The core focus of this podcast episode is an insightful dialogue with Amy Meislin Pollock, the esteemed author of the children's book series featuring the character Jelly Bean.

Throughout our conversation, we delve into the creative journey that inspired the latest installment, "The Still Further Adventures of Jelly Bean."

Amy reflects on her experiences as a children's book author, emphasizing the profound impact of her upbringing and the encouragement of her family on her writing endeavors. Notably, she shares anecdotes about her relationship with her mother-in-law, which ultimately served as a catalyst for her literary aspirations.

Furthermore, we explore the challenges and triumphs she has encountered in the publishing process, along with her commitment to addressing themes relevant to young readers, such as resilience and self-discovery.

Amy reflects on her experiences as a children's book author, emphasizing the profound impact of her upbringing and the encouragement of her family on her writing endeavors. Notably, she shares anecdotes about her relationship with her mother-in-law, which ultimately served as a catalyst for her literary aspirations.

Takeaways:

• The Adventures of Jelly Bean series illustrates the importance of creativity and storytelling in children's literature.
• Amy emphasizes the significance of perseverance in the face of rejection within the publishing industry.
• The character Jelly Bean embodies the values of self-expression and learning from life experiences.
• Amy's journey as an author showcases the impact of supportive relationships on creative endeavors.
• The podcast discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for Amy's renewed focus on writing.
• Amy's experiences highlight the balance between parenting and pursuing a passion for writing.

Links referenced in this episode:

• https://amypollack.com
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-pollack-9b111882/
• https://twitter.com/AdvOfJellyBean
• https://www.facebook.com/Author.AmyMeislinPollack/
• https://www.instagram.com/jellybeanthebookseries/

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Austin McCauley
• Pegasus
• Neil Simon
• ICM

Amy Misland Pollock, the Adventures of Jelly Bean, the Further Adventures of Jellybean and the Still Further Adventures of Jellybean titles are not the most creative.

You've made it fun, there's no doubt about it, and it brings a chuckle.

Thanks Amy for appearing on Children's Book Authors Podcast in the Heart.

Amy has mentioned that she's written a children's book series and today we're going to focus on her latest book, the Still Further Adventures of Jellybean, and I look forward to our conversation.

Amy, before we jump into the details of your book, can you tell us what being a children's book author means to you?

This was something that way back when I was actually in fourth grade myself, I used to be called to the front of the class by my teacher.

I still remember her, Mrs. Trenum.

She was wonderful when she had downtime.

Now this was 62, 63 years ago and I would tell these stories off the top of my head about this little girl named Jellybean.

There's a lot of things I can't do very well, but one thing I'm decent at is making up stories and they would be based on my life with my family, other people, friends and cousins I knew and had been together with.

And then I kind of set it aside for a while.

I had tried increasing the stories, writing more about them, but I was in school, I was working, I was teaching, I got married, I had three kids of my own that I was raising, working.

I subbed for a while when they were small and then I wrote some other kinds of things, songs, articles, so forth.

And then my mother in law blessed memory who had been very critical of me through the years.

It was just her style.

She was good hearted but that was more old fashioned way to be with your daughter in law more why are you doing this?

Why are you wearing that?

So forth.

But when she said to me whatever happened to your children's book?

They were so good.

It was so meaningful because she didn't give compliments especially to me very frequently at all as in ever.

It really made me think I was like maybe I should do something about that.

And I had always kind of wanted to but I never really had the time cause I was also taking more courses at night because I got into being a reading specialist and then a special ed teacher and then I taught writing at became a professor at a university and that it was very time consuming.

I enjoyed it.

But correcting all the papers was took a lot of time, it was labor intensive anyway so I got back to writing that.

And then whoever I read it to seemed to really like them.

It's interesting.

I just have to ask you this.

You did, even though you had a, I don't want to say tumultuous relationship with your mother in law, you obviously shared your stories with her for her to bring it up.

Yes.

Tell us a little bit about that because that obviously meant something to her also.

It seemed to me that she wanted you to be that person.

A children's book author.

Yeah.

That's so interesting.

She must have heard me reading them to a friend or to my kids saying, what do you think?

And I know the other teachers in my school when I was teaching elementary, fourth and fifth grades, they really liked them very much, had me read them to the class and so forth.

So she was one of my listeners and obviously had appreciated them, which was.

Came as a little bit of a surprise to me.

My parents, both long gone, always encouraged me and whatever I wanted to do, decided to do.

And they liked them a lot, but.

Which was wonderful, but it just wasn't as meaningful as it was from someone who was critical about many other things I did or bought or wore and so forth.

I had shown some of it to.

This is a funny story at work sometimes, and I think most people can relate to this, and you're tempted to say to your boss, oh, that's not my job.

That's a common feeling.

What happened?

When we lived in New York City, I was working in advertising for a while.

I was jack of all trades.

My boss had me, I was in production, but he had me do all sorts of things.

He said, here, I need you to take this up to.

It was an ad campaign for New York magazine where different celebrity type people wrote a blurb and it was published for New York magazine.

So right up the street from where my office was, my boss had said, here, I need you to take this up.

