Ruth Chan Illustration

You guys!  A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of chatting with Librarian Extraordinaire, Matthew Winner for his incredible kidlit podcast, Let’s Get Busy. We had so much fun, he had to edit out a lot of the mutual giggling so the podcast could be 40 min, instead of 200 hours.

Here are a few thoughts on this:

1. Matthew was as great as I had imagined him to be.  It was weird to hear a voice that had become familiar from hours of listening to his podcast suddenly interact with me.  But, oh, how exciting it was!

2. I always thought I talked faster, and that I was funnier. Turns out I may have been wrong about both of these things my entire life.  Hmm.

3. I’m still a little incredulous that I got to be on this podcast.  I mean it. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I get to make picture books, be a part of this incredible community that I have long admired/adored/stalked from a distance (not the stalking part. You can’t stalk from a distance really.), and now am being supported by them? It’s amazing. I’m pretty blown away by that.

Sometimes I think about whether I should stop being wide-eyed and slack-jawed about it all, like the annoying freshman at her first college party.  I think about whether I should play it cool, pretend it’s not a big deal that I got to cross over to this side of things. But the fact of the matter is, to me, it is a big deal.  And this is exciting. No doy. It’s an amazing thing to see how your hard work + hard times + courage can bring you somewhere really spectacular. So, for now, I’ll take it all in for just what it is: A good, good thing.

We were taking a moment yesterday to think about where we were just a year ago, and how hopeless and confusing everything seemed.  I was personally in the darkest time of my life, having lost my career, my marriage, and the apartment I called home.  I remember sitting down in the mornings, writing because I didn't really know what else to do, and then drawing because it was the only thing I wanted to do (including putting on pants).  

I poured a lot of my insecurities and grief into a bunch of little portraits, and in those, I started to feel that drive, passion, and joy again.  Those little guys made me want to work hard, to brush aside the constant "I'm not good enough at this" attitude, to put myself back out there, and to try something I'd always written off as a dream that was too impractical and competitive to ever succeed in.

I made a painting every day, I submitted my work to every competition I could find, I took classes at SVA, I forced myself to meet people, and attended SCBWI events. I got myself a studio space I didn't think I deserved.  I even had a "Strategic Plan 2013-2014" that included "shower every day."

And then a year later, here I am, talking with my friend about how we can't believe we are where we are, with book deals, and a wonderful community, getting to say, "My literal dream literally came literally true" and then getting to be super sappy about it.

There are moments every day-- walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, riding the packed subway, walking the dog-- where I get really emotional about how I've grown in the last year or two, and how I would have never gotten to this point without those dark nights and hard days.  I'm proud of how hard I've worked, and proud of how I've come to understand loss, healing, letting go of control, courage, and God.  

More than anything, I love that picture books became my saving grace.  I mean, that's what they do-- for kids, for adults, for anyone. They make you feel less alone, they remind you of how the little things are often the most valuable, they make you laugh at things we feel insecure about, they bring you to a place of being fully present, in the moment, among captivating illustrations and beautiful words.  I can't imagine what it's going to be like to hold my first picture book in my hand, but I'll be damned if I don't take a moment to remember where it all came from.

Anyway, I came upon this video today, and I kind of love it in every sense of the word.  I mean, it's Sesame Street.  Big Bird can't dunk a ball.  Cookie Monster can't bake to save his life.  But, ah, the Power of 'Yet'.  I think here in the US, we start to think that "if it's too hard it must not be the right fit/time/place/person."  But really, the most beautiful things come out of precisely that agonizing, toiling, persevering, and unquenchable hope of 'yet'.

I'll be illustrating a regular section on the back page called KidQ in Scholastic's Parent & Child Magazine for the next year (or more).  It's super cute-- they ask kids scientific questions, and I get to illustrate their ridiculous(ly cute) answers.  

One thing I'm very conscious of, and will continue to be, is ensuring that a diverse representation of children appear in the illustrations.  Way too often, we see a lack of racial, cultural, socio-economic, familial, disability-related diversity in depictions of children, or in literature that children (and their caregivers) read. Every kid probably has a great answer to these KidQ questions, so every kid should have a voice on these pages too.

And with that, here's a peek at the September issue:

I was eating a soup dumpling when I noticed a call I'd missed from LA. Now, it should be made clear here that I know exactly one person in LA, and he doesn't even use the phone, so I figured this was worth putting my soup dumpling down for.

The voicemail was from Sarah Baker, Illustration and Design Manager at SCBWI, who I'd met at the Winter Conference earlier this year and immediately liked.  She had left a cryptic message to call her back.  It was the kind of voicemail where you could tell they were trying not to smile.  I called her back and she told me that I had won the SCBWI Don Freeman Illustrator Grant (Pre-published)!  I said, 'I think I just peed in my pants" and I think I did, too.  

This was a huge moment for me.  It's been a wild ride since February when I was selected as a Runner-Up at the Winter Conference Portfolio Showcase (after just getting off the wait list two days before the conference). Shortly after that, I signed with my awesome agent, Rebecca Sherman, and then a few months later, landed my first book deal.  But even up till then, I was, as most illustrators probably are at one point or another (or all the time), very insecure about how 'good' I actually was.  I don't have a background in illustration, was convinced that SCBWI had lost my postcards at the portfolio showcase when I saw none at my table spot, and secretly feared that the obsessive drawings of my cat and dog were indicators that I was just a crazy person. But it was becoming clear that even if I didn't believe in my work, others were believing for me.  

And the Don Freeman Grant was a final nail into my thick skull that told me, "OK, kid, you're in this for real now. You're really doing this.  So let's get to work instead of spending your time worrying and wondering."

Some exciting news to share: My debut picture book will be coming out with Roaring Brook Press!  It's actually a two-book deal, the first book coming out Spring 2016, and the second a year later.  I am so excited, I keep doing that thing where you wake up every morning and smile because you just remembered there is something amazing happening in your life. And then you smile in an even goofier way because you can't believe it's actually happening. To you.

Stay tuned for more updates as I freak out, and very, very slowly (or very, very quickly) lose my mind.  Which might make for some really entertaining reading, so there's that.

You can read more about the deal on Publisher's Weekly's Rights Report

And as a sneak peek, here are some of the main characters, including Georgie the cat, and Feta the dog-- my real life cat and dog, because they begged and begged me to be in a book. 

Up until this point, I've been a little (OK, a lot) lazy about updating the blog.  My schedule is pretty packed with walking around aimlessly, eating ice cream (often more than once a day), petting the dog, followed by petting the cat, and, on occasion, drawing. So you can see how neglecting the blog came about.

In any case, I think it's high time to start updating this.  I could probably stand to eat less ice cream anyway.

And here's where I say 'Good Luck' to myself:

Ham Sandwich

Graphic Memoir