FAQ’s

1. What is your favorite word?
Serendipity. Which means a happy accident. It sounds like a roller-coaster ride. Like singing a song. Like an ice cream flavor. Just lovely and fun and playful.

2. Did you always want to be a writer?
First I wanted to be a veterinarian, then a farmer, a librarian, and an Olympic athlete racing in the 200 meter. I have worked as a fashion copywriter, a teacher, a publicist and a full time mom, but a writer? Not so much. For a long time, even though I was an avid reader, I never really thought about writing books as full-time job. My writing was always encouraged in school and college, but it wasn’t until I began graduate school in Elementary Education at New York University and my husband, illustrator James Ransome began illustrating, that I started thinking about writing books for young readers. Of course now I can’t imagine doing anything else.  

3. What do you do when you’re not writing?
I spend an awful lot of time writing but I do love listening to music live, on vinyl, singing loudly in the car, and in the kitchen while dancing and cooking dinner. I also love puzzles, anagrams, playing board games and watching movies, but my two favorite things to do are reading and hosting family dinners with my four children and my extended family and spending hours at the table eating, laughing and talking.  

4. Who are your favorite writers?/Which writers inspire you?
So many writers, so little time. I love writers across all genres and here are just a sampling of many: Toni Morrison, Gary Paulsen, Jesmyn Ward, Renee Watson, James McBride, Carole Boston Weatherford, Christopher Paul Curtis, Kent Haruf, Ntozake Shange,  Tonya Bolden, Laurie Halse Anderson, Pamela Muñoz Ryan.  

5. What is it like working with your husband?
When people hear that my husband, illustrator James Ransome, often illustrates my picture books, I think they like to  imagine the two of us, side by side, poring over a manuscript I have written, and then making our way to James’ easel to discuss  each of the the paintings James will create. The truth is that the only time we truly collaborate is when we are brainstorming projects to work on together, usually over breakfast or dinner or while running errands.  Other than that, I work in my office and he works on the opposite side of the house in his studio. Typically after I complete a manuscript he begins illustrating, sometimes 1–2 years later, at which point I have forgotten most of what I have written.

6. How do you choose your topics?
Curiosity is the reason I choose most of my topics. Writing has been a wonderful way to learn more about fascinating historical events I never learned about in school—The Great Migration, pit schools, sharecropping, sundown towns, the Port Chicago Disaster, the Negro Leagues, Pullman Porters, The Chicago Defender newspaper—and so many other events that helped to shape American history. Each of these events have taken center stage in my books and my world has been enriched in the process.  

7. What is your advice for aspiring writers?
Read and write often. It’s just that simple. Each time you pick up a book, you are teaching yourself how to write.