Q. What in your life influenced you to get into children's books?
A. Well, I was sort of the ideal reader in that I just wanted to read all the time. In fourth grade, I gave 250 book reports, which is actually kind of scary now. Nowadays, they'd probably send me to a counselor. In those days I got an A plus. I just wanted to read all the time. As a prize I got a copy of Pippi in the South Seas, which I still have.
But one of the most important things in my life was that I grew up in New Canaan, Conn., outside of New York, and we were very close to the family of [legendary editor] Maxwell Perkins. Now he had died before I knew these people, but he was very much a benevolent ghost. And I was very close to his widow and his oldest daughter, Bert.
So our families were constantly together. If my parents went away, I stayed at their house. I just adored these people. They really formed my reading tastes. Although my parents were cultured people, there was this passion for books in [the Perkins] family that was unusual. And I was just the perfect kid to wander into that world. I certainly knew what an editor was, [and] I did get this kind of idealized sense of the meaning of books in this world.
Q. So you're made for this?
A. Yeah, in a funny way. I still see Bert, the daughter. She's almost 90, and when I got this imprint [Wendy Lamb Books], I said it should really be called, "Because of Bert Books." Of course she said, "Oh, that's a terrible idea!" But honestly, that's true: it's because of Bert. She was very influential in a lot of ways. She was a Democrat in this Republican town, and a member of the NAACP, which was highly unusual then. She really made me aware of Black history and what was going on [with civil rights]. It's a subject I've been drawn to, and that definitely is something I got from her.
Q. What were some of your favorite books as a kid?
A. I loved Oz books. I loved E. Nesbit. And I loved Freddy the Pig. There's actually a club called "Friends of Freddy."
Q. And you're in this club?
A. Not really, but I know people in it. I mean, I've been buying up these new editions every reissue.
I just loved all sorts of things. I loved Madeleine L'Engle and A Wrinkle in Time, and Jane Langton's The Diamond in the Window. I just read and read and read. I mean, Nancy Drew...I read any old thing.
Q. Is it true you've always wanted to write Broadway plays?
A. I've worked on a couple musicals as a lyricist. I wrote the book of lyrics for a show produced in New York. I really loved all that; I still like doing it. It's sort of interesting how that helpful that is for this. Thinking about how to communicate. It's connected...The theater of it is children's book-ish. I find there's a certain connection between those two zones that I like.
Q. So, if you weren't doing what you do today..?
A. Oh, I would definitely do that full-time.
Q. When did you first know that editing was going to be your thing?
A. I don't know if that ever happened [laughs]. No, after college, I took this publishing course--the Radcliffe Publishing Course and came to New York and got a job at Harper Collins, just Harper back then. But then I ran away and did other things and wrote. So I didn't really settle into this [career as a full-time editor], and actually I thought I'd kind of blown it. I started out working full-time and then I just ran out the door at 26 and went to graduate school and had adventures, and just wrote my shows. After I came back [to full-time editing], the Children's Book Council asked me to give a talk about my career ad I thought well, I'm not the one to be giving this talk.
But on the other hand, I had this nice life and explored--I wasn't ambitious. I was happy I had these opportunities. In some ways I think it made me a better editor.
Q. Because you had a richer life?
A. Well, [it was] more about being fresh. And in a funny way, I never really thought it would be a very good idea to get very immersed in children's books--ha, ha! I thought maybe my value was that I didn't know much about the world of it, that I wasn't in New York all the time, that I didn't know everybody, that I didn't go to all the conferences. Of course now I've certainly turned the totally [other] direction. I do find that kind of startling still. Like, wow, how did this happen?
Q. So at Radcliffe you weren't thinking, 'OK Wendy Lamb Books by the year 2001'?
A. No way. There, I didn't even know what I'd do. I went around having interviews to do publicity for adult books, or to work on magazines. I had many interviews; I was open to all sorts of things. The only thing I knew I didn't want to do was work in textbooks. But it was really lucky because children's books was the place for me.
I was a reader at Harpers. All I did was read slush all day. It was a terrible job, actually.
Q. You didn't discover anyone?
A. No, I didn't. I did it for 10 months and then I was thrilled to get to be somebody's secretary.
When the CBC asked me to give a talk they wanted me to talk about the book that changed my career. I think they were thinking of books that have won prizes. But, actually, I said you know, the book that changed my career was the book I never found while at Harper's in my first 10 months. That changed my career because it showed me right away how hard it was. I immediately saw, ohhh, it's a long haul. And I sort of think of this whole thing as cheerfully slogging toward greatness. It's like, a slog. And the thing about having an imprint is, I don't have any secrets or shortcuts. I don't. I wish I did. All I know is it's a slog. But it's good, it's cheerful.
Q. What's the most difficult aspect of your job?
A. [pause] I don't know... A difficult manuscript is hard. A difficult agent is hard. Having books go out of print is depressing. I think trying to find freedom from the day to day job to really give enough attention to manuscripts...and also to read submissions properly and to see potential is hard to do.
Q. During your presentation [at the 2001 SCBWI Nationals], you said: "If it weren't for bad childhoods, I wouldn't have a job."
A. Well, it was a joke. But most people, if they had a happy time in high school, don't end up writing YA too often. I don't know. It's kind of interesting how angst, how being an outsider, is what seems to drive people to write for teen-agers. For some people, high school was a wonderful time. It was a successful and happy time. Do they ever write books? Well, maybe not. Maybe they weren't driven to it. I think Christopher Paul Curtis had a happy childhood and he is now writing YA. He says the book is kind of sadder; it has a darker theme. I did hear Mary Pope Osborne say she had a happy childhood and she writes to bring that to other kids. She wants them to feel the fun she had.
Q. You have a quote on your wall from Churchill: "Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm." That seems like a funny quote for someone who was just given her own imprint.
A. Well...I don't know. In a way, no book is ever as good as the ideal book in my head. There's always this crazy, ideal book. "Oh God, this could be the best book on the planet!" But of course, that's just crazy. Every book could be better. But there's a time when it's done. And that time is when an author has given everything they have to that book. It is over for them emotionally. And then it's finished. Magically, mysteriously, that seems to coincide with when it's due.
Q. You said, "Creating something of value is hard." Do you think many beginning writers expect it to be much easier than it is?
A. Absolutely. You know, it seems easy. Children's books seem easy. Nobody wants to work that hard on them. Especially when you're not being paid that much. If you look at it in a practical way, suppose you get a $5,000 advance and then I make you work on it for another year? That's insane, financially. So people have to want to do it for another reason.
Q. You plan to publish picture books. Give an example of the ideal picture book.
A. What do I love? I saw a really wonderful one: How Dinosaurs Say Goodnight by Jane Yolen [illustrated by Mark Teague]. I thought it was a great picture book. I thought it was very well written with a natural structure and refrain, and there's all this humor. And there's the contrast between the plain text, with logical ordinary questions, and the crazy, wonderful art. It's a satisfying story, a lovely bedtime story, and then it's about dinosaurs--kids love dinosaurs. It's a perfect little book.
Another one, one I give as a baby gift, is Harold and the Purple Crayon. To me, that is the ultimate children's book. It's just a work of genius and maybe it's never been surpassed.
