Interview with author and illustrator Jarrett Lerner
My children were asking me this week how I found out about author Jarrett Lerner, and I wish I had a cool story for them like “I read an interview with him on a blog” or “A friend said you HAVE to follow this author” but I actually cannot remember. What I do remember is that when I did “discover” Jarrett Lerner, I was immediately an instant fan and knew our home library and reading lists had to include his work. For the record, I have never personally met Jarrett although we are social media “friends,” but I do have to say from all accounts, I have found that he is an amazing storyteller through his words and illustrations, a passionate literacy advocate, and an incredibly kind human.
Jarrett Lerner has published the highly engaging middle grade EngiNerds series about middle school boys and their comical adventures with the robots they created. There are two books so far: EngiNerds and Revenge of The EngiNerds with the third book, The EngiNerds Strike Back, coming on February 2, 2021. Jarrett has also written the early chapter book series Geeger the Robot Goes To School, with the second book in the series being released on January 5, 2021. This week, Jarrett released his first activity book called Give This Book A Title which is an amazing creative resource for kids, parents, teachers, and kids at heart that contains over 100 activities of fun, open-ended writing and drawing prompts on every page. Jarrett is working on a graphic novel series called the Hunger Heroes about a group of unlikely super heroes who save the day and a boy’s stomach.
Jarrett is a passionate literacy advocate and his web site contains a wealth of information as well as many free activities, art downloads and inspiration. I definitely recommend you check it out at jarrettlerner.com.
Jarrett lives in Massachusetts with his wife and two daughters. He is incredibly busy and I feel very lucky and am thankful that he took the time to answer some questions for @mommylovesbooks. The answers are thoughtful and interesting. Enjoy.
1. What was your journey to becoming an author? Did you go to school for writing?
I've been writing and drawing since I can remember. I always had a book I was reading, and I always had a notebook and/or sketchbook I was carting around. There was always some storytelling project or other that I had in the works. That being said, I didn't really allow myself to dream of being a professional storytelling -- a writer and illustrator of books -- until much, much later in life. Pretty much until midway through college, I carried around these pernicious -- and very prevalent! -- myths about what it looked like to be an author and an illustrator. I thought writing was easy for authors. I thought they sat down and cranked out a book in an afternoon. I thought illustrators were people who could draw anything and everything with little difficulty or effort, basically on the first try. The idea the writing was maybe even more difficult for authors than it was for others (due to the fact that we agonize over just about every word we write, in an effort to chase down something approaching perfection) and that illustrators spent a great deal of time (and a great deal of paper) figuring out and getting right every illustration -- well, I didn't really believe all that until my twenties. And it was that realization that finally freed me up to feel confident enough to chase down this dream of mine.
2. Was middle grade your intended audience?
No! In fact, I got my agent, originally, for a Young Adult HORROR novel! When I tell people who are familiar with my work about that, their jaws typically drop. Young Adult horror is probably as far from what I do now as anything could be! My YA horror novel didn't sell, in part because my characters kept reading "too young." I wrote many manuscripts, and kept getting that same feedback, and kept trying to "age up" my characters, until one day my agent said, "Why don't you just write Middle Grade?" Well, duh. It was a revelation. It was like a dam had burst open. I was absolutely flooded, completely overwhelmed with ideas. I've still got books from that period that my agent and I haven't sent out for submission yet -- we are still working through some of them!
And to address that horror thing -- I should say that no creator (not to mention person) is any single thing. The majority of my ideas and work are humorous, adventurous stories with, I hope, a good dose of heart. BUT, that's not to say that that's the only type of story I can or do create. In the upcoming months and years, I'll be able to share some more of the projects I've got in the works that don't fit that particular mold. And truly, NO creator can be pigeonholed like that. Whether or not they've published it yet (or will ever publish it), I'm certain every creator you can think of has a few book surprises up their sleeve.
