Olive Senior’s work has been broadcast on both sides of the Atlantic, including the BBC Book at Bedtime and the CBC Festival of Fiction.  Her work has been included in the Best Poems on the Underground published by London Transport, and she is a featured poet on The Poetry Archive. Senior’s work often addresses questions of Caribbean identity in terms of gender and ethnicity. She has said: “I’ve had to deal with race because of who I am and how I look. In that process, I’ve had to determine who I am. I do not think you can be all things to all people. As part of that process, I decided I was a Jamaican. I represent many different races and I’m not rejecting any of them to please anybody. I’m just who I am and you have to accept me or not.”

The Journey

The Caribbean remains the focus of her work, starting with her prize-winning collection of stories, Summer Lightning (1986) which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and has been a literature textbook in Caribbean schools. This was followed by Arrival of the Snake Woman (1989, 2009) and Discerner of Hearts (1995). Her first novel, Dancing Lessons (Cormorant Books, 2011), was shortlisted for the 2012 Commonwealth Book Prize in the Canada.

Her most recent collection of stories, The Pain Tree (2015), is a collection of stories wide-ranging in scope, time period, theme, locale, and voice. There is,  along with her characteristic “gossipy voice,”  reverence, wit and wisdom, satire, humor, and even farce. The stories range over, at most a hundred years, from around the time of the second world war to the present. It was the overall winner of the 2016 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. Like her earlier stories, Jamaica is the setting, but the range of characters presented are universally recognizable as people in crisis or on the cusp of transformation.

Olive’s work has been widely taught in schools and universities internationally,  is represented in numerous anthologies worldwide, and has been translated into several languages.

Her poetry books include Shell (2007), Over the Roofs of the World (2005),  Gardening in the Tropics (1994), and Talking of Trees (1985).  Her illustrated children’s books are Birthday Suit (Annick Press, 2012) and Anna Carries Water (Tradewind Books, 2013).
Olive Senior’s non-fiction works on Caribbean culture include Dying to Better Themselves: West Indians and the Building of the Panama Canal (2015 OCM Bocas Literary Prize for Non-Fiction), the A-Z of Jamaican Heritage, Working Miracles: Women’s Lives in the English-Speaking Caribbean and The Encyclopedia of Jamaican Heritage.

The Back Story

Born in rural Jamaica in Trelawny, Cockpit Country, the seventh of 10 children, Olive attended Montego Bay High School For Girls. At the age of 19 she joined the staff of the Jamaica Gleaner in Kingston and later worked with the Jamaica Information Service. Senior later won a scholarship to study journalism at the Thomson Foundation in Cardiff, Wales. As a Commonwealth scholar she attended Carleton University School of Journalism in Ottawa, Canada, where she earned a degree in 1967.

While at university she began writing fiction and poetry. On her return to Jamaica, she worked as a freelancer in public relations, publishing and speech writing before joining the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of the West Indies, where she edited the journal Social and Economic Studies (1972–77). In 1982 she joined the Institute of Jamaica as editor of the Jamaica Journal. As the managing director of Institute of Jamaica Publications, Senior oversaw the publication of a number of books on Jamaican history and culture.

In 1987 Senior won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for her first collection of stories, and after Hurricane Gilbert hit Jamaica in 1988, she moved to Europe, where she lived for short periods in Portugal, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, before settling in Toronto, Canada, in the early 1990s.

Credits: Caroline Forbes and Olive Senior

While working with this talented author on her 28 Days Later spotlight, I asked if there was something she would like for people to know about her.  The email I received made me have one of those constant blinking moments. I’ll let you read it for yourself.  Pay specific attention to her question at the end.

…I organized my own “Malaika’s Costume” tour of book presentations and signings at schools, festivals, libraries, and bookstores in Toronto, Brampton, Ottawa, Kingston, Montreal (all in Canada) as well as New York City, Boston, Detroit, and Atlanta (in the United States).  I popped in to sign copies of my book in New Orleans and Miami all in 2016.  I have recently moved to Abu Dhabi to teach and have done a few presentations so far.  I am in the line-up of presenters for the Emirates Air Festival of Literature (EAFOL) in Dubai this March 2017. 

Is this stuff worth mentioning?

