Meet Alphabet Trucks Author Samantha Vamos and Book Giveaway

 

Hello Friends! I am so excited about today’s post– an interview with author Samantha Vamos! Samantha is a former attorney and mom who quit the corporate world to pursue her dream of writing books– and she made it happen! You may know her from some of her other work, including the award winning bilingual book The Cazuela That The Farm Maiden Stirred. 

 Samantha is spilling the good, the challenging and the surprising about being a published author. PLUS… I get to give away her beautiful new book: Alphabet Trucks! Check out the interview and scroll down for the giveaway. I also had the opportunity to interview Alphabet Trucks Illustrator Ryan O’Rourke… you can read it here.

MK: When did you realize you were a writer? 

SV: As a child, I wrote stories and articles (for a newspaper I created), but it wasn’t until college that I realized I was a writer.  

The most critical year for growth of my writing was my senior year in high school. I attended public school (K-12) and looking back, one teacher really helped expand my reach. I had a challenging English teacher, who assigned writing a one-act play, poems (I am an awful poet), short stories, and a political essay along the lines of The Washington Post’s humorist Art Buchwald.  She gave both the play and political essay great marks, and in fact, entered the play into a writing contest, but she never once suggested that I should consider writing. My mother planted the idea years earlier. 

I finally thought of myself as a writer after my freshman year in college. I developed Mononucleosis that summer and whenever I was awake with time to spare, the only thing I wanted to do was write. I had a typewriter on my desk and continued working on a 300-page chapter book I began in high school.

MK: Where does your inspiration come from?

SV: I’m truly not sure I can pinpoint one thing in particular other than a question my mind seems to pose: “What if?”  I’ll think about something and wonder, “What if that scenario was turned on its head?” I find myself doing that pretty regularly and sometimes, the answer I come up with is interesting enough to try writing about it.  

MK: How did you think of the concept for Alphabet Trucks?

SV: A zipper truck was the genesis. I watched a zipper truck move a temporary median from one lane to another in order to accommodate traffic flow. I wrote a rhyme about the truck’s function for my then six-year-old son. 

The initial manuscript I completed featured trucks and truck parts from A to Z. Unfortunately, my agent’s view was that the manuscript wasn’t strong enough. She didn’t like inclusion of the truck parts and thought the strength of the manuscript (and relatedly, its potential for a sale) could be enhanced if I only focused on trucks. I was disappointed by her response (whenever I send something to her, I’m always hoping she’s going to reply that she’s crazy about the manuscript and it requires no further work!), but I began researching and discovered twenty-six different trucks from A to Z.

MK: Is it more fun to write for kids than grown-ups? Why?

SV: I love writing for kids because I feel like anything is possible. They are so open to ideas and they value imagination and fun. At the same time, my experience has been that writing for children is more difficult than writing for adults. A children’s picture book is typically 32 pages in length and the editors I’ve worked with want precision. They examine inclusion of each word. I always tell kids at my school presentations that every word counts in a children’s picture book.  

But, back to the fun and imagination point – one of my favorite writers, Neil Gaiman writes what I think of as children’s stories for adults (and for mature kids). Gaiman’s stories are so well crafted that age doesn’t matter – you’re able to suspend belief and embrace the story. If I could write like that, writing for adults might be a lot more fun! With respect to Gaiman, I’m thinking about “The Graveyard Book” (one of my favorite novels). It’s described as a children’s fantasy and won the Newbery Medal (awarded for “most distinguished” children’s literature), but I think of it as a novel for adults.

MK: What do you think makes a good children’s book?

SV: This answer is probably too short, but what immediately comes to mind is language that informs or moves you in some way – either to laughter (e.g., “A Visitor for Bear” by Bonny Becker), to tears (e.g., “Library Lion” by Michelle Knudsen, which I can’t read aloud without becoming choked up at the end), or simply a different or unusual perspective (e.g., “Dinner at the Panda Palace” by Stephanie Calmenson and “One Hungry Monster” by Susan Heyboer O’Keefe – both authors make counting in rhyme so clever and fun). I focused on language not because I’m a writer, but because for me, the strength of the book has to be words first and art second. There are books with illustrations I adore, but if I don’t also love or really like the text, I don’t find myself returning to read it multiple times. 

MK: What’s the toughest part of the writing process? The most rewarding?

