25 Feb Matt Forrest Esenwine and a GIVEAWAY!!

EL: It’s wonderful having the award-winning Matt Forrest Esenwine on “Writing Outside the Lines” today. Welcome! I know our readers are excited to hear about your latest book that you co-authored with the equally talented Charles Ghigna. 

 I absolutely love this latest book, but I know you have done a lot of other things in your career. How did you start to write picture books? 

MFE: I’ve been writing poems and short stories since I was a kid and have had numerous adult-oriented poems published in literary journals and anthologies over the years, but around the year 2000 or so, I started realizing I had several children’s poems I didn’t know what to do with! It took me a few years to finally do something about it, but by 2009 I decided I was going to make a concerted effort to become published in children’s lit. So I joined a local SCBWI critique group in 2010, went to my first SCBWI conference in 2011, started learning the industry, making connections, and developing my craft…and now, here I am!

EL: Do you consider yourself a poet?

MFE: Actually…no. I never refer to myself as a poet, even though poetry is my primary vocation and genre. For some reason, I’m just not comfortable with the title regarding myself. David Elliott is a neighbor of mine, and we were talking several years ago about this very thing – and he told me he feels very awkward referring to himself as a “poet,” too! I think we both feel that it’s a title one confers upon someone who has established themselves with the gravitas and experience due…but neither of us feels we’re at that point.

EL: Interesting point of view. Thanks for sharing. How do you combine your love of poetry and your passion for writing stories?

MFE: Most of my picture books are poetic in text and tone, so it’s a natural extension. Flashlight Night (Boyds Mills & Kane, 2017), for example, started off as a poem, and a couple of reviewers, including School Library Journal even referred to it as “a poem” – which made me proud! Similarly, Once Upon Another Time (Beaming Books, 2021) started off with 4 short poetic stanzas from Charles, and once I developed the narrative from that, we maintained the text’s poetic nature and structure.

EL: I have to say that when I read FLASHLIGHT NIGHT, I wondered if it started out as a poem. I loved it. The poetry and narrative of ONCE UPON ANOTHER TIME is charming, and I have to give props to your illustrator, Andres F. Landzabal whose picture is here.

Are ALL your kidlit books done in rhyme or another type of poetry?

MFE: It certainly seems that way, ha! While most rhyme, they’re not necessarily all “poetry,” per se. But my new board book, Elliot the Heart-Shaped Frog (Rainstorm Pub., 2021), is my first to be published in prose, and there are a couple more on the way!

EL: That’s exciting! You are a prolific poet, a well-known author, and so many other things. What and/or who do you feel has helped you along your way in your career? 

MFE: Well, thanks, Ellen – but as anyone can tell you, it takes a village! I wouldn’t be at this point in my career without so many folks I know supporting and encouraging me: my crit group, my editors, my wife and kids, mentors like the late Lee Bennett Hopkins, who published my first children’s poem, “First Tooth,” in Lullaby & Kisses Sweet (Abrams, 2015)…and everyone I’ve befriended along this journey like my co-author Charles, Jane Yolen, Nikki Grimes, David Harrison, and so many others with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working.

EL: That’s a great group of friends!  As far as a co-author, it is unusual to have a co-author for a picture book (although I have, and it’s fun). How did that process work for you? 

MFE: It was a lot of fun – but it was a long time coming! Way back in 2013, Charles shared with me 4 short stanzas he’d written (the first 4 in the book, actually) and asked what I thought of them and where I thought we could go from there. I spent some time considering possible narratives and finally sent him my concept along with 4 additional stanzas, so he could get an idea of where I was going. He loved it and suggested I finish up the rough draft. And that’s exactly what I did! I sent it off to him, he made a few tweaks, he sent it back to me and I made a few tweaks – and back-and-forth, as you can imagine – and eventually by 2015 we had a polished manuscript we could start subbing!

EL: This is Charles, by the way. The other half of this talented duo. 

Can you tell us a little about the journey to publication for ONCE UPON ANOTHER TIME? 

MFE: Even with Father Goose name attached to this, the manuscript still went through more than 25 rejections before Naomi Krueger at Beaming Books saw my pitch on the Twitter event #PBPitch in 2018 and contacted me to ask if she could purchase it. We signed the contract In early 2019 and Naomi immediately set out to sign an illustrator – and what an incredible talent she found in Andres Landazabal! His artwork is just beautiful – bright yet serene, full of life yet quiet and pensive. Charles and I were amazed when we finally saw the spreads Naomi had put together.

EL: I agree that the illustrations are beautiful and help tell the story in a lovely way. This is not a traditionally structured picture book with a typical arc, yet it works. What would you tell other kidlit authors about playing around with structures?

MFE: It always gets back to that classic rule of thumb, that you need to know the rules before you can break them. The structure of the stanzas is not always consistent throughout, but we knew why we were changing them, and because the text is quiet and poetic, the subtle stanza changes – rather than being intrusive or stumbling – allow the reader to pause or pick up the tempo as Charles and I choose. If this was a rollicking, energetic text like Don’t Ask a Dinosaur (POW! Kids Books, 2018), that sort of stanza-switching would not possibly work.

EL: That’s a tough skill to master, and you and Charles do it so well. I love that this book gently gives its readers ideas on connecting to nature and the past, but it’s not didactic. Was that your plan?

MFE: Well, not being didactic is always a goal, ha! My primary goal was to compare and contrast the past with the present, at first showing the differences and then the similarities between the two, and how one can experience the past now. The encouragement to leave behind the tech and experience the natural world was simply the means to an end:  to get us from the premise of the first half of the book to the second.

I should mention that it’s important for unpublished authors to recognize the subjectivity of editors and agents. A couple of editors told us they liked the poetic tone of our manuscript but felt it was too didactic; others felt there wasn’t enough of a narrative, and they had no idea how it could possibly be illustrated. Even with Flashlight Night, I was told by an established author who critiqued my manuscript that a book about a nighttime adventure would be too scary and that telling the story using 2^nd-person POV was a mistake. But I had faith in these manuscripts and stuck to my guns, and it paid off. Granted, you don’t want to dismiss every criticism you get, but there’s no need to take every single criticism to heart, either.

The subjectivity of this business is always important to remember. Thank you so much for visiting me here at “Writing Outside the Lines,” Matt. I can’t wait to hold your newest book in my hands. 

And now… 

GIVEAWAY TIME! Before I add all the links to buy your books and find more about you, I want everyone to know that you are offering a free book to one lucky reader. JUST COMMENT ON THIS POST AND IF YOU LET ME KNOW YOU FOLLOW THIS BLOG OR WILL SIGN UP, YOU WILL GET AN EXTRA CHANCE TO WIN.

OK, now MORE fun! Where can we pre-order this book?

It’s available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound – or, if you’d like a personally signed copy, you can order it from my local indie bookstore, MainStreet BookEnds of Warner!

Here are some other great links where you can find out more about Matt. 

www.MattForrest.com            Facebook          Twitter             Instagram            Talkabook

LinkedIn          Blog                Goodreads      YouTube         SCBWI            Pinterest

SoundCloud                            BookRoo

And here are some links where you can find out more about Charles:

https://www.facebook.com/charlesghigna

https://www.charlesghigna.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ghigna

https://twitter.com/FatherGooze

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/119850.Charles_Ghigna

https://www.instagram.com/charlesghigna/

http://charlesghigna.blogspot.com/

Matt Esenwine, thank you so much for stopping by. I wish you and Charles great success with the wonderful new book.