 Yes.  It is worth mentioning.  It gives all of us an idea of her amazing determination, and how passionate she is about her work.  It is with great pleasure that on this, the 4^th Day of our 28 Days Later Program, we present to you:

NADIA HOHN

The Journey

My earliest memories of writing and book making were around the age of 6. I remember having this excited feeling that I could make a book about anything.  At age 7, it was all about the Miss Universe and Miss World pageants.  Each page featured a contestant from a different country, speaking a different language.  I also made books for school assignments and then a few on my own.  I started writing my first novel around the time I turned twelve.  I never finished it though. I wrote to The Toronto Sunday Sun newspaper hoping that my letter would be printed in the kids’ section of the comics.  It never was but the first time I was ever published was for a Black Canadian women’s magazine called “Ember (?)” in which I wrote a letter to the editor thanking them for their feature on Cree Summer-Francks (a Canadian actress who played “Freddie” on the sitcom a Different World”).  I believe I was thirteen when it was published.  That was the first time I saw my name in print and I loved it.  I think I was hooked from then on.  In the ninth grade, I began to write for my high school newspaper everything from poetry to articles to the advice column and features.  I continued this writing for student newspapers even through my university years.  At the time, I considered journalism and starting a Christian youth magazine so I completed my degree in psychology and while working at Serve Canada, a non-profit, completed a required internship.  I went out on my own and found an internship at Psychology Today magazine in New York City.  Since then, I continued to write articles off and on over the years and started a few blogs in my thirties. I was invited to submit a poem to T-Dot Griots: A Tribute to Toronto’s Black Storytellers which was published in 2005.  At that time, I was so involved with starting my teaching career, graduate school, and wrapping up ICED IN BLACK: Canadian Black Experiences on Film, a touring film festival that I started, that I did not make the connection that I should be writing books.  I even took a course in Multicutural Children’s Literature back in 2001 which I loved but the of becoming a writer still seemed lofty to me.

How did I meet my publisher for Malaika’s Costume? In 2011, I attended a workshop on Writing and Getting Published in Children’s Literature in the backyard of A Different Booklist, a Black-owned bookseller of diverse books in Toronto. The workshop featured a few panelists including Sheila Barry who was then a publisher at Kid’s Can Press.  I took Sheila’s e-mail address and stayed in touch.  I let her know I was working on something but the truth is I didn’t feel ready nor that it was good enough to submit.  By that time, I had taken a few night courses in writing for children and later children’s illustration at George Brown College Continuing Education in Toronto.  There, I wrote the manuscript for Malaika’s Costume, for a picture book assignment in Writing for Children 1 with educator/author/musician, Ted Staunton.

In 2013, I finally had the nerves to send Sheila my manuscript for Malaika’s Costume after I had submitted it to a children’s literature contest.  By then, Sheila was a publisher at Groundwood Books (House of Anansi.)  That year, this manuscript lost the literature contest but on the up side, Sheila offered me a publishing contract after she made some suggestions… and I followed them.  (I resubmitted Malaika’s Costume to the contest the next year and then it won.)  The rest, as you say, is history.  Coincidentally, the week prior to Sheila sending me the offer, I had received an e-mail from Rubicon Publishing seeking writers-for-hire for its non-fiction series Sankofa Black history collection.  I agreed to write 2 of the titles in the series, Music and Media, both subjects I have taught and hold qualifications in.  These were my very first two titles.

Until a few years ago, I did not equate my writing as a way to make a livelihood. Not that I didn’t want to or wouldn’t want to.  I wanted to writing to be solely for my pleasure and I was afraid that if I made writing my job, it would suck the joy out of it.  I wasn’t willing to sacrifice that.  In the meantime, I just continued writing all sorts of things and attend workshops, courses, conferences, retreats, and anything children’s literature related.  I chose to be a teacher as there are many benefits to working with children as well as time off, however I’ve been learning the many ways one can teach through books.  As there has been some success with the first few books, I am seeing ways to make this writing career work.  My teaching experience has greatly benefited me for finding the voice of my characters, storytelling in a way that children like and understand, getting exposed to a variety of children’s literature, and a test focus group.  There! I said it!  In addition to reading my Malaika’s Costume manuscript to my writing critique group, I read it to my students from kindergarten to grade 1 or 2.  It helped me to see what they enjoyed hearing.

The Back Story

As I mentioned, I used to write stories and make books as a child. The Greatest Carnival Ever is one of the few books I still have that I both wrote and illustrated for a project in fifth grade, almost 30 years ago.  (Wow!)  The book was about a boy named Georgie Clemington showcasing his island and his love of Carnival, describing the whole process of getting ready for the big event.

