Ty Chapman, author of Looking for Happy
Children’s Literature Category
Each week leading up to the 36th annual Minnesota Book Awards, we are featuring exclusive interviews with our finalists. You can also watch the authors in conversation with their fellow category finalists here.
What is one detail you wanted to include in this book, but couldn’t find a place for?
You know, other than having one of those cheap speakers that plays music when you open the book, nothing feels particularly missing (haha.) This is not to say my book is perfect–just that I included the things I wanted to include. I even included a bit about a possum being at the park because I just really wanted the brilliant illustrator, Keenon Ferrell, to draw one for me – for context it was my first book and I was like 24. Not sure I’d include something ‘just because’ nowadays.
Tell us about someone who proved instrumental to the creation of this book.
Big shoutout to my agent, Savannah Brooks! She’s brilliant and wonderful for countless reasons, but I really appreciate how she executes her role as an editorial agent.
Even though Sarah Rising came out first, this was one of the very first picture book manuscripts I wrote. The original draft was ROUGH, and it was through editing with her that we arrived at the text featured in the book. Throughout my career she’s done such an incredible job getting the most out of my manuscripts while centering my original artistic vision. I think with some editors or editorial agents, you can see their fingerprints all over the manuscripts they handle–same can be said for music producers and such–I’m not saying that’s good or bad. It simply IS. But working with Savannah, the manuscripts just wind up feeling like a better version of the exact thing I wanted to put into the world. That’s special.
Tell us about a favorite read from the past year. Why did you find it enjoyable, insightful, or memorable?
This is hard! I’ve been reading more books than usual as I complete my MFA in Creative Writing for Young Adults at VCFA. I’ve also been reading widely. So it’s hard to determine a singular favorite while comparing poetry for adults to picture books to middle grade fantasy to contemporary YA verse novels.
HOWEVER, a simple question was asked, and a simple answer I shall eventually give: My favorite book that I read last year was probably Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People by Kekla Magoon.
I love that this book exists. It does the important work of explaining the Black Panther Party to young people. This book doesn’t just spew the same propaganda often shared where the Panthers are concerned. It goes into the history of the party in depth. It speaks to the tremendous good Black Panthers did in Black communities where the US government couldn’t be bothered. It speaks to the challenges the Panthers faced, and the dissension within their own ranks. It speaks to how the party grew over time, and came to embrace ideas of solidarity between people groups as the true means of cultivating revolution.
It speaks to the way the US Government sabotaged the party at every turn, typically by extremely illegal means.
The kicker? This book manages to speak to all that–manages to speak on a truth that tends to ruffle the feathers of many adults–and make it accessible to young people. In a nation that is currently dealing with an absolute pandemic of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and censorship, this book is an absolute treat.
Please tell us something about yourself that is not widely known.
I’m not sure how widely this is/isn’t known, but as a creator, my first love was theater! I joined a traveling social justice theater group when I was 16. After a lengthy hiatus from the arts, I also became a full-time puppeteer in December 2019. (Yes, yes. We all know how that story ends.)
Share your thoughts about the role and value of libraries.
Libraries are dope. Librarians are dope. They’re important in such a multifaceted way.
On one level, they’re wildly important as one of the few places where you’re allowed to just exist without being required to spend money. Public benches, public bathrooms, public spaces to just be a human being and rest are becoming more scarce by the day. It seems Minneapolis clears out another camp for unhoused people every day without offering significant resources to support unhoused individuals. Libraries seem to serve as the antithesis to this way of thinking. They offer a space outside of capitalism to exist, study, rest, read, and simply be.
The cost of living is sky rocketing and capitalism’s war against / extortion of poor people is ever present. Where this is concerned, libraries are one of the few places that give me hope.
On another, more obvious level, libraries and librarians are on the front lines in the fight against censorship every single day. The censorship and banning of books is absolutely the modern day equivalent to book burnings, and the individuals who execute such bans are absolutely the modern day equivalent to book burners. The fight for/against true freedom is an old one. And time after time librarians fight to ensure the freedom of artistic expression is upheld and protected. Though we bookish people recognize the good they do often, I think librarians don’t get their flowers near often enough.
Ty Chapman is the author of numerous children’s books, including Sarah Rising, and has been a finalist in Button Poetry’s chapbook contest. Chapman was a Loft Literary Center Mirrors and Windows Fellow and attended Vermont College of Fine Arts.