[Applause]
>> Rachelle Ashour:
Good morning.
Welcome to the
Library of Congress
and the Family Mystery Day.
This event is The Spooky
Things Just Out of Sight
with Jerry Spinelli
and Ben Hatke.
My name is Rachelle Ashour and
I am a high school ESL teacher
in Northern Virginia.
But mainly I'm a book lover.
Before we get started, just a
few logistical things to get out
of the way. After we have
finished our discussion, we will
have a question
and answer session.
Then at 12:30, both authors will
be in the mezzanine level above
the Great Hall for a
book signing at 12:30.
So when we're done discussing
here, you have plenty of time to
go down and pick up
a couple of books.
They'll have copies
of "Dead Wednesday"
and "Things in the Basement."
Maybe you could get
both for a book signing.
So we're going to get started.
Thank you so much
for being here.
And we're going to talk
about these two books.
We have Worm from
legendary children's writer
Jerry Spinelli's new novel
"Dead Wednesday."
Here it is if you
haven't seen it yet.
We'll also meet Milo from
Ben Hartke's graphic novel.
"Things In The Basement."
Worm and Milo have major issues
to worry about, like when Worm
has to ponder how to deal with
the ghost girl who makes herself
a cozy home inside his head.
Milo faces a whole world of
terrors in his new home's
basement. He slowly discovers
things that reside there that
are only steps away
from his bedroom.
Can Milo summon his courage to
go into the creepy basement?
Can Worm find it in him to
follow where the ghost leads and
ignore his family and friends?
So, to get us started, could
you tell us a little bit about
your books and your main
character and what makes them so
brave? If we could
start with Jerry.
>> Jerry Spinelli: Possibly
the most interesting part about
the story is not
the story itself,
but how it how it originated.
And it came by way of
a letter from Texas.
Years ago, a
teacher wrote to me.
Said I teach in a middle
school and we have an
interesting thing every year.
We call it Dead Wednesday.
And it's our attempt to try to
reach kids before they get to
high school. And keep
them on a safe path.
Insulate them from
fatal mistakes.
That can happen so easily.
Two older teenagers.
And so she said they
each kid becomes
each eighth grader.
Becomes for one day,
for one Wednesday
becomes a dead student.
A student who has died
somewhere in the state during
that year. And that
student becomes
the deceased kid.
And so for all intents and
purposes, that day that student
is dead. Puts on a black shirt.
Walks through the hallways.
Sits in classes and
no one speaks to them.
They are totally ignored.
Even the townspeople contribute
and the idea is to make
an impression on them.
And that's about
all the teacher said.
She said, maybe you
could use this someday.
Well, I put that letter away.
And then about five, six, seven
years later, I remembered it.
And I went looking for the
letter and I couldn't find it.
And I cannot find
it to this day.
But I remembered
what I just told you.
And if nothing else, I
recognize a good story when I
see one. And so I just sat down
and cooked up some stuff to go
with it. I had never thought of
myself as a writer of a ghost
story. But here was an
invitation, if there ever was
one. And by the
time I was finished.
Transforming that teacher's
letter into a novel that became
one that I called
Dead Wednesday.
And I have I have the
acknowledgements here.
I guess they're at the end.
Yeah. Thank yous.
I can't.
I most thankfully and
regretfully my deepest
appreciation to the teacher
whose name and letter I've lost.
She planted the seed.
I'm still waiting for
her to discover this book.
[Laughter]
And say, Mr. Spinelli, did
you get a letter from me?
You know, it hasn't happened
yet, but I'm ever hopeful.
In the meantime, that's--
People were always asking.
Where do stories come from?
Well, that's where
this one came from.
>> Rachelle Ashour: Thank you.
I sure hope that this teacher
hears about this.
Maybe everybody
could pass the word
and get back to you about
that. That would really be a--
>> Jerry Spinelli:
Maybe if it becomes a movie.
[Laughter]
People are not impressed
with books until they
become movies, it seems.
>> Rachelle Ashour: And
how about your character
Milo and his bravery?
>> Ben Hatke: Well, that
was a fascinating story.
[Laughing]
I love the idea of books coming
from things, and then we can't
put our finger on where the
original seed is and the letter
has disappeared. I love it.
That is fantastic.
