The Full-Time Dream of Nancy Poydar
By Katherine Romano, Associate Editor

" I constantly feel that I have to justify that I get to do this for a living," says author/illustrator Nancy Poydar.

As a child growing up in eastern Massachusetts, author/illustrator Nancy Poydar was an expert at pretending she was a teacher. "My bedroom had a huge bulletin board and I'd make murals for every occasion," she reminisced during our visit to her home this past July. Being an only child, she told us that she devised her own entertainment and would often act out stories in front of a mirror or tell them to her friends, to whom she also gave drawing and storytelling lessons. It was only natural that she eventually became a teacher.

"I never worked so hard as I did when I was teaching," Nancy said. A sixth grade teacher for 14 years, she found herself fascinated by the daily mini-dramas that often play out within the confines of a classroom. It's no surprise that many of her nearly 30 books for children are set within the classroom.

Even given her early dabblings in writing and storytelling, Nancy never thought she'd be lucky enough to consider a full-time career as an author and illustrator. Bolstered by the visits to her classroom from local children's book authors, she encouraged her students to consider themselves authors and illustrators and to write or draw about anything that tickled their fancies. Pretty soon she was taking her own advice, and taking a pen and brush to paper.

Pictured above (the title) and below are characters from Nancy Poydar's books, Rhyme Time Valentine (Holiday House, 2002) and Bunny Business (Holiday House, 2003)

The call of a lifetime. At first, she nabbed a few small art jobs (she illustrated the cover of the local phone book and a series of books about Native Americans). Eventually, she found a class in children's book illustration at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA. Even though she was still teaching, she spent that summer creating a portfolio of her artwork to show to publishers. She told us that she knew she had hit upon something good when one of her first appointments at a publishing house responded positively to her work. "They didn't call me right away for a project, but they did eventually call," Nancy said.

And the calls kept coming. In fact, the phone was ringing so frequently, Nancy realized that she couldn't keep up with teaching and manage what was becoming a full-time career as an illustrator. She made the difficult decision to leave teaching to pursue her "full-time dream" of becoming a children's book illustrator and, eventually, author.

All part of the job. It didn't take long for Nancy to make the transition from her classroom to her own art/writing studio. She was busy illustrating the books of others when she realized that she had some stories of her own she'd like to tell. She easily drew on stories from her own childhood with her first two books for children. Busy Bea (McElderry, 1994) is about the story of a little girl who has a hard time learning how not to be forgetful – "I was forever leaving things behind on the school bus," Nancy said – and Cool Ali (McElderry, 1996) is about how Ali uses her chalk drawings to help her neighbors on her city block beat the summer heat.

With the level of activity that clearly goes on in her office, Nancy revealed that she sometimes has to work on more than one book at a time – it's part of the job she has no problem accepting. "I constantly feel that I have to justify that I get to do this for a living," she told us. "I'm always thinking, 'Is this my last book?' So that thinking keeps me motivated!"

Nancy Poydar clearly has no problem with motivation. When she invited us into her office she showed us stacks upon stacks of neatly- arranged boxes where she keeps potential story ideas and the sketches and materials that go with them. "People ask me, ‘How do you discipline yourself?' What I find is that I have to discipline myself to stop what I'm working on," she commented.

Nancy Poydar shows Teaching K-8's Associate Editor Kate Romano a sample from one of her books' humble beginnings.

Weaving a tapestry. As we looked over several of the sketch pads where she had started many of her books, Nancy told us about how she tends to think of her books as tapestries. She demonstrated what she meant by showing us how she began sketching one character on each page as he or she progressed throughout the book, much like a storyboard in animation. "This way I can watch him or her dancing through the pages," she said.

Her illustrations are then slowly woven together as she goes back and incorporates every repeated detail, bit by bit. Initially she spends a few days just sketching different kids in a variety of poses to see how they would move throughout the book. She consults clothing catalogs for ideas on what her characters should wear and also checks her notes from her last school visit to see how kids are talking, what they're wearing, etc. "I always eat lunch with the kids when I visit schools," she said.

From there, Nancy roughly sketches how she sees the book unfolding and sends the sketches to her editor. Usually, when she's working on books of her own, she writes and illustrates at the same time. "My head isn't ever resting," she laughed.

Luckily, we know if she had her druthers, Nancy Poydar wouldn't have it any other way.

January, 2004, Vol.34, No.4