Author Spotlight: Stephanie Wildman Author of Brave in the Water

Another day, another author to spotlight! Today I get to share part of my conversation with author Stephanie Wildman. She has written and published several titles in adult and children’s literature

During our talk, she pointed out how much she learned through connecting with her illustrator from Brave in the Water, Jenni Feidler-Aguilar and Cecilia Populus-Eudave who translated the text into a Spanish Version, Valiente en el Agua. Her publisher has also released a Spanish version of Treasure Hunt titled Búsqueda del Tesoro. There are tons of free resources for educators that go with the books on her website, so be sure to check it out! 

On top of that, she’s also a thought leader in legal academics with her recently released reprinting of Privilege Revealed.

I saw that you’ve written in different genres. Even recently, your publisher re-released one of your books in the legal field. So, what does that look like for you? Because I’m very curious about balancing writing for adults and writing for children in these different types of genres.

Thank you. I knew you had sent that question and the interesting thing is, I feel like I’m not balancing it because I’m really focusing on children. But you pinpointed the one place where it was sort of tense because the re-release of Privilege Revealed with new material came out in 2021 in March and the debut picture book was in April.

I was a little crazy during that time just trying to figure it out. It wasn’t so bad in the lead up because you know you have page proofs, you do different things but just trying to learn about book publicity and all of that was pretty wild. 

I have learned in life never to say never. I mean, when I stopped teaching, I gave away all of my books on torts because I was like, “I’m never going to teach this. I’m never going to write about it” And then the next year I was writing an opinion for the feminist judgments project on a torts piece and I had to re-buy back all these books that I had given away. So, it’s like nothing ever stops. But I’m really enjoying kidlit right now.

That’s awesome, though! So, what got you into children’s literature?

It’s really my grandchildren. I have four of them and I would go to bookstores with them and not see a lot that I loved. And I got curious about what was happening with children’s books. I’ve learned a lot since then. So, after I stopped teaching– one of the local writer’s places offered a class that was six blocks from my house I was like, “Well, you can’t really want to be a writer for children if you can’t get yourself over to this class.”

That was just the best thing I ever did because it’s a whole other world, you know. 

When was it that you took that class to officially start writing?

The class was in the spring, I believe it was 2018. It was taught by Maxine Rose Schur who has just been a wonderful teacher, mentor and now friend. You asked later on what one of my favorite books is? Her book called Marielle in Paris–I give it to everyone. It’s just a wonderful book and she’s been so encouraging. 

And we’ve stayed in touch since the class. We were supposed to come to that class with an idea of a book we wanted to write, really focusing on middle grade or Y.A. I had this idea and the idea was basically Brave in the Water. 

She said,”Well, that’s a picture book.” It had never occurred to me to write a picture book because I’m a word person, I’m not a picture person. I’ve learned so much about why it is a combined work with the illustrator and how much they bring to it. It’s been exciting to watch that unfold and I pay much better attention to page turns now.

Yeah, that’s like a whole master class in itself. What genres do you like to write in these days? Are you sticking with picture books and kidlit? 

I am working on a middle grade at the moment and trying to learn what my process is for that. Actually, before I got on this call, I was reading. One of my critique partners has just finished her fifth draft of her middle grade and I really think she’s nailing it. I’m so excited for this book! It’s I’m sure going to be a book in the world and I’m nowhere near that far along um because on that whole plotter pantser thing, I just like to write. But watching her experience–I’m trying to do more plotting.

When you mentioned before about how you did have those rejections, you faced some obstacles, and then of course the pandemic happening and you’re trying to release a book and that’s very complicated. And then there’s another book! What do you do when you hit an obstacle to keep going with it?

Yeah, well, I have a yoga practice that includes meditation. That has really gotten me through an awful lot of obstacles and and I will say at my age I am much more accepting of the idea that obstacles are part of the process.

I have experienced a lot of rejection and I try to tell my critique partners it’s not just like you send out your article or your book and maybe it gets accepted or rejected. But then you ask a blogger if they will interview you and they say no. I mean it just never ends really. So, it’s just all part of it. 

So, I just don’t feel as bad about it. I guess what I try to do particularly with rejection is when I get a rejection to send something else out because it’s always an opportunity. The next one might not be a rejection or it might be. Sure, there are a lot of them, I’m not trying to sugarcoat that. But you do have to. If you don’t send it out it can’t get accepted.

Exactly! Yes, no one will publish your words if they never see them.

Yeah, and I’ve had some close ones and those are hard. They say, “Oh, you’re in the top 10 of 2000, but we’re not going forward.” And you wish it was a different answer. I’m not saying, “Oh, it’s all the same. It’s all good.” But the close ones mean you’re that much closer.

Why do you write? What compels you to write?

Right, I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Some people would say I have been a writer, although my identity was much more as a teacher and writing was part of the job of being a teacher. I made up a pen name in fourth grade for myself. 

It was Catherine Grayson. A name not like my name at all. I like my name now but at the time I was like, “No, I need to have a writerly name.” So, that was what I picked.

In high school I was editor of the school paper and writing was–it’s just something I’ve always liked doing. In college they didn’t have a creative writing major but they called it a minor or a concentration or something and I was taking creative writing classes. It’s just always been there somehow somewhere. It’s just part of–you know like when you wake up in the morning and do those morning pages it just feels connected to something?

Yeah, I definitely feel very similarly about that, it’s always been there as a part of you. Tell us about one of your books and where readers can connect with you and find these in bookstores?

Lawley (my publisher) likes to say they’re sold anywhere books are sold online. So, it’s easy to find and I have a web page so that’s easy to find. 

My third book which is coming in January 2024 is called Breath by Breath and it brings back the characters Flor, Roberto and Luis from Treasure Hunt only this time it’s a bedtime story. They have some of the same playing that they do with “jinx” in that game but it’s basically breathing in a body scan coming from my yoga practice.

They’re pretending they’re in submarines going through the body and visiting all the parts of the body. So, that was a lot of fun to write.

Can I ask what the other book is?

The fourth book is one I wrote with Adam Ryan Chang and it’s coming out from Kar-Ben Publishing and it’s called Miri’s Moving Day. It’s about a little girl who is Jewish and Chinese who is moving out of the only house, only home, she’s known where she’s lived with her paternal grandparents and her parents. They’re moving into their own apartment. That’s coming out the fall of 2024. 

There you have it! This was only an excerpt of the whole chat we had covering craft, community, and pen names. If you’d like to hear the whole conversation, let me know! I’m considering podcast formats for these chats and would love to hear if you’re interested in that!

If you can’t wait for next week, make sure to catch up on last week’s spotlight with Marie Boyd. Stay tuned next week Marsha Diane Arnold!