How I Write

I don't have an office. I write in my bedroom, with a cup of tea, six cookies and the dog snoring beside me. I used to have two cats who would jostle for position with the dog. One cat was particularly bossy and always insisted on sitting on my papers as I wrote..

I begin the stories by writing longhand in a notebook, very similar to the way you write in school. When I feel I have an interesting story, I type it into the computer. At this point the long process of rewriting begins ... change the story, print it out, change the story, print it out ... until every line is as polished as I can make it. I send it to my publishers and, if they like it, they make suggestions for improvement. Back to the computer for more rewrites!

When the story is completed, the editor passes it along to an illustrator. Ruth Ohi has done the illustrations for the vast majority of my picture books. I love the way she weaves small picture stories of her own into the books (e.g. a snowball-building mouse in Norman's Snowball, a toy cat in And You Can Be The Cat) and the way the stories are sometimes seen unfolding from a bird's eye perspective. In Yancy and Bear, Ruth gives not only the two "stars" of the book delightful characterizations, but brings Grandfather uniquely alive as well. The last few years Ruth has been writing and illustrating stories of her own. I've been delighted to see Maria van Lieshout and Dusan Petricic do the illustrations for my most recent and upcoming picture books.

For more information about how I write, you can also visit Orca Publishers Author Blog and look under NOVEMBER 2007 entries.

You can contact author Hazel Hutchins at hjhutch@telusplanet.net.

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