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This is author\/illustrator Jim Averbeck<\/strong><\/a>. He’s showing us the real<\/em> life of a Regional Advisor, as he used to serve as the Regional Advisor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators<\/strong><\/a> for the San Francisco Bay Area. \u201cWhat do you mean they turned the room we planned on using for critiques into an ADA bathroom!\u201d he’s screaming here. \u201cWhat do you mean the speaker\u2019s plane is late! What do you mean they didn\u2019t deliver the coffee? ARARR-RRRghhh!!\u201d (That’s his own, original ARARRRRRghhh there, verbatim. Nice argh, huh?)<\/p>\n
Below that picture is a less-stressed-out picture of Jim (“My critique groups friends call this my ‘dappled boycake’ picture,” he told me. “Harassment! It\u2019s tough being a man Breakfast?<\/em> you say? Oh yeah, Jim stopped by for breakfast here at 7-Imp for our illustrator interview series. And here’s the thing: Jim’s an illustrator but not a published one — yet. But, after reading Jim’s debut picture book, In a Blue Room<\/strong><\/a><\/em> (Harcourt, April 2008)—which was illustrated by Tricia Tusa and is seven kinds of fabulous (reviewed here<\/strong><\/a> by Yours Truly)—I visited his site, saw some of his art work, and lined him up for an interview in our illustrator series. (I even tacked on a few extra questions specifically about his career thus far). Seriously, people, have you read In a Blue Room<\/em> yet? I’ve been runnin’ my mouth about how it’s one of the best picture books I’ve seen this year. Let’s take a moment here and soak in some of its picture-book-goodness: <\/p>\n And, as I was saying, if you visit Jim’s site, you’ll see art work like this: <\/p>\n Many thanks to Jim for stopping by. Let’s get the table set . . . <\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/strong>: Are you an illustrator or author\/illustrator?<\/font><\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: Author\/Illustrator. One odd thing about me is that I am a writer who is moving into illustration. The usual migration is the other way around.<\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/strong>: Can you list your books-to-date?<\/font><\/p>\n Little Spoon-Ears<\/em> (coming from Holiday House)<\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/strong>: What is your usual medium, or -\u2013 if you use a variety -\u2013 your preferred one?<\/font> <\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: I use acrylic paint and cut paper.<\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/strong>: If you have illustrated for various age ranges (such as, both picture books and early reader books OR, say, picture books and chapter books), can you briefly discuss the differences, if any, in illustrating for one age group to another?<\/font><\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: I haven\u2019t illustrated for different age groups, but my friend Maria van Lieshout<\/strong><\/a> once gave a brilliant talk at a conference describing how a child\u2019s cognitive abilities change as they age and what that means to the illustrator. Basically, older kids can deal with abstraction better than younger ones, who are more literal. There are a zillion implications that follow.<\/p>\n Jim<\/strong> (pictured here on a recent vacation in Greece): San Francisco is the southern\/urban limit of my range. Western Sonoma County (in California\u2019s wine country) is the northern\/rural limit.<\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/strong>: Can you briefly tell us about your road to publication?<\/font> <\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: I wish the road had been brief! Do you remember that scene in the movie Poltergeist<\/strong><\/a><\/em> where Jobeth Williams is reaching out for a door knob and suddenly the hallway she is in stretches out and the door recedes away from her faster than she can run? When I submitted the first manuscript I ever wrote (in 1998) for critique at the SCBWI conference in LA, I was assigned the editorial director of a major house as my critiquer. She liked the story so much she took it home with her for consideration. I thought \u201cHooray! I\u2019m going to be published any second now!\u201d Ten years later, my first book came out.<\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/strong>: Can you please point us to your web site and\/or blog?<\/font><\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: www.jimaverbeck.com<\/strong><\/a>. I promised myself to start a blog soon, but as of now it\u2019s still \u201con the list.\u201d<\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/strong>: If you do school visits, can you tell us what they\u2019re like?<\/font> <\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: I\u2019ve just started booking school visits as an author\/illustrator. Interested parties can contact me via my website. <\/p>\n I have done school visits as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. I was in Africa. After my presentation, the Q&A generally went like this:<\/p>\n 1st grader<\/em> (raises hand): Did you see a lion?