{"id":1087,"date":"2024-01-10T23:08:08","date_gmt":"2024-01-10T23:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/?p=1087"},"modified":"2024-01-10T23:08:08","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T23:08:08","slug":"jonah-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/jonah-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonah Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Art Is Unity Interviews Jonah Winter
\n<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n
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Banned Book by Jonah Winter Illustrated by Gary Kelley Creative Editions, August 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ve always been uncomfortable calling myself anything… except for “Jonah Winter.” And I’m not entirely sure why. I guess I think the point of life is to do what you do and let other people put a label on it. I think I probably also absorbed a certain ethic from both of my artist-parents, neither of whom have ever been very fond of calling themselves “artists,” though they have been painting and drawing since they were little children. When I left my full-time job as an editor in 1991 and became a freelancer, I spent most of my time playing music (for money), writing (some of it for money), editing (for money), and reading (obviously not for money). The times I wasn’t doing those things, I was cooking or exercising.<\/p>\n

Your first books, Fair Ball and Beisbol!, talk about writing, illustrating, and having them published.<\/em><\/p>\n

My first book was Diego<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 a picture book biography about Diego Rivera. But Fair Ball: 14 Great Stars from Baseball\u2019s Negro Leagues<\/em><\/strong> was my 2nd<\/sup> book, and Beisbol<\/em><\/strong>! came out not long after that. I did loads and loads and loads of research \u2013 none of it involving the internet, because I did not yet own a computer or use the internet when I wrote them.\u00a0 So, I used books from the library for the first one (which I wrote in the early 90s, Fair Ball<\/em><\/strong>) \u2013 because I was too poor to purchase the books.\u00a0 By the time I was researching Beisbol!<\/em><\/strong>, in the late 90s, I lived in the Maine woods and had enough money to buy books at that point, books that I still own.\u00a0 When researching Fair Ball<\/em><\/strong>, I took a road trip (from San Francisco, where I was living) to Kansas City, to visit the newly opened Negro Leagues Museum.\u00a0 I believe it is now a much larger museum than it was then, in 1994, when I visited it.<\/p>\n

What prompted your first books?<\/em><\/p>\n

I was prompted to write these books by two things \u2013 my lifelong obsessions with baseball and racial injustice. Through this topic \u2013 the \u201cNegro Leagues\u201d \u2013 I found a perfect outlet for a nonfiction topic I wanted to share with children through my books.\u00a0 As far as the illustrations go, I wanted them to look like old-fashioned baseball cards. I was a baseball-card-collecting maniac as a kid (I still have all my cards \u2013 from the late 60s and early 70s), and I\u2019ve always loved the look of the really old cards, some of which were paintings and others of which were tinted photographs.\u00a0 I was flabbergasted by the fact that the Negro Leagues players, aside from the horrific racist indignities they endured simply by being barred from the Major Leagues because of their ethnicity, never had baseball cards made of them.<\/p>\n

I decided to paint the portraits of them in the style of old-fashioned baseball cards \u2013 tinted photographs \u2013 to give them the cards they so deserved but never had during their careers.\u00a0 It was rather audacious of me to think I could do this and get it published.\u00a0\u00a0 I had never studied art \u2013 well, except for one summer with my father, who was an art professor.\u00a0 Both of my parents are artists, and I was surrounded by art during my entire childhood \u2013 and created a lot of it myself. But the stuff I had created was NOT in the photo-realist style I used with these baseball paintings!<\/p>\n

That was a real challenge.\u00a0 I photocopied black and white photos from library books for my source material.\u00a0 And I used a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny paintbrush with only 3 or 4 hairs on it (\u201cOOOO\u201d).\u00a0 And in the process of making these portraits, which I would spend 12-to-15 hours a day on, hunched over my drawing table, I probably did permanent damage to my eyes. I would have to go soak my painting hand in ice water because of how cramped it got.\u00a0 A labor of love!<\/p>\n

