Color in a bleak time

2 months after K-Fai Steele wrote her post and we’re still here; still neck-deep in a crisis. Things haven’t necessarily gotten better, but the initial panic--the gut reaction to hide, run, flee, hermit, turtle-up--has somewhat vanished and impatience, longing, and (most of all) boredom has set in. We’ve cooked all the things and we’re tired of doing dishes. We’ve tried sourdough and have discovered it’s a full time job. We’ve tried gardening or car washing or walking for hours on end. We’ve watched SO. MANY. SHOWS. Now what?

If you’re one of those people that has done nothing “productive” art or story-wise: this is OKAY. You have every right to feel this way and caring for your mental, physical and emotional health is incredibly important right now. Take care of yourself and your families as best as you are able. I repeat K-Fai’s thoughts, because this is important: you don’t have to do anything productive right now. Stories will keep. That drawing will be on your desk when you return to it. You do you.

If you have been cranking out work since the outside world has temporarily been removed as a distraction in your life, then I applaud you! Keep going and make the best of your time!

Me? I’m somewhere between these two. I have had incredibly productive days and incredibly unproductive days. Some days I'm cooking-productive, some days I’m cleaning-productive and some days I'm creatively-productive. Still others, I'm an unproductive couch (or hammock) potato. I’ve been making good progress on a couple of projects. I’ve also watched all my original travel plans for this year get cancelled one by one by one. X. X. X. X. I can’t visit my aging mother-in-law. I can’t visit friends. And THAT has been incredibly disheartening.

But one thing has helped brighten my spirits over the past two+ months as we take our daily walks: messages of love, hope, and positivity that have colored the sidewalks and streets in our neighborhood.

So I decided to respond in fashion with my own message:

And after that, I created this:

I drew a little every morning and evening, skipping mid-day, since summer is descending upon Southern California with a vengeance (and I burn very easily).

This little act improved my emotional well-being. It made me feel connected even when I am disconnected from the world. It made me smile. It made others smile. And that, right now, is enough.

I recommend anyone with a little bit of sidewalk (or fence or wall) space and some chalk to go out there and send a message out into the world. If you can’t draw, then write. If you don’t know what to write, then just add color in any shape and size. Things are bleak and dreary enough right now. Who better than the kidlit community to add a touch of magic back?

This can also be a fun project to do WITH kids!

If you look on Instagram, you can find more examples of these positive messages by searching the hashtags: #chalkart, #mural, or #drawthecurtains

Fellow Kidlit Artists' blogger Rob Sayegh has been knocking it out of the park (or over the bridge!) with his incredible daily window drawings:

@MykerBaker:

P.S. May is Mental Health Month. Learn more at: https://www.nami.org/Get-Involved/Awareness-Events/Mental-Health-Month 

Here's some statistics from NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness):

_______

© Cole Montgomery 

Gail Buschman is a graphic designer and children's book creator who loves to travel and explore new places.

More about Gail at her website, instagram, twitter, and facebook.

Our Art Thrives with Hope

I'm experiencing something I couldn't have imagined a few years ago: I'm a full time picture book author and illustrator now! There is officially no part of my year when I'm not making books! And as I celebrate/promote/fret about the release of my new book while I work on the next, I came to a realization:

From my new book, BALANCE THE BIRDS by Susie Ghahremani

For me, promoting a new book is an anxiety-filled endeavor. I worry it won't find its way onto library and store bookshelves. I worry it won't resonate with readers. I worry it will be forgotten or go out of print. And, quite often, I have to step outside of my comfort zone to do in-person events like book signings and talks. I have to promote and market and share which feels like the antithesis of why I got into art. And all of it opens me up to very public, very permanent criticism.

But making art comes from the exact opposite mindset: I think about the audience -- little readers -- almost to the exclusion of everything else. I try to make something that will resonate with them. I want to make something timeless and lasting. I work in comfortable solitude doing what I love best -- being creative. No one is judging my process or skewering me for it, and I feel totally free.