SV: Rejection is the toughest part and it comes on two levels. First, if my agent doesn’t like something, my work essentially goes into a black hole if I can’t improve and alter it. Second, even if my agent approves a manuscript for submission, editors may reject it (and likely will!) I’ve received rejections for manuscripts I absolutely love.  

Thus far, I have never sold a manuscript that has been beloved by all editors to whom it is submitted. That is, even if it sells to one editor, I’ve typically already received rejections from other editors. (Okay, one exception to this statement: I have a fourth book coming out in 2015 and my agent shopped it to only one editor, who bought it, but that was unusual and the reason is – it’s a companion or follow up book to Alphabet Trucks, called Alphabet Trains.)

The most rewarding is two-part: one, seeing the final product, and two, hearing that children and adults like it.

MK: What would people be surprised to learn about what it’s like to be a published author?

SV: Great question. Here’s my top 10.

Top {10} Surprising Things About Being a Published Author

1. I don’t select the illustrator for my manuscripts. I’ve been published by Viking and Charlesbridge and in each case, their respective art directors have identified the illustrator. 

2. I have no contact with the illustrator during the illustration process and it’s essentially an unspoken rule that you don’t bother the illustrator with your ideas.

3. Picture books are considered the hardest genre to sell (because so many picture book manuscripts are submitted, competition can be fierce).

4. Even after becoming published (and with a successful book behind you), it can be difficult to sell another manuscript. 

5. In most cases, today, an author must spend as much time marketing and promoting as writing  manuscripts. 

6. It can take years before a manuscript is published. I sold Alphabet Trucks in 2010 and it didn’t release until August 2013.  

7. Rhyme is difficult to sell. I recognize that this statement sounds crazy because it seems like there are a lot of rhyming books out there, but it’s not easy.

8. You don’t get paid royalties until the advance you receive on your manuscript is “paid back” via sales, and a typical picture book advance is $2,000 – $5,000.

9.  Children’s books don’t necessarily become paperback anymore – sales have to be proven before the publisher publishes a second version. My second book (The Cazuela That The Farm Maiden Stirred) releases in paperback this August and I’m so thrilled and grateful, it’s like a new book is coming out.

10. I still suffer from writer’s block; dark chocolate seems to help.

MK: Does your son know how cool you are?

SV: Ha! My son is 8 years old.  I’m not sure he’s ever referred to me as cool. I’m pretty sure that in his eyes what I’ll call my “Cool Quotient” is a factor of the following: if I make chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast; how often I allow him to watch “American Ninja Warrior” and use technology (specifically, Surface and iPad); riding amusement park rides (he loves roller coasters and wants me to love them, too); and generally saying “yes” more than “no.”

Recently, while with me at a book event for Alphabet Trucks, he was asked about his favorite books. He said that his favorite series was “Geronimo Stilton” and his second favorite books were “the ones my Mom writes.” That melted my heart.

MK: What is your favorite truck in the book?

SV: I have two favorites in terms of function:  the Ore truck and the Zipper truck. Some ore trucks are driverless (called “autonomous”). Most have wheels that are eleven to thirteen feet tall. 

In terms of children’s book illustrations, I have a lot of favorites. Ryan O’Rourke, the illustrator of Alphabet Trucks has a retro style that I think is so charming. He also incorporated lowercase and uppercase letters in each illustration. So, for example, the Ore trucks is full of letter O’s.  I’m really fond of the illustrations for E and F, I (check out the ice cream cone – it’s a lowercase letter “i”) and J, M and N (check out the newswoman’s letter N earring), and Q and R.  The letter Q (for Quint Truck) is way up on a tree branch and being rescued by the Quintuple truck’s fireman. 

MK: What’s up next for you?

SV: Completion of edits for my fourth children’s picture book, Alphabet Trains (Charlesbridge, 2015), the companion book to Alphabet Trucks. I’m really excited about a set and can’t wait to see what Ryan does with this new manuscript. I learned about so many phenomenally cool trains and train trips.  

Revising my adult novel, revising a children’s picture book manuscript (which keeps receiving “promising rejections”), and finishing a middle grade novel I began over fifteen years ago.

MK: Thanks so much for letting me interview you!

And now Samantha and her publisher Charlesbridge are generously giving away a copy of Alphabet Trucks to a lucky reader! 

GOOD LUCK

 Alphabet Trucks Giveaway

 

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