Author-2-Author Interview: Margaret Read MacDonald, A Folklore Guru!

I´m excited to announce that the 2009 Author-2-Author interviews will focus mainly on authors who´ve made careers writing for children. The world of picture books, YA novels, and children´s magazines is a misunderstood and often underestimated realm within the writing community.

Unlike adult fiction, where one can develop in-depth plots and use graphic action scenes to grip the reader, children´s books have certain limitations that must be honored. In some cases, such as picture books, an entire story (including a strong moral lesson) must fit within an industry standard of 750 words... a challenge that is tougher than you may think!

I also plan on touching base with several other professionals within the children´s market who ALL play an important role, the illustrator, the publisher, agent, librarian, teacher, and even a few others who are rarely spoken about.

With that said I say we hit the road running and introduce my first guest of the 2009 Author-2-Author interviews, Margaret Read MacDonald.

With a Ph.D. in Folklore through the Indiana University, a Masters of Educational Communications from the University of Hawaii, and a Masters of Library Science from the University of Washington, Margaret Read MacDonald is the successful author of over 55 books that range from picture books to historical accounts of ghosts in the Pacific Northwest.

Her career has led her to the far-reaches of the globe to tell stories, including Australia, China, Malaysia, the Czech Republic, and Kenya to just name a few! In addition to being a great children´s author, Margaret has held a successful and rewarding career as a Children´s Librarian since 1965. Her awards and honors include a Fulbright Scholarship to Mahasarakham University in Thailand, the Parent´s Choice Awards for Mabela the Clever and Fat Cat, as well as the Outstanding Author & Storyteller Award 2001-2002 from the Washington Organization for Reading Development (IRA).

C. L. Vaughn: Margaret, welcome to A2A. It´s an honor to be interviewing you. The first picture book that I read of yours was The Squeaky Door, which became a favorite with my son Owen. With the majority of your books focusing on folklore, and the fact that you´ve earned a Ph.D. in Folklore, can you explain to us what draws you to folklore?

Margaret Read MacDonald: I suppose it comes from my childhood in Southern Indiana, an area steeped in the folk voice. My mother, my grandfather, and the folks we visited within their country homes…all had tales to tell. They didn´t tell folktales…no, but their renditions of their life stories were shaped by a strong folk imagination.

CLV: Another book of yours that I found to be a fun read was your Ghosts of the Pacific Northwest. I´ve always be fascinated with the unknown and paranormal, so I found that book extremely interesting. What was the inspiration behind that book, and just for fun, what is your honest opinion on ghosts?

MRM: That book idea came from a fellow folklorist who was editing a series of books on ghostlore of regions of the country. He asked if I would prepare one on the NW. It sounded like a fun project. However the folklorists back east had only to go to their university archives and pull up the many ghost stories that had been archived there over the years. Here in the NW we had only one useful archive, which Barre Toelken had worked on at the University of Oregon. So I was left without source material. A librarian at the Vancouver Public Library in British Columbia suggested her newspaper clipping file. And there I found all sorts of ghost stories…collected by newspaper reporters looking for good Halloween columns. So I started checking through the regions papers…looking at issues published around Halloween each year. The stories had been told in the first person by the folks who had experienced the ghostly activities. They were clearly filtered through a mass media voice. But still they are interesting. I had no thought that ghosts existed when I began the project. But by the time I finished, I did in fact believe that there was something which people were witnessing. Perhaps more an image from the past, rather than a sentient being…but something.

CLV: I can imagine that a career as a librarian is something the average person doesn´t fully understand. Can you share with us what you as a librarian does on a day to day basis and maybe something that we wouldn´t know?

MRM: Oh being a children´s librarian is the most delightful job in the world! My work day included reading or scanning all of the new children´s materials. Lots of books brought home for late night reading too, of course. And then the joy of presenting the best of these books to the children who came into the library. I always felt that my job had too imperatives…that I find the right book for child…and that I find the right reader for the fantastic book! As part of my job I also got to present weekly storytimes, sharing picture books with pre-schoolers and their adults. And I got to visit the local schools every year to talk about our summer reading programs. This meant I had a chance to tell stories to every class! What could be more fun?

CLV: What pulled you in the direction of a children´s librarian versus a historical librarian or other type of librarian?