When did you know you could quit your day job?<\/em><\/p>\n

I quit my day job in December of 1991, a couple months after the publication of my first book, Diego<\/em><\/strong>. I did not \u201cknow\u201d I could quit my job \u2013 I just hauled off and did it.\u00a0\u00a0 It was kind of crazy, I guess, for me to assume I could support myself on royalties and freelance work. But here it is, 32 years later, and that\u2019s how I\u2019ve supported myself since I quit my job.\u00a0 My day job, by the way, was as an associate editor at Random House.\u00a0 I made barely enough money to pay the rent for my rent-controlled apartment.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what publishing salaries are like now, but they were abysmal back when I worked in publishing. My first publishing job, in 1984, as an editorial assistant at Knopf, paid less than $12K a year. I quit that job and went off to graduate school (in creative writing) for 3 years, then came back in 1988 and basically got my old job back \u2013 but as an assistant editor. I can\u2019t remember what my salary was then, but it wasn\u2019t much.<\/p>\n

My last birthday spent at Random House, I did not have enough money to buy lunch for myself (it was a couple days till my next paycheck). And so one of my officemates gave me her bag of dried wonton noodles from her hot & sour soup, and that, with some duck sauce and mustard, was my birthday lunch. I think that may have been the day I started plotting my escape. I moved, in January 1992, to San Francisco, into a big group apartment where some friends of mine lived. The rent was $245\/month. For the first couple years, I made only $6,000\/year of income \u2013 some of it from a band that I joined. I spent my days writing, reading, freelance-editing, and practicing various musical instruments (and often performing). Those two years were two of the best years of my life.\u00a0\u00a0 I did not regret my decision at all.\u00a0 And thinking back on it, I know it was the best decision I ever made.<\/p>\n

Say more about \u201cbeing\u201d an artist, an author?<\/em><\/p>\n

The weird thing is, for me, that when I’m just walking around — you know, in public — I feel like a bum, like nobody, like nothing. I have no identity as “JONAH WINTER: AUTHOR.” I just see myself as some guy, and not a particularly important one. I dress in a way that is different from most people, but I’ve done that for so many years, that I don’t even remember I’m dressed in a way that might be considered “different.” When I’m not in public, when I’m at home, my focus is on coming up with new projects to write, with figuring out ways to continue supporting myself with my writing. I’m well-aware that many people in the literary world do not consider children’s books (or at least picture books) “literature.” I think I have probably absorbed this, and as such, it’s hard for me to think “I’m a writer!” Because I know that so many people, even people I consider friends, probably are thinking, “How hard can it be…?” You know, to write a picture book. And that’s the main sort of writing I’ve been doing now for the past, say, 15 years.<\/p>\n

I once got a letter from a young woman who had become a teacher and told me that she chose her life path after being inspired by a book of mine she’d read as a child. This was one of the most emotional experiences of my life. What a profound thing. It’s funny, though \u2013 when children ask me what it’s like to be an author, I often don’t know what to say! Because I don’t really think of myself as an author. So I usually say something like, “Well, you get to sit around all day in your pajamas.” That always gets a laugh — especially since it looks like I’m still wearing my pajamas as I’m doing my author visit!<\/p>\n

Do you have visual images in your mind as you are developing the story you are telling?<\/em><\/p>\n

I always have visual images in mind when developing a story \u2013 that\u2019s a necessary part of the process.\u00a0\u00a0 Because I write solely picture books, the stories have to be fundamentally visual.\u00a0 My goal is to create a text that can make for pictures that could tell the story even without the text.\u00a0 So with most stories I write, I plot out the sequence of images before I write the story \u2013 just so I will have a sense of what the visual impact is going to be.\u00a0 The trick is writing a text which is a good story \u2013 not just a set of passages describing images. The images have to be implied in the text, without being overly described. There is so much, as well, that an author can leave to the illustrator, in terms of telling the story. So, with the text, less is definitely more.<\/p>\n

