Have a Baby, Start a New Writing Career

I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember, probably from the first moment I held a book in my hands. I’m sure the idea first occurred to me because I loved to read. I snuck novels behind big history textbooks in the fourth grade. On summer nights I stayed up until dawn, lost in a story. (Even now, I’m the person who boards a plane and walks automatically to my seat, book in hand.)

Somehow, though, I got through college, grad school, and launched in a career in philanthropy without doing any creative writing – except grant proposals at work.

And then I had a baby.

Like most first-time moms, I tried to do everything perfectly, including exposing Rebekah to as many books as possible.We began traipsing to the public library every week and carting home picture books, board books, and early readers.

I fell in love with the picture books. And somewhere along the line it struck me: children’s picture books were short. Really short. Short enough for a working mother to tackle.

So, when Rebekah was about three, I made a New Year’s Resolution: I would write one story a month – no matter what. I would send my efforts to real publishers. I would try, at long last, to fulfill that old childhood dream.

We didn’t own a personal computer at the time, so early on Saturday mornings I would leave my sleeping daughter and husband and go into the office for a couple of hours of writing time. I’d never tried to write for children, hadn’t read any how-to books, and didn’t know anyone else who was doing this. I was just a working mom who wanted to be a writer.

The results? Rejections. Lots of rejections. My stories were not very good. I remember one called “The Girl Who Wouldn’t Eat Anything Green.” It featured talking peas and was, of course, aimed at my daughter’s lack of interest in vegetables. (I shouldn’t have worried. She is now an accomplished cook who favors a vegetarian diet.)

Despite all those rejections, I kept plugging away. I wrote about mice, crickets, and chickens. I wrote fluffy stories I thought would sell. I wrote what I thought a children’s story should look like.

But the stories always came back. I hadn’t yet discovered how to write from my heart.

Finally, I decided I needed help. I signed up for a one-day workshop with the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. By the way, this is still the professional organization for children’s writers and the best place to get started.) The workshop presenter suggested that aspiring writers try magazines first, to build up writing credits and gain experience working with an editor.

I began researching children’s magazines and eventually submitted a story. By now, I’d been writing long enough that I had begun to find my own voice. And I realized what I loved most was researching and writing about history.

I think one of the reasons I preferred novels to my history textbook back in fourth grade was that I just didn’t want to memorize dates and the names of presidents. I thought history was boring. The only parts about history textbooks I liked were the shaded boxes (remember those?), where I could learn about ordinary people, or read stories about the underground railroad or the fight for women’s suffrage.

And so I switched from talking vegetables to writing about people of the past. One night we returned from an event at Rebekah’s preschool to find a letter waiting. I had sold a historical fiction story to Cricket magazine. At last!

Of course, I still wanted to write a book. One morning while getting ready for work, I heard a story on NPR about an exhibition of African American quilts. I became fascinated by the stories and folklore that surrounded quilts and the underground railroad. And I ended up writing a fictional story called Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt.

I sent my story not to a magazine, but to a book publisher – who kept it for nine months before rejecting it. I tried again. Rejected. Finally, about a year later, I sent it to several publishers. While at work one morning a few weeks later, I received a phone call from an editor who said, “I like your story.”

My book, Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, went on to receive starred reviews and to win the International Reading Association Award in 2004. By this time, my daughter, Rebekah, whose birth had started me on this path, was nine, and we had adopted a six-year-old, Dimitri.

I’d like to say that I never looked back from that moment, and went on to publishing fame and fortune. Not exactly. I have continued to work full time. Currently I serve as vice president for advancement for Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. And, just as I did at the beginning, I still write on weekends and evenings.

But over the years I’ve managed to find some wonderful stories to share with young readers. I’ve written about Maria Mitchell, America’s first woman astronomer (Maria’s Comet), Ella Sheppard Moore, pianist for the Jubilee Singers (A Band of Angels), 19th century baseball player Alta Weiss (Girl Wonder), and Matthew Henson, the African American explorer (Keep On!).

My writing has allowed me to keep learning. I find myself loving history and research more all the time, whether it’s writing about the Klondike Gold Rush (the Klondike Kid series), the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 (Into the Firestorm) or America’s early labor movement (Shutting out the Sky, Life in the Tenements of New York).

I’ve been lucky enough to meet teachers, parents, and librarians across the country. I do author visits in schools, where I show kids actual photos of the Empire State Building for my book Sky Boys, a picture of Henderson Luelling, who brought the first apple trees to Oregon (Apples to Oregon), or the gravestone of Austin Gollaher, who saved Abe Lincoln from drowning (Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek.) I have forthcoming books on Charles Dickens, Helen Keller, knitting in World War One, and the Titanic – and new ideas percolating all the time.

I hope that through my work, young readers – and their parents — will use these stories as a jumping off point to explore, to find out more, and to think about our world.

Most importantly, perhaps, I’ve discovered that children’s literature isn’t something that we read just when we’re young, or for a few years before our children are reading on their own. I continue to read widely in children’s literature, and still pass on recommendations to Rebekah. There’s something satisfying about knowing your grown daughter has stayed up until six a.m. reading a book you’ve given her.) And, by the way, Rebekah is about to start graduate school this summer – to become an elementary school teacher.

I believe reading with our kids can be the beginning of a lifelong family book club. For me, it was also the start of a second career. And who knows? Someday I still might make it big and quit my day job.

Deborah Hopkinson is the author of picture books, short fiction, and nonfiction. Her award-winning works include Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, winner of the 1994 International Reading association Award; A Band of Angels, an ALA Notable book which also won the Golden Kite Award and was a Jane Addams award honor book; Under the Quilt of Night, winner of the Washington State Book Award, Bluebird Summer, a Golden Kite Award Honor Book, and Girl Wonder, winner of the Great Lakes Book Award and a 2004 Jane Addams Award honor book. Deborah Hopkinson’s newest books are Michelle, First Family, and The Humblebee Hunter. She visits schools and libraries all over the country.

Editor’s Note: Add your thoughts below and you may win a copy of one of Deborah’s books for you and your child to enjoy!