley O’Brien, had been an early reader of my dummy. I pictured the main character as being from a blended family, like Annie has, and so many other families I know.

I kept redrawing, rewriting, and by October 2020, sent off another round of submissions. This time: a YES came from Tilbury House!

Jonathan Eaton had more changes in mind, such as the setting at the beginning. This was an early rough of the big, bright city:

I found an urban shot I’d taken in Chelsea, NYC.

I redid the opening scene.

The manuscript went through yet more editing, and I began illustrating final art in January of this year. Here’s a work-in-progress of one piece on my studio table. The loon figurine once belonged to my parents, who taught me to ski at Loon Mountain in New Hampshire. That Space Race card game in the background belongs to my husband, Marty, whose father worked for NASA. A cosmic thread seems to connect everything in this book.

I sent the final digital files to Tilbury in mid-March. WHEW.

In July, while on another illustration deadline, Annie stopped in with her grandson, Taemin. What a pleasure to meet him after envisioning a boy like him for so many months! He found my cluttered studio full of things to touch and examine.

In August, a young photographer shot photos of me during a meteor shower on the back shore of Peaks Island. Thanks, Spencer Robinson, for my new author photo!

I may be starry eyed, but I couldn’t quite believe I had written a book until a box arrived in the mail from W.W.Norton last week. I brought one to a critter group meeting, proud as punch.

We four know it’s one thing to write a book, another to be published. I’m deeply grateful to all those who shaped this book with their wisdom, including my patient family, my beloved critters, and the various editors who passed on the book. Each of them stirred me to keep at it. Many thanks to Jon Eaton at Tilbury House for believing in my story. And thank you, dear reader, for your support of my children’s books. You can pre-order HERE.

Keep looking UP!