Stephanie V. W. Lucianovic
Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic writes books in the San Francisco Bay Area surrounded by a few kids, a few cats, and one husband. Her work includes The End of Something Wonderful, Hello Star, and The League of Picky Eaters.
Interview
What was your favorite book when you were a child?
Betsy, Tacy, and Tib by Maud Hart Lovelace
What’s your favorite line from a book?
“First you have brown, all around you have brown” from And Then It’s Spring by Julie Fogliano and Erin Stead
Who are your top three favorite authors or illustrators?
Cindy Derby, Chris Park, Nikki Grimes
Why did you want to become an author or illustrator?
I always wanted to live in the books I read as a kid.
I wanted to be best friends with Ozma.
I wanted to live at the Inn of the Last Home and eat spiced fried potatoes high up in a terribly thick tree.
I wanted to have pets that talked like Chester and Harold.
I wanted to be an islander in Avonlea.
I wanted go not very far from home but quite far from my time and be Betsy Ray.
It wasn’t that I had a miserable childhood and needed to live in books escape. It’s that living in books for a time made life so much more interesting.
I still want to live in books, but it’s not their worlds I want to live in — it’s the words. I want to live between the spaces of Julie Fogliano’s ""all around you have brown,"" in the poignancy of Jenny Offill’s ""’You’re it, Sparky.‘"" I want to hang around with Jon Klassen’s understatements and with Anne Ursu’s delicate complexities.
And this is exactly why I love writing them so much now. I am living in the words. I spend hours on a single sentence, moving around words and punctuation, trying out different beats and measures. It sounds tedious, but it’s the exact opposite. It’s beautiful and exciting and mesmerizing. That’s not to say it isn’t hard and heartbreaking at times, because hoo mama, it definitely is that as well. But it is mostly rewarding and fulfilling. I fall into each new manuscript and let it consume me as much as I consume it. Sometimes I spit it out and don’t take another bite for months. Other times it fills me up and yet leaves me hungry for more of the same. And so I keep writing.Do you have any advice for future authors or illustrators?
Nothing happens in an instant, and the writing road is long and demands patience, so you need take breaks along the way — loooong breaks, if necessary — until you can get back on the road refreshed and rejuvenated. The best part about the journey is that you have books to read for company, inspiration, and sheer entertainment and you will find a writing community that will support you, cheer you on, and dry your tears. Cherish that community. They know how you feel and what you’re going through more than anyone else.