Yeah. Milo, I think a lot
about bravery not being
unafraid, but working on acting
even though you are afraid.
And also taking kindness as
your first reaction to things as
much as you can, even
if they are scary.
So I think that was sort of
like that's at the core of like,
I think what I was doing with
Milo and I also, well, I grew up
in a historic home,
very like an old Victorian
house. And we did have like a
really dark basement with dirt
floor and a little coal
chute that was closed off.
And all this and the
furnace was like crouched in the
back of the basement and would
periodically come on noisily.
And it was a kind
of a spooky space.
And so like a little bit
of that is one of
the germs of the
story and visually.
One of the things that was
a fun challenge in telling
Milo's story was Milo has this
kind of mop of hair that goes
down over his eyes.
And when I was sharing some of
the early work on this book with
other cartoonists, it was Vera
Brosgol who said, you're doing
this and not showing
the character's eyes.
That's amazing. She was
like, that's a challenge.
And I was like, yes!
And I really love trying to get
gestural storytelling down.
So a lot of Milo's
reactions like it's a
little easier when you're
showing full face, but I really
wanted to zero in on how we
communicate body language
when we're afraid.
We're brave.
All of this there. There's
definitely a whole catalog of
gestural storytelling in there.
So that's a bit of what I was
trying to do with my life.
I love the challenge of trying
to do storytelling and bring
emotion into characters that
maybe have as few moving parts
as possible, or maybe like
little bits of challenge, like
one of the creatures that
Milo meets in this
underworld that he travels into
is just an eyeball
with tentacles.
Weepy, just an eyeball
with tentacles.
And again, like, things come
from all bits of your life.
I was somewhere along the
line. When I was growing
up, my parents helped
us with costumes.
They were really big into
supporting us when we had weird
costumes. We did find a big
ball and turn it upside down
inside out. And I
made an eyeball costume
for one Halloween.
>> Rachelle Ashour: I don't know
if you can see it very well.
>> Ben Hatke: Eyeball with
tentacles, I don't know.
But how to tell how a
creature like that is feeling or
what it's thinking with sort of
that minimal amount of
information or...
>> Rachelle Ashour:
And I love how his tears
lead them to a solution
to part of the--
>> Ben Hatke: Oh yes.
And the tears. The tears.
Like the passage is found
through this puddle of tears.
>> Rachelle Ashour:
Misho is always crying.
>> Ben Hatke: Yeah. So that's
kind of a grain of Milo
and his journey.
>> Rachelle Ashour: Yeah.
And so we've already started
talking about where your stories
come from and maybe
talk about your craft.
How is it that you set up?
Do you write every day?
Do you start with an outline?
Ben, why don't you go ahead?
>> Ben Hatke: Boy.
Well, I was really interested
in what your writing day looks
like. I mean, I can definitely
talk about this, but I do want--
I want to hear about
everybody's kind of routine.
I would love that.
But for me, graphic
novels are funny.
Because you're both
writing and drawing.
So I definitely
start with an outline.
I definitely start with a
notebook and a sketchbook.
And in the notebook, I'm doing
a lot of longhand writing
because I like to have a solid
outline before I start drawing
finished pages. If you don't do
that, you can get into, you can
start to look-- because I've
done some prose work as well and
prose work, if you see
something's not working, you can
hit the backspace
button and rewrite it.
And physically, you know,
it can be complicated, but
physically it's not as taxing
as looking at a page and
thinking like, oh, now I like
the way this page looks, and now
I have to pitch it and
go back to this page.
That's not a fun feeling.
So I do like to have
a solid outline.
So the visual development goes
into a sketchbook, writing
development goes into a
notebook until I have kind of a
solid outline and then
start to come together.
The next step.
For for a comic is to thumbnail
the whole thing and make little
scribbly drawings that are
barely legible of the entire
book, with the dialogue
written in on the side.
And then I will...
I used to scan them. Now I just
snap them with my phone and put
them together into a PDF
and they're unreadable.
So I go through those with
my editor and actually just
get on the phone and we do
story time where I will--
But at that point it feels like
the book is essentially done,
like the story has been told.
And, you know, we go back and
I'll fix up the thumbnails.
And then the final step
then is almost feels like
post-production in a movie
where you've shot all the
principal photography, the
thumbnails feel like principal
photography for the film.
