Author Spotlight: Marie Boyd, Author Illustrator of Just A Worm

Today I have the pleasure of sharing part of my conversation with Author Illustrator Marie Boyd who recently debuted with her book, Just A Worm.

I read on your website about quilling, but do you use any other types of art for illustrations or is that your primary form?

Quilling is my primary in Just A Worm. There was one thing that I didn’t do in quilling, the worm at the very beginning of the book where I did in pen and ink. 

It’s interesting because I’ve never heard of it before. So, I was really appreciative of your post because you’re like, “People ask me what is quilling is.” And I wanted to know too, and I found out through your post.

I hadn’t heard about it until I was actually in the craft store getting supplies for another project when I saw a bunch of quilling supplies that they had on clearance. I was really curious, so, I searched on my phone “what is quilling” and I saw what came up. 

I was really interested in it because I love to do crafts. I’ve done a lot of crafts. As a kid I would do beading and I’ve done cross stitch and quilt making and making flowers and all sorts of things.

But when I learned about quilling, it was something that just clicked for me and something I really love.

Is Just A Worm the first full manuscript you completed or did you do other books before that one? 

It’s my debut book, so it’s the first thing I’ve published. But there are a number of other things that I’ve written. When I was in first grade, my teacher gave me a blank book to write and illustrate. It was like one of the assignments for the class and I was really intimidated but also really excited. I spent so much time working on drafts and trying to plan out what I was going to put in the book that I never actually finished it but I knew that at some point I wanted to write a book.

I had been thinking about writing and so when I first started acquiring agents, I was doing so as a writer and hadn’t included illustrations because one of the pieces of advice I kept hearing is if you’re not a professional illustrator don’t try to illustrate your own book. 

I listened to that for a while but then every time I thought about Worm, I thought about the garden being quilled. Eventually, it was like, “let me try to put together a dummy and some sample images.” I got it worked out and was really excited.

That’s awesome! With that book, how long did it take you from when you first had the idea for it to when it did come out published?

I was chatting with my oldest son’s class a couple weeks ago now and went back to try to figure out when did I start writing this and thinking about it. The first thing I was able to find was a note in my phone that was in 2018. But I know that wasn’t the first step. 

At that point I had one kid and I liked (and still do) to take walks with my family. When we’d go on walks after the rain, my son was always very concerned about the worms he saw on the sidewalk. So, I would tell him, “it’s just a worm” in my attempt to get him to navigate around the worm on the sidewalk.

One day I started thinking about what a worm might feel if it could hear me and understand my words.

That question led to the book. I didn’t write it down initially. I would tell it to him and then later his younger brother as a bedtime story and I would mix up the animals and the insects and other garden creatures in it. Then, eventually I wrote it down and started working on revisions.

That’s so cool! I love that it started as a bedtime story so you were kind of orally working through all the drafts for a bit there. So, how did you get into children’s writing?

I have always loved children’s books. Reading was such an important thing for me when I was a kid. I remember my parents taking me to our public library and just being so excited because it was like a place where you could pick out pretty much anything that you wanted and take it home for a little while. 

So, I spent a lot of time just lost in books when I was a kid. And I’ve always been really passionate about children’s books. When I was in college, my concentration was in the sciences but I took a class that was on children’s literature and fairy tales because it was just something that I’ve always been really interested in. 

I write other things. I’m also an academic, so I write law review articles but I have always had a special place in my heart for children’s literature.

You have this very varied background with science and law and everything you do. How do you balance that with writing? Or what does that look like with your writing process?

I think I’m actually interested in some of the same questions across the different areas. And I think one of the things that I am really focused on in my scholarship and in my children’s writing is thinking about human flourishing.

I write about women and kids in my academic work and I think it carries over into my children’s work. I’ve written about insects in my academic work as well and there is  a sort of synergy between them because I think that the work that I have done on the academic side has made me really good at working through multiple drafts and revising work and dealing with rejection. 

The way the process is for submitting academic articles, at least on the law side, is you often submit to lots and lots of journals and then as a result you get lots and lots of rejections.

My children’s writing as well.

You already knew that if you submit articles or writing, you get rejections, you just keep going. That’s how it goes. But when you hit any kind of obstacle in your writing life, what keeps you going across it?

Being outside, I find really helpful. When I’m feeling really stuck, I might get up and just take a quick walk around the block. I think it often helps me to just focus on the natural world and look at the sky or the clouds or trees or a flower. And I think that helps me. I try to keep working, even if it’s only for a few minutes, most days because I find that the longer that I’m away from something, the harder it becomes for me to go back to it. 

When you’re continuing to work on it, even for a few minutes, is that with illustrating or your writing or do you switch between and have different days for each?

Yeah, I sort of go back and forth. I used to have this idea of what I needed to have in order to write. And I needed to have quiet, sitting at my desk with the perfect temperature and I’d have my coffee or tea. 

But the past few years I have shifted and that has made a really big difference in terms of creating things for me. I often don’t have those large blocks of time to write, with two young kids there are constant interruptions when they’re home. And so I’ve started writing more on my phone. 

I will save things on my phone if there’s just an idea I might write down just a couple of lines. One of the nice things about quilling is I will often take a little bit of paper and some quilling tools and glue with me when I’m going to after school activities for my kids. And I’m sitting there and if I just have, you know, 10 minutes that we’re waiting for a game to start or a lesson to start, I can work on it a little bit.

Why do you write and why do you illustrate? What keeps you coming back to it?

One of the things with Just A Worm is I did a lot of the work really early on in the pandemic. And so part of what I was trying to do I think, is give myself something to think about and that I could find joy in. 

My hope with the book is that readers will think about what they can contribute to their family and community. Words can be really powerful and I know a lot of us have probably heard the word ‘just’ used to minimize somebody or have compared ourselves to others. I know that’s something I’ve done and then felt like I was falling short.

I’m hopeful that readers will read the book and then recognize that everybody has something to contribute.

Awesome! That is definitely a good reason to keep with it. Well, you told us a bit about your book but where can we find it? Where is it available and how can we connect with you if readers are interested in that?

The book is available from your favorite bookseller and I blog and send out an occasional newsletter from my website which is marieboyd.com. I also am on Instagram at @artistscholar and absolutely love connecting with people. I have an exhibit at my local public library that includes some of the illustrations from Just A Worm as well as some of my other art.

I learned so much in my short time together with Marie. Quilling alone is a whole rabbit hole I’ve loved exploring. If you love her art as much as I do, make sure to follow her on Instagram at the links above and check out her site.

Next up we have Stephanie Wildman the author of many titles including the recently published Treasure Hunt.
If you missed last week, click here to read more about inspiration and resilience with Priya Parikh.