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Back to Featured Interviews >> MEET ERIN EITTER KONO
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| Erin Eitter Kono |
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was. I’d received a scholarship to study Art and Art History from the University of Iowa. In Art History you learn about how different cultures have expressed themselves throughout time, and how imagery tells stories. I’ve applied those lessons to my books.
How soon after that was your first book published?
After college I wanted to see the world. I got a job at an airline and traveled almost nonstop for about eight years. While I was flying I also went to school for graphic design and started submitting illustrations and stories to publishing houses. After a couple years of ‘good’ rejections (the kind where they write an encouraging note) I signed my first book contract
What really triggers your imagination?
I love to travel. I think best whilst moving and come up with most of my ideas either in a car or on a plane.
Have any of your books earned special recognition?
HULA LULLABY (Little, Brown 2005), won the Children’s Literature Council’s Excellence in a Picture Book Award and was named “Best Lullaby and Goodnight Book” by Nick Jr. Magazine; STAR BABY, by Margaret O’Hair (Clarion 2005) was on the Center for Early Literacy’s ‘Best Books for Babies’ top ten list.
Do you write every day and do you have set hours that you work?
I work weekdays from 9am-3pm and evenings after my three year old goes to bed. If I’m on a deadline I will work through the weekends as well.
When you first started creating books for children, did you always intend to illustrate (and/or wrtie) - and were you successful in getting to do both on your first book? (so often writers or illustrators begin by doing one or the other)
I was extremely fortunate to have been hired almost simultaneously by two publishing houses for my first books. One I wrote and illustrated, HULA LULLABY (Little, Brown 2005), the other I illustrated for another author, NELLIE AND THE BANDIT (FSG 2005)
When you do school visits, what question do children ask you most?
A lot of kids want to know what a publisher is, it’s a very good question, one I think the industry asks itself quite frequently.
What do you most want the students to get out of your school visits?
I want students to understand the importance of perseverance. Nothing is perfect the first time. The creative process consists of trying something, throwing out what doesn’t working, and learning to see what does.