Interview With Children’s Book Author Rusty Austin!

1. What inspired you to write this book? I started writing and posting short animal poems on Facebook about ten years ago, my FB friends liked them and they urged me to write a book, so I wrote my first book "Beware the Grizzly Bear" which is a compilation of those original poems. I hired my nephew Graham Whittemore to do the illustrations on his Commodore 64 that he still
had laying around. I have since written "The Carrot Is Orange", which contains short poems and humorous illustrations about food that kids like such as apples and oatmeal, and "The Unicorn Has One Horn". "An Awesome Bird the Pelican" is the 4th book in that series.

2. What exactly is it about — and who is it written for? "An Awesome Bird the Pelican" is a collection of pithy 4 and 5 line poems about the various quirks and appearances of different animals. I met a local middle school teacher, Leslie Snyder at Nellie Coffman Middle School in Cathedral City, California, through an online donation platform called Donors Choose, which is sort of a go fund me for teachers. She was teaching a class on writing poetry and was asking for help to buy poetry books for her classroom. I contacted her and offered to come in and read my latest book at the time, "The Unicorn Has One Horn". She invited me over, and the students were so interested I pitched Leslie the idea of having her students do all the illustrations for my next book. She enthusiastically agreed. Over 40 students participated and two of them were so talented I hired them to do the illustrations on my current book, "The Two Headed Snake". So I
guess I would say it is written for kids 2-13.

3. What do you hope readers will get out of reading your book? It’s a fun way for kids to learn about the animal world because I write about how and where the animals live in a way that’s a quick read and easy for them to access.

4. How did you decide on your book’s title and cover design? I chose my favorite illustration that best shows the animal the book is written after. The title is simply the first line of the poem that appears first in the book: An Awesome Bird the Pelican, he holds in his beak his food for the week

5. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for fellow writers –  other than run!?
It’s simple. Write! The more you write the better you get at it. Don’t be afraid to break the Strunk and White grammar rules, as long as you know what they are and why it’s worth breaking them. It’s possible to write a single sentence that goes on for pages and still works beautifully. And don’t give up trying to get published, you may have to send out hundreds of query letters and hear nothing back but remember it only takes one. Stephen King famously threw his first book ("Carrie") in the trash after getting discouraged and his wife believed in him enough that she fished it out and sent it out again until she snagged a publisher.

6. What trends in the book world do you see -- and where do you think the book publishing industry is heading? I am pretty old so I remember the pre-internet days when you had to go
to a bookstore or the back of a comic book to buy books! Nowadays there are still bookstores and thankfully every town has a library so print is not going away any time soon. Platforms like Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com have enabled a whole generation of writers to self-publish with on demand sales so warehouses full of books and offices full of accountants are no longer necessary. That said there is still a lot of demand for books to be available in like airports, grocery stores and drugstores. It is still very hard to attract the attention of a publisher for first time writers but it can be done.

7. Were there experiences in your personal life or career that came in handy when writing this book? I’ve always been sort of a big kid at heart. I wrote a lot of poetry when I was young and edited the school literary magazine and the school newspaper and I even wrote book reviews for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. Also, there is believe it or not a lot of writing in reality TV, the way it works is we shoot it first which serves as a rough draft and then finish it in editing.

8. How would you describe your writing style? Which writers or books is your writing similar to? When I write the children’s books I strive for simplicity. My personal favorite author is Charles Bukowski, I try and pay him homage in my short stories and poems for adults. If I had to classify it I would say my style is mostly low-brow humor. My favorite book is a tie between "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry and "Ulysses" by James Joyce, "Lonesome Dove" because it’s an epic adventure story and "Ulysses" because it brilliantly breaks every writing rule ever conceived. It took me years to read.

9. What challenges did you overcome in the writing of this book? Stephen King said the art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair, and Winston Churchill said the work of the world is done by people who don’t feel well. It takes many
months to write a book (at least for most of us, Isaac Asimov I have heard wrote one book every month!). So the challenge is to set aside enough time and brain power to get from beginning to end while dealing with the thousand distractions of everyday life.

10. If people can buy or read one book this week or month, why should it be yours? In my children’s books I always include a do-it-yourself section at the end so budding artists and poets can give it a shot. If the kids are out of school for the summer this will probably keep them busy for a couple of days!

About The Author: Rusty Austin pursues an unusual hobby of writing and sending poems and bon mots on postcards to everyone in his contact list every couple of months. He also posts the poems on Facebook. On reading all of this, his friends encouraged him to write a book, advice which he took to heart when he wrote his first book. Beware The Grizzly Bear. He retired from a 35-year-long career as a reality TV producer in 2016, and now he writes animal poetry picture books for kids and the occasional book of short stories and essays for adults. Please see: https://www.facebook.com/rustyaustinauthor

 

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About Brian Feinblum

This award-winning blog has generated over 4.5 million pageviews. With 5,300+ posts over the past 14 years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs  by BookBaby  http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs  and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.”  Copyright 2025.

 

For the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the director of publicity at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler.

 

His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully).

 

He hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, Morgan James Publishing, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.

 

His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook.  It was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.

 

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

 

You can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum