Kidsbiographer's Blog

Amy Novesky has written children’s biographies of such artists as Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keefe. This autumn, she published Imogen: Mother of Modernism and Three Boys, a picture-book biography of modernist photographer Imogen Cunningham illustrated by Lisa Congdon. This past week, Novesky, who also works as an independent book editor, opened up about how her very personal connection to Cunnigham underlies Imogen.

Kidsbiographer: What sort of research did you do to write Imogen? What was the most surprising fact or anecdote you learned about Cunningham during the research process?

Amy Novesky: As with all of my books, I read every book about the person or the subject that I am writing about that I can find. There is no one definitive biography about Imogen, but I was greatly influenced by the book, Mother’s Days, published by Little Bear Press, which focuses on Imogen’s photographs of her family. But books are not enough. They are secondary sources. It’s important to connect with primary sources if and when you can. With this book, I lucked out in that I connected with Imogen’s granddaughter Elizabeth Partridge, who is an award-winning children’s book author herself. I had emailed her years ago to inquire about writing about her famous grandmother. I wondered if perhaps she was planning to write such a book, in which case I would have ceased and desisted. She never responded, which unnerved me a bit, and I put the idea aside for a few years, which is not unusual for me to do with my stories. But then I pulled it out again one day, and, as luck would have it, Elizabeth was speaking at a bookstore near my house. I braved another email to her to see if she would talk with me about Imogen. She not only responded this time; she agreed to meet with me and to read my manuscript. She read my story closely and emphasized the importance of specificity, which I greatly appreciated. For example, I wanted to weave Imogen’s famous photograph of an unmade bed into the theme of the story: the idea that a mother of three didn’t likely have time to make her bed. But, in reality, this photograph was taken in the 1950s, long after Imogen’s sons were grown (the story is set in the early 1920s). Elizabeth pushed me to create a story that young readers would care about. Hopefully I succeeded. I also worked closely with her sister Meg, who runs their grandmother’s estate, and I viewed her documentary film, Portrait of Imogen And I had the privilege of meeting Imogen’s son, Betsy and Meg’s father, Rondal Partridge, the “mischievous twin” in my book. I interviewed him at his kitchen table at his lovely Berkeley home, over fresh baked bread and fresh apple juice. This is the first book that I’ve had access to and support from the immediate family of my subject, and it was invaluable. I don’t think I would have done this book without it.

A surprising fact about Imogen: I seem to recall reading that there were belly dancers at her memorial. I love that. I had a belly dancer at my wedding. So San Francisco….

Kidsbiographer: Cunningham, like you, lived in San Francisco. How did the city inform your writing in Imogen?

Amy Novesky: Like Frida Kahlo living and painting in San Francisco, which is the subject of my book, Me, Frida, the city of San Francisco definitely inspired me in writing Imogen’s story, as did the city of Seattle, and especially, Queen Anne, where Imogen grew up, and which I have a connection to; my sister lives there. Imogen was so loved by the city of San Francisco, a day was named after her (November 12th). She also had a connection to Sausalito, the town in which I live, just north of San Francisco. She was friends with a circle of artists who lived here in the 1960s, and she even starred in a provocative little short film called “The Bed” which was filmed in the hills above my house. And, I’ve had more people tell me that they met or knew Imogen. She’s a local girl.

Kidsbiographer: Throughout Imogen, you employ a spare prose style, not unlike Cunningham’s stripped-down, yet lyrical approach to photography. I especially enjoy the parts of the narrative in which you list her various subjects, often in short sentence fragments. These passages capture both the rhytm of photography and Cunningham’s acute eye for beauty. How did you compose this part of the book?

Amy Novesky: It’s no secret I’m a big fan of spare and lyrical writing. And I like lists. With regards to the artists I write about, including Imogen, I think the art speaks for itself, and I really just try to get out of the way. Imogen, too, was an unsentimental person, and so I resisted being too flowery, despite many of her subjects being flowers. I wanted the language of the story to reflect her sensibility and her aesthetic; she didn’t expect life to be smooth and easy and beautiful. That said, she believed there is a little beauty in everything. That little beauty gave me permission to make the story a little pretty.

Kidsbiographer: As I noted in my review, Cunningham combined a career and motherhood in an era when most women could not freely choose either. What sorts of conversations do you hope Imogen will spark about women’s lives between kids and adults?

