Happy Thursday Critters! Today we have an interview with a debut picture book author that has not one, not two, BUT THREE picture books coming out this year! What a debut year! I’m thrilled to have today’s author with us and I can’t wait for you to read about her fantastic lineup of books this year.
So without further ado, please welcome Lindsay Metcalf!
Where do you live?
I live in rural Kansas, just three miles from the wheat, corn, and soybean farm where I grew up. My whole family lives here now, so my kids are blessed with abundant grandparent and cousin time.
When did you know you wanted to write picture books?
I knew the day my youngest went to preschool and I finally had a few hours to myself. I had left my job as a newspaper reporter and editor a few years earlier to be a stay-at-home mom. In those early years caring for my sons, we read together constantly. The irreverent, funny new picture books we found surprised and delighted me. I wanted to try writing one, especially for my oldest, who was born with microtia/atresia—a malformed ear and no ear canal. I wanted him to see himself in a book. The day my youngest son went to preschool, I snuggled up with my Cavalier King Charles puppy in a cozy armchair and drafted the picture book of my heart, which spilled out way too long, descriptive, and didactic. But I couldn’t stop scratching the itch to write. I read up on how the heck people got published, and later that fall, in 2015, I found SCBWI and my first critique partners. The rest is herstory.
Tell us about your road to publication, what did that involve for you?
Because I had been writing daily for many years, I hoped my trajectory would be shorter than others who had less experience in writing. Ha. Pretty pompous, eh? Picture books spare no one, and my learning curve was steep!
I submitted that first story to all the editors and agents on faculty at my first regional SCBWI conference in 2015. Of course I submitted waaaay too soon. Fortunately, all those rejections included glimmers of kindness and encouragement. I began to understand what I had to do: attend more conferences and small, craft-focused workshops; collect critique partners; and devour craft books such as Ann Whitford Paul’s Writing Picture Books. I learned the basics in Susanna Hill’s Making Picture Book Magic course, began to thread nonfiction narratives in Kristen Fulton’s Nonfiction Archaeology course (which is no longer offered, unfortunately), and refined my craft in Renee LaTulippe’s Lyrical Language Lab. In the meantime I signed up educational webinars and participated in ReFoReMo, Storystorm (which was called PiBoIdMo at the time), KidLit Summer School, and other free craft challenges. I subscribed to newsletters such as KidLit 411 and joined writer-focused Facebook groups such as Sub It Club while following every kidlit blog I could find.
Then in 2017, on the same day I won a mentorship through Tara Luebbe and Becky Cattie’s Writing with the Stars contest, I had “the call” with my agent. That was probably the best day of my kidlit career thus far. It took another year and a half to sell my first book.
What do you do to shake the rust off or get new ideas?
I get a lot of my ideas from reading the news. I subscribe to four newspapers — two local ones as well as the digital editions of the New York Times and the Washington Post. Email newsletters are also essential for nonfiction ideas. My favorites include the Smithsonian, JSTOR, Library of Congress, and the National Archives. I shake off the rust by playing with my kids. Whenever they say something clever, I sneak away to record it on my phone.
Tell us about your debut books.
I have three nonfiction picture books coming out in fall 2020. I consider all of them my debuts, so I hope you don’t mind if I tell you about all three.
BEATRIX POTTER, SCIENTIST, illustrated by Junyi Wu (September 1, 2020, Albert Whitman & Company), is a picture-book biography focused on the interplay between the author's foundational love of science and burgeoning talent as an artist. As a child, Beatrix kept a meticulous cabinet of labeled and pinned insect specimens, and even boiled her pets after they died so she could articulate and study their bones. Then, as she traveled northern England and Scotland as a young woman, she fell in love with fungi and fell down a decade-long rabbit hole of obsession that ended with her breakthrough science on spore germination being presented to the Linnean Society, which wouldn’t allow her to attend because she was a woman.
NO VOICE TOO SMALL: Fourteen Young Americans Making History (September 22, 2020, Charlesbridge) is a picture-book poetry anthology co-edited by me, Keila V. Dawson (THE KING CAKE BABY) and Jeanette Bradley (LOVE, MAMA), and illustrated by Bradley. It features short biographies about contemporary young activists who are taking the lead where grown-ups aren’t moving fast enough. Subjects include literacy activist Marley Dias, water protector Jasilyn Charger, Scout for Equality founder Zach Wahls, and immigration reformer Viridiana Sanchez Santos. Contributors include Nikki Grimes, Joseph Bruchac, Lesléa Newman, Guadalupe García McCall, Carole Boston Weatherford, Traci Sorell, Hena Khan, G. Neri, and more. You can find a complete list of our amazing contributors at the link above.
FARMERS UNITE! Planting a Protest for Fair Prices (November 10, 2020, Calkins Creek) will be illustrated with archival photos and targeted toward more of a middle-grade audience. In the late 1970s, grain prices had tanked, farm auction notices filled newspapers, and people had forgotten that food didn’t grow in grocery stores. So, on February 5, 1979, thousands of tractors from all parts of the US took to the highways and flooded Washington, DC, in protest. Farmers wanted fair prices for their products and demanded action from Congress. After police corralled the tractors on the National Mall, the farmers and their tractors stayed through a snowstorm and dug out the city. Americans were now convinced they needed farmers, but the law took longer. I grew up on a Kansas farm, so this rarely told story of grassroots perseverance and economic justice hits home for me. I wrote it imagining that it would be illustrated traditionally and reach an audience of children about age 5-9. My editor, Carolyn Yoder, saw the potential for a 9-12 audience using photos, and although my manuscript hasn’t changed fundamentally, the book now spreads over 64 pages! It’s strange how these three are all coalescing at the same time. I started writing FARMERS in October 2016 as part of the Nonfiction Archaeology class. That story has been through thirty-plus major revisions. I began researching BEATRIX a year later. NO VOICE TOO SMALL sold first, though—on proposal in a whirlwind collaboration in 2018 that began in a private Facebook group for #kidlitwomen.
And last, but not least, favorite 80s movie?
Eighties me would say it’s a toss-up between “Mannequin” and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” These were my go-to sleepover flicks. My friends and I would fantasize about winning a TV dance contest or being a time-traveling mannequin while we played on a three-in-one pool, table tennis, and air hockey table and ate greasy pizza.
Huge thank you to Lindsay for stopping by Critter Lit today! Congratulations on your THREE debuts! We can’t wait to see what you write next!
LINDSAY H. METCALF is a journalist and author of nonfiction picture books: Beatrix Potter, Scientist; Farmers Unite! Planting a Protest for Fair Prices; and No Voice Too Small, her co-edited poetry anthology about young change-makers. Lindsay lives in north-central Kansas with her husband, two sons, and a variety of pets. You can reach her at lindsayhmetcalf.com.
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