3. Are any of the characters in EngiNerds based on real life characters?
I always say that fiction exists on a spectrum. On one end is real life experience and on the other end is pure imagination. No work of fiction is entirely either or. But some authors create by painstakingly depicting their reality, while morphing it here and there with imagination, for various reasons. Other creators, I think, take a little splash of reality and add buckets of imagination. I tend to do the latter. So, my stories, as well as the characters in them, are typically inspired by something that happens to me or someone I know. But from there, I add on so many layers of imagination that they become pretty much unrecognizable. Also, for characters specifically, it is usually one small element of a personality or trait of a person that inspires someone, not a whole entire person. For instance, there's a character in my EngiNerds books named John Henry Knox. He's a bit of a know-it-all. And, annoyingly, he kind of really does know it all. I know people like that. And so, that part of someone's larger, far more complex personality served as a foundation, a canvas on top of which I heaped invention. If you squint really hard at my characters, you may be able to "see" that shred of the reality beneath the invention -- but it's pretty well covered up!
4. You recently wrote a blog post about revising your cover for your new upcoming activity book, Give This Book a Title. How does the editing / revising process for writing books compare to the illustration process?
Revision is the number one thing I talk about with kids. Because if an author and/or illustrator had come to my classroom or school when I was a kid and peeled back the curtain on their process -- and assured me that it was similarly long and challenging as every other author and/or illustrator's process -- it would've rocked my world, it would've fundamentally changed my life. I think it would've gotten me dreaming of doing what I'm doing now literally decades earlier.
The revision process for writing and illustrating is obviously qualitatively different -- you're revising words versus images -- but they are definitely not quantitatively different. I'm finishing up a graphic novel right now, and for this particular project, there is substantially more revising of the drawings than the text. Whether the changes are big or small, whether I'm reconceptualizing an entire page or tweaking a character's expression, there are countless (even, it often seems, endless) revisions involved in the process. I believe visual literacy and visual expression is not respected, valued, or utilized enough in children's education, and I do everything in my power to help change that. Just one of those things is opening up the process to kids (and adults!) more, so that they see that drawing is just like any skill. It's not something you're born either able to do or not do. It takes practice. Lots of it. The more you do it, the more confident and capable you'll get.
5. Has becoming a dad changed your writing style or story ideas?
It's definitely changed lots of things about my life! It's changed the way I work, for sure. I used to be able to sit down and, more or less, work for as long as I wanted, whenever I wanted. Not the case anymore. I've had to learn to work in short bursts. I've had to acquire the ability to sink down into a project at a moment's notice -- for instance, as soon as my kids go down for the nap -- because I never know how long any given chunk of working time will last. Even before kids, I tried to make sure to never get too precious about my work routine. If you can only create when the circumstances are just so -- well, you're going to be WAY less productive than you might otherwise be. And the truth of the matter is that, if you want a career in publishing, you are going to have to learn to create on demand now and again. There are deadlines. Things need to get done when they're supposed to be done. If I get an hour or two to work, I can't afford to NOT use it. It's taken time and effort, and I still don't always get it right, but I've learned, as a father, to create more efficiently, and to be productive, in some form or another, on some project or another, at the drop of a hat.
And honestly, I think by learning how to do that, by adjusting my creative process and getting more control over it, I've become MORE creative. Also, I just think being around kids is a benefit for your creativity. It's why I've always loved doing school and library visits. I believe that, at least until upper elementary school or middle school, kids are reflexively, unselfconsciously creative, in a way that most adults have a lot of trouble being. To witness that, to be around it -- it's incredible. It's life-giving. Do I have less time to create now than I did before having kids? Yeah, probably. But the time I do have is infinitely richer and dramatically more productive. And that doesn't happen automatically. But if you figure out how to make it work, it can work gloriously.
6. What are some of your interests outside of writing & illustrating?
I really, really, really like to eat. (Something you might've been able to guess, seeing as every one of my books involves food and/or eating, in some way or another.) So, in normal times, I love going out to restaurants, especially trying new ones. I also love to cook and bake (so I can then eat the end products). I've also been a skateboarder pretty much all my life, and there's hardly anything I love more than going out skating. Also, while this is obvious to me, it might not be to everyone. But I love, love, love, love, LOVE to read. That's what I am, first and foremost. A Reader. A lover of books and all they offer us. And I think to be a book-creator, you must, must, MUST be a book-reader. It sustains and inspires you. It keeps your ideas and approach fresh.
Thank you again to Jarrett Lerner for a lovely interview. Wishing him and his family a very Happy Holidays and we look forward to reading more of his books in the future.