Amy Novesky: Imogen’s story resonates with me because I am also a mother and a working artist. I am a wife. I am a householder, a term I love: I am the holder of the house. I am the childcare. Being a mother is my primary work, of course. But I can’t not write. Not only because I love to, and because it fulfills me creatively, but because I must. My income is necessary for our family, and it’s all I know how to do! Like Imogen in the story, I work from home. I’ve been housebound. I wrote through my pregnancy and nursing a newborn. Frida, Imogen, and my Billie Holiday book are all products of that time. Much of my work is done in those stolen moments: while my son is at school, while he sleeps. But sometimes I need to work while he is by my side. That is just the reality of being a working/stay-at home mom. I’m lucky to be able to do my work with him, and that my work is related to kids. And I think it’s important that kids know that work is not separate from life, that it is important to the family, and hopefully something we take joy in doing it – be it washing dishes, folding laundry or photographing famous people.

Kidsbiographer: What’s the most gratifying feedback you’ve received about Imogen?

Amy Novesky: The most gratifying feedback I have received for the book was when I sent my advance copy, my only copy of the book, to Rondal Partridge, after hearing that he’d had a health scare. He’s in his 90s. I wanted him to have the book. His daughter Elizabeth sent me a photograph of him reading the book from bed. He was smiling. It meant the world to me.

Kidsbiographer: Would you like to discuss any upcoming projects?

Amy Novesky: My next book, Mister and Lady Day, about Billie Holiday and the dogs she loved, will be published in June. And I have no less than five stories out with editors now! Two are about artists, one is about baseball (a story I wrote with my son), one is about a family who sails around the world, and another is about the ocean. Cross your fingers for me.

Award-winning author Margarita Engle has written historical novels for young adults as well as picture-book biographies for younger readers. This week, she caught up with Kidsbiographer about The Lightning Dreamer, her latest book, a biographical novel-in-verse about the early years of Cuban poet Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda.

Kidsbiographer: How did you learn about Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, and what inspired you to write The Lightning Dreamer?

Margarita Engle: Her poetry is very famous in Cuba and Spain, but I actually didn’t know much about her youth until I started researching the inspiration for her interracial romance novel, Sab, which was published eleven years before Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and was far more influential in Europe.  I didn’t realize that Avellaneda was not only an abolitionist, but also an outspoken feminist, who used her poetry, prose, and plays to campaign against the tradition of arranged marriage, which she regarded as the marketing of teenage girls, and referred to as a form of slavery.

Kidsbiographer: Although Avellaneda was a real person, The Lightning Dreamer is a work of historical fiction, a novel-in-verse. How did you extrapolate from your research to create the character of Tula, Avellaneda as a young girl?

Margarita Engle: Fortunately, Avellaneda wrote autobiographical letters that reveal a great deal about her childhood and teenage years.  I didn’t have to invent the most amazing aspects of her story, such as the way she had to burn her early work, to prevent her disapproving mother from discovering them.  Her letters also describe the charitable theater for orphans that became her only literary outlet, and the letters are quite specific about her temperament.  She admitted that she was emotionally volatile and suffered from wild mood swings.

Kidsbiographer: How did Avellaneda’s poetry influence your verse in this book?

Margarita Engle: Her poetry was her voice, in a society where women were silenced.  Verse and prose were the only avenue of protest – not only for Avellaneda, but for male abolitionists as well.  They could not speak out against slavery unless they veiled their protests with metaphors because Cuba had no free North.  The entire island was slave territory, with strict censorship, and harsh penalties.  Writing was an act of courage.

Kidsbiographer: One of my favorite aspects of The Lightning Dreamer is the way you craft a unique voice for each character, all of whom speak in first-person free verse. Which voice was the most challenging to evoke and why?

Margarita Engle: Thank you!  The multiple voice verse novel is a form that fascinates me.  In this case, I actually had a great deal of trouble with her brother Manuel.  I struggled to acknowledge his courage in helping her smuggle her banned verses because I didn’t have a first person account from his own voice.  I had to imagine his childhood.  He never abandoned her, but from her letters I gleaned the possibility that he might have initially been embarrassed by her “unladylike” and dangerous habit of stating her opinions openly.  So I needed to portray him as someone who longed to balance traditional male views with sincere concern and support for his rebellious sister.

Kidsbiographer:  What do you hope young adults will take away from this biographical novel?