I feel like that book was my first foray into describing my love for Carnival.  When I was given the picture book assignment in my Writing for Children class, I was so excited about the details of the story and I knew it would be about a girl and her grandmother.  As I have also played Mas’– which means I wore a costume and danced– in the Caribana parade, Toronto’s annual summer Caribbean Carnival, and loved the experience.  It’s magical, it’s tribal, it’s beautiful,…

After MALAIKA’S COSTUME was published I read a review of my book, and what readers often saw was the story of immigration and globalization.  Only then, did I realize how much I was influenced by what had occurred in the generations of my own family history— patterns of migration to the US, UK, Canada, Cuba, and Panama—in which members left Jamaica for work in order to send money back home to help “make a better life”.  This theme of immigration and separation is Malaika’s story and is part of my family history as it is also the case for many people of Caribbean descent.  The story is also largely influenced by Trinidad’s Carnival tradition with all of its characters and by the backdrop of rural Jamaica, where my parents come from and which I have visited.  I have still yet to visit Trinidad.

The Buzz

• A Different Booklist People’s Award for Contribution in Children’s Literature    2016
• Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) Children’s Literature Award    2015-2016
• Helen Issobel Sissons Canadian Children’s Book Award for manuscript of Malaika’s Costume      2014
• American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter 2017 Notables’ Children Books- 2017 Discussion List http://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2017/01/notable-childrens-books-2017-discussion-list/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AlscBlog+%28ALSC+Blog%29

The Inspiration

I used to write stories and make books as a child.  One of the few books I still have that I wrote and illustrated for a Grade 5 project is called “The Greatest Carnival Ever”.  So I always loved the idea of a book culminating with a Carnival.  Years later in the winter of 2010, I took a writing course at George Brown College with author Ted Staunton.  He gave us a picture book assignment and this is when I wrote Malaika’s Costume.   I remember getting very excited as I worked on the details of the story.  I have also played Mas’– which means I wore a costume and danced– in the Caribana parade a few times, Toronto’s Caribbean Carnival and loved the experience.

I look up to “triple threats”, multi-talented artists like, Erykah Badu, Oprah, Issa Rae, and Janelle Monae who are entrepreneurial as well as creative and amazing at what they do.  They are so committed and principled.  I like Janelle Monae especially because she is so multi-talented and she is not stuck in one arts discipline—she acts, sings, dances, produces, etc.  I relate to the multi-faceted nature of my own life and journey.

I am inspired by many Black women writers who I call my writing sheroes– Chimamanda Adichie, Alice Walker, Nnedi Okorafor, Edwidge Danticat, Zadie Smith, Toni Morrison, Jacqueline Woodson, Sharon Flake, Coe Booth, Rita Williams-Garcia, Zora Neale Hurston, etc.  I feel because these women are and have been, I can too.  I feel like my writing has wings and that it can take flight.  I feel like I want to tell my stories again and again especially for young people.

The State of the Industry

Over the years, I was so excited to learn about the work happening in the United States with the We Need Diverse Books initiative and the statistics being put about the current state of children’s books.  If these issues about disparity between what gets published in the United Sates based on race, just imagine the state in Canada where race-based statistics are not normally kept and the numbers of visible minorities is much smaller.  As a child, I grew up reading mostly African-American writers.  Naturally as a young Black bibliophile, I was looking for characters and books I can relate to.  I am proud to say that my publisher, Groundwood Books, is possibly the most diverse publisher of children’s books in Canada.  Often, I find the conversation about diversity or rather the “non-existing conversations” to be quite frustrating.  Many feel that there is no problem and that Canada is doing something that the US is not.  (Please see this article in the School Library Journal http://www.slj.com/2016/08/diversity/how-canada-publishes-so-many-diverse-childrens-books/).  My colleague and fellow African-Canadian of Caribbean descent now living in the United States, Zetta Elliott writes extensively about this topic on her blogs as well.  The diversity of the books published is not as much a challenge.  The challenge is that there are fewer authors and publishing industry professionals of colour.  My experience being an author in Canada, and often at conferences in the US, is I am one of very few of colour.  I feel like a unicorn at times.

