A Mother's Day poem by K.A. Nuzum

On Mother’s Day, a Thank You, Mater

 

Oh, Mater, thank you! 

Thank you for being ever

a gently rocking cradle for my creativity

and never a slamming door.

 

Thank you

for typing all my manuscripts when I first began to write books in third grade,

transforming my slanting-cross-the-paper,

hand-printed stories

into

Times-New-Roman-12-point-

black-and-white-one-side-only pages;

nothing said or done could tell me more clearly that

my stories were important.

Thank you

for introducing me early on to authors like A.A. Milne,

whose opuses helped teach me

the storyteller’s voice.

Thank you

for not pointing out to me how heavily

I borrowed from that literary giant

in my seven-page book, Norman’s Escapades --

the story of a clinically depressed donkey.

You understood

how effective a teacher

imitation can sometimes be.

Thank you, Mater,

for reading me a bedtime story each and every night

and always letting me choose the book. 

Thank you especially for letting me so often select

the Disney picture book of Sleeping Beauty

thereby ensuring that my writing would expand and evolve

to draw not just from the garden of childish dreams,

bright with innocence and roses,

but from Grim(m) Disney’s dark and fearsome well of

black-scaled dragons,

poison thorns. 

Myriad nightmares that woke me in the wee hours (ages 5-8),

that left my

heart pounding,

my stomach churning

from futile efforts to escape Maleficent,

flourish still in the fertile,

shadowed corners of my unconscious mind.

 

Thank you, Mater,

for showing me how to make a happy ending

after 

I plotted and executed high crime.

You always kept a can of tuna on hand to feed

the occasional kitty I kidnapped on my way home from school. 

The yellow-striped,

or gray-striped,

or black-with-white-socks feline,

that I lugged home in my arms,

always dined like a king, not a kidnap victim, in our home.

And thank you,

for driving the cat,

at the end of the day and the bottom of the tuna can,

the cat, round-bellied and reeking of fish

back to the scene of my crime,

where I would carry him from the car,

set him gently on his own front stoop

and bid him farewell.

The kitties’ families never the wiser were, but I was.

Thank you

for forcing me to go to church and Sunday school

every 

single 

freaking 

week of my life

for my first sixteen years,

thus providing me not only

a spiritual path,

but broad knowledge

of Western culture’s base,

bedrock for my stories.

 

And, Mater, thank you

for indulging my attraction for

plot twists,

surprise,

and fame

by allowing me

(and my equally diminutive chums)

to ride to school

in the trunk of our hulk of a Pontiac. 

It took only the first time of our popping out of its rear end instead of the back seat,

for whispers to start and

rumors to spread,

and from that day forward,

there was always a waiting,

expectant,

cheering crowd curbside

when you pulled up before the front doors of Martin Park Elementary.

 

On Mother’s Day,

for these and a thousand other acts

of love and recognition, Mater,

for opportunities deep and wide

in which to learn and grow my craft,

many thanks and much love.

 

K.A. Nuzum

 

 

 

Following are remarks given by Holly McGhee, founder of Pippin Properties, Inc. and William Steig’s longtime literary agent, sharing some of her recollections about the artist and author. These remarks were delivered at a press conference for the exhibition: From The New Yorker to Shrek: The Art of William Steig at The Jewish Museum on October 30, 2007.


William Steig, writer, illustrator, and artist, winner of the Caldecott Medal, a Caldecott Honor, another Caldecott Honor and a Newbery Honor in the same year, a Christopher Medal and so much more . . . And the writer of the book Shrek! that led to the Dreamworks movies. Although he sold his first cartoon to The New Yorker at age 23, William Steig didn’t turn to children’s books until he was 62 years old. He made up for it though, and wrote 39 of them, completing the last one at age 94. When he lay down his pen that final year, he quietly and gracefully went on.

Shrek! was not his most popular title, but it was the book that put his name on the big screen at age 93. After seeing Shrek! for the first time, he said, “It’s vulgar and disgusting and I love it.

And there you have it.