<\/p>\n Me<\/em>: Yes, I did.<\/p>\n 1st grader<\/em> (raises hand): Did you see a giraffe?<\/p>\n Me<\/em>: Yes, I did.<\/p>\n 1st grader<\/em> (raises hand): Did you see a tiger?<\/p>\n Me<\/em>: No, tigers don\u2019t live in Africa.<\/p>\n 1st grader<\/em> (raises hand): Did you see a bear?<\/p>\n Me<\/em>: Only at the dump in Michigan.<\/p>\n 1st grader<\/em> (raises hand): Did you see a zebra?<\/p>\n Me<\/em>: Yes, I did.<\/p>\n Teacher<\/em>: Maybe we could ask Mr. Averbeck a different question.<\/p>\n Pause.<\/p>\n 1st grader<\/em> (raises hand): Did you see a lion?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 7-Imp<\/strong>: If you teach illustration, by chance, tell us how that influences your work as an illustrator.<\/font><\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: Teaching makes you take a good look at your own process and then find a way to convey it to those in the class. This applies to both writing and illustrating. Once you\u2019ve looked at what you do with the analytical side of your brain, the process becomes more conscious and directed. You no longer necessarily have to flail around in the dark, though it is likely you will as your process changes and matures.<\/p>\n Sometimes teaching can affect your ideas more directly. I was doing an exercise with a class of women on coming up with interesting characters. The exercise consisted of identifying a character in the center of a piece of paper and then clustering adjectives to describe that character around it. When I wrote \u201cten-year-old boy\u201d in the center, the adjectives I got were like this: \u201csmelly, violent, destructive, don\u2019t listen, dirty, etc.\u201d Two dozen words and not one of them positive. I was appalled. Finally, one woman said, with a bit of hurt in her voice, \u201cHey, I have two sons. And I think they\u2019re brave.\u201d I vowed then and there to write a book about how great boys are. It\u2019s tentatively titled Through the Green Wood<\/em>.<\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: I was Regional Advisor for SCBWI\/San Francisco for about seven years. I loved doing it and I love the organization. It is such a glamorous position. I ran a conference that has become sort of popular with the kidlit crowd. It\u2019s called the Golden Gate Conference at Asilomar. I met all kinds of interesting writers, illustrators, editors and agents here. At one point, I took a count of how many manuscripts had sold due to connections made at the conference in the past decade. The number was somewhere north of thirty. I retired in March, because I needed to concentrate on the launch of my first book, In a Blue Room<\/em>. <\/p>\n 7-Imp<\/strong>: Any new titles\/projects you might be working on now that you can tell us about?<\/font> <\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: An editor just told me she is getting an offer together for a picture book I wrote and illustrated called The Market Bowl<\/em>. It is a trickster tale set in Cameroon, where I was in the Peace Corps. The protagonist is a little girl named Yoyo, who is based on a girl who lived up the hill from me when I was there.<\/p>\n I am also working on a novel about an orphan boy living at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco in 1956. His aunt is kidnapped and he gets help finding her from an unusual source. There\u2019s been some editorial interest, so I am pretty sure it will eventually make it to the bookstores. <\/p>\n Okay, the table’s set, and we’re ready to sit down and talk more specifics over coffee with Jim (he’s got his nice green tea, but I gotta have my coffee, folks) — and Pivot him. Of course we have to Pivot him.<\/font> <\/p>\n 1.<\/font> 7-Imp<\/strong>: What exactly is your process when you are illustrating a book? You can start wherever you\u2019d like when answering: getting initial ideas, starting to illustrate, or even what it\u2019s like under deadline, etc. Do you outline a great deal of the book before you illustrate or just let your muse lead you on and see where you end up?<\/font> <\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: I have a degree in Engineering. I think that background is reflected in my process, which is one of building pieces then putting them together. When I illustrate a manuscript, the first thing I do is break it down into thirty-two pages. I figure out how I want it paced and where the page turns will go for maximum effect. I identify the major actions or emotions in the book and make sure each becomes the central aspect of its own illustration. I do very rough sketches of what I want. Then I make my friends dress up and pose for me so I will have some photo reference. I make better, tighter sketches. I create the faces and hands of the characters using acrylics. Then I use the tight sketch as a pattern for cutting out pieces