Although, I wish that I was one of many authors of colour like when I attended the Kweli Conference in New York City and the Voices of Our Nationa (VONA) Voices Workshop in Miami both in 2016, I get it.  Being an author is challenging to persist in the face of rejection, to wait 3-5 years for your book to be published, to side-hustle and work multiple jobs in the meantime, to raise a family, and keep everything else running.  I think part of the reason why I am not seeing a lot of authors of colour, especially in Canada, is because many of my colleagues of colour feel shut out of the publishing industry and many go it on their own and self-publish.  In 2014, I started Sankofa’s Pen, formerly the African-Canadian Writers for Children and Young Adults- ACWCYA, because I wanted to find other Black authors who also focused on writing for children.  Such a community did not exist at that time, so I created it.  For the first two years, e met monthly, shared our resources, and networked but now we have a great Facebook group and I have expanded it to include multi-genre writers and those from outside of Canada.

The Brown Bookshelf is honored to provide a cover reveal for Nadia Hohn’s next book, MALAIKA’S WINTER CARNIVAL, set for publication in Fall, 2017!

You can keep up with Nadia by visiting her website at http://www.nadialhohn.com

Congratuations Nadia, and thank you for your contributions to children’s literacy.

Some people score book deals through agents. Some get them by submitting work directly to a publisher. Nikkolas Smith, a concept artist and imagineer, landed his first children’s book contract by posting a painting online. His rendering of Olympian Simone Biles right after she won gold went viral and inspired him to create a painting of the 11 golden girls who won at Rio. That made Internet magic too and caught the eye of journalist Shaun King whose post helped it gain the attention of Sky Pony Press. Days later, Nikkolas had his first picture book deal.

“Our story begins with two future champions, born three days apart,” his story opens with a spread focusing on Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky. It’s a sweet book that explores the paths to greatness for the young women who would win Olympic gold and America’s hearts.

We are proud to salute Nikkolas’ inspiring work on Day 3.

The Journey

I was always drawing growing up, but I never knew that I wanted to be a professional artist, so I decided to go to school for Architecture, at Hampton University in Virginia. After receiving my Master of Architecture, and becoming a finalist in the Disney ImagiNations design competition, I accepted an internship at Walt Disney Imagineering, and moved straight to Los Angeles. The most incredible artists work here. Not only that, they also gave me free digital painting and sketch lessons, which rejuvenated my passion for art, and helped inspire me to crate my own personal art/design firm on the side, Nikkolas Design.

The Backstory

For all of 2016, leading up to the Olympics, I was working hard to get my children’s book ideas developed and submitted to the nation’s top literary agent. However, once the Olympics came during summer 2016, the kids book opportunity of a lifetime presented itself without the help of any agents; only social media. I grew up in Spring, TX and went to school with Simone Biles’ big brothers, so I told them I’d make some fan art of Simone ‘when’ she won a gold medal. I created that piece when she won, and then a “Simones” piece that included Simone Manuel. As those art pieces began to go viral, I decided to make a mock children’s book cover featuring the full gymnastics team, swim team, and shot-put winner Michelle Carter, and called them the “Golden Girls”. This became my most viral art piece of the summer, and within a couple days, I received an email from Skyhorse Publishing, with an offer to publish my first children’s book!

The Process

For over 3 years now, I’ve taken a couple hours every Sunday to create a digital painting, known as my “Sunday Sketch” series. These are art pieces that come out of whatever I’m feeling that week, or whatever is going on in the world that needs to be reflected, as Nina Simone suggested an artist should do. I then use my Wacom tablet (Bamboo Fun) and sketch with the stylus in Photoshop, creating portraits, landscapes, political cartoons, InfoGraphics, etc. 

The Buzz

Credit: NikkolasSmith.com

My Golden Girls of Rio book having started as a viral social media art piece, was a popular seller when it was published, and I was honored to find out that it had been nominated for an NAACP Image Award in the children’s literature category. I was also fortunate to connect with Simone Biles when she was in Los Angeles for her book tour, and we had a nice Tweetable moment of sharing our photo together with our two books. Dozens of young boys and girls have shared their photos of themselves reading the book, and I couldn’t be more overjoyed to see the gold medal excitement spreading across the country.

Learn more about Nikkolas here. 

First I would like to say thank you to the Brown Bookshelf staff for recognizing author Deborah Hopkinson and myself for our collaborative efforts on Steamboat School. It is indeed an honor to be selected to participate in the annual February 28 Days Later recognizing those who have contributed to children’s literature.

Guest post by Ron Husband

The Journey-
My journey on the path in publishing began over forty years ago. My college education prepared me to be a commercial artist doing illustrations for books and magazines. In 1975 a set of circumstances led me to the Walt Disney Animation Training program at their studio located in Burbank, CA. The program was designed to train young artists to be animators. Drawing was only a part of the training. Storytelling—how best to tell the story by the use of character design, color, music, sound, special effects and acting— became the main focus. I was immersed in all aspects of conveying a message convincingly through the vehicle of animation.

