I wish I had time to read all the interviews at Cynsations. In fact, I'm hoping to go back and read some of them during my reading month. (Which should be coming up soon because I'm almost finished cleaning my desk!) But today I made time to read Cynthia Leitich Smith's interview with Cecilia Yung because I heard Yung speak at an event at UConn quite a few years ago. She was speaking about picture books, and it was at that point that I realized that they aren't easy to write.
In the interview, Yung says: "I look at websites regularly (at least a few times a week) to find artists, to keep tabs on the competition, and even to look at other work by artists I am currently working with to find solutions to problems."
I found this interesting because I've seen some illustrator websites that I thought were surprisingly weak. They have pages with nothing but "Work in Progress" in them--and for a long, long time. Or it's clear that the sites aren't updated regularly. Or some illustrators don't have sites at all, just a few images up at their agent's site or at an on-line gallery. I'm always surprised when people who are clearly into visuals don't take advantage of the visual opportunities on the Internet.
I met Yung when she came to Austin a couple of years back, and I thought she was really charming, but until I read this interview I didn't know she'd worked on Leonardo's Horse -- that one came out right around the time I stumbled into writing for children, and it was one of the first titles that made me realize there was something really interesting going on here.
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