of paper. I construct all these little pieces of the picture, then use the tight sketch as a guide to glue them altogether. <\/p>\n In fact, I write the same way. When I write a picture book, I usually work on the whole thing at once, since it is only a few hundred words. But with a novel, I keep a notebook of what I call \u201csnippets\u201d–\u2013little lines of dialogue or description, clever turns of phrase—whatever seems worth writing down. Then I outline the plot and character arcs. Finally, I write, filling in all the little snippets I\u2019ve recorded. Then I revise and revise . . . and revise. But unlike many writers, my revision process tends to be one of adding more and more to flesh out what I am trying to say, rather than one of writing a lot of extra stuff—following the muse–\u2013and then editing it down. Both ways are perfectly legitimate. It is just the difference between being a sculptor who builds up the figure in clay vs. being the sculptor who reveals the figure by chipping away at a block of marble.<\/p>\n Did I mention procrastination as a big part of my process? I meant to say that at the beginning, but decided to put it off until now. <\/p>\n 2.<\/font> 7-Imp<\/strong>: Describe your studio or usual work space for us.<\/font> <\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: I have four spaces where most of my work gets done.<\/p>\n There is my little closet of space in my house in San Francisco. It\u2019s about 6\u2019x8\u2019. It\u2019s mostly cabinet space for files and art supplies, a desk for the computer, and a drawing board, which slides on a bar to reveal a printer behind it. <\/p>\n These are shots of my studio. See — it really is a blue room, right down to the door knobs. My mother would be appalled at how messy it is. It actually isn\u2019t finished. There will eventually be a plexiglass top about eight inches above the current work-top and an ergonomically proper chair.<\/p>\n I also have a house on forty acres of land in Western Sonoma County. When I write up there, I am surrounded by bunnies and bluebirds. It feels like being in a Beatrix Potter book. <\/p>\n I work in that top part of the house and look over all that beautiful countryside.<\/p>\n There is the preschool owned by my friend Lynn Hazen<\/a><\/strong>, where my critique group, the Revisionaries, meets. The others sit on tiny pre-schooler chairs at a table about two feet off the floor. But I always drag over the teacher\u2019s chair, because I\u2019m too tall for the little ones.<\/p>\n {Pictured here are} . . . The Revisionaries. They are, from left to right, Gianna Marino<\/strong><\/a>, me, Lynn Hazen<\/a><\/strong>, Yuyi Morales<\/strong><\/a>, and Maria van Lieshout<\/strong><\/a>. Karen Ehrhardt<\/strong><\/a> (who co-founded the group with Yuyi and me) was out on maternity leave that day. We have a tradition of toasting with champagne whenever one of our stories is acquired. When we started, none of us were published. Now we all are.<\/p>\n Finally, I do a lot of work at a traditional Japanese bath-house in San Francisco called Kabuki Springs and Spa. They have men\u2019s days and women\u2019s days. I get so relaxed there that the ideas come fast and furious. Unfortunately, the attire is, shall we say, less than is required for stowing a small notebook and pen. They do, however, provide paper cups for water and pens so you can put your name on them and re-use them. I have written most of a novel on these paper cups. <\/p>\n Usually I transcribe them into my computer, but here is one that was lying around. <\/p>\n 3.<\/font> 7-Imp<\/strong>: As book lovers, it interests us: What books or authors and\/or illustrators influenced you as an early reader?<\/font> <\/p>\n 4.<\/font> 7-Imp<\/strong>: If you could have three (living) illustrators or author\/illustrators — whom you have not yet met — over for coffee or a glass of rich, red wine, whom would you choose?<\/font> <\/p>\n 5.<\/font> 7-Imp<\/strong>: What is currently in rotation on your iPod or loaded in your CD player? Do you listen to music while you create books?<\/font><\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: I have over 4,000 songs on my iPod and they span all genres. I am especially fond of Jazz, Classical, World, and weird trancy music like Dead Can Dance<\/strong><\/a>. I do listen to music when I write or illustrate. When I write, it has to be instrumental or music in a language that I don\u2019t understand—like the Eastern European folk songs by Kitka<\/strong><\/a>. When illustrating, I can listen to anything. I like to listen to music that somehow relates to what I am working on: so, African songs by Angelique Kidjo<\/strong><\/a> when working on The Market Bowl<\/em>, for example.<\/p>\n 6.<\/font> 7-Imp<\/strong>: What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you?