In traditional two-dimensional animation, a story is told through a series of drawings,  twenty-four drawings per second of screen time. In an illustration, the story is told in one drawing, but the principles are the same. Those principles are: clear staging, silhouette, proportion, balance, perspective, negative and positive space, recognition and convincing acting or emotion (to read more on these topics see my book QUICK SKETCHING WITH RON HUSBAND).

My on going education in storytelling at the studio led me, in the mid 1980’s, to take a night class at the Art Center College of Design called ‘Children’s Storybook Illustration’. Drawing and storytelling were not difficult for me in the class as I worked with these concepts daily at the studio. How to make contacts with potential editors and publishers were the big take away points for me. Fortunately, I had a’ day job’ as it took me few years of submitting samples of my work before I was given a freelance assignment.

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to do more freelance children’s book and magazine illustration, animate for the Disney studio, fill up hundreds of sketch books and do pen and ink illustrations. Little did I know these artistic endeavors were preparing me to illustrate Steamboat School.

The Back Story-
After thirty years I left Disney Feature Animation. Then I began to take projects with other studios. I worked at Disney Television Animation and Warner Brothers Animation.  I had a wonderful opportunity to go ‘down under’ to the Disney Animation studio in Australia  to do some training and then had an offer to work for Disney Publishing World Wide (DPWW)in Glendale, CA. My job at DPWW as a ‘Storybook Artist’ was to draw Disney characters for activity, coloring and chapter books.

An early cover layout using my black and white pen and ink illustrations with added color.

A colleague in the department wrote an original story called OUR FLOATING SCHOOL. The decision was made for me to illustrate the book using my pen and ink cross hatch style. The book would be overseen by our counterpart Disney-Hyperion located in New York. That division publishes hard back titles. Collaboration in our publishing department was responsible for the dimensions, aged paper look and the limited color palette used.

The Process-
Later, Deborah Hopkinson, award winning children’s author, was brought in to add her talents to the story. She did a masterful job painting word pictures which stimulated my imagination giving much fertile ground to base my illustrations on.

This art style was accepted, and I started the process of illustrating STEAMBOAT SCHOOL leading up to my retirement from the Walt Disney Company.

After much research of the the era and the history of John Berry Meachum, it was time to put pencil to paper. The design of the two main characters James and Tassie was my first priority. The steamboats, housing, clothing, furnishings, school and house utensils and more would add to the authenticity of the background of the storytelling. I used thumbnail sketches to visualize the page set up, the same as I would do when working out a scene in animation. Several of theses pencil sketches would be done before settling on the one that would best convey the feeling of the story point. These sketches were shown to the heads of the department Ken Shue, VP of DPWW and our department manager Brent Ford. With their input and ok it was on to the next step.

After all the pages were inked, there was another showing to management. Then I added color in Photoshop for the final step.

Rough pencil sketch of an early cover design.

Tighter cover sketch.

Portion of inside illustration, black and white on illustration board.

The Buzz-
The ‘buzz’ about Steamboat School started early for me. I would pin the rough sketches up on a board outside my cubicle and as fellow artist walked by they would often stop and observe the  artwork and though nothing was said verbally, the body language said volumes in positive comment.

And, when I showed Ken Shue a design for the front cover,  he jokingly (prophetically) commented that I should leave room for a sticker (award). And in January, six months before publication, Steamboat School was named a Junior Library Guild selection for 2016 (which includes a sticker). I learned that 95% of JLG selections go on to get positive reviews or awards and anxiously watched to see what would come next.

True to JLG predictions, Steamboat School got a starred review from Kirkus, positive reviews from Laughing Place, Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal and numerous other publications. It was named one of the Best New Kid’s Books June 2016 by The Children’s Book Review, Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Book’s of 2016, Booklist Online Book Review: Booklist Editor’s Choice: Books for for Youth 2016 and from the Huffington Post: Best Picture Books of 2016 Most Powerful-Honorable Mention.

Additionally  the art work from Steamboat School was selected by jury for The Original Art 2016 an Exhibition of Children’s Book Illustration by The Society of Illustrators New York, NY which ran from Oct. 26 to Dec.22, 2016.

In closing, I’d like to again, say thank you to The Brown Bookshelf for allowing me the opportunity to talk about the continuing journey of Steamboat School.

RH