It's the copy for Neil Simon.

I need you to take it up to his agent.

And at first I was like, what?

But then I'm like, amy, what are you crazy?

Of course you want to go there and talk to this guy?

And we ended up having this huge conversation, this guy and me.

His name was Al da Silva.

And I said, oh, can I talk to Mr. Simon on the phone?

And he said, okay, what'd you want to ask him?

And I asked him if he would take a look at my writing.

Neil Simon, who said very unenthusiastically, okay.

And then I get off the phone and his agent said to me, why didn't you ask me?

And I'm like, you really want to take a look at my writing?

Really?

He goes, oh, we're always looking for new authors and new playwrights.

And I was like, okay.

So I brought him some of my writing, and he was raving about it, which is so funny because now I'm 73.

At the time, I was 25.

24.

25, Yeah.

It's so funny.

I always remember this.

Of course, he said, your dialogue sparkles, but you haven't had enough experiences yet.

Which is so funny looking back on that now.

And now I understand exactly what he meant by that.

So I had that in mind.

And we were in touch for quite a while.

And he mentored me, always encouraged me.

Some of those stories about Jelly Bean, or were they with Jelly Bean, the base of those stories already Some, yes.

And I just gave him a sampling of things I had written, and he seemed impressed, seemed to like them.

As I said, we stayed in touch for a while.

And then cut to the whole pandemic, which was pretty awful for 99% of people.

But it got me to.

When I go into the schools, I always talk to the students I go into, third, fourth, fifth, then sometimes talk to them about procrastination.

And I always go, anybody here know what that means?

Oh, yes, my mother says I do that.

And that gets a good response.

But the pandemic put an end to my procrastinating.

Because here you were stuck at home.

My kids were grown.

They were out of the house.

And I could either sit down and finish what I had been working on, trying to do my Jelly Bean stories, or go clean out my closets.

And who on earth ever feels like doing that forced me to sit down.

And I had a conversation with a cousin of mine's daughter.

She worked at icm, the creative management, largest one in the country.

Okay.

And she happened to be sitting next to me.

Her name's Arielle.

And she was nice enough to tell me exactly what I needed to get together to send my book a rip, which I've been paying it forward to a lot of other authors.

Okay.

Because first of all, you need a one pager.

I had no idea of that.

This is all brand new to me.

I said, okay, I have something about myself and about my books, but it's a couple of pages.

He said, no, Amy, one page is all they're going to look at online, of course.

Preferably that.

And what else did she tell me?

When you look through Writer's Market, among other things, she Told me you need to find publishers that are interested in new authors, like authors of children's books.

But they're willing to look at someone who's brand new.

Well, before we jump any further, take us back, because I'm curious.

The name Jelly Bean is so much fun.

It brings a smile.

And just so you know, for.

For 30 years I sold jelly beans, so it's interesting.

That's funny.

Yeah.

So we have a little connection there.

But so now I'm really fascinated.

Tell us the inspiration behind your original story and how Jelly Bean came to life.

Now, I started talking about her and her adventures as a mischievous little girl to my classmates in my fourth grade class.

And they all liked them and begged for more.

Now how did I get that particular name?

I can't even tell you.

I get asked that, but I don't even know.

I think it just had popped into my mind, like a lot of stuff does.

Cause I'm kind of on the creative side.

I have a horrible sense of direction.

I'm horrible at cooking and baking and sewing and all the things my mother and grandmother would have loved me to have an interest in.

But, you know, this was the one thing that interested me.

But I can't really say what originated her name, which.

Is there any fascination with jelly beans as a child or.

No, it's just I do jelly beans, but I can't say for I'd be lying if I said there was a distinct connection then I remember.

Right.

Yeah.

So that was funny.

So during the COVID I finished my books.

Now that I had gotten this information from my cousin's daughter, I guess I got maybe 20, 25 rejections, which is fairly commonplace.

And then from Austin McCauley publishers, where I had sent my book one, it was actually book one and book two, but they made me split them.

Cause they were long for children and to 12 year olds, which is what I write for.

And then I got this acceptance.

And I remember talking to my daughter on the phone and I said, is this one of my friends pranking me, do you think?

And she goes, mom, because I reread it a couple hundred more times.

She said, no, that.

That sounds real.

You should get in touch with them.

Before we get into the publish end of it.

That sounds right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then.

And it looks like rapid fire, about six months later, you published your second book.

Yes, I'M always curious, when you got into this whole children's book arena, what did you have in mind?

Have you developed a children's book business plan?

Oh, that's a good question.

I do appearances, so to say, presentations at schools.

I go on podcasts and interviews such as this.

I've been to various libraries and bookstores and for a future plan.

I don't think I'm that organized because I find all this pr, which is wonderful and you need to do it.

And that was a good introduction for me to all that an author needs to do.

I was like, oh my God.

I was under the misimpression that a publisher would do this for you.

They do some, but it's limited and it really sucks your time away from working on like I'm in the middle of my book 4.

And it's frustrating because I don't have enough time to allocate towards it.

But again, that could be my excuse for procrastinating.