MRM: This was one of those strange moments at which one´s life makes a sharp turn in a fortuitous direction. I was training to work in academic libraries, hoping to land a job working with anthropological materials (I had a B.A. in Anthropology). But summertime came around and I could take any courses I wanted. Just needed a few more credits, the requirements were all finished…and I was tired. I decided to goof off and take Kiddie Lit and Storytelling. On the last day of my storytelling class, as I came onto campus my path crossed that of Bob Polishuk, our storytelling instructor. "Aren´t you in my class?" he asked. "You are planning to become a children´s librarian?" Oh no. I explained that I was to be an academic librarian. This set him off into a total rant about the joys of being a children´s librarian. I explained that I had taken none of the courses to prepare me for such a career. "Oh that´s no problem. Come to King County Library, we will TRAIN you." He was Coordinator of Children´s Services at the King County Library System, just teaching for the summer. I said, well it did sound tempting, but I didn´t think so. Later that morning I told my first long folktale…rehearsed well in front of my parents the night before. Mr. Polishuk was listening from the back of the room. When I finished he LEAPED to his feet and exclaimed, "MISS READ! You´ve GOT to become a children´s librarian!"

I went down the next week and he hired me. And his children´s librarians trained me. The rest, as they say, is history.

CLV: I have to ask. The middle name of Read, awfully coincidental for a librarian/author, is it a pen name or real?

MRM: My father was Murray Read, My Grandfather was Parley Garfield Read. My ancestor Samuel Read was one of the early pioneers in Jennings County, Indiana and you can read his name over the courthouse door…which he built.

I did love, before I married, going into the schools and saying, "I am Miss READ. I´ve come to tell you all to READ books!"

CLV: On the topic of publishing, what has your experiences with becoming published been like?

MRM: I have been very lucky to work with fine, caring editors. At first I was incensed that someone would want to change my writing. But over the years I learned that a good editor is really helping bring out the best in my work. Now I look forward to getting that editorial comment. Liz Parkhurst, my editor at August House, tells me I am welcome to any of three reactions to her editing. 1. I LOVE it. I´ll DO it! 2. I´ll think about it…. 3. NO WAY!

I once sent an article to Dr. Linda Degh for inclusion in a folklore journal. She sent it back saying she liked it but could I make it longer. I increased the twenty page article to thirty pages and submitted it again. She sent it back saying it was too long, could I make it shorter. I rewrote it and submitted again at twenty pages. She published it. The most important lesson for a would-be author is…rewrite…rewrite…rewrite…and never give up.

CLV: I read in your Ravenpress interview that you had mailed out 330 manuscripts over a ten year period to 30 different publishing houses and found only one publisher. It´s no secret that it takes a great deal of effort to become traditionally published. What do you feel set that "one"

submission apart from the other 329?

MRM: Each manuscript gets better with repeated rewriting. In fact once I sell a tale to a publisher the really SERIOUS work of editing begins. As soon as I get thumbnail sketches from the illustrator I paste up a dummy of the book and begin to read it aloud to groups. At this stage I make many minor changes…tweaking words here and there to make sure the page turns are just right and the story flows smoothly. I have a writer friend, Meg Lippert, who reads my tales and makes suggestions. And most important of all, I give them to my son-in-law…who works for Microsoft. I ask him to read them out loud and I listen. If he stumbles…or if it sounds awkward…I know I have not got the language just right yet. It needs to be so obvious that any random father could pick up the text and sound great reading it out loud.

But back to your question of what set that one apart. It was more a matter of making a match. You have to find just the right story for that editor at just that time. Many of the tales I was trying to place during that 10 year period have now been published (this was not 330 different tales, but a few tales being submitted over and over to different publishers). They all improved with rewriting over the years. But also I kept trying to sell them until I finally succeeded. TUNJUR! TUNJUR! TUNJUR! for example was turned down fifteen times. The editor who finally did publish it, had turned it down three times already. But I kept after her. It became an ALA Notable book.

CLV: Would you like to share any advise for other aspiring authors?

MRM: Don´t event attempt this trade unless you are really good at taking rejection. If you take every rejection letter personally, you will be crushed. I have learned that the rejection letters are just part of the business. I don´t even give them a second though now. I just put the manuscript in the "to be passed on" pile and address it to another editor.

Getting published has nothing at all to do with "luck." It has everything to do with taking this career seriously. Take courses. Join SCBWI. Join a critique group. And work work work. Writing is only part of your job. Marketing what you have written is the harder part and must be addressed with the same seriousness.

CLV: Self publishing has been increasing in popularity and viability within the market place, as an author and librarian, I´d be interested in hearing your opinion on the self publishing route. Any opinions?

MRM: This depends on the nature of the book, and your nature too. I prepared a history of my mother´s home town in Scipio, Indiana. It was an important book, but not one that needed or would find mass production. I paid a small press to print the book. The church ladies sold it for me and kept part of the profits. About ten years later I had made back my investment. We are not talking profit. We are talking about an important gift to the community.