The best thing about Bill Steig was that there was no “bull”, and the worst thing about Bill Steig was that there was no “bull”. Nothing got past him; his sensors were keen. If something was amiss, he didn’t pause for pleasantries. He’d look you in the eye with his own piercing blues and say, “What’s wrong?” He wore converse sneakers, blue jeans, and work shirts. A tie only if necessary. He was the same in his children’s books. The pictures look you straight on, face out, right there. They are drawn same size, no shrinking or enlarging required.

Illustrating was Bill’s work--and he loved to say that he hated illustrating. He said, time and time again, that he hated drawing the same characters one page after another, painting the outfits the same way one page after another. Painting the windows, the curtains, the floors the same way one page after another. Bill wrote to me on September 8, 1995: “Hol, I sincerely hate the chore of illustrating. I illustrate Jeanne’s work because we sleep in the same bed and I’d be uncomfortable if I didn’t illustrate her work. Besides that, I like her work, it requires no repetitions, and I’d kill myself for her if necessary.”

This was his system: He would dummy up an entire picture book, and once it worked, he would create his line drawings. Then he set up his painting factory. The book laid out in consecutive page order in his studio. He painted all the reds, the blues, the greens. And if you look very closely, you’ll notice that some of the colors and the patterns fade toward the end of his books, the crazy Steigian patterns on the floors and the couches and the wallpapers. He was running low on paint!!

But what Bill loved, as much as anything, was doodling faces. Doodling gave him great joy. As his wife so poignantly put it, “You see, as a young man Bill had lost considerable hearing to a bout of meningitis, and didn’t always catch what was being said. The visual was what he was after, anyway. He loved television, and particularly relished a Spanish talk show, though he did not speak a word of Spanish. The excitement on the faces of the speakers, their intensity, captivated him. He drew hundreds of pages of faces; some were abstract, some resembled portraits, though they never were. Except for a few of his many thousands of faces being published in The New Yorker, Bill’s faces were for himself. Doodling was not about publishing.

Bill would have turned 100 on November 14 (2007). He knew that Moby Dick was his favorite book because he had read it more times than any other book. He knew that Picasso was his favorite artist because the work excited him more than anybody else's. His favorite animal was a donkey because he loved the way they looked. He relished a good football game. And as he wrote in his picture book autobiography, When Everybody Wore a Hat, "In 1916, when everybody wore a hat, I was eight years old. When I grew up, I wanted to be an artist or a seaman. I did become an artist, but not a seaman."

And there you have it again. No "bull"

My very first picture book, The Little Red Fish, was originally my thesis project.

After two years of study at the SVA MFA Illustration program, I wrote and illustrated a story called The Book as my final project.

After the thesis exhibition, Dial Books for Young Readers decided to publish that book. Later the title was changed to The Little Red Fish and we kept most parts, but changed the ending of the story. Originally my story was about a boy's adventure in a library to find his little red fish. In the end, he gets stuck in a book page and his fish reads the book.

Nancy Mercado, my editor at Dial Books for Young Readers back then, was concerned that the ending of my story could be pretty scary for children. Kids will reflect themselves as the main character as they read and if they find out that the boy will never be able to come back out from the book page, they will close the book frightened.

I started to think about what I really wanted to tell through the story. I focused more on what I wanted to draw than who will read my book. I didn't try to change my story to be just friendly to children, but I wanted to refine the story to deliver a clear message with a more satisfying ending.

We decided to work on the ending and it took almost another half a year. Revising only the ending part of the story was harder than writing the whole story over again.

After several months, I finally found a solution that I was very happy with. And the very last image became my favorite illustration through the whole book.

I learned how a thoughtful editor and art director could inspire as we work together. I am very thankful for all of their feedback.

Since The Little Red Fish has been published, I have illustrated three picture books. And this year my second book as an author, You Are a Lion, is going to be published by Nancy Paulson Books.

Every book that I have worked on challenged me for many different reasons. But one thing that I keep in my mind while working is to make a picture book that children want to read many more times. How wonderful it will be if my picture book will be kept on someone's bookshelf through their childhood and hopefully for their own children.