author/illustrator interviews

[chat + recipe + giveaway] Lee Wardlaw on My Book of Firsts

~ jama ~ 33 Comments

Today we’re excited to chat with award-winning author, poet and cat-wrangler Lee Wardlaw about My Book of Firsts: Poems Celebrating a Baby’s Milestones (Red Comet Press, 2025), illustrated by Bruno Brogna.

Though this is her first poetry collection, it’s not the first time Lee has visited us. She was one of our Potluck Poets back in 2012, the same year she won the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award for Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku (Henry Holt, 2011). We loved her purrfect “Catku” and the recipe she shared for Kitty Litter Cake. Me-wow!

Because My Book of Firsts is written from a baby’s perspective, the poems are that much more endearing. This emotive hug of a book is a joy to read aloud with its playful, inventive rhymes, lively cadences, and rich vocabulary. Each precious milestone from baby’s first year is cause for wonder and celebration, whether a First Day, First Friend, First Outing, First Word or those magical First Steps — and Brogna’s adorable animal families add just the right touch of charm and tenderness.

With its padded cover and allotted pages for recording your own baby’s milestones, this delightful book is an appealing keepsake for new parents, making it the perfect baby shower or birthday gift that families will be proud to share.

We thank Lee for telling us more about her literary bundle of joy with wonderful personal photos and a yummy recipe. Enjoy!

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[chat + recipe + giveaway] Andrea Potos on Two Emilys

~ jama ~ 29 Comments

We’re happy to welcome Wisconsin poet Andrea Potos back to talk about her recently published chapbook, Two Emilys (Kelsay Books, 2025).

As you may have guessed, the “Emilys” in question are revered literary icons Emily Brontë and Emily Dickinson, contemporaries from opposite sides of the Atlantic who continue to mystify us with their creative genius. Though one was British and the other American, their lives had interesting parallels.

Both were unmarried and largely reclusive. They cherished home as sanctuary, wrote on scraps of paper while cooking and baking, were known for their bread recipes. The Emilys were religious skeptics living within religious families, and fascinatingly enough, they were ultimately Victorian badass writers “masquerading” as domestic spinsters, sublimating their passions and unfulfilled desires into art.

In Two Emilys, we travel with Potos to Haworth and Amherst via evocation, dream, memory, and imagination. She addresses her muses with awe and reverence, while acknowledging a unique kinship as fellow wanderer, keen observer, lover of beauty, and sister poet dedicated to her craft.

Andrea at the Brontë Parsonage, Haworth.

These poems are sheer loveliness to read with moments ethereal, delicate, sometimes humorous, warmed by genuine admiration. We thank Andrea for dropping by to tell us more about the book and for sharing all the wonderful photos + a delicious recipe. 🙂

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[yummy chat + giveaway] Beth Charles on Apple Pie Tired

~ jama ~ 22 Comments

While I enjoy turkey and all the fixings, for me the best part of Thanksgiving is pie. Hello, pumpkin, pecan, and apple — all are favorites and I’m happy to make quick work of them. 🙂 You can see why I’m especially excited to welcome Vermont author Beth Charles to discuss her new picture book, Apple Pie Tired, charmingly illustrated by Hannah Brinson (Sleeping Bear Press, 2024). 

In this scrumptious seasonal story, young Lola and her parents work together to bake hundreds of apple pies to sell at their family farm for Thanksgiving. Though it’s Lola’s plan to make Thanksgiving dinner while her parents make the pies, Mom and Dad need her help with every stage of this big job, leaving her without time or energy to cook. 

Still, Lola is happy to learn about and participate in the pie-making process, from weighing and combining ingredients in a giant mixer, to making top and bottom crusts with the dough presser; to peeling, coring and slicing the apples with another big machine, before finally assembling the pies after adding sugar and spices to the apples. Can you imagine the sweet heavenly aroma of all those pies baking in the oven? Yummmmmm!

Come Thanksgiving morning, Mom and Dad are still baking as customers “bustled in and out” before purchasing five hundred and four pies! Unsurprisingly, Lola and her parents are “apple pie tired” after all that work. What to do when hungry aunts, uncles and cousins arrive for dinner?

Beth knows well the feeling of being ‘apple pie tired,’ since she and her family bake and sell hundreds of pies at their family orchard bakery every Thanksgiving. I was curious to learn about the logistics of such an undertaking and how she went about writing this appeelingly delicious story.

Thanks for dropping by today, Beth, and for making us extra hungry for more more more apple pie!

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[tasty talk + giveaway] Yangsook Choi on Slippery, Spicy, Tingly: A Kimchi Mystery

~ jama ~ 12 Comments

Did you know that November 22 is Kimchi Day? A national holiday in Korea, this chosen date is significant because there are 11 main ingredients in this traditional side dish and 22 health benefits, including vitamins, calcium, probiotics, and a boost to bodily immunity.

What better way to celebrate than by welcoming author-illustrator Yangsook Choi to talk about her latest picture book, Slippery, Spicy, Tingly: A Kimchi Mystery (Carolrhoda Books, 2024)! 🙂

In this tantalizing tale, Keo’s grandmother pays his family a surprise visit. Although she’s supposedly there to make some SPECIAL kimchi and to spend more time with Keo, he suspects Halmoni is up to something else.

It’s easy to see why. It’s not every day one’s grandmother (even a well preserved one) singlehandedly buries a humongous clay jar in the back yard. Keo is sure she must be hiding a secret treasure. After Halmoni recruits Keo and his parents to help turn a hundred heads of cabbage into spicy kimchi, she disappears as suddenly as she had arrived.

Keo waits and waits. When will Halmoni return for her treasure? Finally, she calls to tell them “it’s time” to lift the lid off the jar. Who or what is Halmoni’s true treasure?

This heartwarming, tastebud-tempting intergenerational story is flavored with good measures of humor, suspense, love, and the joy of families working together. Mouths will water at every slippery, spicy, tingly detail, as kids learn about the virtues of patience, living in harmony with nature, and honoring one’s cultural heritage.

Big thanks to Yangsook for dropping by to tell us more about making this book, the “super senior” who inspired it, and the fine art of savoring well seasoned, fiery-hot, naturally fermented kimchi. Hungry yet? 🙂

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[artsy talk] Ashley Wolff on My Towering Tree

~ jama ~ 19 Comments

Happy to welcome back Vermont artist Ashley Wolff to talk about her latest picture book, My Towering Tree, written by Janna Matthies and published by Beach Lane Books (2024).

In Matthies’s lyrical ode to a special tree, a girl appreciates the natural wonders in her own back yard, from squirrel to garden to bee. Beneath the towering tree’s leafy canopy, she can think, breathe, rest, write, reflect, and simply be. She can also remember her dog who’s buried there beneath “a squarish stone,” and joyfully bask in the warm rays of sunshine streaming through the branches.

In my yard’s a towering tree. It reaches high to cover me.

Ashley’s lush, color-saturated gouache and pastel illustrations bring Janna’s spare rhyming text to vivid, glorious life. Her dramatic use of scale in several double page spreads creates a sense of intimacy and introspection, while charming details such as the squirrel stealing a tomato, the girl blissfully reclining in a wheelbarrow, and her endearing notebook doodles keep us turning the pages. The majestic tree, with its thick sturdy trunk, generous branches teeming with wildlife, and foliage rendered in soft, fluid daubs of green is soothing and inviting.

In my yard’s a squeaky squirrel. He zigzags like a tilt-a-whirl and races up the towering tree that reaches high to cover me.

Big thanks to Ashley for dropping by to tell us more about creating the art for this lovely study in meditation and mindfulness, and for sharing so many wonderful reference photos. 🙂

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