One Year Later...

One year later, Ethan Goes To Recess

The fist image is of the first meeting I had with Bruce to discuss the illustrations for Ethan Goes To Recess. We’re in my dining room and the synergy was dynamic. When you find someone who can bring your words to life, you consider yourself fortunate. I have not regretted my decision to go the route of hybrid publishing. Being able to work along side of the illustrator is what makes this series work. This photo popped up in my FB memories today and it is hard to believe it only took just a little over a year to launch this book. Thanks for reading and supporting this series. We really do hope the words and illustrations resonate with you and your young readers. If you are looking for a creative duo to visit your school, church, classroom, business, or assisted living center, contact me. We love sharing our story.

Creating Characters

The first draft had one character that identified with a human. I knew the Ethan Goes to School series would be based on my only nephew, Ethan and I knew I wanted the characters to be animals, because even though Ethan is a Downs Syndrome kiddo, I did not want this fact to be the center of the series. So I went with animals, which are relatable characters. Each animal would be dressed in human clothing and ‘do” human things. As the ideas continued to morph in my mind, which is part of the writing process for me-I do my best to paint pictures with words. I decided all the characters should be based on real people, in fact they should be former students of mine. And so the memoir writer emerged, once again.

Quick flashback: as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Kansas, I’d hoped to study composition studies and move beyond my fixation with memoir and creative non-fiction. Maybe I’d broaden the scope of what I’d been writing for the last few years, but the professor I wanted to work with was going to be on sabbatical and I knew I’d need to complete this final degree quickly since being out of the workforce as a forty-something middle class, Midwestern, single woman, was not an option. So I ended up back in the creative writing department studying autobiographical writing, life writing, the great essayists, and writing…an unpublished memoir titled All Skate, Now Reverse for my dissertation.

As my academic career took off at two small, religiously affiliated colleges and I moved through the rigor of writing and presenting at national and international conferences, teaching writing, and writing WRITE on my “To Do” lists, very little creative work was emerging. I shifted to writing about food and studying food, and of course eating while rembereing the draft of Ethan Eats Hot Lunch I’d written ten years earlier—long before heading to graduate school. So, while having drinks with a friend, I chatted with HIS friend an illustrator who drew life-like portraits on styrofoam cups. That night over a Guinness a budding friendship emerged.

Months, maybe years later, I met with Bruce Arant at the Blackstone Corkscrew in Omaha, Nebraska to discuss children’s book publishing and even though he tried to steer me away, we ended up working together and the characters came to life. He had the brilliant idea to use the class photo chart as end pages and out of this idea blossomed the webpage where viewers can click on the character and see them as young students in my elementary classrooms and who they are today. Today’s plan is to add new characters to each book in the series while continuing to include the former students, sort of like how new classes are put together for each new academic year. Reconnecting with former students is my favorite part of these projects, well, I do enjoy writing the words too. So stay tuned as we finish introducing the newest characters in Ethan Goes to Recess on the social media sites and soon we will circle back and introduce you to the OG characters found in Ethan Eats Hot Lunch. Thanks for reading, sharing, and purchasing my work.

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Ethan Goes to Recess

How THIS book was made…Ethan Goes To Recess

So, we’re back with the second book in the Ethan Goes to School series, Ethan Goes to Recess, and happily working with a new hybrid press. I chose to work with Book Press because they championed me continuing my work with Bruce Arant, the illustrator of Ethan Eats Hot Lunch.

The collaboration between a writer and an illustrator is a critical piece many publishing houses omit, but thankfully Book Press respected my need to be involved in this part of the project. As the writer, the idea of someone interpreting the images my words intended to create, freaked me out. So finding an illustrator who shared my vision and respected my work the first time around made this second book possible. I was delighted to pick up where we left off, and like the first project. it was magical to see the words and characters come into view.

Because the characters are based on former students, and of course my delightful nephew Ethan, I found casting this book to be a blast. First I had to find someone to play the bully who not only pushes the main character down, but needs to possess a reflective capacity. I knew who I wanted it to be. but was unsure of his willingness to participate, so I talked to his mom first. Communicating with Mrs. Howe, my fifth-grade teacher, went well. I think she said something like, “he’s been waiting to be in one of the books.” My call with Jim was successful. I thought of this former second grader for this character because of something he said to me one day while I was driving through his neighborhood and he was on his bike headed home.

I asked how things were going at Cather since I’d left to go to grad school and he said the place wasn’t the same without me, but that he was doing okay. When I called him years later and we’d caught up, he shared he knew he wanted to be a polar bear who wore a bowtie. Colors didn’t matter to him like they did to some of the characters in the first book—check out Courtney’s eyelashes and plaid jumper—so putting him in purple stripes was easy.

Another new character, Ethan’s neighbor, Ruby J.—my good friend Jessica’s daughter, had very specific requirements for her character. As a frog, she required black paper bag shorts, yellow converse, and a yellow T shirt supporting one of her dad’s music venues.

Let’s see, Dr. H. was an easy character to develop. The mascot at Harrison elem. where I worked for a year as a Literacy coach, was a tiger and Dr. H. looks great in a black suit—a uniform of sorts for her. Katie, a former first and second grader at Cather joins the class as a sweet mouse in pink, and Mrs. A. aka Cathi Arnold, an extraordinary parent of kids who attended Cather Elem. and wife of my accountant, Gene, wanted to wear a track suit in Husker colors. Finally, Cindy, Ruby S.’s little sister from Maple Hill Elementary in Diamond Bar, California, asked to be a quokka. So we looked up this nocturnal marsupial found in Southwestern Australia and dressed her in overalls.

I’m excited to share this book with you and to hear your reactions to the storyline, the bully theme, and the new classmates. Thanks for reading.