And you know what, Amy, how you're describing it, 99% of the children's book authors, including ourselves, because we have two children's book authors in our book series, it's interesting because we run into the same thing.

You're a one person shop and you're trying to do everything.

And whether you're self published or you're independently published or you're traditionally published, publisher for the most part, doesn't do a heck of a lot for you.

They expect you to do all the sales and marketing aspects of it, including run your own social media campaign and all that kind of cool stuff.

Yes,.

Because I noticed you have on your book formats, you're on Amazon, you have a soft cover and a hardcover.

Noticed you don't have an ebook.

So why is that?

Hadn't given it much thought.

You mean where someone can get on their Kindle?

Yeah.

You know what?

I'll tell you a story.

When I first started the podcast show, I was trying to buy the soft cover book from every author that I could possibly purchase.

And in today's world with Amazon, it doesn't matter where you live in the world, generally, the book shows up the next day.

And I was thinking, that's pretty incredible that you know what?

Amy can be wherever she is in the United States, I can order the book and the next day it shows up at my front door.

And I thought, wow.

But my wife said to me, rick, where are you going to put all these things?

Because now I'm up to over a hundred children's book authors.

So I thought Oh, I better start purchasing.

I want to support the author, so at least I'll purchase the ebook.

And so that's what I've been doing.

And I've noticed most people use their ebook as like a calling card.

I was just curious on why you didn't have an ebook.

No good reason.

I really should when I go to publish my book.

Four, I did my book three with Pegasus.

I guess you see that there.

Yes.

And that had its ups and downs.

I'm happy they accepted me.

But it had issues such as you were.

There were issues there such as you were just describing.

Do you use ingramsparks for the other online retailers?

Because I think you're available in Barnes and Noble and Walmart.

I am, but I should use those two.

Okay.

And who are you using to get your books to Barnes and Noble and Walmart?

Oh, the publisher did that.

They did do that for me.

Yeah.

They're out of London, but they put it in a few places.

Oh, gee.

I know.

I. I need to do more when I finish my book.

Four, let's talk about your publishing because I'm curious from that end of it.

So talk to us about Austin McCauley.

What kind of publisher are they?

I think they're believe they're worldwide.

I'm not looking at a copy of my book this minute, but they're out of London.

Okay.

And as I said, I'm always grateful because they discovered me.

They are a traditional children's book publisher.

They make you pay half of the publishing and they pay the other half.

For the most part.

I was really just grateful that they discovered me.

And it does take a while frustrating.

But aside from that.

And it took them a while to get me my royalties to be.

And you said you pivoted for your third book to Pegasus.

Why did you make that change?

And was it easy?

Once you're published, then I think you have an easier time.

They were.

Oh, boy.

I don't know if I should really go into it.

Good.

In a lot of ways, but so you can.

You know what?

If you just want to share the biggest challenge or the frustration that you had enrolled, that's fine.

Okay.

I would say.

And if I were advising young authors, it's up to you as the author to go over your material really carefully because there's a lot of back and forth.

My books are kind of long, so this took a while, but I needed it.

If not absolutely perfect, that's what I was shooting for.

At least have most of the kinks ironed out.

Such as if I didn't want a comma somewhere.

I don't know why their editors would put it in.

I can't answer these questions.

Some of them are good.

Some others I would send.

And then it's a whole process.

They'll send it back and it's going to take a while, which is irritating, but what can you do?

It's another British company, so they would put in British isms like Mum instead of Mom.

Well, my book's American, so I use Mom.

I wouldn't switch to mom just.

Just out of the bl.

I would have no reason and no desire to do that.

So that was another glitch.

And if.

I'm not sure what happens with some of these editors, I think they're trying to do their job and figure out things.

But sometimes they would change a word or put something in italics that had no business being in italics.

And then the company.

Companies from my experience will give you a.

What do you call it?

Production coordinator.

Okay.

And sometimes that person would leave but they didn't tell me, so I wouldn't hear back from them for a while.

And then there's always some sort of holiday or something coming down the pike now.

So you switch to Pegasus.

Are they American based?

No, they're also British.

Oh, they're also British.

Okay.

I want to finish my book for and then see where I can get it taken.

Accepted.

Right.

On your illustrations for the front of your book.

So talk to us.

Oh, I didn't do them.

You didn't do them.

Did you have any direction in how they would look or how did that.

Yes.

So you go back and forth.

So this is another time consuming aspect.

But I love how they eventually came out.

But originally I was not crazy about them and since I can't draw at all, I had to keep describing what I wanted to be done differently.

Yes.

And finally I feel like they did get it.

And for my book three, I have this wonderful person, she's in Florida, who did my website for me and she's just so talented.

Plus gets things in for me in a timely manner.

And I highly recommend her.

So I asked her to help me work on the COVID because I wasn't thrilled with what they.

They were sending you had come up with.

That's the thing.

If you can't draw but you have in mind what you wanted.

It's a little tricky, but she's got me so.

Excellent.

Yeah.

And that's why I always talk about your illustrator.

Because generally I find that most children's book authors, when they find A good illustrator, they hang on to them like gold.

