Author Spotlight: Leslie Barnard Booth

Hello fellow writers and bibliophiles! Thank you for being here! This series has already blown past my expectations in all the best ways. I’m so honored by the authors who take time to meet with me and you, taking the time to read these interviews.

Today I’m sharing part of my conversation with author Leslie Barnard Booth. She has two upcoming picture books, One Day This Tree Will Fall illustrated by Stephanie Fizer Coleman and A Stone is A Story illustrated by Marc Martin. And I just found out she has sold another picture book, I Am We to Chronicle Kids!

Let’s get into it!

When did you start writing? I found your blog on your website and it looked like you began very young. 

Yes, I’ve been writing as long as I can remember–since I was a child and even before I could write the words to go with my stories I wrote stories, using pictures. 

Where is your ideal place to write and your ideal time of day?

My ideal place to write is this basement because it is cool and quiet and calm and it just feels apart from the rest of my house and the rest of my responsibilities. So, it’s really a sanctuary for me when I come down here. With the change of temperature I feel like I’m entering a different biome here where writing happens and creativity flows.

So, I think it just puts me in that creative space right away when I come down here. Ideal time is the morning after a big breakfast. 

Do you specifically do picture books or do you write in any other genres as well?

I only finished picture books. I have a half finished novel in a drawer and I do have an idea for a graphic novel that I’ve been tinkering with but mainly picture books. I’ve been venturing into some fiction picture book manuscripts so that’s been fun because my first two books are non-fiction.

And I do think a lot about the sound design of picture books. That’s what I really feel like I’m working on when I’m tinkering with my book on the line level is getting that sound design right so that when it’s read aloud um it really sings. So, I spend a lot of time down here talking to myself, reading things aloud over and over again and making sure they flow seamlessly, having other people read them for me, having children read–my children are usually like guinea pigs in this case–having them read manuscripts for me to make sure that flow is there and that music is there in the language because the picture book, is like a song it’s like a poem it’s like a script for a performance because it is performed live.

I love thinking about how reading a picture book is this interactive performance between the caregiver and the child.

Do you have any other books that you’re working on?

Well, I have A Stone Is A Story illustrated by Marc Martin coming out in October of this year and then next year in spring my next book One Day This Tree Will Fall comes out and that’s illustrated by Stephanie Fizer Coleman and that’s also with S&S and McElderry books. 

That book is about how trees live on even after they die. It follows one tree over almost a thousand years and shows how it is still full of life even after it dies.

When you’re writing do you ever have a particular reader in mind or do you write with the idea of the story in your head?

I just write for curious kids and kids who care about nature and feel connected to nature. In my writing I hope to affirm that and embrace that and really just invite those children to explore nature further and care about it more. 

I think most children do have that innate connection to nature and I find that I learn a lot just from watching my own kids respond to nature. I think that most of my inspiration comes from seeing them out in the world slowing down and noticing things that adults might walk right past.

I just value that so much, the joy they can find in small things.

That’s really who I’m writing for, the children who are noticing those little things that adults walk right past who want to learn more about the world, how it works.

What do you enjoy most about being a writer or storyteller? 

I would say the writing itself. I really find writing so cathartic and soothing, I just love being in that creative space of play and pretend and being–it really takes me out of my own my everyday life and my worries and my tasks and concerns.

When I have time to write, I enter this separate imaginative space where my thoughts are free to roam and I’m free to imagine and I’m free to play and I’m free to make mistakes and start over and delete and rewrite and it’s just such a freeing wonderful experience. It just makes me feel so good, it’s really joyful for me even when it’s a tough revision. I have fun with that puzzle.

I somehow convinced myself that when I’m sitting here with the blank page and I’m writing, the stakes are low. If I mess up or it’s not working out, it’s okay. So, there’s room. I have mental space to really play and experiment and take risks.

Have you always had that kind of mindset or did you grow that over time?

When I was in graduate school I did have dread. I had dread before I would sit down and write and I did feel that pressure. But also during that time in graduate school, a friend of mine suggested her system is the sticker system and so we would both give ourselves stickers on our calendars for every day we wrote.

It was just a relief because what it meant for my brain and my mindset is you get a sticker just for showing up and even if you spend whatever your allotted time–I try to write for three hours now that I’ve honed that.

And I don’t feel dread. I’m just feeling the joy when I do a three hour chunk and I get credit for that. I don’t use the stickers anymore but I did for years because it took away the pressure. There’s the sticker to prove it, I get credit just for showing up and sitting in this chair and trying to do something and it doesn’t matter if there’s any result at all and it doesn’t matter if I spend the entire three hours on literally one sentence trying to get it right. That’s all okay because I’m just trying to earn a sticker and somehow I was able to train myself that way. 

It made space to let the joy in and let the dread out. 

When you experience an obstacle of any kind and that affects your writing life, what keeps you going?

I guess I just stick to that sticker system that is now not as literal. Still, I think about, ‘Okay, well you still need to show up tomorrow and do your time where you sit in the chair and do the thing.’

And if I keep doing that, there are always ideas waiting for me so I have a place to pivot to. It’s really nice for me to have multiple projects filling multiple things sitting on my desktop that I’m excited about.

So, if something gets painful because it was rejected recently and it’s just too emotional to touch then I can look elsewhere and I can just keep going. I can still continue to earn my stickers.

I love that too because I also like having multiple projects. So, going to one where it’s more play again and finding the fun is so cool. So, why do you write? What compels you to write?

I write because I can’t not write and when I don’t there’s just something missing. It feels really good to be in that creative playful space and I think it’s something–looking back now, I can see that it’s something I’ve loved my whole life. From when I was a kid and I would make up stories and play pretend, those were my main interests as a child. Then when I was in high school I did a lot of theater and I got to take down new perspectives and points of view as I played different characters and inhabited stories. 

Those things have always brought me such joy and this is just a way to continue that play and creativity into adulthood. 

Awesome! So, I want to ask if you could tell us what both of your upcoming books are titled and then tell us where they’re available, and the best place to connect with you.

Both of those are published by Simon and Schuster and the imprint is Margaret K McElderry Books. They’re available now, both of them, for pre-order wherever books are sold. A Stone Is A Story releases October 3, 2023 and One Day This Tree Will Fall releases March 26, 2024. 

A Stone Is A Story follows a single stone over hundreds of millions of years as it forms and transforms becoming an object that a child can pick up on the beach and hold in their hand. The book shows how stones really do tell stories about Earth’s deep past.

The best place for readers to connect with me are my website and then my socials: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and Pinterest.

Thank you to Leslie again for taking the time to chat with me!

Want more interviews like this, make sure you check out last week’s Author Spotlight with Marsha Diane Arnold.

Stay tuned for next week’s interview with Maxine Rose Schur!