Interview with the creators of THIS IS THE BOAT THAT BEN BUILT: Jen Lynn Bailey and Maggie Zeng3/25/2022
It might surprise you to know that authors and illustrators of picture books don’t often collaborate directly on their stories, and that many of them are only given the green light to communicate after the book is considered complete. This was also the case for author Jen Lynn Bailey and illustrator Maggie Zeng who each worked directly with their editor, Erin Alladin, at Pajama Press, but only officially “met” each other via a Zoom call recently! Today on the blog: a look at some highlights from their conversation, and some additional thoughts for writers and illustrators just breaking in. This Is the Boat That Ben Built’ by Jen Lynn Bailey illustrated by Maggie Zeng © 2022 published by Pajama Press. JEN: It’s so great to finally meet you, Maggie! I was so thrilled when I saw the illustrations in This is the Boat that Ben Built, and I’m so glad we were matched up to work on it together! I have so many questions… what was your path to publication like? MAGGIE: It’s great to meet you too, Jen! Your story was so fun to illustrate! My path to publication started after graduating Dawson College’s Illustration program in 2020. Pajama Press reached out to me with a manuscript because they had seen my work during the school’s virtual exhibition. This 3D, game-like portfolio showcase was designed by Studio Syro as an innovative substitute to combat the pandemic’s halting of in-person gatherings. Although that first manuscript was eventually dropped, editor Erin Alladin contacted me a few months later with your story, and the rest is history! How about you, Jen? JEN: I started querying this story to publishers in 2013, right after graduating from Vermont College of Fine Arts’ (VCFA) Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program. I got a big list of Canadian publishers and sent it out pretty haphazardly. No luck. I put the manuscript away for a couple of years and worked on other stories, and when I came back to it in 2017, I saw it with fresh eyes and could tell that there were issues with its cumulative elements. So, I worked on it some more, then sent it out again, this time being more targeted in my selection of publishers after reading broadly and studying the kinds of books each one was acquiring. When I heard from an editor at Pajama Press that she was taking it to acquisitions, I was so excited! Unfortunately, it wasn't a great fit at the time, but she said they would keep it on file... and a year later, they reached out and asked if it was still available. I signed the contract in 2020, after they had found the perfect illustrator for the project (that illustrator was you!). Maggie: I’m so glad it was! What inspired you to write the story? JEN: I first got the idea for this book because of my love for cumulative stories. I particularly loved The Napping House by Audrey Wood (illustrated by Don Wood) and Simms Taback's version of This is the House that Jack Built. I was finishing up my final semester at VCFA, and I needed a break from writing the middle grade novel that was making up the biggest chunk of my creative thesis. So, I set myself a fun challenge: to try to mimic the rhythm and rhyme of This is the House that Jack Built and set it in the woods. The first version of this story was called This is the Cabin that Ben Built and I imagined Ben to be a man who built a cabin by a river. He wanted to go for a quiet paddle in his canoe, but the animals who lived there had other ideas... While I was successful with the rhythm and rhyme, I must say that it took me a long time to get the cumulative part of the story working! Many revisions later, I settled on the version of This is the Boat that Ben Built that was published. As you can tell, is quite different than its precursor! MAGGIE: Yes, for sure! And the backmatter? JEN: Oh, that was an idea I had based on a conversation with a mentor, later in the revision process. While the story could certainly stand alone, I liked the idea of adding more content to help kids think about the real-life interactions of the animals in the book. Certainly, in reality they wouldn’t really all be swimming together like they are in the story, but they are interconnected in important ways. I added in fun facts about the animals and talked about their predator-prey relationships. It turned out that Erin agreed that the backmatter would be an important part of the book, as you can tell from the space ultimately devoted to it. It’s my hope that kids will be curious to learn more about and explore river ecosystems near them (in the company of a trusted adult, of course!). I’m also really thrilled that a Teacher Guide was developed to complement the book! I supplemented it with fact sheets about plants and insects found in northern river ecosystems. These are all available on the Pajama Press website. What drew you to the story, Maggie? MAGGIE: After Erin presented the manuscript to me, I was immediately charmed by the lush world of fun characters. I could already picture Ben’s animal friends that he would follow down the river! JEN: When I first saw the cover image of This is the Boat that Ben Built I was captivated by its calming color palette, the delight in Ben's face as he looked down into the water, and the real sense of the magnificence of the river with all that is in it. I'd love to hear how the world came together for you. What parts of the text did you draw on? MAGGIE: What I really liked about the story was how whimsical it sounded. It reminded me of being a kid and exploring my backyard, and daydreaming, and so I immediately picture Ben as a curious child character. The rhythmic quality of the story gave a lot of opportunities to draw fun characters meeting each other, and then bumping into each other, one after the other. JEN: That’s so neat! What guidance did you have from the editor and team at Pajama Press while you were illustrating it? MAGGIE: I worked very closely with Erin on the sketches and character decisions, and Gail Winskill, the publisher, would sign off on what I presented Erin. One thing that comes to mind is when we were discussing Ben’s safety as a small kid floating down the river. I suggested that we could have the story take place in his imagination, with the beginning and end showcasing cardboard boats and stuffed animals in his room, though ultimately with Erin and Gail’s guidance, we decided on adding the life jackets and Ben’s mom and dog watching over him on the sidelines of the riverbank. Once all the spreads had been completed, Gail and Erin were drawn to that particular illustration of Ben looking down into the water and suggested it with a few modifications and additions to be the book’s jacket. Lorena Gonzalez did the graphic design for the book and set the typography, that is just so fun and matches the whimsical energy of the story. When we were making the images, I had to keep in mind that we would need room for the text, and if Lorena found that certain spreads might not work with the text, then we would have to tweak the composition. JEN: Wow, that’s a real team effort! I’d love to hear more about your illustration