I struggle with this somewhat, as I am naturally long-winded by nature! The trick, for me, is in seeing how much I can remove from a story \u2013 how many words, images, and informational details I can remove.\u00a0 In the past, I\u2019ve likened the process to a sculptor carving a block of marble.\u00a0 The point is to get rid of stuff, not add \u2013 this is especially true for nonfiction stories, biographies. You can\u2019t tell the whole life story in 32 pages.\u00a0 And you can\u2019t hold a child\u2019s attention if you jam in too much information in those 32 pages. Anyhow, yes, I always have a visual sequence of images in mind when I write a story \u2013 and it\u2019s always interesting to see what an illustrator does with it, and how closely what they come up with resembles my original vision. It\u2019s fine if it doesn\u2019t. The main thing is that they find something in the text to inspire them to tell the story visually.<\/p>\n

You work with many different Illustrators and have said that most often the publisher chooses. Does the publishers\u2019 choice always work out? Has there been a time when you were less than pleased?<\/em><\/p>\n

As far as illustrators go, I would say \u201cI feel myself to be the luckiest man on earth,\u201d except things clearly did not work out so well for the person who coined that expression. But I have been lucky \u2013 exceptionally so. I\u2019ve had 3 books illustrated by the brilliant Barry Blitt \u2013 and 3 more illustrated by the peerless Terry Widener. The illustrators I\u2019ve had the good fortune to work with read like a Who\u2019s Who of Best Illustrators \u2013 Bob Staake, Shane Evans, Calef Brown, Marjorie Priceman, James Ransome, Richard Egielski, Bryan Collier, Ana Juan, Sean Qualls, Raul Colon, Stacy Innerst, Red Nose Studio, and of course, the inimitable Jeanette Winter.\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes, I\u2019ve suggested the illustrator.\u00a0 For my book, The Founding Fathers<\/em><\/strong>, I said it had to be Barry Blitt, and it was. I said it had to be Terry Widener for Steel Town<\/em><\/strong>, and it was.\u00a0 With The Secret Project<\/em><\/strong>, it had to be my mom, and it was. Sometimes, the editor and I have discussed the possibilities before they\u2019ve asked a specific illustrator. I think it\u2019s a very dangerous thing for an author to speak publicly about an illustrator not living up to his\/her expectations for a book. Yes, there have been a couple of times that I was less than thrilled with the illustrations. But those times are far outnumbered by the times I\u2019ve been absolutely thrilled. The chemistry in a book between the words and the pictures is kind of like the chemistry in live theater. Usually it works, and the magic it creates is so much more than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n

You Illustrated two of your books. talk about why you didn\u2019t continue illustrating your writing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, aside from the near blindness and carpal tunnel syndrome it induced\u2026, my illustrating style was simply not cost-effective.\u00a0 By the time I finished the illustrations for those 2 books, my hourly wage had dipped down to something like 10 cents an hour. And that style, photo-realism, ultimately lends itself to a very limited range of topics or books that could be illustrated.\u00a0 I\u2019ve thought about trying again with a totally different style, and I\u2019ve done some samples in starts and fits. I may still try it again someday\u2026.<\/p>\n

Do you have a treasure trove of writing and illustrations in a\u00a0 treasure chest somewhere?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sure! My filing cabinets! My god, I guess I shouldn\u2019t even admit this publicly, but yes, I have many things that I\u2019ve written, and some paintings too, that have never been published. I have 5 poetry manuscripts for adults that have never been published.\u00a0 I just stopped trying to get my poetry published about 14 years ago. I didn\u2019t see the point anymore. I have 2 books of poems out. They hardly sold at all. Even the most popular American poets hardly sell any books at all \u2013 and mainly only have an audience of other poets. That\u2019s the part that got me down. It just seems like some kind of inside game. And it\u2019s all about who you know, who you went to grad school with, and how you can use those people and how they can use you. That\u2019s my take on it. In the end, too, I think literary quality has absolutely nothing to do with popularity and publishability. That\u2019s something I find especially depressing. So yes, that treasure trove\u2026.<\/p>\n