This same spread, back when I quietly painted it in pieces on translucent vellum.

Today, when writing about my complicated experience promoting a book while working on the next, I had a revelation: Making a book -- whether it's creating the first "draft" of a manuscript, putting pencil to paper to sketch, or painting the last detail on the final art -- it all thrives when we come from a mindset of hope and optimism. But, immersed in the anxieties of a book launch, your hope and optimism fades when you need it most.


This has all made me think about how important it is as creators to protect our mental health and to try to create joy in the less comfortable days after publication so we can get back to our studios with that great mindset. Here are some of the things I've been doing to reset my hope and optimism in-between the tense high wire act of a book launch:

Signing my books with drawings! Fun for me and you.

1. Plan to have fun -- CREATE fun -- at your book launch events!

Yes, you might be out of your comfort zone -- but drawing in every book I sign brings my favorite activity into something that might otherwise be stressful. Making a face cut out made for hilarious and adorable photos that allowed my art to come alive with the interaction of visitors.

2. Don't stop making art during stressful times!

Even though a book launch is a demand on your schedule and time, and you might have other deadlines to meet for your next book, try to create space to make art just for fun. Not for your book launch, and not for your next book, but just optimistic, hopeful art just for fun. Maybe take a class! Maybe doodle in your sketchbook. Maybe post for #Inktober. It will energize you in all kinds of ways and reset all that book launch anxiety.

Making ceramics - totally unrelated to my work on books - has helped me during stressful times! Shoutout to my ceramics studio, a 501(c)3 non-profit called Clay Associates, and my marvelous teacher Eric Woods who is always bringing me back down to earth.

3. Live your life.

There will always be more you can do as an artist and author -- a new portfolio piece, a new proposal, a new manuscript, edits, outreach, education. There will always be something you have to do: a deadline, an event, an interview. A blog post (like this)! Try to protect time in your schedule to just be a person. Cook a meal from scratch, read a book, call a faraway friend, travel and go for a nature walk to see what you might discover.

Those simple interactions are filled with hope. These events strung together make a lovely life. The hopeful acts of making art and launching it into the world again and again can make a lovely life, too. Keep optimism on your side if you can.

Hiking in Japan with my husband! Living life, immediately after delivering the final art for Balance the Birds.

4. Get back to work!

These books aren't going to make themselves!

What are your favorite ways to get back to a hopeful mentality where creativity thrives?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Susie Ghahremani is the author and illustrator of BALANCE THE BIRDS and STACK THE CATS. She paints in gouache, drinks a lot of coffee, and is always looking for great reasons to feel hopeful. One hope she has is that you are registered to vote in this upcoming election.

Susie is represented by Stefanie von Borstel of Full Circle Literary. Find her at:

Boygirlparty | Patreon | Etsy | Fb | Twitter | Instagram

Kidlit Loves All Kids: The Need to Create Books for Children With Mental Illnesses.

I want to talk about a something that is dear to my heart, that is unfortunately a topic that I think many of us would prefer to avoid: mental illness. Even typing those words I can feel the heavy stigma associated with it, but in this blog post, I want to share my own personal experiences and hopefully we can all get a better perspective on how our craft, as children's book writers and illustrators, can better help the mental health of our child readers.

When I was little, I often had stomach aches during day and nightmares at night. Many kids have those sorts of issues, but for me, they were manifestations of undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Most people associate PTSD with those who have served in the military, but PTSD can occur among anyone who suffers from a traumatic event, and often goes undiagnosed among survivors of child abuse. For me, certain smells, sounds, and phrases could make me freeze up into a little ball as they reminded me of events I had lived through. I was a friendly kid at school, but on the inside I felt very alone and hopeless. And I didn't feel safe enough to reach out to the adults in my life. More than 20 years later I was diagnosed with PTSD, and although these events still affect me, with my family's support and with the help of my therapists, I've learned to cope with my trauma.