Margarita Engle: I would feel grateful if they end the book with questions.  I would like them to be left wondering:

• Should we still speak out against  slavery? In a classroom, they might learn that the world still has an estimated   twenty million slaves.

• Should all marriage be voluntary?  They might also learn that in many countries, most marriages are still  arranged, and underage girls are often purchased with money or other   financial benefits paid to their parents.  This question of voluntary marriage could even be extended to other modern issues. Avellaneda believed in the Golden Rule.  What would she think of same -sex marriage? Would she conclude that no one has the right to tell someone else whom to marry?

• Can we change the world with words?  Avellaneda certainly did!  Can modern young people expect to be heard, if they express their opinions in writing?  Avellaneda  expressed her anger through poems and stories.  Are carefully crafted words still a safe “home” for helpless rage?

 Kidsbiographer:  Would you like to discuss any current or upcoming projects for young readers?

Margarita Engle: My next novel in verse is SILVER PEOPLE, Voices From the Panama Canal , which is due to be published by Harcourt in March, 2014.  It is about the Caribbean islanders who were recruited by the U.S. to do the hard work of digging (by hand, with shovels!) while subjected to U.S.-imposed apartheid.  Because it is set in the rain forest, this story includes the voices of animals and trees, just as The Lightning Dreamer includes choruses of orphans and nuns.  Experimenting with voices is one of the great pleasures of the novel in verse form!

I also have several biographical picture book projects for younger children about important Latinos who have been forgotten by history and deserve to be better known.  Bringing independent thinkers back from obscurity is one of my favorite goals.

 Stacy Innerst’s illustrations have appeared in major newspapers and magazines as well as children’s books about Levi Strauss and Abraham Lincoln. Most recently, he illustrated The Beatles Were Funny (And They Were Fab), a picture-book biography of the British band. This week, he chatted with Kidsbiographer about his own love for the Beatles and children’s natural affinity for the surreal.

Kidsbiographer: What sort of research did you do to illustrate The Beatles Were Funny?

Stacy Innerst: Well, I listened to a lot of their music for inspiration, but I would have been doing that anyway! I have a friend who is a Beatles maniac, so I had many conversations with him and borrowed books from his extensive Beatles library. I watched hours of videos online, and, of course, tapped into my own memories and love of their music. It was really the most fun I’ve had researching anything.

Kidsbiographer: One of my favorite illustrations in The Beatles Were Funny appears on the first page – your city-dreamscape of Liverpool. This painting contains some signposts of Englishness – the double-decker bus, the red telephone booth – while the cranes and smokestacks in the back suggest the city’s grittiness. A yellow blimp – or maybe a submarine – hovers above the buildings and a sign reads “Strawberry Fields,” hinting at the Fab Four’s later career. Can you describe how you composed this extraordinary picture?

Stacy Innerst: Thank you. I’m fond of that painting, too. First, I found photos of the roundabout at Penny Lane and the childhood homes of each of the Beatles. They included all kinds of autobiographical touchstones in their song,  so I picked a few, such as Penny Lane and Strawberry Field, to give a sense of the nostalgia that they had for their childhood. I included the barber shop (Tony’s) that they mention in the song “Penny Lane” and the Cavern Club where they played their first shows in Liverpool. I really wanted to capture the musical energy of the place and their humble beginnings in an industrial port city. The yellow submarine was added to give a clue of what was to come later in their lives. I’ve never been to Liverpool, but I lived in the UK port city of Aberdeen, Scotland years ago, so I used some of those memories in rendering the scene. The double decker bus, the phone booth, the rows of shops and houses were all things I’d seen every day while living in Aberdeen. I painted musical notes floating throughout the industrial skyline to give a sense of the inspiration that they found in their city.

Kidsbiographer: The book’s second-to-last spread shows the four musicians, in the latter half of the band’s career, walking in a line. It’s impossible to look at this illustration and not think of the Abbey Road album cover. How did other iconic Beatles’ photos and cover art influence your work on this picture-book biography?

Stacy Innerst: Abbey Road was one of the first records I ever bought for myself, and I played it until it was ragged. And I spent many, many hours studying the photograph on the cover while it was spinning. That image was so burned into my psyche that I couldn’t possibly conceive of a better way to tell the story of the Beatles retreat to record their last album at Abbey Road studios. I did change the composition a bit so it would be suitable for a picture book – no cigarette in Paul’s hand, for instance. So much of their musical lives were documented in photographs that it was hard to illustrate the book without touching on some iconic photos.

