I collaborate as much as possible I have always tried to break down any sort of wall that could and with the full support of my publishers I should say. I’ve had a lot of encouragement in that department to have conversations about what the illustrations are going to look like and to look at sketches and to give feedback because I think that really produces. As I said the picture book that has that sort of back and forth and give and take when you trust your illustrator to go create wonderful things.
Like in I, Julia Denos created this marvelous creature that Dotty is that went beyond my imagination frankly. And then to talk to her about ways in which we could take Dotty to new places together was incredibly extraordinary.
One story to tell about Dotty sort of, so when I was working on the book Dotty I went and I read my manuscript to a class of second graders and in my head I had an idea about what Dotty looked like. Because when I had an imaginary friend she was a sheep and I thought Dotty would sort of be a sheep or goat like creature. And I finished reading the manuscript and I looked around the room, and all of a sudden I asked the kids, “What do you think Dotty looks like?” And every hand shot up and every kid had a different answer.
And some kids said she’s a bull, another kid said she’s a guinea pig with horns. True story. And so I realized all of a sudden oh my god Dotty wasn’t one thing. Every child had sort of made her their own, and I realized that she didn’t have to be limited to being one specific animal. So when I went back and started talking to Julia I said Dotty can be a lot of things, have fun with creating a creature that has all sorts of different attributes because she really does morph all sorts of different qualities that are inside of Ida the girl who owns her. And so she can be a creature of Ida’s imaginings.