What was it like growing up in an artistic household?<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, since an artistic household was the kind I grew up in, I\u2019m not sure how it\u2019s different from growing up in any other sort of household.\u00a0 I knew that my household was a lot different from those of my friends and schoolmates, but that had a lot to do with politics.\u00a0 My parents were basically the only liberals in an extremely rightwing neighborhood in the middle of Dallas during the 60s and 70s.\u00a0 My dad was an art professor and taught at SMU [Southern Methodist University], which is why we lived where we did \u2013 he was able to walk to work. My mother took care of me and my brother while also working at home on her children\u2019s book illustrations and other artworks (she is broadly talented). My dad had a painting studio, a building, in the backyard, where he did all his painting. When he would finish a painting, he\u2019d invite me in to look at it, and we\u2019d look for \u201ccritters\u201d together \u2013 he painted in a photo-realist style for many years, and from a distance, the paintings look exactly like photographs.\u00a0 Up close, though, they become abstract, with lots of squiggly lines and shapes \u2013 \u201ccritters.\u201d<\/p>\n

My parents\u2019 friends were all artists, so I grew up surrounded by other artists as well, people who had devoted their lives to art.\u00a0 When I was very young, my parents participated in a \u201chappening\u201d orchestrated by Claes Oldenburg. My parents had one friend, David McManaway, who made very personal art from found objects, junk, which he called \u201cjomo\u201d art. His studio was a magical place. I can remember visiting it from an early age.\u00a0 And his house was filled with all sorts of interesting and esoteric stuff, some of it Victorian, but mainly a lot of interesting art.\u00a0 Something in that world appealed to me so much that I knew that I wanted to have something like that in my life when I grew up. And I sort of do.\u00a0 My parents are both atheists, as am I, but art was kind of like our religion \u2013 still is. It\u2019s sacred. There were many things about my childhood that were traumatic and just horrible. But I am so thankful to have been raised by artists and surrounded by art.\u00a0\u00a0 Art will sustain us, when nothing else will.<\/p>\n

What was it like working with your Mother?<\/em><\/p>\n

Great!\u00a0 But what else am I gonna say?!? No, but seriously, she\u2019s fantastic to work with, and we\u2019ve worked enough together that I know exactly the kind of text that will inspire her the most. So, it\u2019s a real collaboration. I have such respect for her work \u2013 as do so many people. My father has often said that she is the most talented artist he\u2019s ever known. And I know that he means that, and that he\u2019s being objective. But she\u2019s also just so good at telling a story in pictures, which is of course the heart of children\u2019s book illustrating. Her style always suits the subject, and it\u2019s always been perfect for every book we\u2019ve done together. Of course, the editorial mandate to keep the author and illustrator apart during the illustration process doesn\u2019t work with us! Once, though, I had to get the editor involved as an intermediary. It was our book on Hildegard von Bingen, medieval mystic, nun, composer, and migraine-sufferer.\u00a0 My mother wanted me to remove the word \u201cGod\u201d from the text. I didn\u2019t want to, so I got the editor involved. \u201cGod\u201d stayed \u2013 but Mom got her revenge\u2026 by illustrating God as what appeared to be an enormous Nilla wafer. When she first showed me the pictures, I looked at that one for a long time, trying to figure out what that thing was, until finally it dawned on me. \u201cMom,\u201d I asked, \u201cis this Nilla-wafer-type-thing\u2026 supposed to be God?\u201d She started laughing and nodding yes. Mom\u2019s revenge.<\/p>\n

How do you choose\/decide the subject\/topic you will write about?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes I\u2019ll just start writing lists of things or people I could write about. Other times it\u2019s a conversation with someone that gives me an idea. Sometimes it\u2019s a newspaper article \u2013 or a museum visit.\u00a0 For The Sad Little Fact<\/em><\/strong>, it was the term \u201calternate facts,\u201d coined by Kelly Ann Conway, just after Trump took office in early 2017, that inspired me \u2013 that and the photograph of Obama\u2019s inauguration, side by side with the photo of Trump\u2019s inauguration, and Trump\u2019s insistence, regardless of this irrefutable evidence, that his inauguration was more highly attended than Obama\u2019s.\u00a0 With my book on Obama, it was hearing Obama speak at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama, of all places, that inspired me. I was visiting a friend who lived there at that time, and the day before the rally we\u2019d gone to the Civil Rights Museum there. Meditating on what went down in Birmingham back in the 1960s, during my lifetime, and then hearing Obama speak, realizing that there was a really good chance this person could be the next president of the United States, just broke me wide open. I still can\u2019t think of it without getting emotional.<\/p>\n

What is your research process for a picture book biography? <\/em><\/p>\n

The research process really depends entirely on the subject.\u00a0 When I wrote my bio about Sotomayor, there was no adult book out on her yet, so I had to do all my research through news articles.\u00a0\u00a0 But when I did my research for The Founding Fathers<\/em><\/strong>, I poured over many books \u2013 for an extended amount of time. That book, and the two baseball books I illustrated, involved the most research \u2013 many months for each book.\u00a0 It\u2019s because all 3 books are anthologies \u2013 each containing 14 profiles of different figures.\u00a0 Whew! Mainly, though, I read a few books and some online articles \u2013 and in the case of artists and musicians, spend some intensive time with their art and music.<\/p>\n

Do you write and rewrite? Do you work with an editor?<\/em><\/p>\n

It varies from story to story. My favorite stories tend to be the ones I don\u2019t rewrite much at all.\u00a0 After doing a bunch of research, and taking lots of notes about what I want to do, I just sit down and write the whole thing in one sitting. Then again, some of my better books have involved massive revision \u2013 and complete rethinking of how I\u2019m going to approach the narrative.\u00a0 Dizzy<\/em><\/strong> is an example of that.\u00a0 My first draft had far too much information \u2013 and just wasn\u2019t that exciting. It wasn\u2019t till I got the idea to write it like a Beat Generation poem (imagining jazz playing in the background \u2013 which does play in the background when I present this book publicly) that I really hit a stride.\u00a0 And the editor really helped me figure out what information was completely useless and holding the story back (e.g., details about Cab Calloway).\u00a0 I feel like I really advanced as a writer with that book. It got me started on a path I believe I\u2019m still on \u2013 of trying to tailor the voice and form of the story to the subject matter, and of eliminating as much information as possible.<\/p>\n

What are your work habits?<\/em><\/p>\n

Work habits? It would be funny if that were my only answer. But the truth is, I don\u2019t have an answer that\u2019s much longer. My work habits depend entirely on how I\u2019m feeling and what I\u2019m working on. I go through periods when I\u2019m mainly just reading and casting about \u2013 or dealing with stomach problems. Then I go through periods where I\u2019m working constantly. I\u2019ve written a lot of manuscripts \u2013 I\u2019m very prolific \u2013 so laziness is not a problem with me. But in the past few years, despair has gotten in the way \u2013 despair and a sense of futility. There are so many topics I\u2019m now not \u201callowed\u201d to write about anymore \u2013 such as the topics that I\u2019m most known for writing about and have won awards for (e.g., racial justice and injustice, powerful women, the lives of people who do not share my gender or ethnicity).\u00a0 A few years ago, I was told point-blank by my main editor (who is white, as are all of my current editors) that she could not publish any more books by me \u201con women or people of color, and of course not on white men. I get it, Jonah, you\u2019re totally screwed.\u201d This is in response to the \u201cOwn Voices\u201d movement that is now sacred law in the publishing world \u2013 the law that you must have \u201cshared experience\u201d with the people you are writing about. I\u2019ve had 2 contracts cancelled because of my ethnicity and gender in relation to the subject matter.<\/p>\n

Talk about the complexity of writing potentially \u201cscary\u201d books, scary in the sense of being overwhelming for children, or adults? For example, The Secret Project. \u2026and more about venturing into realms of \u201cpolitical controversy\u201d?<\/em><\/p>\n