And then I really like--
It's a little bit more--
It's a less emotionally fraught
when you're just making--
Making pages feels like just you
already have your map from your
thumbnails, and then you're
just trying to turn those little
thumbnails into nice finished
page artwork that ends up
being the finished product.
>> Rachelle Ashour:
That's fascinating.
>> Jerry Spinelli: I
have to say, I admire
and I'm a little envious
of the linguistic economy
that you can
achieve with pictures.
Sometimes I can tend to
get too wordy sometimes,
as my wife will tell you.
And a picture really is
worth a thousand words.
And I like how you allow
the story to show itself.
Instead of interfering
with a bunch of words.
And and telling us
what we're seeing.
As you know, there's a sacred
saying among writers, which is
show, don't tell.
That means you allow the story
to tell itself, to show itself.
You show what's happening.
You show your
character being sad.
Rather than, say,
Johnny was sad.
And you try to keep
that in mind, and we,
novelist do the best we can.
But they cheat.
[Laughing]
>> Jerry Spinelli:
They just draw pictures.
And so, you know, it takes me a
month to say what he can say
in an hour with
a well drawn picture.
>> Ben Hatke:
I do admire it, though, because
I've been doing more prose work,
and I have found exactly that
where you know, your character
is having is having some kind
of emotion. And I've gotten
so used to be able to just like
with the gestural
work, there's this.
You know, and like I've
gotten my gesture work to the
point where I was like, okay,
in a panel, I can just go...
like that deflated feeling.
And to pull that off in prose
is really tricky.
Really tricky. So...
>> Jerry Spinelli:
Yeah, try it sometime.
[Laughter]
But in terms of getting back
to your question where the
stories come from, I've already
given you a good example.
But other than that,
a story idea, I think of it as a
kind of mosquito that bites you
and you might be bitten by an
idea at any time.
Your first job as a writer.
And this is why I tell young
writers. Your first job has
nothing to do with the keyboard.
Your first job is
to pay attention.
To keep your eyes and ears open.
To pay attention.
It doesn't have to be
to any place exotic.
It can be just behind your back.
Your own backyard,
your own street.
Pay attention.
Your own boring neighbors.
And begin to notice the things
that everybody else is missing.
And that's the beginning
of being a writer.
And you can go from there.
An idea might snap on you.
Just like that.
It might be a recollection
of a chant that you used to say
in the fourth grade during
recess on the playground.
First grade baby.
Second grade cats.
Third grade angels.
Fourth grade rats.
I was shopping around for
my next book idea once
and I recalled that.
And then I repeated
the last line.
Fourth grade rats.
And now, if that's not the title
of a book, I don't know what is.
And so that became a book
that when I wrote in a month.
Stargirl took 32 years.
Now that I was writing it the
whole time.
But it went from everything.
In the 1960s, when I made my
original notes about a kid who
lived underground, like
in a tunnel or a subway.
And it just...
It morphed over the
years into the book
that is now on the
shelves called "Stargirl."
I don't know exactly how that
happened, but it took a third of
a century for the whole
process to be complete.
So each title, each book
has its own foundation
story and its own timing.
And try not to get
too routine about it.
But to let the story--
The story starts as an idea.
And what I like to do...
People say, who
do you write for?
I don't write for anybody.
I write for the story.
I take the idea out to lunch.
I buy it lunch.
We sit down, we have a
conversation.
I start asking it questions.
How do you want me to write you?
How do you feel?
What makes you tick?
And when the story starts
talking back to me, then I know,
I'm on my way.
And as long as I can
satisfy the needs
of the story that
I took to lunch.
Then hopefully
you all will come to read.
>> Rachelle Ashour: Thank you.
We were talking before we came
out, and we were talking about
passions and the
passions we have.
And, you know, so often we tell
our young people to go for your
passion and just go for it.
But what do you do when your
passion turns into your work?
You know, it's what you're
doing every day.
Is it still your passion and
what do you do for fun then
If your passion is your work?
>> Ben Hatke: Hmm?
[Laughing]
I mean... I don't know.
I just feel incredibly
fortunate to be able to have
to be able to use my work as--
Because what you were saying
about keeping your eyes open,
right? Like that really
is the key to
finding stories and
to have that kind of
practice as part of your work
that kind of like that openness,
that it's really a gift to have
somewhere to put all of that.
