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MEET PATRICIA NEWMAN
by Bonnie O'Brian

What did you most like to do when you were a child?

Patricia Newman

Read, read, read! I still love to read.

What was your first job when you graduated from college?

I taught remedial math to high school students. My students ran the gamut from 8 th to 11 th grades and struggled with elementary school mathematics, such as how to carry when they added or borrow when they subtracted. I had no math book, but was handed a packet of drill-and-practice sheets that covered every conceivable math concept for simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Talk about boring and unfulfilling for both my students and me! I put my imagination to work and added to the mix. We played Jeopardy! using questions and answers that I made up, solved math puzzles, learned simple geometry, learned how to keep a check register, and even tackled simple word problems. By the end of the year, I had written so many curriculum supplements that I could have published my own textbook!

Was your first book accepted immediately or did you experience a number of rejections?

 JINGLE THE BRASS was rejected 16 times before Farrar, Straus & Giroux purchased it. For school visits, I taped all of my rejection letters together end-to-end. I roll them out with a big flourish when students ask me about writing and rejection.

Rejection is part of this business. You can be rejected for a variety of reasons--not just poor writing. A lot of publishing has to do with finding the right fit between editor and author. When my stories are rejected, I take a deep breath, figure out what I can learn from the rejection and begin again. Perseverance is my watchword.

Do you focus on fiction or nonfiction? Which do you prefer? Do you find one easier than the other?

I write both fiction and nonfiction. Although Jingle the Brass is fiction, it is based on fact. I spent many hours in the railroad library at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento to get the details just right!

For me, the seed that starts my wheels spinning determines if my project is going to be fiction or nonfiction. Although I don’t prefer one genre to another, I do find nonfiction easier to write. I find the chronology of history, or the indisputable facts in a scientific piece comforting—they help me give my piece structure and a voice. I usually struggle with voice for longer fiction.

 Do you do other types of writing - for example, educational, nonfiction, magazine work?

My magazine articles have appeared in National Geographic Explorer , AppleSeeds , Storyworks , Spider , Boys’ Quest , Highlights, and AIM Intercultural Magazine . I have also written a nonfiction article entitled “Mainstreaming the Graphic Novel” for the 2007 issue of Children’s Writers and Illustrators Market. My monthly column profiling children’s authors and illustrators has appeared in several regional parenting magazines, and most of the profiles also appear on my website (www.patriciamnewman.com). Recently, I put all of my curriculum experience to work and wrote two short nonfiction books on seasons and playground science for a reading program published by Pearson Learning Group. Many of my articles are also included in the EdGate Total Reader database.

What kinds of things inspire you to write?

I never know what’s going to inspire me. Usually an idea hits when I least expect it. The inspiration for an article I wrote for National Geographic Explorer came from a conversation I had in a hotel laundry room with a complete stranger! The picture book manuscript I’m working on now germinated when a soccer ball got stuck in a tree at my son’s soccer practice.

 What gave you the idea for JINGLE THE BRASS ?

JINGLE THE BRASS is a train book kicked up a notch. A boy takes a rail journey down the main line with the engineer and his fireman using the colorful railroading lingo popular in the age of steam engines. The book starts with the engineer greeting the boy in a diner. "Mornin. I've been waitin' for you. Pull up a stool and put on the nosebag with me while I finish my breakfast. I like my eggs with headlights, but you'd like scrambled. Just order wreck on the mainline.”

I came up with the idea for JINGLE THE BRASS while researching another railroad book idea. I had arranged an interview with a retired Southern Pacific engineer at the California State Railroad Museum. Throughout the interview he used phrases like “mud hop” and “bending the iron.”  I knew kids would love the magical sounds of these phrases, so I put aside my original idea and wrote JTB.

Have any of your books earned special recognition?

 JINGLE THE BRASS is a Junior Library Guild selection.

What do you most want the students to get out of your school visits?

I want children to begin to appreciate the power of words and the fun they can have with language.