by Kat Yeh
I have just finished my second year of PiBoIdMo and I can’t stop thinking about how much I love what I do. I love the blank page that is suddenly no longer blank. I love that for a living, I get to be a picture book author. Because when you write picture books, you get to Make Things Up. You get to take something that never existed in real life and make it real. And if you’re lucky, one day it becomes a book you can hold in your hands.
In 2003, I took a class at Columbia’s Teachers College. Let me clarify. I took an amazing class entirely devoted to the Art of the Picture Book. Taught by Professor Barbara Kiefer, former chair of the Caldecott Committee. The previous years between 1999 and 2003 had been a blur. In a short span of time, my first child was getting ready to go to school, I had a second child, and my father passed away. I had always wanted to write children’s books and had a pretty big stack of manuscripts and scribbled ideas piled up in my office. In the midst of everything that was going on, I somehow decided that it was time to take a chance.
The class was wonderful. We held a Mock Caldecott Award and pitched our personal nominees. We experimented with making hand-bound books. We were given lists of museums and galleries to visit for inspiration. And one day, the list included an exhibition of Chinese Calligraphy.
I went early one morning. I remember how still the rooms were. I remember standing alone before a wall of parchment paper and stunning brushwork and being overwhelmed with memories of my father. How he loved spending time with my daughter. How he shouted with joy when he heard I was pregnant with my son. How along with his many artistic pursuits, he loved working with his brush and ink. That day, I began to write the story of how my father introduced my children to the art of Chinese Calligraphy.
Flash forward 5 years. The kids were a little older. There was a little more breathing room. I now had a somewhat daunting stack of manuscripts and scribbled ideas and I decided it was time to take another chance and actually try to get published.
My first picture book, YOU’RE LOVABLE TO ME (Random House, December, 2009) came out shortly after that. Through the SCBWI, I was introduced to the amazing New Jersey chapter, run by Kathy Temean. One of my first events was a Mentor Workshop with the opportunity to have a manuscript critique. I brushed off my Chinese calligraphy story. Looked at it with fresh eyes and made changes. Then took a deep breath and brought it to my meeting with editor Stacy Cantor from Walker Books.
It was a good meeting.
Stacy teamed me up with illustrator Huy Voun Lee and two years later, THE MAGIC BRUSH: A story of love, family, and Chinese characters (Walker Books, January, 2011) was on the shelves.
I will never forget the first time I sat with my children to read it. How my daughter looked at the pages showing the first Chinese characters my father ever taught her. How my son reached out to touch the opening spread—a beautiful illustration of him and his sister, laughing with my father in a garden. How they listened to the story of that special time they were lucky enough to share with my father.
Time that only ever existed in that book.
Because only few weeks after I had told my father that I was expecting another child, he had a stroke. He lay in a coma when my son was born and never opened his eyes again. He never got the chance to meet my son or teach my dau
Thanks, Kat, for sharing this beautiful story of your father and your children. I love how the book is based on a personal experience! Congratulations!
Dear Kat,
Your post is truly touching and inspiring! Thank you for sharing your road to become a children’s book author. Through your words you really transmitted a sense of high family values and, the idea that we must believe in ourselves and pursue what we love to do.
It’s the power of story that you could send a few hundred pixilated words across cyberspace this crystal cold morning, and move a stranger in Texas to tears. Through your words, I feel like I met your father–our two dads were so much alike–and got to share the joy of your relationship. Your father lives on between the covers of your book, readily available to your children (and others) in print as he is unable to be in life. I believe that makes him very happy!
Oh my. Your post was so moving — I have tears in my eyes as I write this. Through your writing you have given your children something to cherish — time with their grandfather. As one whose maternal grandparents both died before I was born, I have often longed for the gift my older cousins have, that of memories of being with Nana and Buppa. Through your gift of imagination and writing, you have been able to give that gift to your children.
The imagination is a powerful thing. Thank you.
I see I am not alone in my tears this morning …. an unexpected beautiful vision. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing this post and your story with us, Kat. It touched a place in my heart, and was a story that I indentified with deeply. My father always encouraged the mischievious side of me, and encouraged me to follow my dream to be a children’s writer. He followed the progress of my newly acquired picture book story with pride over the years that it took become a book. When he was admitted to the hospital with cancer, I had just gotten the F&G’s (folded and gathered copy) – I was able to read it out loud to him beside his bed and show him the wonderful illustrations. And even though he was non-repsonsive at that point, I know in my heart that he heard before he passed away.
It is absolutely beautiful that your Father’s memory is so deeply connected to your book.
Okay, maybe it was time I had a good sob. *sniffle*
Kat, you have a way with words that is so deep-down moving. Talk about touching the emotions!
What a special memory book of sorts you have created for your children. I wonder if I could ever manage that in my precious mother’s memory, or even begin one to honour my dad who is one day not going to know us anymore.
I am overwhelmed.
Thank you, Kat, for sharing your experience in such a beautiful way.
Beautiful. Is it wrong of me to choose to hold it in my mind as true?
Thank you, Kat for sharing these beautiful memories. It makes me love your books even more. And you, of course.
Although I know you and your books, I never knew the background of this story. Your work is more than just making things up, it’s looking into your heart to find and share what is real. An inspiration to all of us.