When my father was nearing death at 94 I helped him publish his autobiography. I took it to KINKO´S and had 100 copies run and spiral bound. I sold them to acquaintances for $5 each and gave many away.

I prepared a scholarly folkloric examination of the storytelling styles of several friends from my mother´s community of Scipio, Indiana. The book was important. I tried in vain to find a scholarly press in that region to take it on. Finally I discovered University Press of America. They publish scholarly publications and advertise them to academic libraries. If three scholars will vouch for the value of your book and you will pledge to purchase 100 paperback copies, they will publish and distribute the work. In other words it is a subsidized work, but not a vanity press. So I used them to get my SCIPIO, STORYELLING: TALK IN A SOUTHERN INDIANA COMMUNITY published.

I know authors who have self-published picture books and made money off of them. They have to work work work to market those books. They set up school visits. They promote the dickens out of themselves. If you have that kind of moxie more power to you. I could never do that.

Consider…how many copies of this particular book does the world need?

CLV: School visits have been a big part in your career, how do you usually handle setting a visit up?

MRM: I am usually contacted by the school librarian. We discuss via email the needs of that school and decide on a program.

CLV: Do you have a set program for every visit our do you do something different for each school, songs, story, crafts?

MRM: The program tends to be similar, but the actual stories I use vary. I have a large repertoire. I often offer a story from the country or ethnic group of some of the listeners. I am more and more concerned that we need to offer tales which hold meanings to our young listeners, so I try to put a few of those in my presentations. But the sheer joy of the storytelling event is what excites me most. My favorite school visits take two days. They begin with two assemblies, during which I share audience-participation folktales with the whole school (in two groups). Then smaller group visits, usually in the school library, during which I show my folktale picture books and talk about playing with language and about folktale motifs. I sometimes do small group storytelling workshops for students too. And I like to do an after school storytelling workshop for the teachers…sometimes for the parents. I especially like to end the visit with a family storytelling night. They get quite a lot from my visit…more than from many authors, as I can work all day and night without getting tired of telling stories! I was trained as a children´s librarian and that is what we DO!

CLV: With regards to your overseas visits, how do our schools in the states compare to those overseas? Do you find children around the world to view stories the same?

MRM: Children are mostly the same wherever you go. They all love stories and respond with great enthusiasm.

CLV: How did you first become involved with your overseas work?

MRM: I was sitting at my desk at the Bothell Public Library one afternoon just minding my business when the phone rang. A voice said, "Dr. Wajuppa Tossa would like you to come to Maharasakham in Thailand as a Fulbright Scholar. Would you please call her?" What? Could I DO that? It turned out that I could. She had gotten my name from Anne Pellowski. I applied for the post. My library system gave me a sabbatical to do the work. It was an amazing experience and Dr. Wajuppa and I still collaborate on many projects.

CLV: Have you ever planned on touching on Native American folk tales and incorporating them into picture books? Personally I think a Puget Sound Native American MRM book is in order.

MRM: Native groups for this area consider that their stories are owned. They can belong to a tribe, a clan, a family, or an individual. I would have to get permission in order to use the story. I have received permission from a few elders to put their stories into print and they are in collections I have done, and some are given in TEN TRADITIONAL TELLERS in the actual words of the tellers (University of Illinois Press), but putting a Native tale into a picture book format I have been hesitant to do.

CLV: Are there any future books on the way that we should keep an eye out for?

MRM: HOW MANY DONKEYS? AN ARABIC COUNTING TALE by Margaret Read MacDonald and Nadia Jameel Taibah. Illus Carol Liddiment (Albert Whitman, 2009). This was a tough one to pull off. The reader has to count to ten in Arabic on every other page. I THINK I make it work. Only the test of teachers will tell. Nadia heard the story from her aunt. I was working on a version of the story at the request of my publisher and realized Nadia might be able to help. She had her aunt´s version to work with! Without her I could not have done the work. She and I are also working on a collection of Saudi folktales, not done yet.

Another new book out soon is SURF WAR! A folktale from the Marshall Island. Illus. Geraldo Valerío (August House). The sandpipers and whales fight over control of an island bay, then make peace and learn to share their sea. The tale has both reconciliation and ecological meanings.

CLV: And last but not least, would you be interested in sharing any unpublished manuscripts or works for our readers? Again, thank you for taking the time to contribute to A2A, it´s been a real honor and I wish you the best of luck on your continued writing career.

MRM: I wouldn´t want to put out there an unfinished manuscript. As I said, I work and work on these to get them just right. I sweat blood over these texts. So until it is finished…I don´t want to set it out in the light of day. But there are many in my unfinished pile. So just keep watching!

And if you have more questions you can contact me at www.margaretreadmacdonald.com