Every children\u2019s book I write is premised on the notion that children can handle the truth, that they can handle so many \u201cdifficult\u201d truths that many adults fear they can\u2019t handle.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s mainly the adults who are scared.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s not the kids.\u00a0 Kids know what it is to be scared, and they know the world\u2019s not perfect. And they appreciate honesty from adults.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting \u2013 so much of the censorship happening right now in the children\u2019s book realm has to do with adults, on the two extreme ends of the political spectrum, saying that certain books are \u201charmful\u201d to children. The rightwing book bans and the \u201cprogressive\u201d (I don\u2019t think it\u2019s progressive) censorship coming from within the children\u2019s book world (the social media pile-ons, the petitions to get books cancelled, the constant pressure on publishers not to publish anything \u201cproblematic\u201d for children) are both coming from the same perspective: These people, on the Far Right and Far Left, seem to believe (I\u2019m not sure if they actually believe it \u2013 I think a lot of this is theater) that books can be \u201cdangerous\u201d and \u201charmful\u201d and often are. As I said in an essay I wrote in the NY Times Book Review about a social media pile-on I endured after the publication of The Secret Project<\/em><\/strong> (after a very influential blogger convinced her followers that the book was racist and \u201charmful\u201d), the only way a book could hurt a child is if it were dropped from a high story window onto the child\u2019s head.<\/p>\n

So when I go to write a book like The Secret Project<\/em><\/strong>, I don\u2019t believe it\u2019s a dangerous or scary topic \u2013 or at least, it\u2019s not so scary that it would be traumatic. Kids know that bombs exist. The bomb that\u2019s exploded at the end of this book was not dropped on people. \u00a0(And in any case, there are children all over the world having bombs dropped on them at this very moment. Bombs are harmful to children \u2013 not books.) My hope is that that wordless ending, with the 4 pictures detailing stages of the explosion, will give young readers something to think about \u2013 hopefully for the rest of their lives. This was something PEOPLE created \u2013 possibly the worst invention ever conceived by people. (Though the internet and social media are a close second \u2013 and artificial intelligence may someday win top prize.) I liked the idea of removing the story of the bomb\u2019s invention from the historic rationalizations in which it\u2019s usually discussed (\u201cbrought a quick end to the war\u201d; \u201csaved lives\u201d; \u201ca necessary evil\u201d) and the complexities of nuclear physics (not good subject matter for a picture book!) \u2013 and reducing it to its most basic narrative:\u00a0 A bunch of scientists go out to this beautiful place in the desert, and, in total secrecy, invent the most lethal thing that\u2019s ever been invented\u2014and then they blow it up.\u00a0 Apparently, Oppenheimer\u2019s first words after the Trinity Test were not \u201cI am Shiva, destroyer of worlds,\u201d but rather: \u201cWell, it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Are there topics you haven\u2019t written about because you haven\u2019t figured out how to write about them?<\/em><\/p>\n

Yeah, estate tax law.<\/p>\n

Just kidding! What interests me is taking on subjects that appear to be difficult. I love the challenge. I have not yet encountered a topic so difficult that I haven\u2019t yet at least attempted to write about it.<\/p>\n

When you visit schools, are involved in programs for children, what questions are you asked?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite color?\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite book you ever wrote?\u201d \u201cAre you married?\u201d \u201cI, uh, uh,\u2026, forgot what I was going to ask.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cDo you have a dog?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s it like being an author?\u201d \u201cHow come you\u2019re wearing your pajamas right now?\u201d<\/p>\n