Oh, my God, you're just so lucky when that happens.

Yeah.

Because you know what?

Like you said, Amy, when they get you, that makes you feel so much better.

Are you an author as well?

Yeah.

Yes.

Written 38 stories with my five grandchildren.

Oh.

So with my oldest granddaughter, we started a book series called the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

And then from there we wrote another one called Hijinks from the Big Head Folk Music Festival.

And that was co authored with my oldest granddaughter and my middle granddaughter.

They were like 7 and 7 and 8 when we wrote the stories.

And the beautiful thing about it, they were all based on a nugget of truth.

When you talk about an illustrator.

Luckily, every time we went on an adventure, and all these adventures take place in the Rocky Mountains.

Every time we go and have an adventure nowadays, you've got your smartphone or your iPhone.

So I would always take four to six pictures for our adventure.

And luckily for me, I sent our illustrator is in England, and believe it or not, he'd never been to the Rocky Mountains.

And I sent him the pictures and he did a phenomenal job because he used the pictures as inspiration.

The beautiful thing is too, because our children's books are only seven hundred to a thousand words, he would actually read the story to get the sense of the.

What was going on, so.

Oh, that was good.

Yeah.

Made for a big difference.

Are you from Canada?

I am.

And so all our.

Our adventures take.

I don't know if you've been up to Canada and been to this Banff national park area.

I loved it.

I had an.

From Calgary.

Oh, nice.

So you know all about the Banff national park area.

I was very close with her and she just passed away recently, but.

Oh, sorry.

The area is beautiful.

And that's where all our adventures took place, you know.

Wow.

It was.

It's been fun.

And the oldest folk music festival in Alberta is in Canmore.

And our fictional town is called Big Head because in Gaelic, which is Scottish, Canmore translates literally to Big Head, and it's after a Scottish king.

Interesting.

That's how we came up with our fictional town of Big Head.

And you talked about the.

This, your website development and your.

The person being in Florida.

But I'm curious, did your website, like, how did your website work for you?

Did you start developing your website in advance of your book first book coming out, or was it a journey?

Oh, definitely after.

As I said, this was all brand new to me.

Now what happened was when I went to this event.

This woman asked me, I guess I got her through an interview to come to this Oscar watch party in la.

Oh, there are gonna be a lot of people there for you to meet.

And your stories would make a great series, TV series and all this.

You have to be careful.

There's a lot of scams out there.

But my husband and I did go, and this person who got me to go, most of them just want money.

Surprise.

But it was interesting.

I don't think I would do it again because it didn't really do anything for me.

But in advance of going, this person, she said, you have to send me, which was good, your brand and your website.

Send me your website.

Send me your cards and anything else you have for your brand.

I had nothing.

This is how I got to the person that did my covers, which was.

Or at least the one who helped me out a lot with the covers.

And I would ask her to cover.

Yes.

I would ask her to help me with illustrations on my next book, because I know.

I think my books could use some.

Anyway, I said, I need all this and I need it yesterday to.

To send out there in advance of going to this boondoggle thing in la.

And she's, no, I can do that for you.

I was like, really?

And she was great.

Of course I paid her.

And she got my cards made up.

I think I have one with me.

And she also did some T shirts which had jelly bean.

And the picture of her on there.

That's cool.

Based on a picture of my daughter.

Yeah, your dad.

And so let's see, what else did she do for me?

So that was a brand and that's how those got developed.

And she sent them all ahead of us to la, which was great.

To the hotel.

Nice.

So that worked out really pretty well.

And I think I sold some books while I was there, but nothing more happened.

You had to get all dressed up.

Like, they sent someone up to do my makeup, which is funny, because usually, like a planer type of person.

So that was fun.

And someone thought my husband, because he had to bring a tux, was a producer or a director, which was like, very funny.

He's a lawyer.

But anyway, so they kept asking him what company he was with.

So that was funny.

I love it.

Yeah, I know.

It was fun.

And we stayed in touch for a while.

And then some other things happened, but you have to be aware of those.

You get a lot of phone calls, which.

My PR guy, the person that gets me these interviews, such as the one with yourself.

Yeah, he I'll always send him, is this legitimate?

And he'll be no, you can tell.

Or if you want to call such and such, ask if they want your money in advance.

And all this.

That's how that happened for sure.

Interesting.

How far were you into the number of books you published?

So what book were you on when you finally developed your author website?

Okay, so that was just after my books one and two, and I was in the middle of working on my book three, so just brought a lot of books with me and tell us.

The name of your website.

Okay, so it's amypolic.

Com.

We'll definitely put everything in the show notes.

I just wanted to share your website with everyone.

Oh, thanks.

No problem at all.

Once you got into your website development, and it seems to me you've developed this pretty good relationship with the person doing your website, do they keep it up to date for you?

Yes, and we communicate back and forth.

I happily pay her.

She's not exorbitant.

She's in Florida and we're there sometimes.

Okay.

But I don't need to see her face to face.

You bet.

I think that's the same for most of us.

Example, our website developer and the person that keeps our website up to date is in Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada.

