a very positive response for a first book. But as Monica said in a comment to yesterday's post, Africa Is My Home is another picture book that took thirteen years to write, sell, and publish.
My observance of Picture Book Month is ending on an unexpected note. These stories of the realities facing picture book authors coming one after another like this are inspiring/reassuring for people well into a writing life. But I'm left wondering if people outside writing realize this is the way publishing can work. I think there's an understanding that it's a hard field to break into, but I'm not sure how many people know that just breaking in isn't necessarily getting you "in" to anything. At any stage in their careers, writers can find themselves with a decade or more of work and hurry up and wait on one project or another.
So my Picture Book Month is ending with a detour away from picture books themselves to a little coverage of the picture book writing life.
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ReplyDeleteGail, thanks so much for the mention. The response to the book has been amazing. For anyone interested, I've related the long journey to publication here: http://medinger.wordpress.com/the-long-and-winding-road-to-publication/
ReplyDeleteAnother reason, I should point out, it took so long is that I'm a full-time classroom teacher and the bulk of my writing happens during school vacations. I'm now working on another project and trying to figure out realistically how long it will take me. Probably not 13 years or even 4, but maybe 2? Hard to determine.