It's a place to put tragedy
in your life as well.
I've found, like all these
things that are happening in
your life, you have this sort
of like funnel and lens and
there's like an onerous
aspect to it.
It has its difficulties.
But I'm more grateful than
anything else to be able to have
a craft that is so tied into
the act of, like, living
that-- I don't know. I don't
know what else to say about it.
But it is like, you know, there
are physical aspects to it.
Like like I still do most days,
love just the act of sitting
down at a desk and scribbling
in a notebook or drawing.
Right? But there are times
when, like we were talking
about, I see my eldest
daughter go out with her
nature journal, and I think
like she's just running outside
drawing plants and
animals for fun.
And, you know, at the end of
a work day, like, I'll be like,
well, you know, I've drawn
like five pages today,
I don't want to do that.
But I have been but I think
also drawing from like--
I'm really focusing on the
art aspect of storytelling.
But I do think that drawing
from life is what both aspects
as a storyteller,
you're the only thing that you
have is your lived experience.
That's the only real unique
thing you have.
So you do draw from life
in that aspect in that sense.
But also like visually, drawing
from the world around you is
also important. And that's
something that, like my
daughter reminds me to do and
that I have been working,
I think, lately to remind
myself to do. I'm a huge fan of
Leonardo da Vinci and take
a lot of inspiration from his
life, and he was known for
carrying a sketchbook, always on
his belt. And I've
been trying to--
>> Rachelle Ashour: Is
that why you carry one?
>> Ben Hatke: This is
my Leonardo. I designed--
My sister made this.
She's a leather worker.
And originally it
was for a belt, but
I've found that. I like to have
it strapped on, but we
designed this together as a
little outbound sketch kit, and
it has helped me remember to
bring my sketchbook with me
to sit down and sketch
outside when I can.
And it flips open and
you've got just the stuff.
>> Rachelle Ashour:
Oh my gosh. That is so cool.
>> Ben Hatke: And we made
a little Vitruvian Man stamp.
That she stamped onto there.
And it helps me remember to,
you know, to keep a notebook and
to keep a notebook with me
and to in a sense, then you're
always working, right?
You're always
jotting ideas down.
You're always thinking,
I can use this.
And even when monumental life
things are happening, there's a
part of your brain that a
mercenary part of your brain
that is thinking can
use this, you know, like--
>> Rachelle Ashour: Right?
>> Ben Hatke: Yeah. Yeah. Like,
if your nieces or nephews
birthday party goes horribly
wrong and everybody is fighting,
like, that's not a good thing,
but part of you is like, oh,
this is a scene.
So yeah, it does create
a little bit of a mercenary part
of your brain, I think.
But still, I like it.
>> Rachelle Ashour:
That's awesome.
Yeah, I like that sketchbook.
That's a lot better than
sticking a notebook in your
pocket and then forgetting it,
and it goes into the wash.
>> Ben Hatke: And then
it takes the shape of--
It takes the shape of pocket.
>> Rachelle Ashour: Yeah.
That's just not very attractive.
Yeah. So...
>> Ben Hatke: Yes, she has a,
like, a weather working thing.
So if you look her up. Yeah.
>> Rachelle Ashour: Maybe during
the book signing, we could--
>> Ben Hatke: Yeah.
I'll show your--
[Laughing]
>> Jerry Spinelli:
For me, it was,
I'd say part of growing up.
It was learning that executing
your passion does not
necessarily exclude hard work.
I have in high
school jobs carried
100 pound hods of cement on my
shoulder, up rickety ladders.
And that was harder.
That was easier
than dragging a pencil
across a blank sheet of paper.
A half ounce pencil.
To create something
that wasn't there before.
And so I had to come to
terms with the notion.
That this thing that I thought
I wanted to do that seemed
so cool. And, and I could
read other people's books
and they did it. Or I can do it.
And to discover
that it's hard work.
People say, oh, what'd you do?
Sit around today,
get some inspiration.
People tend to think that
you just sit on your
back deck and look at
the inspiring sunset.
And God delivers
the next chapter to you.
Writing a story down that
hasn't existed before.
Not making a copy of something
else, but creating something new
in this world can
be pretty hard stuff.
Maybe it makes it
all the more worth it.
