WILL WRITE FOR COOKIES

INSIGHT – INFORMATION – INSPIRATION

FOR WRITERS

TODAY’S GUEST

TARA LAZAR

Before the internet, if a writer wanted to connect with another writer, a trip to a known literary hangout might have to be made. Fortunately, we have the world-wide web now, filled with authors and illustrators who blog. One of the most generous and knowledgeable of those is our guest today. Tara Lazar, author, mom, entrepreneur and founder of the famous PiBoIdMo (Picture Book Idea Month) is smart, savvy and spunky. I know there are quite a few published picture books out there now that got their start as ideas in aspiring authors’ PiBoIdMo notebooks.

Welcome, Tara! I really appreciate your being here. I know how busy you are, so I’ll get to the interview right away.

ME: Who were your favorite authors/illustrators when you were a child?

Tara: Roald Dahl, Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary and William Steig. I was fascinated with Steig’s “CDB”. I thought it was marvelous that I could speak only in letters and make complete sense! Dahl, for me, was wickedly good because he seemed to know so much about how children thought, how I thought. His adult villains were always so despicable—brilliant! He taught me not only do you need a character to root for, but someone to root against!

ME: What do you know now that you wish you had known when you first started writing for children?

Tara: That it’s not about selling a book to a publisher, it’s about selling a book to a child. That seems like a very simple thing to understand, a given, but I think you get so caught up in chasing this dream in the beginning, that you lose sight of who you’re truly writing for. The children must come first.

ME: Where do you like to write/draw – inside, outside, a special area in your home, on the computer, in a notebook? Continue reading →