process. MAGGIE: I mainly used digital tools like Photoshop and my iPad for on-the-go sketching, though my initial exploration sketches were done in pencil. After doing some research on the environment and wildlife, and once we had the animal and character designs, I worked on sketches of each spread, so that we could see the story in its entirety. With each spread layout complete and approved, I wanted the colours of the book to tell a story as well, which is why we start on a foggy morning, moving into a sunny afternoon on blue waters, until we reach the orange glow of a sunset. How did the process go for you? JEN: There was one small tweak that was made to the last line of the story, and that came to me after I saw your illustrations and that last important page-turn. I worked more with Erin on the backmatter as it had been a few years since I wrote it. I did another round of fact-checking and worked on getting the tone right. I also incorporated more questions to the reader throughout. Erin had a keen eye for making sure that the content would apply to readers in both Canada and the USA as that is where the book would be marketed. You also have another book coming out with Pajama Press: Room for More, written by Michelle Kadarusman. Tell us about that. How was illustrating that text different from what you did with This is the Boat that Ben Built? MAGGIE: Room for More is coming out in May, and I learned a lot from working on both books. Having had the opportunity to work on This is the Boat that Ben Built, I developed a process that made starting Room for More a lot smoother. Of course, there are a lot of differences between the two. Room for More deals with topic of wildfires and their impacts on the Australian ecosystem, and although it is through the lens of these cheerful wombat and wallaby characters, I wanted the colour palette to reflect that intensity, without being too scary for young children. The shapes are also more solid, whereas Ben’s river-based story really lent itself to a watercolour-inspired aesthetic, were the colours melt into each other to create a soft and dreamier experience. JEN: In addition to illustrating picture books, you are also a graphic designer and an animator, and you are working on the video game Troubadour. How is that different from what you do when you are working on illustrating a picture book? MAGGIE: Troubadour’s illustration, in a similar way to the children’s books, was meant to capture children’s imaginations of how vast the world is. My professor from Dawson, who’s also working on the project (shoutout to Stephanie Aubin 😊), is the one who referred me. The difference here is that the essence of the game had to be captured in a single image, rather than building up the story with successive illustrations. Overall the process was similar, starting with character explorations, then environment sketches, and then a final coloured piece. JEN: Do you have any tips you'd like to share with illustrators hoping to break into children's publishing? What has been most valuable to you along the way? Maggie: I feel like any advice I give will sound generic, so I’ll just say there are opportunities in a lot of places, and the art world is not as scarce as the stereotype makes it seem. Participate in different opportunities to have your work exhibited, and you never know who will be there to see it and appreciate it. Also, when you have the chance to work with others, you get so many interesting perspectives that you might not have considered. It’s a great learning experience if you are open to feedback. Any tips for writers, Jen? JEN: Write the story you want to write first, then figure out where and how it might be published and marketed. Read a lot of recently published books. Study each publisher’s style and learn where your story fits. If your story isn’t working, give it some breathing room! It’s ok to put it away for a bit, work on something else, and come back to it later. And lastly, this publishing thing is a rollercoaster. A slow rollercoaster... which can be especially frustrating at times but exhilarating at others! Keep at it! What else is on the horizon for you, Maggie? MAGGIE: The next couple months look to be quite busy! I have an animated short that’s in progress right now, and I’m collaborating with a friend and classmate, Fanny Lord-Bourcier, as well as some music students, on it. I’ll definitely be posting about that more in the near future, but for now, that’s all I will say. And you? JEN: I have a number of different projects on submission now and some exciting news coming soon, but nothing I can talk about publicly yet! I’ll be sure to update my website and social media with news when I can share though! Keep up to date with Jen & Maggie’s work by following them on social media: Twitter: @JLynn_Bailey @magpiesnfrogs Facebook and Instagram: @jlbaileybooks @Maggie.Draws.Stuff Website: www.jenlynnbailey.com www.behance.net/maggie-draws.stuff This is the Boat that Ben Built is “a humorous exploration of a northern river ecosystem with an intrepid young boatsman… paired with an extended author’s note about its ecology and key species. Young Ben sets out to explore the river equipped with a sturdy boat, some sample-collection gear, and his scientific curiosity. Along the way he meets a black bear taking a swim, a moose all wobbly and slim, a goose with a gorgeous grin, and a heron all proper and prim…but things really start happening after the owl HOOs loudly on a whim.” Links to buy This is the Boat that Ben Built can be found here: https://pajamapress.ca/book/this_is_the_boat_that_ben_built/ Jen Lynn Bailey was born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario. She loves playing with the sounds and rhythms of words while drawing on snippets and scraps from her life thus far. Jen has measured water quality, air quality, and the quality of treads on her hiking shoes. She loves balancing equations, the keel of her kayak, and the spine of a beautiful book on her knee. She has focused on fish, her knitting stitch, and the hump of clay on her pottery wheel. Jen holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, a Bachelor of Science in Integrated Science Studies from Carleton University, and a Bachelor of Science in Education from Martin Luther College. Previously Jen taught science and French in an elementary school and writing and editing to college students. Now Jen works for the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada where she supports science promotion programs. Jen is represented by Lori Steel at Raven Quill Literary Agency. Maggie Zeng is a Montreal-based illustrator, sequential artist and animation student who aims to make story-driven illustrations that convey a feeling of adventure and wonder through fun characters and magical environments. She has studied both at Concordia University and Dawson College in animation and illustration, where she learned both digital and traditional media. Maggie’s favourite pencil is a 0.9mm Staedtler Mars micro that someone stole from her during her first year of high school. (She bought a second one.) Comments are closed.
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