I’ve been working a lot with my partner, Eric Rohmann, lately. A few years ago, we came out with our first collaboration, Oh, No! Truth be told, we were a little worried about working together at first. Would we squabble? Try to impose our artistic vision? As it turned out, it wasn’t terribly different from my usual process of working with an illustrator. I wrote a story, and he created illustrations for it. The best part was watching that magical process. Every day I’d head up to his studio to check on his progress. It’s amazing the way illustrators can make characters come to life. I did help decide on page breaks, and I cut a few sentences when I realized Eric’s work made them redundant. But for the most part, we stayed within our usual spheres.
Not so with our next collaboration Bulldozer’s Big Day that will be published this May by Atheneum/ Simon and Schuster. From the very beginning we worked closely, coming up with a concept and dummying it out. I gave input on illustration, offering suggestions about character expression and page turns. Eric, in turn, made text suggestions—cutting words and finding betters ones. Bulldozer really was born of two brains. And I think you can see that in the finished project. It feels seamless—the lovely marriage of art and text. Best of all, Simon & Schuster has asked for a sequel. Once again we’re brainstorming, batting around ideas and playing off each other’s strengths.
5 Responses
Glad to hear you have new books together in the works.
WHEE! A new book from y’all! Exciting news on the last day of March! Can’t wait to share it with your young fans at Medina!
looking forward to sharing another of your books with my granddaughters.
Ruth and I may one day collaborate. Though, truth be told, we do bat ideas back and forth while traveling, so maybe we’re already doing it. Early on, when I rejoined the writing community, Ruth cooked up a story about a kid who invented a car which subsequently is stolen. We were supposed to work together on it, but by the time I had formulated the plot, she just surrendered and gave it to me.
Congrats to you and Eric. You’re quite a formidable team.
What a lovely collaboration of two truly amazing people!!!!