Saratoga News

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Among the West Valley contributors to the world of children's literature are (from left) Martha Kendall, Joan Cottle and Mary Eckhart.

The Write Stuff

Six West Valley authors and illustrators find solace in monthly critique

By Mary Ann Cook

Getting a children's book on the market sounds like--well, child's play. After all, the books are short, the vocabulary basic, the stories simple, research negligible. What's so hard about that? Plenty, as those who have tried to crack the hard nut of children's publishing can attest.

Some of the most demanding writing is that directed toward the shortest among us. It's extremely difficult to write short and simply with a modicum of words at your disposal. It may be the hardest market to break into. Rejection is rife: You have to develop a thick hide just to stay in the game.

The situation has gotten even worse in the past two years, say local practitioners: The number of those trying their hand at the craft has increased, while the number of publishers has shrunk. A new tax on warehousing results in fewer books being published and a shorter shelf life (selling time) for the books that are published. But a handful of West Valley women have managed to outwit the odds, surmount the obstacles and break into print numerous times.

Pat Compton and Jan Stiles of Saratoga are two; Joy Hulme of Monte Sereno is another; and Martha Kendall, Joan Cottle and Mary Eckhart of Los Gatos are yet others who have persevered and have a number of published books to their credit.

These six meet monthly in their homes to critique each other's works and offer solace, suggestions and encouragement. Compton started the group six years ago: She got the names of other local authors after attending a children's writers' conference.

A graphic designer with an avid interest in other cultures, Compton wanted to illustrate a Japanese folk tale, to be retold for a Western audience. She approached publishers about this idea. Simon and Schuster was interested, but its editors wanted her to write the story, not illustrate it. They would select their own illustrator. "My dream was to be an illustrator," Compton says, still somewhat miffed.

Despite the fact that she rewrote the tale and sold the book that became The Terrible EEK, that rejection smarted for quite a while--until the book won the 1992 Elementary Literature Award from the Association of School Librarians, International. That took away some of the sting.

When the award was presented, Compton met the illustrator for the first time, a woman so charming Compton almost got over her disappointment.

The other Saratoga member of the group is the resident editor, Jan Stiles, and her services are considered invaluable. "Why isn't there a menu bar on my computer called Jan?" wails colleague Joan Cottle.

Since Stiles has her own editing business, doing corporate work, she toils in nonfiction these days. However, with Donna Guthrie, a former Los Gatan who has since moved, Stiles wrote The Better Letter Book and Money, Credit and Other Numbers in Your Life, due out this year. These books teach living skills and are aimed at middle and high school students.

Earlier, Stiles sold half a dozen short stories to a variety of children's magazines such as Alive, Discovery and Clubhouse. She was also newsletter editor for the Writer's Connection in Cupertino for many years, and working there was what drew her into the writing field. Earlier still, she taught at Beverly Hills High School. She has two grown daughters, and her husband, Jack, is a computer program designer.

Two of the most prolific members of the group are Martha Kendall of Los Gatos and Joy Hulme of Monte Sereno. Kendall has 10 published children's books, mainly biographies aimed at the school-aged set. Hulme has 11 books, and hers are for preschoolers. Kendall's themes are biographical--from founding father Ben Franklin to contemporary Steve Wozniak. And women's issues, a subject she teaches at San Jose City College.

Kendall's impetus for writing for children was her frustration at not being able to find suitable material when asked to teach a course at city college on the subject of women. "It was maddening. Here were all these histories of men we were all familiar with by the time we were in fifth grade. But there was nothing about women."

Ergo, her first book was a biography of the founder of the women's movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. That was nearly 10 years ago, and her most recent book, one with a January deadline, is: Failure Is Impossible: The History of the Women's Rights Movement.

A musician as well as storyteller, Kendall plays nearly all the stringed instruments--cello, fiddle, mandolin, guitar and bass. In addition, she sings and plays the penny whistle. Schooled at the Eastman School of Music, she is trained in classical music.