But my favorite question was asked by a little boy on Long Island.\u00a0\u00a0 He asked, \u201cHow many failures do you have?\u201d I had to ask him to repeat the question, because I was having a hard time processing what he was asking.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I joked it off at first \u2013 \u201cOh, well, my life has been nothing but an endless series of failures\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 But then, he had a real question and wanted a real answer. So he clarified. He wanted to know if I ever wrote anything that didn\u2019t get published. \u201cA failure.\u201d I let him know that, alas, I had quite a number of failures! And I reminded him of that most important of baseball statistics: Even the greatest batters in baseball history still strike out 2 out of 3 times. Baseball, in this sense, is mainly failure. (One of the many reasons I love it \u2013 I can really relate to that!) But on a serious level, I think it\u2019s important for children to know that even a \u201csuccessful\u201d person can have many \u201cfailures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another favorite question came from a little girl at a school I visited outside of Pittsburgh. She didn\u2019t ask it publicly, like most kids do.\u00a0 She came up to me afterwards and asked in private as I was packing up my stuff.\u00a0 She said she noticed that I wrote a lot of books about \u201cthe underdog,\u201d and if I did that on purpose. I said that yes, it was on purpose \u2013 that because of my own experience, I sympathize and empathize with people who are bullied and discriminated against. She said she really appreciated this, because she knew how that felt herself. She was one of the only Black kids in this school. At that point, honestly, I didn\u2019t know what to say to her.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t say \u201cI know how that feels.\u201d But I think maybe what was important is that she said something to me, that I heard her, and that she saw someone who looked like me writing the kind of books I write. It was a moment of connection that I treasure.<\/p>\n

Other memorable responses to your work?<\/em><\/p>\n

A few years ago, I was giving a lecture in Pittsburgh about my children\u2019s books \u2013 to an audience that included both children and adults. One of the memorable responses came from my dentist, of all people! Couldn\u2019t believe she came to this! But she was a huge fan of my RBG book and we are on the same political wavelength. She commented, after what I had thought was my fairly bleak analysis of where the children\u2019s book world stands right now and what my own role in it is devolving into, \u201cWhat I am struck by is your optimism. How are you able to be so optimistic?\u201d I actually started laughing, because I\u2019ve never been described as an optimist before! Usually just the opposite. But she was serious.\u00a0 And it made me stop and think, in front of the 100 or so people who were sitting there, about something I had never thought about before, never considered. Yes, I suppose I am an optimist. I believe there are battles worth fighting. And regardless of how under siege I am right now in my career, I don\u2019t give up.\u00a0 I believe children are worth fighting for, and that they need to know the truth \u2013 about a lot of things that many adults want to shield them from. I believe life is worth living.<\/p>\n

There was another response from a little boy that just blew my mind. I think he was about 10 years old, maybe younger, but very precocious. And his mind was blown by the fact so many librarians have stopped me (or tried to) from reading certain books to their students because they want to \u201cprotect\u201d the children. And he was amazed by all this nervousness in general about \u201cprotecting\u201d children from the truth. He thought it was ridiculous, and he couldn\u2019t believe I had to put up with this nonsense on a regular basis. I think I probably should have gotten this kid\u2019s contact info and had him accompany me on future school visits and in all meetings with editors!\u00a0\u00a0 He could have been my publicist! The kid was more naturally articulate than I am \u2013 and made my point better than I did.<\/p>\n

Another memorable response \u2013 in a letter from a 3rd<\/sup>-grade student in San Jose whose class was reading a bunch of my books, including my bio on Hilary Clinton:\u00a0 \u201cI can\u2019t wait to read about Hillary Clinton. I hope she will be our next president. I don\u2019t like Trump.\u00a0 He is rude and wants to send me back to Mexico.\u201d (Ugh.)\u00a0 (But on the other hand, this kid was writing this to me in his second language, English, and he was only 8 years old.\u00a0\u00a0 I was deeply moved \u2013 by his letter and all the letters I received from this class, all of them Mexican immigrants.)<\/p>\n

One more memorable response, and perhaps the most important of them all to me, this one in the form of an email I got through my website:\u00a0 \u201cI just finished reading one of your books, and realized I had read you before.\u00a0 I am black, and I thought when I read you that you also were black. What a pleasant surprise for me. I also am a writer(unpublished) and I am 77 yrs old. I realize now how God can use whomever He pleases to get the job done because these stories certainly need to be told.\u00a0 We are omitted from History books, and even when we contribute many times others get the credit. Thank you for the unbiased stories you tell which most blacks my age can identify with. I’m hopeful all children will read you and others, and learn the truth. And learn to respect all races as being human with hopes, joys, fears and intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