So, as I say,
that's where passion for me met
hard work was in the beginning.
And it can become
especially challenging.
If, as in my case, I wrote four
books over 15 years and nobody
wanted them. I used up all that
passion and hard work and nobody
wanted the result.
The four books. I sent them out
to every publisher.
What do you do then?
I used to visit more schools,
and I would tell kids that would
tell my audience, like in an
auditorium like this, that
story and I would say,
so you want to be a writer
because I had asked them,
who wants to be a writer?
And half the hands went up and
I said, okay, what would you do?
You just wrote four
books over 15 years.
Nobody wants them.
All you've gotten is enough
rejection slips to paper
the walls of this building and
what are you going to do now?
And I'd get different answers.
Become a plumber.
You know, all kinds of answers.
But but here's the
interesting thing.
No matter whether it was the
5000 seat auditorium at the
University of Montana or a
group of kids sitting around
on the floor in a library in
Omaha, the same thing,
sooner or later,
always happened.
Sooner or later, I would pick
on a kid and this would be
my kid. The kid would
often be tentative.
Because all the other
answers were so sure.
But he or she would say,
Write another one.
And I knew I had my kid.
I said, yeah. I said, sometimes
that's what you do.
You do the craziest thing of
all.
You do the thing
that makes no sense.
You just do another one.
And any writer can--
Almost any writer.
Except for maybe Gordon Korman.
Whose teacher in middle
school sent Scholastic
or somebody, something that he
had written and bam, he was
published before he
was out of high school.
I hate him.
[Laughing]
Well, we're good friends.
But with that exception,
most of us have
stories like I do
about the hard times.
And the hard reality of
accepting that if you're going
to go where your passion
is telling you want to go,
it may turn out to
be pretty darn hard.
And it's going to test you and
challenge you, and you're going
to find out if you
really meant it.
When the author came to your
school that day and said,
anybody want to be a writer?
And you raised your hand.
>> Rachelle Ashour:
Thank you.
I think we're getting
time now for questions.
I'm hoping that we have a
lot of questions in here.
Oh, we have one already.
Do we have our mic?
Hold on, just one second.
All the way in front.
>> When is Milo going
to go into the attic?
>> Rachelle Ashour:
I'm sorry. Could you repeat it?
>> When is Milo going
to go into the attic?
>> Rachelle Ashour:
When is Milo going to--
>> Ben Hatke: When is Milo
going to go into the attic?
>> Rachelle Ashour: That's a
good question. I was wondering.
>> Jerry Spinelli:
Good question, kid.
>> Ben Hatke: I have made
notes for an attic story,
so I have a little stack of
notes and artwork for that,
so that is entirely possible.
That would happen.
I'm wondering if
I should tell you
the direction my
notes are going.
The direction my
notes are going is that
Milo does not go into the
attic in the notes that I've
made so far. Because in the
book, Milo goes into the
basement to get the sock
for his twin baby siblings,
Leo and Lucy. So, so far in
those notes that I've made,
it's actually Leo and Lucy
who are a little older and
are sent to the attic.
Yeah. So that's the direction
that story is headed.
And I make no promises because
it's still in the notebook
stage. So we shall see.
>> Jerry Spinelli: If you
have any ideas let him know.
[Laughing]
>> Rachelle Ashour:
Yeah. That sounds great.
Does anyone else have a
question? Oh, we have a--
Somebody right there.
>> What do you imagine yourself
doing if, like you didn't like,
if you never got like your
first book published
or anything?
>> Jerry Spinelli: Yeah.
>> Ben Hatke:
I don't know what I would do.
It's such a--
There are many things that
I wanted to do growing up.
I was very much
into circus skills and
performing. So I grew up doing
a lot of unicycling and juggling
and archery and
things like that.
Very active. I did a lot of
gymnastics growing up,
so very early on I wanted to do
like festival children's shows
and things like this.
For the longest time, I wanted
to be like, like try to have my
job being Indiana Jones, but
just, you know, traveling and
having adventures and also
getting to be like, scholarly
like that was kind of my--
like that was the
character that split the
bookishness with the
outbound adventure for me.
But now I've realized
that, I don't know, it feels
like I've got like, books have
actually been good that way
in that it's the
unexpected thing in--
For me in publishing
was that it's given me
opportunities to go out and
actually giving me opportunities
to travel to places that I
would not otherwise have been
able to travel.
