Today we’re joined by Beverly Love Warren, who has not one, but TWO books coming out this spring! Beverly grew up on Long Island, New York and is a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she studied illustration and design. After graduating, she worked as a paste-up artist and taught art for grades K-8. Later, she became a member of SCBWI and illustrated children’s literature. Currently, she lives in Washington State with her husband. When she is not illustrating, you can find her writing stories, hiking, at church or enjoying time spent with her three children and six grandchildren. Thanks for stopping by today, Beverly! You must be excited to see your debut picture book arriving so soon in the world. How long has the process taken, and what’s it been like? Yes, I am excited. I began the draft of Have You Seen Mouse in November 2019 while I was in my first year as a member of Julie Hedlund’s 12x12 Picture Book Writing Challenge. For those not familiar with 12x12, the challenge is to write one draft a month for twelve months. In the summer of 2020, I signed the contract with Callie Metler, publisher of Spork for Mouse to be published. How it was acquired is answered in a question below. The final art was completed at the end of September 2021. Writing the first draft to the publishing date spanned a 15-16 month period. The process for writing Mouse went a lot quicker than most of my other stories. So, tell us about Have You Seen Mouse? (Spork, 2022) …where did the idea come from? My husband and I like to take road trips when time permits. On one such trip we were driving through the mountains in northern Idaho. As I gazed into the forest from the car window, I saw a fallen tree. In my imagination a bear was sitting on that tree crying. I wondered why and guessed that he had lost his best friend. I had my notebook with me and immediately began the draft. But who or what would be his friend? When I was young, I had lots of mice as pets. The pairing of a bear with a mouse seemed like an unusual match, but I liked it, so a mouse became the best friend. As I reflect on the stories I write it seems that there is a common theme to, not all but many of them. Usually, one of the two primary characters makes some sort of a sacrifice for the sake of the love of the other character, and so it is with Have You Seen Mouse? Your background was in illustration; had you always planned to write, as well? How did you approach creating the manuscript, as far as writing the text and creating the pictures? No, I had not always planned to write, but years ago I used to illustrate children’s educational literature. During that time an interest developed to also write because of the many books I had read to my children, and because of the material I was illustrating. But various life changes and responsibilities, put that desire on hold. Then in November 2016 my husband and I took a trip to New Zealand and toured the Weta Workshop in Wellington. This is where the props for the Lord of the Rings movies were made. Due to that tour and visits to the movie sites a desire to write was re-ignited and I decided to begin taking some writing courses when I returned home, which is what I did. My approach to creating a story is to begin with the text first. I work out the story visually in my mind asking the “who, what, when, where, why, how and what if” questions, as I write. Then I revise. Once the revision process is finished, I do character sketches and create a book dummy or thumbnails to confirm that the text and page turns are working. When I’m thinking about creating the spreads, I want to be sure that there is at least one close up of the main character, some distance shots, an overhead spread (bird’s eye view) and a viewpoint from below (worm’s eye view) if possible, and I want to try and capture the emotion of a scene. And, if a story lends itself to different times of the day, that’s nice too. I also want to consider motion, color and the line quality of the art. Once the spreads are finished and approved, then I will create one spread of final art. If I don’t like the way that illustration turned out I will try again in a different medium or render it in some different way, until I’m satisfied. Though it can vary, this is usually the process I use as I create. The illustrations are very child-friendly and warm. What type of media did you use? They look like pencil and watercolor. You’re quite right. I created the illustrations for Have You Seen Mouse? with watercolor paints and Prisma color pencils - on 140lb Arches hot press paper. Once the illustrations were finished, I put them in my iPad. Since the publisher preferred that I send the art digitally, and because photographed watercolor paintings don’t always appear very well in digital form, I touched them up using Procreate to make the illustrations look close to what they looked like on paper. Congratulations, by the way, on your second book, Fishing with Grandpa and Skye (Spork,2022), written by our friend and fellow PB22Peekaboo member Candace Spizzirri, which comes out about a month after this one! How did that come about? Was it because both books have the same publisher? Thank you! The acquiring of both books are tied together. In January 2020, I took Mira Reisberg’s Children’s Book Academy illustration course. At the end of the course, Callie Metler, the publisher of Spork, saw the illustrations that I did in Mira’s class. About a month later she contacted me with the offer to illustrate Candace’s book. As I was working with Callie on Candace’s book, she said that she really liked the pallet I used for the art in Mira’s class. I told her that there was a story that went with the art and asked if she would like to see it. Graciously she agreed. Her comment later was that the story was precious. I then took a bold step and asked – “does that mean you would like to publish it?” “Yup,” she answered. No matter how many books I publish, each one has a unique story behind the book or the production of the book. Can you share something surprising you encountered as a debut author/illustrator? Or is there anything you think readers might find interesting about Have Your Seen Mouse? I don’t have a unique story behind the book’s production or process, nor did anything surprising happen. But if there is a unique story it would be this: I knew at the end of Mira’s six week-long illustration course there would be editors looking at the final art the students had completed in the class. Of course, we were all hoping for editorial interest. But my mother became ill during week five and I needed to fly 3,000 miles to visit her. We had false alarms with her before and I preferred to wait a week until the class ended. I wrestled with this and prayed for wisdom because I was concerned about my mother, but I also didn’t want to lose this opportunity. Then a thought came to mind – “go and this will be taken care of.” So, I contacted Mira and pulled out of her class. Thankfully it was the right decision. I had four good days with my mother and then she passed. In the meantime, Mira entered what I had done so far in her class for the editorial viewing and that is where my publisher saw what later became pages 6-7 & 14-15 of Have You Seen Mouse? So, what’s next on the horizon for you? Good question. I have a picture book story out on submission right now. I also have three others that are finished or almost finished revision-wise. Two of them have the thumbnails and one piece of final art completed. I’m also working on a middle grade novel about a boy who is struggling with growing family responsibility because his father has broken a promise and seems to have disappeared – thank you for asking! Well, congratulations again on your debut picture book, Bev – you’ll never forget the feeling of holding that baby in your hands for the first time! And thanks for visiting! Thank you for doing this interview, Matt. All the best to you on your new release, as well.
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