Photo credit: Courtesy of the author
Long before there was Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Dork Diaries, or The Popularity Papers, there was Amelia’s Notebook, the original handwritten diary format with a mix of words and pictures. “I’ve been making children’s books for a long time. I sent my first book to publishers when I was nine, but they didn’t publish it. I didn’t try again until I was a grown-up and then it took five years of sending out stories, getting them rejected, revising them and sending them back over and over until I got my first book,” author Marissa Moss told Hollywood on the Potomac. “I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember and when I was a kid, I entered every art contest I could find. I won many of them, but my favorite was a year’s worth of ice cream cones from a local Baskin Robbins. That was enough encouragement for me to keep at it, eventually developing the portfolio I would take to New York publishers.”
Marissa Moss in France
Since then, she has published more than forty books. Now, before you start tuning out if you don’t have children, here’s one for you: Amelia’s Guide to Gossip: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. (Simon & Schuster) “Amelia is based on my own childhood and the things that happen to her really happened to me (for the most part),” she said. “Gossip and rumors provided a solid foundation for most of school’s culture. They have huge weight when you’re a kid, but continue to do so when you’re adult; you’re just not as aware of their impact outside of the pressure cooker of school hallways, classrooms, and cafeterias. So this book was my chance to play with how gossip is useful, how it’s destructive. Because it isn’t entirely a bad thing, a lot of how you sort out people and values is through gossip. There’s a reason we all do it!”
Best-selling author Moss was in town in May for double book signings: Politics and Prose (with interactive storytelling) & Busboys & Poets. Popularized by American Girl, the Amelia’s Notebook series sold more than 5 million copies throughout the U.S. over the past two decades. She published the last title, Amelia’s Middle School Graduation Yearbook, on May 12, marking the 20th anniversary and the end of the series and says goodbye to a beloved character that young readers have befriended page after page over the past two decades. Marissa’s signature diary style has inspired kids and tweens all over the country to express themselves through journaling and storytelling. Marissa Moss’ books are popular with teachers and children alike. “I wanted to tell stories that would resonate with readers, that would encourage them to keep on reading. With the Amelia series, I very much hope my readers will be inspired to write and draw themselves. Amelia is a completely ordinary kid, living an ordinary life, and the only thing that makes her notebooks interesting is her humor, her point of view. She shows how everyone has something worth writing about — it’s all in how you tell the story, not what the story is.”
“Each one takes a lot of revising because I never get things right the first time. That used to frustrate me. Now I expect it. And I don’t mind, because that gives me permission to make mistakes. It means I can take risks and try new things because I don’t have to be perfect – I can always make changes,” she explained.
On competition in her genre: “When I came up with the first Amelia’s Notebook in 1995, there were no other books in that genre. It was a format that didn’t exist, which is why it was so hard to get a major publisher interested. They felt the handwritten diary format with art on every page was too odd. Not a picture book, not a novel, it didn’t neatly fit into any label. Now, of course, the illustrated diary format has exploded, from Diary of a Wimpy Kid to The Dork Diaries. I can’t say I feel competitive with those authors, though I certainly wish I sold as many copies as they do! There are a lot of wonderfully talented children’s authors today and my favorites tend to be people who write funny books (which is much harder to do than it seems). I love Christopher Paul Curtis, Jennifer Holm, Louis Sachar, and for more serious writing Joanne Rocklin, Rebecca Stead, Sharon Creech. Far too many to name!”
Her bucket list: “I’d love to write a successful graphic novel, a much more complicated blending of words and pictures than I’ve tried so far. I’m working on one right now (and have been for years). It’s taking a long time because it’s a different format and I’m learning new skills, which is both exciting and terrifying.”
