Please welcome Colleen Olle today, the author of Sophia and Sinclair Go on an Adventure (cowritten with Jeff Windsor) and more recently Sophia and Sinclair Get Lost both of which were illustrated by Marcy Tippmann. 

I met Colleen through The 12×12 Picture Book Challenge though our paths have crossed in the kidlit sphere through SCBWI (The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) as well. Our conversation lasted longer than I can share here, so please enjoy this excerpt about her writing journey, publications, self publishing, and more!

I want to hear a little bit more  about when you started creating books. I noticed on your website it said that you started doing that when you were very little. 

Yes. It depends on how loosely you’re defining a book. I grew up with younger siblings and so I would entertain them by telling them making up stories. Sometimes I would crayon pictures and staple the pages together and make a book.

If we’re speaking more traditionally, I participated in NaNoWriMo in 2007 and completed a very rough draft of a novel. For the next few years I revised it and in 2013 I began an MFA program.

During that, I completed another more polished draft. Then I graduated and I made more revisions and then I abandoned it. My first novel will probably never be published.

Did you keep writing in adult literature? I saw on your website you have some published adult literature–or did you start focusing on children’s literature at that time?

No, I was writing for adults–literary fiction. That has been my passion all the way, probably since college.

The children’s picture book idea came later.

What is your ideal time and place to write?

My ideal place is a quiet space with natural light. I generally write in the late morning to early midafternoon.

Are you a longhand person or on computers?

Computers, it’s a lot to do longhand. I transitioned during high school-college because I used to have to write longhand but then your brain changes–our brains change depending how we write.

So, longhand and typing, my mind works differently. I feel different depending on which way I’m writing and I think the computer has given me the option to write as many words as I want without tiring so easily.

How has your involvement with the writing community affected your life and when did you first get started with that?

If we’re talking about seriously getting involved in things–that’s going to be a couple decades ago when I took some writing classes at Stanford University’s continuing studies program. In one of those classes a few of my classmates and I got together and formed a writing group.

We met monthly for about 15 years in person. We would visit each other’s homes, talk writing, and critique each other’s manuscripts. 

Then the MFA program at Bennington College has had a tremendous impact on me. It’s a low residency program and I traveled to Vermont twice a year. I learned a lot. I met many wonderful writers, some of whom I’m still in contact with. 

After graduating, with some of these classmates I attended my first AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference. 

At another AWP conference, I fell into conversation with another Bennington Alum who co-founded a literary magazine and I became an assistant prose editor for that journal for about three and a half years.

I noticed you mentioned on your site you started your children’s book during the pandemic.

Yes, I started that in 2019. I joined SCBWI in October 2020. My husband and I were making up oral stories that we were going to share with our nieces and nephews. 

Then he thought it would be great if we wrote them down. He wrote something down and gave it to me and said, “Here, fix it.” So, I started working on this story.

At first, we thought we were just going to share it with our nieces and nephews. Then in the beginning of 2020, the pandemic hit and at the same time I was searching for an illustrator. 

As she was producing sketches and we were having conversations back and forth, we started thinking maybe this would be good–especially, given the pandemic–everything was so depressing and frightening. We thought maybe we should share this with anyone who might be interested. So, we got it published in December of 2020.

Oh, wow! That’s a pretty quick turnaround then.

It was. But think of it this way, we had so much more time because everything was shut down. There was nothing to do. This was the highlight of our days!

And there’s two books now in the series, right?

Yeah. The first one is Sophia and Sinclair Go on an Adventure.

Did you and your husband publish that independently or did you go traditional?

Independently. In fact, there was so much upheaval at that time. I know there were manuscripts backing up in offices of traditional publishers.

When you did publish it then, what was that like getting it out there in front of people?

Well, everything was brand new. I never anticipated doing something like this and it was a huge learning curve–it continues to be a learning curve because things change.

There was a lot of excitement because it was something new, friends and family thought it was great because my husband and I co-authored it. It was something that sparked joy in a very depressing time.

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

Playing with words. I love language. I love details, so I’m very sentence-oriented. I also like creating characters and stories that other people enjoy.

Why do you write?

To create. To play with words and language and rhythm. To learn what I know and to discover what I don’t know. I often think about a tea kettle on a stove and how it heats up. That’s me when I feel word words building up and at some point I just have to release them onto the page.

I feel more serene and more like myself when I’m writing regularly; it’s just something I have to do.

Yeah, I feel that way too and I love the image that you have of that tea kettle. It describes it so well because once you get to that certain point, things are going to explode if you don’t you don’t address it! 

If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice when you first began your writing journey, what would it be?

Persist and be patient. Things are going to take longer than you expect but that’s okay. Like the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So, just keep stepping and have fun along the way. Writing is a gift, so enjoy it.

Tell us about your latest book, where it’s available and the best place for readers to connect with you.

My latest picture book is Sophia and Sinclair Get Lost. 

Sophia is a tireless rabbit whose best friend is Sinclair, a thoughtful turtle, and this is their second adventure. They wander into a strange forest which readers will recognize as a hay maze, but they don’t know what it is and they get lost. Then they disagree about the right path to take and they separate–never a good idea–and they become even more lost and lonely. Other animals try to help but nothing works. Readers will be wondering, ‘how are they going to find their way out and find each other?’

It’s available online at Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and Amazon.

What is the best place to connect with you? Is that on your website?

Yes, it’s on my website and there’s a link that people can click and contact me directly.

Thank you again to Colleen for sharing her time with me! Make sure to catch up on Why We Write interviews while you can because starting January 11, 2024 “Why We Write” will be coming to you in podcast format! 

For the inaugural episode, I’d like to welcome Karen Greenwald whose recent book, A Vote for Susanna has received glowing reviews from School Library Journal, Kirkus and more! 

And I haven’t yet posted it everywhere, but I just want to share that I received a scholarship to The 12×12 Picture Book Challenge for 2024 where I’m so excited to continue as an active member! It came as the biggest surprise on January 1, 2024 and I couldn’t have asked for a better way to kick off the year. Thank you to everyone on the decision committee, I can’t put into words how much this kidlit community means to me.