So there has actually even
been an element of that to it.
Completely unexpectedly.
But otherwise
I don't know.
I don't know, it feels like
this is my best place.
I don't know. Yeah.
>> Jerry Spinelli: I'm
certainly happy where I am,
but I had no intention of being
here. When I was this girl's age
I wanted to be a
shortstop for the Phillies.
I wanted to be a major
league ballplayer.
I didn't read.
I'm telling you, kids don't
follow my example.
I have a book called
Maniac Magee, and he carries,
maniac carries a book
everywhere he goes.
He does that because I didn't.
And it was my attempt to try to
make amends and do it right.
The closest I could come was
doing it right in a story.
And so I had him do it.
But I remember when I was
applying to college and
a college said list three novels
that you've written--
three books that you have read.
And I could only list two.
There was a senior
in high school.
I could only list two books
that I had ever read.
I didn't read. I liked to read.
But I didn't spend
any time doing it.
I'd rather play ball.
So this was a happy--
One day I wrote a poem
about a football game
and it was published
in the local paper,
and I started to think of
myself as a writer after that.
>> Do you have any tips for
newer writers for
like dialogue or
just pacing in general?
>> Ben Hatke: Could you repeat?
Just to make sure I get it.
Could you repeat the
question one more time?
>> Do you have any
tips for newer writers
for dialogue or
pacing in general?
>> Rachelle Ashour:
For pacing?
Okay.
>> Jerry Spinelli:
Did you say tips?
Yeah. I have one golden rule.
Because we could sit
up here and give you a
hundred rules and turn
you into a pretzel.
Trying to keep it all straight.
So I boil it down to one
golden rule and I think
everything will fall into
place if you stick by it.
And that is, write
what you care about.
You can actually make a list.
1 to 5 things that you care
about. Because chances are, if
you write what you care about,
you're going to put your best.
Your best stuff is going to
wind up in it.
The commas might be wrong.
But most likely you're
going to put the best of
yourself into that effort
if you care about it.
And you're going to wind
up doing your best work.
>> Rachelle Ashour: Okay.
>> Ben Hatke: I would
just say create every day.
For me, it's writing and
drawing like you get good at
what you do every single day,
and then you don't have to worry
about getting good at it,
because if you actually make the
habit of doing whatever it is,
it doesn't matter the skill.
If you're doing something every
day, you will invariably make
steps forward. And then and
storytelling in general, yeah,
there are so many things you
could say, but just if you're
writing in your notebooks, just
make sure things are happening.
It's really easy
to just try to--
For me, it's really easy to get
stuck in, you know.
Trying to craft the feeling of
this story that you want,
but really like, make sure
things are happening with
characters always.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Rachelle Ashour:
Any other questions?
I think we have one down here.
We have one.
>> How many sketchbooks
have you filled out?
[Laughing]
>> Ben Hatke: I
think I have about
60 or so full ones
on my shelf in my office.
That definitely wouldn't--
That's definitely not my
lifetimes of sketchbooks, but
those are the ones that I
currently have kept and are
on the shelf in the storage,
which I do refer back to
sometimes. I do
actually. With 60,
now it's getting to the point
where I can open them up and be
like, oh, I remember that.
What a weird-- Yeah. Anyway.
>> Do you usually
like go through
one sketch book every book?
>> Ben Hatke: Oh.
No.
>> Ben Hatke: Sometimes
I have a sketchbook
that's dedicated
to a certain book,
but most of the
times I'm really.
I allow anything
into my sketchbooks.
Like, I really think my
idea of sketchbooks and
notebooks are like, they're
there so that you lean
over them and they're there to
catch ideas as they fall out of
your head, and that the
deal is to fill them and not
worry about whether the stuff
is good or bad, or even sticking
to one story. So usually at the
end of a sketchbook, when I get
to the end of it now,
I didn't always do this.
I'm a little more--
I'm slightly more organized,
slightly than I used to be, and
now I tend to put a label on
the front of them when it was
started, when it was finished,
and a couple of the projects
that are mentioned in it.
>> Rachelle Ashour: I was
just going to ask if you
date your notebooks.
>> Ben Hatke: I do now.
>> Rachelle Ashour: You do now.
Okay. Okay.
