Guest blogger Laurel Snyder is the author of "Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains OR The Search for a Suitable Princess" (Random House Children's, 2008) and "Inside the Slidy Diner" (Tricycle Books, 2008) as well as a book of poems, "The Myth of the Simple Machines" (No Tell Books, 2007). She blogs often here and here.
Dispatch from the Cupcake Ghetto
I’m not sure whether I started writing books for children because deep down I wanted to have a baby, or if maybe I actually decided to have a baby because I started writing kids’ books. But either way I find myself in a funny place now. Surrounded by babies and book deals. But with a cloudy sense of myself as a writer.
Because nobody I know seems to have much respect for children’s books.
Of course, nobody I know has children either.
Until a few years ago, I was a poet. And I knew what that meant—that I’d spend years waiting tables and adjuncting, and that maybe someday I’d publish a slim collection of poems and land a teaching job at a small college in the middle of nowhere. And that was fine by me. Really.
Because I never considered that I might be able to write work I felt good about and get paid for it. I never considered what a gift it would be to continue writing, and also stay home with my family full time.
After all, I didn’t have a family—yet.
But then I began to tell my boyfriend a little bedtime story, which turned into a prose-poem about a milkmaid. And then the poem turned into something else, something longer.
I didn’t even recognize it as a children’s book at first, or take the project very seriously. But as the milkmaid’s tale got longer and longer, I became less and less willing to discard it or ignore it. Finally I recognized that I’d written some kind of a novel, and I began to hunt for a publisher. And though that endeavor took years, I eventually found the right agent and editor.
And then I got knocked up, which only heightened my interest in kiddie-lit, and in making money. To be blunt.
Of course, when I heard that Random House had bought the book, I was happy beyond belief. But when I sold the next book and I came up against the realization that I was fast becoming a far more successful children’s author than I ever had been a poet (which wasn’t saying much), I freaked out a little.
I realized that I’d never get hired as a university poet if I was known as a commercial kids’ book author. And that while one book might be a fluke, two middle-grade books for a major house constitutes the beginning of a career.
How messed up is it that I was afraid of having an actual career? Despite the fact that writing for children makes me so happy—fits me. Despite the fact that when I’m honest I can admit this is what I want to do.
I mean, really—I can’t imagine anything nicer than touring children’s bookstores with my young sons in tow, reading to kids and eating cupcakes. Why would I run from that life? Why would I fear that comfort?
I thought and thought. And finally I realized why.
See, it wasn’t that I was losing poetry. I could still write poems and read poems. Of course I could. What I was perhaps losing (and very much afraid of losing) was the community of poets I’d gotten used to. I was afraid of losing AWP and Breadloaf, list serves and blogging circles, bar-readings in NY. For so many years these trappings had been a part of who I was. And without them, I wasn’t sure what it meant to be a writer. Which is kind of messed up. But still the truth. No colony will let you in to work on a children’s book. No university poetry press offers a prize for picture books And very few MFA programs offer tracks in writing for children. I realized that I was afraid of becoming a genre writer in the eyes of other poets. Of being relegated to the ghetto of kiddie-lit. Of losing my identity, as silly as it was.
And at the same time, this was all bound up with becoming a mother. Since most colonies won’t let you bring your kids either. Since AWP with a toddler is a nightmare. Since I could no longer afford to adjunct (babysitting costs more than an adjunct makes on an hourly basis).
Everything in my life was changing. I could no longer afford to be me.
So what did I do?
Well, I didn’t return my advance, I can tell you that much.
No, I just started going back and rereading the best books for children I could find—the books that had touched me as a kid, made me into a writer in the first place. I started reading Lewis Carroll and C.S. Lewis and Edward Eager and E. Nesbit and James Thurber and Norton Juster… The literary canon of children’s writing.
And that made me feel better. That reminded me that poetry follows language into every ghetto. Every genre. No matter how illustrated. No matter how disregarded. Good work is good work. And I realized that there must surely be smart new writers making amazing work, literary work. I realized that somewhere out there a new community was waiting for me.
So then I started blogging about these books, in hopes that maybe I could find that new community, that crew of serious writers, smart people who take writing for kids seriously. People who’ll eat cupcakes with me, but also drink some wine, maybe talk about some poems too.
And while I’m still a little scared, I’m beginning to come to terms with the changes in my life. With the idea of being a writer, a sell-out, a mom.
With the idea of being happy.
I’ll let you know how that goes.
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