We're thousands of kilometers away from them.

You know, I think that's the same for all of us is that generally the people we use aren't next door in the next building or anything.

Luckily, you don't have to be tied to that.

And Amy showing us her, she's got a.

A QR code on the front business card, which is cool, because you know what, Amy, We've done exactly the same thing.

We've got a QR code on the front of ours, and just on the back of our business card, we actually have title of our books.

Oh, very good.

Yeah, that is so cool.

But the nice thing about the QR code is when you scan it, it takes you right to our latest podcast episode.

So that's fun.

It's great.

Yeah.

Mine are Gmail.

Hi.

What do you call it?

Is gmail.com.

Okay.

And so with your.

I noticed you, you have LinkedIn or X.

You also have Facebook and Instagram.

Talk to us.

When people go to your website and they click on that, your social media links, talk to us about how you're using social media to promote your books.

If you have an event coming up or if I get the.

The tape of this conversation, I can post it up there.

But I ask this person who does my website.

I ask her to do that for me.

Posting or events that are coming up.

And then I have someone who's.

I have my author site.

Okay.

On Facebook as well as my regular site for fun communication with friends, et cetera.

Do you bet.

So both.

So I put on both sites that I was going to be at the Morris County Author's Day, which was at the Morris County Library, which was nice.

You know, you talked about your mother in law, you talked about your daughter.

But I, I want to dig a little deeper.

Was there a specific person or event that motivated you to come up with the character Jellevine and write that your children's book series?

My parents always encouraged me a lot and they always believed in my writing.

And they did, they did always encourage me, I can't say.

And I think they always liked the name.

But yeah, it is funny thinking back on it because I was so blessed to have the family that I did.

When you're growing up, sometimes you kind of take your parents and your family for granted.

That can happen.

But if I would go over someone else's house sometimes, I would see some parents were fine, we're great.

And others, oh my goodness, just didn't seem that interested in it.

Maybe they just had their own problems.

You come to see later in life what was probably the case.

Some were just cranky and crabby and didn't seem to really care that much.

Or some, some had different attitudes towards their kids or were more critical or just didn't have a good relationship.

And that's.

Where do you think you get your materials for writing?

It's nice to have parents that encourage you to do.

I think my dad had me believing I could be almost an astronaut, but I'm being a little facetious, but I was just so lucky with that.

And his, the father.

In my books, Jelly Bean's father is loosely based on him, but in a lot of ways because he was a great guy.

Jolly being based loosely on your daughter?

Yes, She's a combination, I have to say.

Me, my daughter, some of my granddaughters, because I do have seven grandchildren.

Wow.

I thought five was pretty good.

Yeah.

Five girls, two boys, five granddaughters.

And in fact, I'll just tell you what, I do get some good ideas from them.

But originally Jelly Bean was based on my husband's cousin who I always had a good rapport with, even though when we met she was.

I'm 16 years older, she was four and I'm 20 because we're just getting married and she has three older brothers.

And I'm the oldest of the kids in my family growing up.

So I thought, God, that would be interesting.

And I would be there and observe.

But my one granddaughter, my oldest one, during COVID she would have a lot of very helpful, like, why don't you try this?

Why don't you take everything.

But in my book four, I have, if you remember, if you read my book one, there's a little boy who saved her dog, rescued her, Jelly Bean's dog, anyway, and she's very close with her dog, which I didn't grow up with dogs, but we had them for my kids.

I was thinking of having this little boy, that Jelly Bean.

She becomes a champion for the underdog, so to say.

I was thinking of having him want to become a girl.

But I did go to speak to Judy Blume, who encouraged me a lot in that.

Cause I've been compared to her and I thought, wow, I'd love to go meet her.

So we did.

We went to Key west and I was lucky enough to meet her and talk to her.

Cool.

She encouraged me to do that.

But just from the point of view of having it be salable, I thought, let me see what else I can come up with.

Because my book is for 8 to 12 year olds, so.

Right.

Might have been a little bit.

So the base of the character, Jelly Bean started with your cousin, and then my husband's cousin.

And then you started to throw in the characteristics of your daughter and.

Yes, definitely.

And grow from that and.

And did you tell your daughter that was happening or did it come as a surprise?

Or did your daughter read your books and go, oh, characteristics that sound like me?

Oh, the latter.

Yes, the latter.

Okay.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

I think she knows that it's based a little bit on her.

And I have two older boys, so they're been there.

And my husband's cousins, the three boys that are older than Carol, his cousin, they kind of enter in a little loosely, for sure.

When I talk to children's book authors, including ourselves, our original book, if you notice, caboose is spelled with a K. Yes.

And the reason we did that is my granddaughter, her name is Kira.

And of course her first name starts with a kid and so Boos represents Kira.

And then actually in our second book, it's Bailey the Beaver that's on the front cover.

Actually, my middle granddaughter's name is Bailey.

All of our grandchildren have snuck in.

To the stories I do that.

I know what you mean.

I have for the new baby, which her aunt has in book three.

I have her and I have a Sydney.

So I have her name, Sydney.