(I have a printed copy of this taped to the wall above my desk.)<\/p>\n

Talk about your most recent picture book, \u201cBanned Book\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, I had been trying to get this one published for a few years, and I think many publishers were scared off by either the subject matter or the unorthodox nature of the narrative approach (lots of redacted text \u2013 with footnote disclaimers from the censor).\u00a0 Thankfully, Creative Editions decided to publish it! They take chances with certain kinds of stories and subject matter that the larger New York publishers will not take.\u00a0 And I very much appreciate this \u2013 especially given the fact that I have experienced the sensation of having my voice silenced in the past few years.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s a book about a banned book\u2026 but is also a book which contains lots of redaction (blacked-out text) and commentary from censors as part of the narrative.\u00a0 I was very purposeful in not saying what the topic of the banned book in the story is \u2013 or on what the specific political agenda of the censors is.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s not important what the specific agenda is, or what topic is being censored. The point is that some people think they have the right to ban books and silence authors or shut down even the very existence of a book. Silencing authors and denying a book\u2019s right to exist is by far the worst kind of censorship.\u00a0\u00a0 But I view all censorship as wrong. Leftwing, rightwing \u2013 to me, it makes no difference where the censor is coming from. It\u2019s wrong to be so arrogant as to believe you have the right to decide for another person what they\u2019re allowed to read \u2013 or what authors are allowed to get published, or what book has a right to exist. And children, being right in the center of the increasingly relevant banned book issue, need a book such as this to help them navigate through the murky, toxic waters of this evil.<\/p>\n

Your sense of fairness and justice is evident in the stories you choose to tell, talk about how your core values\u2014how you became you (or remained you). <\/em><\/p>\n

I honestly don\u2019t know. But I do know that I\u2019ve always had the personality that I still have. I\u2019m obsessed with what\u2019s fair and unfair.\u00a0 And I\u2019m obsessed with being honest \u2013 to a degree that has often made life difficult for me, in terms of my personal relationships.\u00a0 My goal as a person and a writer is always to reveal things, tell the truth, even when I know it will get me in trouble.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure if this is an entirely moral impulse. Sometimes it just feels like a compulsion \u2013 or something that I find enormously exciting.<\/p>\n

The only way we\u2019re going to end the current censorship that has taken over the publishing world is by lots and lots of authors speaking out against it. But currently, there\u2019s a distinct lack of spine.\u00a0 Writing is not simply an intellectual endeavor \u2013 it\u2019s a moral one. Or should be.<\/p>\n

I know we love all that issues from our heart and mind\u2026 do you have a favorite book among your wonderful collection of works?<\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if I can single out just one. I\u2019m very proud of The Secret Project<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 and very proud of Banned Book<\/em><\/strong>. And The Sad Little Fact<\/em><\/strong>. But perhaps I\u2019m most proud of the first book I illustrated, Fair Ball: 14 Great Stars from Baseball\u2019s Negro Leagues<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 I was so passionate about that, and I spent so long researching it and painting the pictures \u2013 and painting those pictures was not something I was sure I could even do. But I\u2019m proud of those pictures, and proud of the book. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever combined more sides of myself in a single book \u2013 or worked so hard on something.\u00a0 And that was a topic that hadn\u2019t been written about at all in picture book form \u2013 not at that point (1999).<\/p>\n

Thank you Jonah Winter for your time and your thoughtfulness. More Jonah Winter here<\/a> and in ArtIsUnity Gallery<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Art Is Unity Interviews Jonah Winter I’ve always been uncomfortable calling myself anything… except for “Jonah Winter.” And I’m not entirely sure why. I guess I think the point of life is to do what you do and let other people put a label on it. I think I probably also absorbed a certain ethic …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-1087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1087"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1103,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions\/1103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1087"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=1087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}