All right.
>> I'm just interested in
hearing from Jerry
and maybe, Ben,
you might have a
thought on this too.
But certainly, Jerry, since you
started writing, children's
publishing has changed vastly.
And, you know, we just had Ann
Patchett and Kate DiCamillo here
on stage Thursday night.
And Ann was talking about the
writer's job is just to write.
You don't worry about the
selling of the book or
the publicity or the sales
or anything like that.
But children's publishing
has changed so much.
I wonder if for either of
you thinking about who your
audience is and who's actually
going to buy the books is
part of your work? Or do you
just when you're sitting down to
draw or write, are you just
thinking about the story?
>> Jerry Spinelli: I would
say for me, it's decidedly
not part of my process.
That's the one thing I've
adjusted, made necessary
adjustments here
and there to reality.
But I started out.
Those first four books
that nobody wanted.
I was writing them for
what I thought were--
what might be called
target audiences.
I took them out of the
headlines because they were
popular things
that were happening.
And so I tried to ride
the coattails of that stuff.
And finally the first book,
the fifth book that I wrote,
the first one
that got published
was no forethought at all.
I found some half eaten
fried chicken in my refrigerator
when I went to get my lunch
to take to work one day.
And that became the first page
of the book that became
Space Station seventh grade,
my first published book.
I wasn't writing it for
anybody. In fact, I thought
I was writing it for
if anybody for adults.
But it turned out that they
said, this is about
a 13 year old kid. Grown
ups won't read this book.
You just wrote a kids book.
And so I wound up
in the kids world,
and here I am.
But no, I just write
the story as best I can.
And the way I look at it, I
just put the bowl, it becomes a
bowl of milk that I
put out on the porch.
And then I go back in the house
and whoever wants to comes up
and like the neighborhood cats.
Take something from the bowl
and I don't care what age
they are. I just don't get
into the business of it.
I know some of my
books are sold on the
adult shelves of stores and
other bookstores in other
countries which I love.
I love to get mail
from 60 year olds.
>> How old were you when
you started writing?
>> Jerry Spinelli:
I'm sorry. What was that?
>> How old were you
when you started writing?
>> Jerry Spinelli: Oh.
When I wrote that poem about the
football game that was published
in the local newspaper,
I was 16.
Before that, I wanted to
be a baseball player.
After that, I wanted
to be a writer.
>> Ben Hatke: I don't
really remember a time
when I wasn't scribbling down
drawings and writing down ideas.
The question
earlier about what--
One of the things that you
might have wanted to be even
early on, the one job I really
thought would fit me that has
disappeared? Well, it hasn't
disappeared, but I really want
to be a newspaper cartoonist
for the longest time.
Because I grew up-- I loved
Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield,
and I grew up in Indiana.
And Jim Davis, the creator
of Garfield, is from Indiana.
And when I was about 12, I
think I wrote him a letter
and I got very
short response back.
But it mentioned the thing that
was mentioned in my letter,
which was about
Stretch the Chicken,
which was in Garfield
for a hot minute.
Anyway, so and then I
actually like, I thought,
oh, universal syndicates.
I put like comic
strip things out there.
And I'm really, really glad
that wasn't where it ended
up for me. I'm much, much
happier telling diverse,
long form stories
than I would be
on a comic strip for ten years.
But I don't remember-- When
the old Victorian house that
I grew up in.
We've got two minutes.
>> Rachelle Ashour:
Yeah, we got two minutes.
I went back and visited it once,
and they happened to be taking
down the wallpaper in the room
that used to be my little
sister's room, and underneath
the wallpaper they found
drawings that I had drawn on the
walls, which answers the
question why my parents
put the wallpaper up.
So I don't know.
[Laughing]
>> Rachelle Ashour: So you've
been drawing for a very long.
>> Ben Hatke: Pretty long.
They were really--
>> Rachelle Ashour: Yes.
I want to thank everyone
for coming this morning.
I guess it's afternoon now.
We are going to take a bit of a
break, and we hope that you'll
come back over to
where we're going to be.
The mezzanine above the
Great Hall for the book signing.
I hope you'll come back around.
But thank you very much for
joining us for this part of the
Mystery Day at the
Library of Congress.
Thank you.
>> Jerry Spinelli: Thank you.
[Applause]