<\/font> <\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: Nearly twenty years ago, I won the Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction-writing contest<\/strong><\/a> for the Children\u2019s Division. The sentence was \u201cThe ugly duckling cried and cried and cried, but the little princess smiled, because she knew one day he would grow up to be a beautiful swan a l\u2019orange, served up on a silver platter at the royal feast.\u201d It\u2019s actually hard to write a sentence that bad.<\/p>\n 7.<\/font> 7-Imp<\/strong>: Is there something you wish interviewers would ask you — but never do? Feel free to ask and respond here.<\/font><\/p>\n Jim<\/strong>: Q: If you could have three wishes, what would they be?<\/em><\/p>\n A: A few years ago, the members of my critique group, the Revisionaries, wrote down our answer to just that question. At the time, I said something about wishing I could sing and had a killer six-pack of abs and, finally, \u201cfor my art to outlive me.\u201d Now, you would think a children\u2019s book writer and avid reader of fairy tales would realize just how dangerous stating a wish that way is. All it would take for it to come true is for me to drop dead just before my first book goes out of print. Indeed, I was half expecting a heart attack before it was even published. So I hereby amend and clarify this wish to read as follows: \u201cI would like my art to continue to bring joy to children (and wise adults) far beyond the end of my very long, exceedingly healthy, and happily productive and alert life.\u201d Does that cover it? I think so. I\u2019ve been ruminating about it for a while.<\/p>\n Okay, a few more questions before I Pivot you. <\/p>\n 8.<\/font> 7-Imp<\/strong>: What was it like the first time to see Tricia Tusa\u2019s beautiful art work for In a Blue Room<\/strong><\/a><\/em>?<\/font><\/p>\nin a woman\u2019s world. It was taken at a writing retreat I did with them at the house in Sonoma County”). I’d say waaaay<\/em> less-stressed-out, since he’s all reclining in the sun there, looking like he’s just had a very filling breakfast. <\/p>\n
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So, yes, Jim stopped by to let me ask him about his writing, his art work, if he plans to be published as an illustrator, and—of course—what his favorite sound is and such. And what is Jim’s breakfast of choice this morning? Oatmeal with two pink lady apples cut up into it and toffee-flavored stevia. “It\u2019s like having a caramel apple for breakfast. Yum,” he told me. “And green tea to get me moving.”<\/font><\/p>\nJim<\/strong>: In a Blue Room<\/strong><\/a><\/em> (illustrated by Tricia Tusa<\/strong><\/a>) <\/p>\n
7-Imp<\/strong>: Where are your stompin\u2019 grounds?<\/font> <\/p>\n
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7-Imp<\/strong>: Can you tell us about your work as the Regional Advisor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators for the San Francisco Bay Area<\/strong><\/a>? (Jim is pictured here, giving us “proof of the glamorous life of an SCBWI Regional Advisor,” he told me. “The ‘showgirl’ is actually your fellow kidlit blogger Tina Nichols Coury<\/strong><\/a>. This was taken at the National SCBWI conference in LA during their ‘Emerald Party.’ Guess who spent more time on their costume.”)<\/font> <\/p>\n
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from rough sketch to finished piece.<\/center> <\/p>\n
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Jim<\/strong>: I was a strange sort of reluctant reader as a child. I read way above my grade level, so the books made for my age group bored me, but those for the level I was reading at had content to which I couldn\u2019t really relate. So I didn\u2019t read for fun at an early age like most writers did. I remember liking The Mysterious Bender Bones<\/strong><\/a><\/em> by Susan Meyers. And the D\u2019Aulaires book on Norse mythology. Around age eleven, I had a great teacher, Mrs. Skroki, who started giving me books that I liked. The Pigman<\/strong><\/a><\/em> by Paul Zindel<\/strong><\/a> was a favorite. I liked the part where someone has graffiti\u2019d that they are turning into a mosquito and the words get smaller and smaller. Finally, around thirteen or fourteen, I discovered Tolkien<\/strong><\/a> and from then on I read all the time. The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, The Once and Future King<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, Watership Down<\/strong><\/a><\/em>: obviously, I had a penchant for fantasy. And I started reading comic books around that time, and still do. I preferred the straightforward stories of DC comics to the angst-ridden ones at Marvel<\/strong><\/a>. Eventually, though, I crossed over. Then back when Neil Gaiman<\/a><\/strong> starting writing for DC<\/strong><\/a>. <\/p>\nJim<\/strong>: Peter S\u00eds<\/strong><\/a> {pictured here}, Maurice Sendak<\/strong><\/a>, Kadir Nelson<\/a><\/strong> . . . though I have briefly met Peter S\u00eds, but just to say \u201cthank you\u201d after he gave a nice talk here in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
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