And then Jelly Bean's friend, one of her friends is named Zoe, and my granddaughter Zoe, so.

Oh, cool.

Yeah.

It's fun having their names in there.

I'm curious about.

Have you intertwined a theme throughout the three books?

Yes.

And it wasn't intentional.

Like, when I read my reviews from.

My PR person had told me, you should send.

You don't have to have them published if you don't like the results, to get recommendations.

And when they wrote up reviews, you're supposed to send them, which you probably know, to Kirkus and Us Review.

But happily, I got these glowing reviews, which I was more than thrilled about.

Had them published, of course, and it was a nice surprise.

And they called in some of them Jelly Bean a role model.

And I was like, wow.

I hadn't originally thought about that at all, but I'm like, okay, I'll try.

Yeah.

Because to me, she's all right.

I guess so.

And also, being compared to Judy Blume was nice, needless to say.

And she's a role model.

My characters tell me what they want me to do.

I'm not great at outlining, even though I always taught that to my students, needless to say.

But I'll write it out, but I don't necessarily follow it if something else, a different path comes along.

Okay.

Yeah.

So she became the combination of things.

Maybe I would have done differently with my kids.

Maybe.

I'm not sure.

I can't say that for sure.

Maybe would have let them quit things if they didn't like them.

I always made them.

If they signed up for a sport, they had to finish it.

At least through that season.

I don't know.

Was there a central lesson or teaching that you've tried to intertwine with the three books, or are they separate lessons?

Mostly it's learning how important it is to.

Learning to think for yourself.

Now, Jolly Bean will sometimes get in trouble because as I'll say to my daughter and my other kids, life is trial and error.

Really is.

So she.

Does you always hope from having raised kids that your kids don't make a really bad mistake, but.

And you, of course, try to guide them.

But I think if you can help guide your kids to learning to think for themselves and make good decisions, that's the underlying theme, mainly in all of them.

I'll see if that continues.

I'm curious, with your teaching background, probably I'm going to say 30 or 40% of the children's book authors I Talk to are either currently in the teaching profession or retired teachers.

Noticed lately the ones that are still active and a few that aren't have been developing curriculums to go with their books.

Have you done that?

I haven't.

I certainly could.

The only reason I bring it up is I noticed that a lot of children's book authors want to get their books into schools.

Oh.

I find that giving a supporting curriculum tends to be that one up edge to do that.

I see what you're saying.

Yeah.

No, that it hasn't ever been my main focus, but I certainly could.

And she has her ups and downs.

This is a pretty important trend that just about every kid goes through is popularity and what she is or isn't willing to do to go along with the main crowd.

Most popular kids, let's say.

And she really does think for herself and doesn't always go along.

And sometimes she'll come out with comments that someone else wouldn't because she kind of says what she's feeling.

Okay.

And if you've read them, that she has a friend that her parents don't approve of.

And that's really tricky.

And I try to show what's going on in my book from being a grandmother now, but from every generation, which is a lot of what appeals to people.

Because when the mom is mad at her sometimes for doing something or not doing something, the grandma will.

She has a different perspective, of course, from having been around longer.

And she kind of knows what's important, what's not as important.

And the grandma will stick up for Jelly Bean a lot.

And she lived in her room for a while.

As you can read, I think all.

Of us, or at least I know with my mom's mother, I had a very unique relationship.

She was an incredible woman, ahead of her time.

And there always seems to be that special bond between the grandchild and the grandmother.

I don't.

I don't.

I don't know what that is, but it's there for sure.

Yeah.

It's so lucky because when the grandma had to come live in her room when she was widowed, it happened with my sister.

And if I mention a lot of people tell me that has been the case with them.

And at first my sister kind of minded, but then she didn't because usually, and this happens with Jelly Bean and then she moves out when I don't want to do a lot of spoiler alerts, but the grandma gets remarried.

And usually as grandparents you have some more time than you did when you were a parent.

Parents are really busy People, I have.

To agree with you.

I noticed that in my life because I had a lot more holidays built up over the years in my career.

And of course, we had more money and all of that kind of good stuff.

The Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear was all about my first five years or first 10 years with my granddaughter.

The first five, she was the only grandchild and then.

And then the other four came in rapid succession.

But so for a long time she was the only one and we just had a great time because I was at that perfect age and she was at that perfect age.

It's so lucky when the stars align, isn't it?

Yeah, I know.

Because my daughter said to me, you never played on the floor with us like that.

I said, you're right.

I was making a meal or driving someone somewhere.

Working.

Yeah, yeah.

Trying to put food on the table.

And.

Yeah, a little different.

We know you're working on your fourth book.

I'm curious about your writing process.

Can you share some insights to development of your characters and your writing process when you're.

When you're working on your book?

I've read so much about that and I try to follow whatever I can, but I find that when I sit down to write, sometimes my outline and other background info goes out the window a little bit.

Which when I was teaching writing, it's more do as I say, not as I do, because I think outlines and then putting down your background about each character is really.

I do it to a certain degree, but I do have a lot in my head.

Head.

Okay.

Which it's not so wonderful.

And are you drawing on your own personal experiences?

Oh, yes, for sure.

Because there sounds like a lot of your family members have snuck their way or their characteristics or character.

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Like Uncle Jack.

He was my Uncle Joey.

And certain things happen there.

And certain things, like writing is so therapeutic.

And I had certain things happen as a.

As they might have been or I wish they had happened, which is really great because if you're writing fiction, you're so lucky that you can imagine.

And what I found a lot of people.

I think somebody could actually write a book on people writing a book to get them through Covid, because I've talked to so many children's book authors and authors who actually finally got off their tush and wrote a book because of COVID If there was anything positive, I bet you there's tens of thousands of books that were written because that's how people used their time to get through Covid.

Oh, Definitely.

And it's so funny because when people say, where do you get your ideas?

And what's the.

That's easy.

That's the easy part.

Your ideas.

Keep your eyes and ears open.

They're all over the place.

Scratch the surface of anybody.

But to me, the hardest thing is what you said.

Getting of sitting yourself down and actually writing.

You'll be thinking, oh, I want to do this, and I have this.

Actually doing it.

To me, that's the hardest part.

And then I'm going to draw you forward to your third book.

I'm curious about what you had envisioned as success for your first book and what success turned out to be as you now have got your third book published.

Talk to us about that.

I think at first I was just hoping to have a legitimate publisher want to publish them.

It was one book, but they needed me to split it in two.

For this age group, you know, you can have a big, thick book that's not going to sell as well.

So that was my first goal.

And then I just wanted to go on because so many people said, are you going to write some more?

Are you going to have another?

But everyone likes a series.

And then I get asked, will I make her older?

I will.

So far, for middle grade, it's called Ages Preteen.

I have no cursing, nothing sexual in there, maybe opaquely going on, but nothing graphic at all whatsoever.

Because that wouldn't work for these ages.

But in the future, I might segue to that.

I'll say when she starts getting a.

Little older, for sure.

Winnie the pooh just turned 100.

Winnie the Pooh doesn't look a hundred.

That's so funny.

Yeah.

You're going to laugh because the aunt I was telling you about and uncle, and we were very close, and they got me.

And it's so nice because I have the inscription.

They got me the Winnie the Pooh books for my fifth birthday.

Oh, nice.

Wow.

So he's loved them.

Love those books.

That's terrific.

They're fabulous.

Yeah.

I know Jelly Bean goes back a lot further, but to have the actual publications here, four books in four years, that's pretty aggressive.

So talk to us about the role of writing in your Life.

What are you doing with writing in your life?

How.

How does it work out?

Yeah, so that's the most thing aside from being with my kids and my grandchildren and walking, getting my exercise and doing interesting things with friends and having some fun.

It is my most looked forward to pastime occupation.

I'd rather do that than much else.

So do you draw from.

Do you set aside a specific time or is it more inspirational throughout the day?

Yeah, I wish I could say I set aside a certain time.

I'm so bad with that.

It's always my New Year's resolution to do better with that.

I have another writer friend and she's so great and she's so organized and I feel like it's just not me.

I certainly did when I was working and I had mountains of papers to correct because I didn't have a choice, but I should set aside that.

That same type of time either in the morning, obviously.

Four books in four years, that says a lot.

Yeah, thanks.

But at the same point, I don't want to rest on my laurels.

I feel like sometimes I do that when people say things to me such as that and I'm like, I don't want that to be the end of it all.

I have to keep going.

Even if it's being a writer yourself.

Sometimes what you're writing, you read it afterwards and you're like, this is junk.

But it's still a beginning.

Even if you toss it all out because I go over my things, all good writing is rewriting.

I couldn't agree with you more.

This morning I spent a little bit of time rewriting, so I know exactly what you're saying.

Advice for aspiring authors.

What kind of advice would you give to someone just starting out?

I would say, as my littlest 13 year old told me, we were babysitting all last week when the parents were away, about what the teacher said to them in the class, because they're waiting for the.

They're waiting for the caterpillars to become butterflies.

Okay.

And the 10 applicable, the teacher said, you have to have patience.

Tell that to a three year old.

It's a little tough concept, but I would say that did okay.

And then in one of my books, Positive Quotations, what Kirk Douglass once said, give yourself a pat on the back.

A pat on the back, A pat on the back.

And you have to really, even if you're frustrated and you're thinking, I don't know, I can't, I'm terrible.

My writing is just not good, going well and We've all had those feelings.

Most writers are known for that.

And from a family of writers, my dad did all kinds of other things and he pitched for his college team and he.

Successful in his career, died young, sadly.

But.

And my brother would say to him, Cause he had a job copywriting actually for Disney.

My brother, of course.

And he would, yeah, it was.

He just retired.

But back in the day, when he would be having trouble with a writing assignment, my father would say, just move your hand across the page.

And I often think about that.

Just even if you're.

And I've told my students that I can't do this.

Well, I.

Cause I did special ed and that's a whole nother bag of worms.

But even if you're writing, I, I, I, something will come.

It will.

Absolutely.

So what keeps you going as a children's book author?

I guess just because I love my characters and I'm kind of in their heads and I just want to kind of see what happens with Jelly Bean because she usually tells me what she wants me to do.

And as I was saying to you before, when I was thinking of what she was going to do with this kid that gets bullied, which is a very big topic, as you, I'm sure, obviously.

Absolutely.

And, And I couldn't think what to do.

And I was really kind of stuck for a while and I didn't really want him to.

Transgender.

I thought about it, but.

And I talked to Judy Blum about that, but was on the fence real about doing that.

And then my 8 year old, the little 3 year old sister, said to me, have him learn karate.

And I'm like, yes, perfect.

Because that at least will let him fight back.

So that's what.

And I said to her, wow, I'm gonna put you in, Zoe.

I'm gonna put you in my acknowledgments.

And she's, grandma, don't do that.

I don't want.

I go, why?

She said, I don't wanna be famous.

Okay.

I love it.

Yeah, they come out with these things.

I know a lot of women.

It's beautiful.

Amy.

Encouragement for readers.

Why should children's book readers purchase your books?

So what I think is that if you're an adult or a caregiver reading it to a child, it gives you a lot of places to explain, like when your kids will go, oh, what does that mean?

Or broach topics that aren't really easy to talk about.

Why didn't her parents, why didn't her mom want to accept this as her best Friend.

And you can get into that.

There are reasons.

But Jelly Bean is upset and disappointed about that.

And all kids, whether your parent doesn't like a friend, a boyfriend, something you're doing, it's like a great springboard, a jumping off point to talk to.

I love that.

Because you know what we don't give children enough credit for when as my grandchildren get older, I think back to when I was that age and you know what?

It was different.

Was different.

But it's the same because you know what?

I can think about what I was thinking about at that age.

So you know what?

We.

I just don't think we give children or young adults.

So true.

Yeah.

When I was having communication problems with one of my sons and they wouldn't listen and oh my God, we were always at odds and I read a lot of books about it because I could either go to some high priced shrink or see what I could glean from some of the books.

There was no online at that time.

And I found one because on my Website I have 15 tips for raising successful children just based on mostly my own experiences and teaching.

Because you really get to observe a lot.

Yes, you really can help.

Oh my God, you learn so much from your students.

The child's the father of the man.

And I really believe that one of the books which was by two authors, Lott and Nelson, L O T T and giving them a plug cause they helped me so much and it had ways to improve your communicating style.

And I don't know about you, but for me growing up and I had again, I had wonderful parents, but what did my mom do if she was frustrated with us?

You're so irresponsible.

I can't believe you would do that.

Why blah blah blah.

In this book it taught me to say to him, what are you thinking?

And can we talk about this now or could we talk about this?

You tell me another time.

And it went on from there.

And how sometimes you have to be.

If you turn around the word letters in silent or change them up, you get listen.

And you do have to do a lot of listening, which is very hard.

And I think as grandparents you end up taking on that role as a listener.

Yes.

Yeah, it's interesting.

Final thoughts.

Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you'd like to share with the audience?

Trying to think.

I hope people read my books.

I hope they like them.

I'm always interested in comments.

And you'll never forget the name Jellybean.

Yeah, true.

That's so funny.

But you know what, you can order them online and from the publishers and so forth.

And you could always write a nice comment if you want, if you're thinking of it on Amazon.

For me, one thing I was going to tell you when you said about how do you encourage young authors?

Okay, this taught me a lot once when I was teaching sixth grade, and I get a lot of my ideas, a lot aren't original, but get ideas from different teachers and from people and from others.

And one had told me, ask for evaluations from your students, which you have to be pretty brave because God knows what they're going to come up with.

Good, bad and indifferent.

Yeah, out of the models of babes.

Oh, exactly.

Yes.

So, anyway, so I decided to do that.

And in this one sixth grade class, I said, your grades are in.

I did recognize all the handwriting, but that's besides the point.

But I said, I'm not going to change your grades, but I want you to write what you thought of.

I would do it weekly.

And I think this was the end of the year.

I'm not sure exactly when.

This was a while ago.

So this really taught me about taking criticism, which is really important.

Sometimes you bridle and you're like, what?

They just didn't understand.

My.

It's a good idea to take various criticisms if it's offered, hopefully in a constructive way.

But anyway, I got a lot of nice, I loved your class, blah, blah, so forth.

It's not as meaningful as the one girl who wrote Mrs. Pollock goes on and on.

Wow, that taught me a ton.

Because I was like, you don't want to look at yourself that way.

And I'm like, you know what?

She's right.

I may think I have the most wonderful things to say, but you have to be careful how you present your material.

Amy, thank you very much for being a guest on the children's book authors podcast, Adventures in the Heart.

Your generosity of time and your insights.

Wow.

Will significantly benefit aspiring authors and readers.

We promise to provide our audience with links to Amy's social media, her website, and her books.

And if you've enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button to listen to future episodes and feel free to share this episode with anyone inspired by or who enjoys hearing about Amy and her children's book series, the Adventures of Jellybean.

Thanks, Amy.

Oh, Rick, thank you so much.