Kidsbiographer: In a gentle, age-appropriate way, some of your work in The Beatles Were Funny suggests the band’s later, psychedelic phase. I’m especially fond of the spread in which disembodied mouths scream after the band, who retreat in a car. The jellybeans fans pelted at the band surround the mouths and strike the vehicle. What was the most challenging aspect of employing such surreal imagery in a book for young children?

Stacy Innerst: I tend to employ surrealism in many of my picture books, but this one particularly cried out for some reality-bending. The book really focused on the earlier, funny Beatles –  screaming girls, jellybeans, mop-tops. I always came back to the whole story of the Beatles when I was composing the illustrations, but you can’t really get into LSD and the Maharishi in a children’s picture book. I think their experience of being that popular and that young must have been very surreal, even without the influence of psychedelic drugs. In that spread, I was really trying to convey the sound of lots of screaming fans without making the people who were doing the screaming too specific. It’s kind of interesting, though, because when kids see surreal images they tend to laugh at the silliness while many adults focus on the weirdness. It’s just a theory, but I think children are more used to seeing things in surreal or imaginative ways in their day to day lives. I have childhood memories of things and events that, in retrospect, were very mundane, but they were simply awe-inspiring when I was 4 or 5.

Kidsbiographer: What do you hope children will take away from The Beatles Were Funny?

Stacy Innerst: The fact that they came from ordinary beginnings and became extraordinary not just because of their musical gifts, but also because they kept their sense of humor and remained who they were. I also hope that they will be exposed to some really good music as a result of being introduced to the Beatles. When I first started the project, I wondered whether young kids would even know who the Beatles were. I painted some of the pictures for the book while I was doing a residency at the Children’s Museum in Pittsburgh, so I had a chance to talk to scores of kids and get their feedback. Most had heard of the Beatles because of their parents or grandparents, so my fear that it would be over their heads was calmed. They really got it.

Kidsbiographer: Would you like to discuss any current or upcoming projects?

Stacy Innerst: My editor at Harcourt and my agent at Writers House are both adamant that I write and illustrate a book, so that’s my current fixation. I have a few stories in various stages of completion. One is about my personal experience growing up as a twin, and there is a LOT of material there, believe me. The other involves a malodorous main character and its desire to be loved – not so much from personal experience, I hope.

Author-illustrator Lauren Stringer has written and illustrated children’s books about nature, culture, and childhood rituals. This year, she published When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky, a picture-book about the ballet The Rite of Spring. This week, she caught up with Kidsbiographer about modernism, whimsy, and the joy of sharing great art with kids.

Kidsbiographer: In your author’s note, you describe how many of When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky’s illustrations reference paintings by Matisse, Picasso, and other artists of the early twentieth century. Can you discuss how various illustrations in the book reflect these artists’ influence?

Lauren Stringer: When beginning the illustrations for a picture book manuscript, I always pull the many artists’ monographs from my bookshelves to find inspiration. I was an art history major as well as an art major at the University of Santa Cruz and worked in museums and galleries in New York, Boston, and Washington DC for many years, coming in very close contact with some of history’s greatest paintings and sculptures. The early 20^th Century is one of my favorite periods of art making—the birth of Modernism. As I researched the story of the creation of The Rite of Spring, it was easy for me to cross-reference the art that was being made at the same time.

For example, the year Stravinsky met Nijinsky, 1911, was the same year that the painter, Henri Matisse painted The Red Studio, a flat, nearly monochrome painting that dismantles spatial illusion. By painting the red background in this illustration, I clue the reader into what was happening in the visual arts in the same period that the two artists met.

Kidsbiographer: I must to admit to being pleasantly surprised by When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky; before I read it, I was skeptical about a picture book about The Rite of Spring. I expected dry cultural history that would be over most children’s heads. But your manuscript is extremely lively; in fact, the book is in energetic verse with alliteration, metaphor, and other wordplay that in many ways, reflecting, in many ways, the sensibility of The Rite of Spring. How did the book’s text evolve into this playful celebration of a famous collaboration?

