Judy Fradin, author, with her late husband Dennis Fradin, is
the author of such distinguished books as “5,000 Miles to Freedom: Ellen and
William Craft’s Flight From Slavery,” and the “Witness to Disaster” series,
generously agreed to an interview with us. Some recent Fradin books are
TORNADO (National Geographic Children's Books), ZORA! (Clarion), STOLEN INTO
SLAVERY (also Geographic), and THE PRICE OF FREEDOM (Walker).
Have you always wanted to be a writer? When did you start
writing?
Before
I became Dennis’s co-author, I was a high school and college English and
history teacher. I loved teaching, and I currently teach college
courses in Children's Literature and in Minority Voices in American Literature
at National Louis University in Chicago. I especially enjoy visiting
schools and speaking with students and teachers. I have spoken in
public and private schools all over the United States, and I’m always happy in
front of a classroom of kids.
What is it about nonfiction that draws you?
I
LOVE non-fiction, for nothing is more intriguing than
reality. It is also a bottomless well of great stories. I’m
sure you’ve heard that truth is stranger than fiction. For fun, however,
I love reading mysteries, and would like one day to write one myself–for young
adults. I’ve also written the first 40+ pages of a fiction book for
teenagers.
Do you have any input on the design of your finished
books—choosing photographs, choosing what should be illustrated, etc?
Thanks
for the question about photographs and illustrations. That is my
bailiwick. I also adore caption writing, for I think a great caption
complements the existing text.
Finding
the right images for our books is much of what I
do. Generally, we provide our photo editors with a large choice
of images from which they choose the ones they feel work best with our
text. They also decide, along with the designer, about picture
placement, image size, and how lettering might fit atop certain
images. When Walker chose Eric Velasquez to illustrate THE PRICE OF
FREEDOM, I provided him with the photographic material to help him make his
imaginative paintings non-fiction as well.
Have you ever gone on trips to do research for your books, or do
you do it all at the library?
Dennis
and I frequently traveled to gather information and photos. For
our WITNESS TO DISASTER: DROUGHTS (National Geographic Children’s
Books) we drove around Texas and Oklahoma for a week
interviewing survivors of the 1930s Dust Bowl, then spent two days at the
Oklahoma State Historical Society gathering images.
We have
met dozens of fascinating people in the course of our research. When
Dennis wrote THE PLANET HUNTERS we spent two days with Clyde Tombaugh, the
discoverer of Pluto, and his wife Patsy in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. At that time, he was the only living discoverer of a
planet. We also flew to Puerto Rico to visit the radio telescope
installation at Arecibo prior to completing that book--only to arrive
a week after the first extra-solar planet was discovered there!
I
have also spent countless hours in the Prints and Photos room at the Library of
Congress gathering images for our historical books.
How do you and your husband work together? Is it hard?
People
often ask us how we worked together. We each researched
our topics individually. Since we live and work in the same house,
we spent lots of time discussing every aspect of that research.
This was particularly interesting because we were generally working
on several books at any given time. Dennis usually wrote the
first draft of a book while I hunted down the most fascinating photos–sometimes
from scientists, sometimes at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.,
sometimes obtaining them from people involved in our
projects. Occasionally I took them myself! I then
tackled the text and Dennis helped me select the photos that we submitted to
our editors.
My
short, silly answer is that he worked upstairs and my office is downstairs.
What are your hobbies when you aren’t writing?
When
not working, I spend as much time as possible with our children and
grandchildren. I am the grandmother of 5 girls and 2 boys ranging in
age from 15 to 3 years, and I always keep them in mind when writing Fradin
books.
Many of
my happy moments are spent in the small garden where I grow flowers,
lettuce, tomatoes, spinach and chard for my family. I
especially enjoy watching our Fradin grandchildren pluck cherry
tomatoes off the vines and pop them into their mouths. I garden
year-round; I will be starting my lettuce and spinach seedlings in the house by
the end of December so they’ll be ready to plant in the early spring.
My
favorite flower is the dahlia, and I’ve been cultivating dahlias for 40
years. Our daughter and son-in-law even named their younger daughter
Dahlia!
I
hope I’ve answered some of your questions. Thank you for shining the
spotlight on this cheerleader for non-fiction.
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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas
expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media
Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter
@theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important
when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted
by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2014.
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