As a kid, before I had this network of great people,  I found my strength and comfort in books. I felt like books understood me when others didn't. They empowered me, and helped me bear the unbearable. I wrote a blog post about my gratitude for them last year, but, in light of recent events in the news, I've been thinking about other children out there with similar experiences. Do they have books that speak to them? Do they see themselves in the books they read?


According to the National institute of Mental Health, 1 in 5 children, at some point during their lives, will have a mental health crisis. That's a little over 20%. That would be at least 5 children in your average American classroom. To me, that is a shockingly high statistic. In addition to that, every year, about 43.6 million American adults (or 18% of the total adult population in the United States) suffer from some type of mental illness, to include enduring conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia. 


There are more people with mental illnesses than you might realize. It likely affects some of the children you know, and some of their parents too. Why then are there so few characters in children's  picture books through middle grade books, that have mental illnesses or children that come from broken homes? And why is there such a hesitation to include darker themes?

Matt de la Peña wrote an article, Why We Shouldn’t Shield Children From Darkness, that I deeply appreciated. In it he said: 

"A few weeks ago, illustrator Loren Long and I learned that a major gatekeeper would not support our forthcoming picture book, Love, an exploration of love in a child’s life, unless we “softened” a certain illustration. In the scene, a despondent young boy hides beneath a piano with his dog, while his parents argue across the living room. There is an empty Old Fashioned glass resting on top of the piano. The feedback our publisher received was that the moment was a little too heavy for children. And it might make parents uncomfortable. This discouraging news led me to really examine, maybe for the first time in my career, the purpose of my picture book manuscripts. What was I trying to accomplish with these stories? What thoughts and feelings did I hope to evoke in children?

...Loren and I ultimately fought to keep the “heavy” illustration. Aside from being an essential story beat, there’s also the issue of representation. In the book world, we often talk about the power of racial inclusion — and in this respect we’re beginning to see a real shift in the field — but many other facets of diversity remain in the shadows. For instance, an uncomfortable number of children out there right now are crouched beneath a metaphorical piano. There’s a power to seeing this largely unspoken part of our interior lives represented, too. And for those who’ve yet to experience that kind of sadness, I can’t think of a safer place to explore complex emotions for the first time than inside the pages of a book, while sitting in the lap of a loved one."

This idea really resonated with me. While YA has done an admirable job on this front, we haven't made similar strides in picture books to middle grade. I recognize the absolute value of the #weneeddiversebooks movement, and the steps it has taken to diversify our idea of protagonists, but our definition of diversity needs to be inclusive of those whose lives are touched by mental illness.

There is still a stigma attached to mental illnesses, and it seems like it is inappropriate to talk about these conditions, like it's airing dirty laundry. But this secrecy and silence reinforces all these negative stereotypes. Childhood can be hard enough with a mental illness, but we need to make sure that we write more books that don't make it harder for our readers.

Books were a saving grace in my troubled childhood. It's my hope that as advocates for children, we reach out to all children with our stories. All children need to feel seen and understood. #KidlitLovesAllKids

Some books that feature mental illness:

-Real Friends by Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham
-The Red Tree - Shaun Tan
-The Bridge to Teribithia by Katherine Paterson
-Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand 
-The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Recommendations of writing themes:

-Kids or parents with mental illnesses.
-Characters that go to therapy.
-Healthy coping skills with trauma.
-Kids with scary home lives.


More articles or resources.

-Why Children’s Books Should Be a Little Sad by Kate DiCamillo

-Additional Mental Health Resources

-How to Find a Good Child Therapist by Natasha Daniels

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Interview by Meridth McKean Gimbel, a kidlit writer, artist, & champion taco cruncher who is currently building a time machine. They are also represented by Linda Pratt at Wernick & Pratt. You can follow their work at:

Portfolio | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest