Teach Kids to Write for Writing's Sake: Author to Teacher with Gaia Cornwall

In this Author to Teacher Episode: Conversations with published authors about writing, teaching, and how we can support our students, Martha interviews author and illustrator Gaia Cornwall. Gaia's books include Jabari Jumps, Jabari Tries, and The Best Bed for Me.

Gaia shares about her experience as an author illustrator, the journey to becoming an illustrator and eventually an author, and encourages future writers to write without worrying if it's good or bad. This conversation will inspire teachers to look for the talents our children have and encourage them to never give up.

If you're a teacher who teaches writing, or really any subject, this is a helpful, insightful, and important listen filled with interesting, real life anecdotes and useable advice you can apply to your classroom today.

Listen along and learn how we can help our students find their passion and voice as writers.

Transcript

Martha Moore:

Hi, I'm Martha from Primary (Paradise) Teaching, and this is Author to Teacher, conversations with published authors about writing, teaching, and how we can support our students. During each episode, I'll chat with some amazing authors about their experiences as students, their journeys as writers and their insights into teaching and learning from their unique perspectives. My hope is that these conversations will give teachers usable insight into how we can inspire our students to find their passion and voice as writers. Let's get started.

Martha Moore:

Hello, and welcome to this episode of Author to Teacher. Today, I am so excited to talk with author and illustrator, Gaia Cornwall. She has written and illustrated two of my favorite children's books, Jabari Jumps and Jabari Tries. She has a new one coming out soon, The Best Bed for Me, which looks like something I could use in my house as my children are currently stalling bedtime. But my husband gets to deal with that, so hello and welcome. I have to tell you, I'm fan-girling a little bit because Jabari Jumps is one of my favorite children's books and mentor texts for my students. So this is very exciting for me, so welcome.

Gaia Cornwall:

Thanks. Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to be here. It's so fun, I feel like I've known you and then I'm like, "Oh right. We don't really know each other. We just know each other from online."

Martha Moore:

Yeah, the internet is a weird place because you have like people that are kind of friends, but not friends, but it's good.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, right. Yeah.

Martha Moore:

So would you take a minute and just share a little bit about yourself?

Gaia Cornwall:

I am a mom. I have two kids. We just moved to Connecticut. I'm also a cat mom and dog mom. I love reading, and what else? I grew up in Rhode Island, in Providence, Rhode Island, and I lived for a long time in New York. I went to college there and met my husband there. Now we're in Connecticut and liking it so far.

Martha Moore:

Very cool. I don't think I've ever been to Connecticut or Rhode Island, actually. I'll have to put it on my bucket list.

Gaia Cornwall:

I know, yeah. You should come for the beaches, I'm going to say.

Martha Moore:

Really I would've not thought the beaches.

Gaia Cornwall:

I know, but we live really close to the beach right now and it's pretty awesome.

Martha Moore:

That is really nice. We are also close to the beach, albeit in Sweden, so it's much colder, but it is very nice to be close to the beach, so I can enjoy that with you. So I'm going to hop right into it with some questions. My first one is when did you know that you wanted to create children's books?

Gaia Cornwall:

From a very young age, like I remember it was pre-reading, having very strong opinions about picture books, like being in the stacks of the library and probably being super annoying to the librarians, but just going through picture books and tossing the ones that I didn't like, that I didn't deem the illustrations worthy. So I had very high expectations for picture books.

Gaia Cornwall:

And then I think for a long time it was just really intimidating because I loved them so much. So I just didn't even consider it that seriously. After college, I had tried to get into it, but I think I really... I don't know, I think I dragged my heels a little bit because I was so intimidated. So my first, I don't know, I think it was like 10 years kind of working on Jabari Jumps and other manuscripts before. And I mean, to be fair, it's not like that's all I was doing, if that sounds pretty crazy. And I don't recommend waiting 10 years to finish a project. But I don't know, looking back, I think it really evolved in some good ways and I was learning lots of things and going to workshops and just trying to learn more about the business and all of that was really invaluable.

Martha Moore:

I have to say the illustration comment is so interesting to me because I feel like when I was a child, the illustrations... Not that there weren't books with beautiful illustrations, but I feel like now there's so much more of an emphasis on beautiful, well done illustrations that wasn't there maybe 20 years ago. I often think that authors get so much credit, but the illustrations are so important to the story. That's one of the reasons I love Jabari Jumps because I love the illustrations of the book.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, this is totally controversial and I probably shouldn't even say it, but I feel like for picture books, it's all about the illustrations. I'm sorry, it's like [inaudible 00:05:05] and I guess for me, I'm so visual. I feel like there are books where perhaps I wouldn't be sucked in by the writing as much, but if the illustrations are great, I'll just forgive so much and it doesn't really go the other way, I find for me. If I don't like the illustrations, even if I love the story, I'm just like, "Oh, too bad."

Martha Moore:

Yeah. I mean, I really dislike the saying don't judge a book by its cover because you [crosstalk 00:05:34]-

Gaia Cornwall:

I know, me too.

Martha Moore:

... absolutely judge a book by its cover. There have been many books that I almost didn't read. I'm very big into audio books and I will almost not listen to it because I don't love the cover. And then the book is good, but if the cover isn't good... I mean the illustrations matter.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, I feel like that's something I've had to unlearn as I'm old... I'm better at it now, but as a kid, I was like, "I'm not going to read that middle grade or YA," or whatever it was because I didn't like... Or I really hated it when the cover illustration got a detail wrong. I remember thinking so many times, usually that wouldn't happen in a picture book, but that would be like for a middle grade or some novel. And I'd be like, "That's not what she was wearing," or whatever it was, so enraged.

Martha Moore:

I mean, I don't blame you. I think illustrations are very important, and at times I feel like if I was an illustrator, I would be very frustrated because authors, not that their work isn't obviously important. That's kind of like why we're here, but illustrators, I mean it takes a lot of time to work on illustrations and to draw illustrations. I have some friends who are like graphic designers and things like that, and it's so much work. Then the author's name is big and the illustrations are so important. I think that we focus with kids so much on the writing part and the illustrations to their stories are important as well.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think it's odd a lot of times, illustrators, especially for picture books, when they're not even mentioned in, I don't know, in reviews or whatever, because it really feels like they're the other half of the puzzle. And yeah, you wouldn't have a picture book without the illustrations. I think a lot of times people don't know, but when you're working with an author, a lot of times, their manuscript gets shorter when the illustrations come in, because illustrations actually take the place of the words. It's just like a cool part of picture books that they're so... I was talking to someone about it and it almost feels like the pictures are a little bit like scenery of a play. I guess the analogy doesn't totally work, but yeah.

Martha Moore:

To some degree, though, because it helps tell the story. And can you imagine how boring Romeo and Juliet would be with just a blank stage behind?

Gaia Cornwall:

Right, yeah. Maybe it's more like the setting as the-

Martha Moore:

Yeah. And I mean, it gives mood, it gives context, it gives so much. I mean even, I use Jabari Jumps often as a mentor text for my students and I love it because, don't take this the wrong way. Not that I think it sounds like a child wrote it, but it's written in a way that children can feel like they could have written it. So some mentor texts in some big name programs that I will not mention are these beautiful stories, but they're so... Like the language they use, a child would not write that.

Martha Moore:

Jabari Jumps is beautifully written, I'm not saying it's not, but I'm saying they can say like, "Oh, I could do that. Oh, I could use the word splash. I can use some onomatopoeia that way. I relate to this." And the illustrations also show that, you can see Jabari is nervous when he's waiting to go because of the way he's standing and things like that. It's just very interesting, the way illustrations are kind of put on the back burner when they're so important.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, and I'm glad you picked up on the voice, because I think that, that was something I worked really hard. I wanted him to sound like a kid and those are always my favorite books that really capture the voice in a way that feels like authentic.

Martha Moore:

It's so well written and I have to tell you one of the first times I read it with students... To be fair, I was pregnant, so that might be some of the hormones, but we got to the end and my students were like, "He did it, he did it!" And I started to tear up because they just connected so well with the story.

Gaia Cornwall:

Oh, yay.

Martha Moore:

Speaking of illustrations, it was interesting when we were emailing, you mentioned that you saw yourself as an illustrator before an author. So was your goal more to do the illustration part and then you kind of ended up in the author part, or how did that happen?