Lauren Stringer: Eight years ago I sat waiting for the Minnesota Orchestra to begin a concert in Symphony Hall, leafing through the program. This photo caught my eye:

The face of a young Igor Stravinsky, the greatest composer of the 20th Century stared out at me while the sad face of Vaslav Nijinsky, the greatest dancer and perhaps the most innovative choreographer of the 20th Century, tugged at my heart.

I whispered to my husband, “Look how young they are! I wonder what it was like when Stravinsky met Nijinsky?” Then we both laughed. When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky! We agreed it was the perfect title for a picture book! It sets up the story to practically write itself. There was humor, rhyming, rhythm, speculation and playfulness all in those four words.

As a writer, I have always delighted in changing rhythms and occasional rhymes. I listened to The Rite of Spring often as I worked on the manuscript, hoping its changing rhythms and dissonances would somehow infuse itself in the story. Before submitting the final art and text to copyediting, I worked many long hours with my editor to find the perfect balance of poetic license and historical fact. I am glad to read that you felt a “sensibility of The Rite of Spring” in the text. That is what I had hoped for.

Kidsbiographer: One of my favorite aspects of the book is the animals – the ginger cat and the dachshund – who observe the ballet’s production and caper over the spreads. What’s the story behind their role in When Stravinksy Met Nijinsky?

Lauren Stringer: The cat came from my research of Nijinsky – critics often called him “Le chat” or the cat – because of his cat-like movements and also because of his slightly slanted eyes.

And Stravinsky, with his beautiful large nose, deserved an animal with an equally beautiful large nose. A dachshund.

It was whimsy. It was poetic license. I do not know for fact that either of them owned a cat or a dog.

I love adding characters to my books that are not necessarily mentioned in the text. They can add humor to the story or highlight an element in the illustration that perhaps the text does not mention. The cat and dog become a sort of alter ego for the composer and the choreographer, anticipating their thoughts and actions or emphasizing their emotions.

Kidsbiographer: What sort of visual research did you do to bring Stravinsky, Nijinsky, the ballet, and their work to life?

Lauren Stringer: When it came to researching for the visuals, I had no fear of losing the playfulness of the story. I devoured every book I could find on the making of The Rite of Spring and the Ballets Russes and cruised every website and Google search necessary to bring the illustrations to life. My sister-in-law works at the Harvard School of Music and she sent me the textbook First Nights, Five Musical Premieres by Thomas Forrest Kelly. The chapter on The Rite of Spring brings to life the people, the fashions, the weather, the theatre, the arts of Paris in 1913. It also contained an excellent bibliography, further deepening my research and understanding.

I am a collector of images, so I put together a journal to contain everything I found. Each area of research had its own spread in the journal.  Then when it came time to paint a particular spread, I would surround the sheet of watercolor paper I was about to work on with the images to inform me as I painted.

Kidsbiographer: What do you hope young readers will take way from this book?

Lauren Stringer: First of all, I hope this story will inspire young readers to listen to the music of Stravinsky and seek out the Joffrey Ballet’s performance of Nijinsky’s choreography of The Rite of Spring available on YouTube.  I recently held an event for the book at a local bookstore. I played an excerpt of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and asked the audience to compare it to an excerpt from The Rite of Spring. One young boy, who had swayed to the melodies of Swan Lake, leapt from his seat with his hands over his ears during the excerpt from The Rite of Spring and ran up to me saying “This, this is why they rioted!” I hope my book can excite this kind of palpable reaction!

I am saddened by the cuts to the arts in public schools. It concerns me that as businesses and corporations seek more creativity in their work force, we diminish our education of the arts and give less time to creative pursuits in the schools, replacing art classes with preparation for standardized testing. I want my picture book to convey the power of art to readers. I hope that it gives young boys permission to dance. I hope it inspires collaboration between young artists rather than competition. And finally, I hope it delights and inspires many readings.

Kidsbiographer: Would you like to discuss any current or upcoming projects?

Lauren Stringer: I am currently illustrating a picture book titled Deer Dancer written by Mary Lyn Ray. It is the story of a young girl learning to dance and the setting is the green of summer. All through this long Minnesota winter my studio has been growing green paintings. Deer Dancer will be published in the spring of 2014, by Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

The manuscript for When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky won a McKnight Fellowship, which is enabling me to travel for research. This spring I will visit Venice to research a book I have been working on for several years now. And as it turns out, I
will be in Paris on May 29^th for the 100^th anniversary of the premiere of The Rite of Spring!