But it is in bluegrass and swing ensembles that she performs regularly. Her husband, Joe Weed, is a well-known professional musician, and they met when both performed in the same band. They live in the Santa Cruz Mountains with their children, Jeff, 12, and Katie, 11.

Because she is a storyteller and musician, she is a natural for giving presentations in classrooms, using her own history books as the jumping-off point. "My main objective is to inspire children to pursue their talents," Kendall says. "I do this by telling them how the people I write about have succeeded. How we can make choices that allow us to become the best we can be."

She has a fistful of awards for both writing and teaching: Her biography of Wozniak was selected for the 1997 California Collection by the California Readers Association and was among the 1996 Books for the Teen Age from the New York Public Library.

Kendall, a professor of English and women's studies at San Jose City College, has a master's degree in English from Stanford University and a master's from SJSU in women's studies. Her undergraduate degree was in English and Spanish from the University of Michigan.

Joy Hulme didn't hit the ranks of published children's authors until she was past retirement age. "I'm the Grandma Moses of children's literature," she deadpans. Although she had published three books in religious markets, it wasn't until 1989 that she really got under way. She works daily from 5:30 to 9 a.m. in her office and spends "the rest of the day thinking" of stories.

A dedicated swimmer, she gets many of her ideas while doing laps in the pool at her Monte Sereno home. In inclement and winter weather she swims at the Y. Her books are often written in rhyming verse. Her husband is Mel, and they have five grown children and one deceased. She began writing as therapy when her son was ill and she had trouble sleeping as his condition became more serious.

Some 31 years would pass between the time she started writing children's stories and the time she sold any. Fear of rejection kept her from "putting anything out there." So it was years before she got up the nerve to submit anything to a publisher.

Though she wouldn't send her work out, she would send herself out: she traveled as far as Walnut Creek to attend a critique group. One of the members there had an agent who took on Hulme, despite the fact she had never sold. And that's when her sales began. Today Hulme finds she sells better being her own agent. And, another plus, now the critique group is nearby.

Hulme cites another hazard of the trade: its fluidity. "Just as you develop a solid working relationship with an editor, that editor moves on to another house, and your work may not click with the new publisher," she says.

Joan Cottle is another member of the group besides Compton who is first and foremost an illustrator. Her most recently published artwork is in How Many Ants, written by Larry Dane Brimner and published by Grolier Children's Press. Cottle has a master's in fine arts from Boston University and worked as a fine arts painter for several years before her children were born.

She and Hulme have collaborated on Once Upon a Prairie, a book now making the rounds. And Cottle sold a book to Simon and Schuster in 1990, but it's still not been published. And therein lies another stumbling block for children's authors. Books by celebrities, such as Fergie, take up (undeserved) space on publishers' lists, say these authors.

The Cottle children are Kristina, 11, and Peter, 8, and Cottle had vowed to illustrate a book by the time Peter was in first grade. This was accomplished with Cassie's Cast by Katherine Lewis. Since then she has had two others--Word Weavings: Writing Poetry with Young Children by Shelley Tucker and the ants book.

"I fell into illustrating," she says. "I was spending so much time in the children's section of the library [when my children were little], and I thought to myself, 'I could do this.' " She still spends considerable time in the library, since she is a library volunteer at Daves Avenue School for both children's grades.

A thoroughly disciplined worker, she says, "My commute is to the second story, to my studio, where I spend six steady hours--until school is out. The story dictates the illustrations. I may read the text twenty to thirty times before I begin to see pictures in my head."

Her own books are "visually driven. For instance, before I started the one I'm working on now, I kept seeing birdhouses. So that story obviously had to have birdhouses in it."

Mary Eckhart wrote the Columbus Dictionary to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage. Arranged alphabetically, the book gives details of his life and voyages and is aimed at middle-schoolers. A biography of Georgia O'Keeffe is now making the publishing rounds and "getting close," she says.

Writing for children may be the hardest publishing nut to crack, but these six have persevered and succeeded, and children everywhere are the richer for it.

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