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, that's so interesting because I went to art school and I went to art school actually for animation, which was a lot of drawing, or back then was a lot of drawing. I really never considered myself an author, and I remember, to the point, which is now kind of silly looking back, but to the point where I remember being at a workshop that you had to apply to get in and show the project you're working on. So it was like a very early different version of what became Jabari Jumps. They were asking like, "If you're an illustrator, raise your hand. If you're an author, if you're an author illustrator," and someone was like, "Why aren't you raising your hand?" And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And they were like, "No, no, you wrote it, like you wrote it too." And I was like, "Oh right." I just really didn't think of myself that way.

Martha Moore:

That's so interesting because I feel like Jabari Jumps is so well written and I just recently got Jabari Tries and I love it. I haven't read it with my class, but my own children thought it was really awesome. And it just seems so flawless and natural. I mean, I know there's so much work behind it, but it's interesting.

Gaia Cornwall:

No, I mean, I should say that another thing that doesn't get talked about with picture books is that they're such a group effort and I was complaining to my editor who doesn't agree with me at all. But I was like, "Why isn't there..." I have a background in film, in animation, and I'm like, "There's credits at the end where you acknowledge everybody, the interns who worked on it," and it's so weird to me that my editor isn't on there, that my art director isn't listed in the book and the intern. There's so many people that touch the book and they all work super hard and I couldn't have done it without them. So yes, I feel like I have to credit my editor with a lot of the writing stuff and also the design choices with my art director, who's Pam. She's great.

Martha Moore:

I think that's also something that would be so great for students and teachers to know, that it's a team effort, because actually when I spoke with Jarrett Lerner about this, he kind of brought me... I didn't really know that either. I knew there was an editor, but he was talking about the team that's involved. And I know when I sit with a student and we're checking their writing and we're trying to make changes, and of course it's their baby, so you have to be delicate. But I think knowing real authors or published authors, they have a team too. It's a group effort, we're going to work on this together.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, group effort and also, so many revisions. Oh, my gosh, for Jabari Jumps, I didn't have an agent, but now I have an agent and I'm lucky that she gets to look at my work too, so that's like another partner who I work with, who's giving me feedback. I also have a critique group who I show all my early projects to, so by the time the book actually gets published, you've written it so many times. I think that is not easy to do and I totally can relate, but I love talking to kids about that and just being like, "Oh no, you should see the comments that we get back." Like it can feel really brutal, but it is just like part of it, part of the process.

Martha Moore:

Yeah. I also think it's good for kids to know that because it's tedious. Writing is a tedious process and I know my students are always typically happy to write a first draft, but multiple drafts, it's hard. But it's good for them to know nobody sits down and writes like an award-winning book in one spot, like one sitting and then they're done.

Gaia Cornwall:

No, no, they don't. And I also think a lot of times, people think they're doing it wrong if they don't do that. And it could not be further from the truth. It's literally impossible, right. One draft of anything and then not change it at all, it just doesn't happen.

Martha Moore:

No, and even if you think it's perfect, I'm sure your editor isn't going to think it's perfect.

Gaia Cornwall:

Oh, no, no. No, they definitely don't, and then sometimes they'll be like, "Well, they are wrong. Like there's no way they could make this better," and then they give me feedback. I think a lot of writers and creators have to take a few days with feedback to have their big feelings. Feelings get hurt, or you're like, "That's not... like, no they're wrong." Or sometimes you're like, "Oh my gosh, they're totally right." Like, "Oh, why did I think of that?" And the way I get through that is so I'm kind of like, "Okay, I'll just do a version like they suggest." And then, I mean, it's a little trickier when you're a student, because a lot of times you can't just do a version and then go back and pick your own. But like nine times out of 10, when you do a version based on suggestions from teachers or agents or editors, you'll end up liking like at least one of the changes. And so it just gets better and better.

Martha Moore:

Okay. I think that's good advice. I mean, and ultimately, if everyone's goal is to make things the best that they can be, then it's good. So speaking of school, I'm very curious what your school experience was like when you were younger and if there was any experiences in particular, good or bad, that impacted your creativity, your desire to write, your desire to illustrate?

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, I think so. I went to a neighborhood school that was right around the corner, lots of different kinds of kids, super diverse, lots of people from all over the world lived there. That was really a cool experience and lots of immigrant families, lots of refugees. Also, just getting to walk to schools and living kind of in a city was a cool thing. So I feel like my love of reading was really encouraged, but I think in my family, I definitely wasn't the writer. Like my sister was more of a writer and I really loved all things art and my family was very encouraging of that. So I definitely was more focused on the drawing side of things. And I had really wonderful art teachers and just teachers in general who were just so encouraging and really great about...

Gaia Cornwall:

I feel like it's probably more common now just seeing with my kids, like bringing in different mediums to teach stuff. But when I was going to school, you literally sat in a desk for a lot of the day. So I feel like I had teachers who noticed that creative side and tried to foster that for me. I also had some really amazing public librarians, the library that I grew up going to. I just have really fond memories of it and just like a very welcoming, warm space. I felt really comfortable asking questions, clearly I felt comfortable going through stacks and tossing books, but I don't remember like getting shushed or nothing like that. I think that was such a gift.

Martha Moore:

That really is. I especially feel like, again, like you said, now, things are very different and my classroom is definitely not quiet. It's definitely got a low hum at all times. I think back then, and I can remember my experience growing up, we sat in desks and it was very much like that. But it's nice to hear that just like the encouragement of your teachers of your creativity made a difference because I think it's important for teachers to remember that we can find those things in each child, whether it's art or whatever, and encourage that. I'm sure your art teacher wasn't like, "I think that she's going to be a published author one day."

Gaia Cornwall:

I doubt it. Yeah, I don't think so.

Martha Moore:

But I'm sure she would be very proud that, that's something that you did.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah. I've heard from some of them, which was really fun. And actually I got to a school visit for my fifth grade teacher a couple years ago. Like this is pre-COVID, and that was really amazing and also funny because when you're little, you think that your teachers are real grownups, AKA old. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, she must have been like a young 20, because now I'm visiting our classroom." It was just funny, that perspective.

Martha Moore:

I have to say, I recently had an epiphany. I saw myself in the mirror as I was getting ready to leave for school, and I looked like one of my teachers that I, at the time, thought was ancient and I realized she was probably like my age, probably younger, actually.

Gaia Cornwall:

Right, yeah.

Martha Moore:

And yeah, that perspective, that childhood perspective is always interesting. So now, is there anything in particular that inspires you as a creator, anything that kind of inspires your illustration and your writing?

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah. I mean, I think for picture books, I'm really inspired by kids and my kids, but also my day job for years, instead of being a waitress or something, I nannied and was a babysitter and I really love kids, I love being around them and talking to them and stuff. So I think that, that's always really inspiring, like being around family and then also reading a lot. What else is inspiring? Well, I'm working on a book, or I'm working on a pitch for a book, right now about like go going into the woods and looking for fairies. That was directly inspired by COVID walks in the woods. [crosstalk 00:19:39]-

Martha Moore:

I have to ask, speaking of your inspiration, your new book, that's coming out, The Best Bed for Me, was this maybe inspired by your own children?

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah. It's about a little kid who doesn't want to go to sleep and instead of going to sleep is like pretending to be all these different animals. And my agent, when I showed it to her, she was like, "You're pitching me a lot of stories about bedtime," which I didn't realize, but I was like, "Oh my gosh. Right, yeah. I have two kids who are not the best sleepers, so yeah."

Martha Moore:

Well, I mean, that's a lesson though, again, to let kids write about what they know and write about their experiences.

Gaia Cornwall:

Oh, yeah. For sure. Yes. Yes.

Martha Moore:

I always think because when students inevitably say to me, "I don't know what to write," and then I say to them, "Okay, well, what did you do this morning before you came to school? Okay, break it down step by step, just life is always a good story.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, and then like, what if you were, I don't know, an ant eater and doing all that stuff or whatever. Yeah, right. Whatever. I feel like Jarrett Lerner's so good at coming up with those prompts.

Martha Moore:

Yes. I have his, Give This Book a Title, book and it's so good. My daughter loves it and I keep meaning to bring it in and copy pages for my students because they would absolutely love it. My students are so creative and I feel like, I don't know if it's just something in the water or maybe I just see it more, but my students, every year, just get more and more creative. Kids are just amazing.

Gaia Cornwall:

That's really cool. And I think I've seen more of this too. I feel like when I was younger, I was really lucky that I had parents who were super supportive of doing creative things. My mom's a painter and my dad's an architect and they were always drawing and stuff like that. And so, I was definitely like the artsy kid and identified that way, but it also felt like that title wasn't given to everybody. You know what I mean? Like, which always seems kind of sad now looking back at because I feel like people are like, "Oh wow, you're good at art." Like it's this thing you're just born with.

Martha Moore:

Right, like it's innate.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, and there is, whatever, like everybody has things that they're really good at. But I also think a lot of it is just like a practice and like it's something that you can get better at. That's always really exciting when I see teachers or educators just really encouraging every student's creativity in whatever way that shows up.

Martha Moore:

I think that's a really good point, and I also just love the idea or I don't love the idea that it's, "Oh, you're good at art." Not that people don't have innate abilities, but I always find it really cool when authors share their drawings as a child versus... Or illustrators, I should say their drawings as a child versus now, because I showed my students recently, we read No David! And I had a picture of the illustration, his like original one, and they were like, "What? He took his book from when he was a kid, I could do that." It was really cool.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, and even like, we were talking about drafts, first drafts. It's the similar thing for illustrators. Looking at first drafts of the drawings I did for Jabari Jumps or Jabari Tries, the characters look totally different, like the style is different. It takes work to get it to where you want it to look, and I think that was kind of like one of the messages I wanted to put through with Jabari Tries, that it's like fine. If you have to do things over and over and over again that it's actually really normal. That's just part of the process.

Martha Moore:

It is such a great book. Like I said, I recently was able to acquire it here in Sweden. It's a little trickier sometimes to get books.

Gaia Cornwall:

I know, but I'm happy to hear that [inaudible 00:23:52].

Martha Moore:

It is, and it's so good because I have two very creative children and my one daughter likes to build things and create things. And of course, she'll be like, "Oh, I want to make a rocket or so something," and then can't figure it out, and it was really great as we were reading it. I think it's a really good message on perseverance and also, I just loved the ending, was just really good. I don't want to give it away because you should all, if you're listening, go buy it and read it to all of the children in your life. But it has a very nice ending.

Gaia Cornwall:

I think that's such a tricky part of being a kid, but really just like being a human. It's so hard to have an idea in your head and you're like, "I know I can do it," and then it just doesn't look the way you want it to look. And it's so easy to just be like, "Well, I can't do it," or like you get so frustrated, you can't keep going. And really like the key to doing great things or finishing any big project is to just like work, figure out how to work through those feelings. And I have little kids and we're in the process of like talking about mistakes and like things aren't perfect and like getting a hundred is actually, like that doesn't usually happen. It's totally normal to get things wrong or to have to redo things. And yes, it's totally frustrating and yes, grown ups also get frustrated and have to deal with this too.

Martha Moore:

Yeah. And I think too, kids often see adults do things effortlessly or at least it seems to be effortless. So part of the reason this whole Author to Teacher thing sparked was because I was just thinking how I have students who are really great at writing. They have a really nice imagination, but if I've ever said to them like, "Yeah, this is so good. You could maybe be an author one day." They're like, "Oh, no. No, I can't do that," because they just see a finished book and think, "I mean, they're just amazing and I'm just not that good," but really it's like, "No, they probably started off just like you and then they worked really hard."

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, like the 10,000 hours thing, really because sometimes kids will ask me, "How can you draw like that?" And I'm like, "I would draw all the time," and then it's funny because if I don't draw all the time, when I go back to it, it doesn't look the way I want it to look like I have to get back into the practice of drawing. I think we all, it's just a part of life is like having to practice at things and hone your craft and it takes time and that's totally normal and okay.

Martha Moore:

Yeah, definitely.

Gaia Cornwall:

Okay to be a beginner. It's hard to be a beginner, but it's okay.

Martha Moore:

Yeah. But I mean, everyone was a beginner at one point.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, and it's especially hard when you see kids compare themselves to adults, because I want to be like, "Well, I've probably been doing this like 30 more years than you."

Martha Moore:

Yes. I had a student recently tell me that. They said, "Miss Martha, you know everything." And I said, "Oh, first of all, no. There is so much I don't know." And I said, "And second of all.." Oh no, they said that, but also they said... I forget what we were doing, but I did something quickly and they were like, "That's amazing," and I was like, "I am much, much older than you. Like I am as old or maybe older than your parents and I've been doing this for a very long time, but when I was your age, it took me much longer." And they were like, "Really?"

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah. Right. Yeah. [inaudible 00:27:39]. And I think just normalizing that is so great because I definitely felt that as a kid and was like had and have that perfectionist tendency that can like just trip you up. It's really hard to work through it and it's hard to get through life if you think you're supposed to do everything perfect on the first go around. It's really limiting.

Martha Moore:

Yeah, and I mean it's lonely if you think you have to be perfect.

Gaia Cornwall:

Right, yeah.

Martha Moore:

So, let's see, which one do I want to ask? How about this? You don't have to share if you don't want to, but what was the harshest criticism you've ever received about your work, or maybe the criticism that just like hurt the most?

Gaia Cornwall:

Oh. Well, there was like a pretty rough Kirkus review, which is even sadder because I very purposely don't look at reviews of my book, because I just feel like I'm not, I don't know, like emotionally evolved enough to be able to handle reviews, even if they're good. Like good or bad, I feel like I'll just get too attached to whatever they say and I'll turn it into something really horrible in my head. So I'm just like, I just avoid them and I'm kind of like, "They're none of my business," but ironically, this one was so rough. The editor sent it to me, like sent a link to me, kind of like apologizing and being like, "Don't worry about it. They're so hard."

Martha Moore:

And you're like, "Oh, okay now it's fine. Now it's totally fine. I am no longer upset. Thank you."

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah. So that one, I was like, "Okay." I think it's just when you get criticism like that, you have to decide, well one, do you agree? What kind of criticism is it? And sometimes it's like, not everyone's going to like your stuff and that's okay. It's not ideal, but that's okay. And then, "What can I learn from it?" If there's anything, what are the takeaways? And so, yes, I've tried to do that.

Gaia Cornwall:

And then I think like in my creative life, my senior year at art school, I had like a big panel, like my thesis presentation. I had worked so hard on it and was on like my third day of not sleeping, because I had all these like technical problems with the animation, the very like antiquated now animation program I was using at the time. I just had like the roughest critique that I've ever had. In hindsight, I think my teacher must have been trying to make my work better, but it was really crushing and I was not-

Martha Moore:

Not in a head space.

Gaia Cornwall:

[crosstalk 00:30:39] Yeah, and it actually, it really... I didn't draw for like a year after graduating from school, like it was really awful. It took a long time to get over it and work through it, which is interesting when you think about teaching and how amazing teachers could be. That's kind of the flip side, that it can also be really crushing, but yes, those are the two that stand out.

Martha Moore:

I like to ask that question because inevitably I think every single person that I've spoken with, which you're number four, so it's not that many, I guess. But one of the people was a teacher that gave them the harshest criticism.

Gaia Cornwall:

Oh, interesting.

Martha Moore:

Yeah. I mean, it's like you said, teachers can be really inspiring, but they can also be crushing. I recently read something and now the statistic is alluding me, but it was like when people ask the most influential people in their life, I think it was like 80% of people said a teacher was one of the most influential people. So I just think it's important for teachers to remember that because I mean, I don't think I've ever like crushed a student's soul. But I've definitely, in my beginning years of teaching, probably said things that I'm sure didn't have the best impact. So I think it's good to think about.

Gaia Cornwall:

Sure, sure. We're all humans, so yes. But yeah, it is. I mean, teachers are so important. They're such a huge part of our kids' lives.

Martha Moore:

Yeah. I mean, and especially like in the younger grades and the younger years, I mean, I spend so much time with my students. They spend so much time with teachers. So one little remark to you may not be a big deal. I can still think of something my first grade teacher said to me in front of the class. We were reading-

Gaia Cornwall:

Oh, I can too, actually.

Martha Moore:

Yeah, and it crushed my soul. We were reading Goldilocks and The Three Bears and I can remember sitting on the carpet, I can like feel the carpet under me. She said, "How could the bears tell that Goldilocks ate some of the porridge?" And I raised my little six year old hand and I said, "Because it tasted different." And she said, "That doesn't make any sense." I mean it didn't, but [crosstalk 00:33:00]-

Gaia Cornwall:

Well, it had [inaudible 00:33:00] put in it, it probably would taste different. I mean, I could totally see where you're coming from. Oh, no.

Martha Moore:

I mean, it's just so funny. I mean, I'm sure she didn't mean to be mean, but just to throw away [crosstalk 00:33:13]-

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, right. I think this was like moving on to whoever else was next.

Martha Moore:

Yeah. Like, "Oh, that doesn't make sense. You're being silly." And yeah. I mean, this was 30 years ago now and I still remember. So I think it's important for teachers just to remember our words matter a lot. On a more fun note, out of the books that you could talk about, because I'm assuming you probably have some that you maybe can't share about just yet, but which is the book that you're most proud of and maybe why?

Gaia Cornwall:

Oh, my gosh. This is funny because kids will ask me what my favorite color is, and I've been like, "I can't do that, like I don't have a favorite color." It stresses me out, "Pick a favorite color." And so-

Martha Moore:

So I just asked you a really great question.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah. So I'm just like, "I can't do that." It's like asking, not to compare my kids to books, but it's like you work so hard on them and you really care so much about the characters and things. So [crosstalk 00:34:23]-

Martha Moore:

You can't answer it.

Gaia Cornwall:

I can't [inaudible 00:34:25] pick a favorite. I think there's different things that I'm proud about for each one and also different things that I want to go back and change because I'm like, "Oh, I wish I had done this," which is another thing that kids don't know about grownups. It's hard to finish things and it's hard to be done with projects.

Martha Moore:

It is really hard to finish things. I also think a lot of kids think that grownups finish a lot of things, but actually, I have so many unfinished like teaching resources, blog posts. I have like half the first page of books in my phone. They probably will not, none of them will get finished.

Gaia Cornwall:

You don't know.

Martha Moore:

Maybe, one day. One day I want to write a book, but it will probably be once my children all sleep all night long.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yes. Yes. Well, when will that be? I don't know.

Martha Moore:

Which actually, you published Jabari Jumps when you had pretty little kids, right?

Gaia Cornwall:

Yes.

Martha Moore:

That's impressive.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, actually, I remember my OB being like, "Okay, this baby's not going to come until you just say you're done with workload, just like be done." And I remember, I guess that was, what was that for? No, that was for Jabari Jumps. And I remember saying to my editor, "I'm really sorry. I don't think I can do these changes. Can we just do them after?" And they were like, "What? Of course." And then, three days later I had a baby, the second baby. So I have pictures of me, sometimes I show them to kids, like with a big belly and I'm like trying to reach my keyboard because the belly's so big. And then her in a sling and like finishing.

Martha Moore:

Oh, that's so sweet.

Gaia Cornwall:

Now I look back and I'm like, "I don't know how I did that."

Martha Moore:

Yeah. And also like, "Oh, you should have been able to take time and all of those things," but that's a different podcast.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah.

Martha Moore:

So I have one more question. And that's, if you had a kid who came up to you and said like, "I want to write books," what advice would you give them?

Gaia Cornwall:

So I feel like I wish I had different advice because I feel like this isn't like grandiose enough, a lot of times for kids. But like the thing that actually really helped me was reading, and I remember going to a conference and someone, now I can't remember who it was, but they were like, "You need to read a hundred books in whatever genre you want to write and they need to be current, too." So it can't just be the classic whatever books you grew up with. It needs to be books that are coming out now in the current market. And that was kind of freeing to me, and they were saying like more than that for picture books.

Gaia Cornwall:

And it's so true, there's such an education just by looking at all the pictures, like what are the picture books that are winning awards? What are the picture books that are selling really well? Are those the same picture books that you like? Like which picture books do you like? And then you kind of start figuring out which publishers you like, whose need perhaps would... Depending on how old this kid is, like what agents, maybe you're noticing that some authors you really connect to, they all have the same agent or similar with editors.

Gaia Cornwall:

So I think just reading a lot and then practicing, and then just like letting yourself be not good, which is so hard. I think it's really hard. But I think it's also just like part of the process. I had a teacher in art school and he was like, "Look, you have to do..." I don't remember what he said, like 70 bad drawings to get to the one that you actually really like. And it's like, "You have to earn a good drawing." And so I think it's like the same thing with writing. You have to earn the good writing.

Gaia Cornwall:

And there is also that book, The War of Art by, oh gosh, I'm going to forget his name, but I can email it to you.

Martha Moore:

That would be great.

Gaia Cornwall:

I want to say Pressfield, Steven Pressfield, but I don't think that's right. But he talks about how whatever you're working on is good or bad shouldn't concern you. It's not your business, it's just like showing up and doing the work. And I think that can be really freeing too. That just knowing if you show up and you write consistently, you're going to get better.

Martha Moore:

Oh, I love that. I love that idea of just, it's not good or bad, it's just progress or it's just work. You might have to [crosstalk 00:39:22]-

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, and it's like not your business if it's good or bad. There's a lot of mind games, I feel like, with being creative and producing work and stuff. It's hard to do.

Martha Moore:

Yeah. I agree. There's teaching and then I do like other creation stuff, and I often am like, "I'm just going to run out of ideas. I'm going to have no more ideas. They're going to just be gone." It's like the fear of being creative.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah. I feel like I have the opposite problem where I'm like, "I have way too many ideas that I have."

Martha Moore:

That's more my problem. I have way too many ideas and not enough time. And now that I'm back teaching full time, I have like 6,000,000 half finished things that I use for my class that I'm like, "I need to give these to teachers because it will help them," but no time to do it.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, which is so frustrating and hard.

Martha Moore:

But it's okay. It's all good. In time. In time. It's all a process.

Gaia Cornwall:

Baby steps.

Martha Moore:

Exactly.

Gaia Cornwall:

I'm trying to remind myself that taking little steps every day or every week, as long as it's consistent, actually moves you down the path a little bit.

Martha Moore:

Yeah, and I think like-

Gaia Cornwall:

Even though it doesn't feel like it.

Martha Moore:

And I think you have already created some really great books and I don't know. I think for me, if I was you, I would be able to look at that as like, "Okay, I did this before. I can keep going," maybe, or you're self critical and not.

Gaia Cornwall:

That sounds like a very ideal, healthy way to think about things. And course, I feel like I don't actually know that many people who feel like that.

Martha Moore:

No.

Gaia Cornwall:

I mean, I definitely feel so grateful that I have an agent and that I have an editor and art director I've worked with. And I've worked with them long enough that I... I was going to say, I could show them stuff. I could probably show them stuff and they wouldn't be like, "This is..." Or they would look at it at least. And in that way, it's really different.

Gaia Cornwall:

But I think there's always this weird fear that you just have to ignore or figure out how to deal with making something and just working through it until it gets to the thing that you actually feel like that's what you wanted it to look like. But there is always that part in the process where you're like, "Oh my gosh, this is bad. This does not look good." And that's usually the trickiest part for me. That's usually somewhere in the middle when everything's half finished and I'm just like, "What have I done?" Like, "No one's going to let me do this again. This is terrible."

Martha Moore:

"What am I making? What is happening?"

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah. Yeah. Like, "Wow. Okay." Yeah [crosstalk 00:42:15]-

Martha Moore:

But I think at the end of the day, it's really good to know, and I think it would be good for kids to know, and teachers to know, that published authors feel that way too. Because like we said earlier, kids often see the finished work and think, "Oh, they just have it down." But it's like, you're always working through that fear of not being good.

Gaia Cornwall:

Yeah, and I think that applies to everything. I don't know if this is every culture, but our culture for sure, celebrates like the finished product. So like the famous singer, the basketball player that's winning whatever, and the movie or whatever. And when you go see an incredible movie, you don't necessarily hear about the seven years before that they started working on it. They couldn't get funding, they started with this person, and this actor dropped out and every awesome finished thing that you're excited about didn't just like come into being in that form. It started just really small and maybe not so great. And there's a lot of muddling through to get there.

Martha Moore:

I love that, and I think that's a great note to end on. So teachers and kids, it's a lot of hard work and muddling through, but we can do it.

Gaia Cornwall:

And that's okay.

Martha Moore:

Yes, and it's okay because life is not perfect. I tell my students all the time, "Nobody's perfect." It's a hard lesson to learn, but it's true. Well, thank you so much for talking to us today. It was so wonderful to hear your perspective and I can't wait until your new book comes out and whenever it makes it to Sweden.

Gaia Cornwall:

I know. I know. In the US, supposedly it's coming out in May, but everything's a little bit tricky with shipping and stuff, so we'll see.

Martha Moore:

We will cross our fingers or as they say in Sweden, we'll hold our thumbs.

Gaia Cornwall:

Oh, okay. [inaudible 00:44:10].

Martha Moore:

Yeah, hold your thumb that it comes out in May. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us, and thank you to everyone who's tuned in and joined us. We'll see you next time.

Gaia Cornwall:

Thank you so much. This was so much fun.

Martha Moore:

Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode of Primary (Paradise) Teaching Author to Teacher. You can find more engaging, effective, and simple teaching ideas from primaryparadise@myprimaryparadise.com and on Instagram and Facebook at Primary Paradise. Be sure to tune in next time for more engaging conversations related to teaching, keep learning and teach on.