Today we’d like to introduce you to Cassandra Federman.
Hi Cassandra, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Thanks so much for having me. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with telling stories. I first thought about making books as a potential career in middle school when I began collecting comics. I wanted to draw for Marvel comics more than anything, but at age thirteen, my perfectionism and low self-esteem got the best of me and I gave up on that dream. (However, I continued reading comics and playing action figures throughout high school, which fed the storyteller inside of me.) In college, I discovered theatre and LARPing, and that led me to acting. I acted for about ten years until I realized I didn’t want to be performing OTHER people’s stories, I wanted to be creating my own.
So I began writing, which felt…right, but I still didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. It’s incredibly frustrating to hit your thirties and still not know “what you want to be when you grow up”—but that societal pressure is a whole other rant I wont get into! Anyway, when I hit my thirties I fell into a depression and started drawing again to get myself out of it. I fell back in love with drawing and eventually built up enough courage to illustrate one of my own stories. That’s how I created my very first picture book. The book was awful, but it was incredibly fulfilling to make and I knew it was time to get serious about making books for kids.
In 2015, I attended my first SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) conference. I spent all my free time drawing, writing, attending workshops, entering contests, and sponging up everything I could about children’s books. I won a couple of mentorships and by 2019, I’d published my first picture book, “This Is a Sea Cow.” The sequel, “This Is a Seahorse,” came out in 2020 and won an ILA children’s book award. Right now, I am working on my first middle-grade graphic novel for Aladdin/Simon & Schuster called “The Story Spinners: Princess Sparklepuff and her Crew of Lady Pirates.” If I could go back in time and tell thirteen year old me that I’m publishing a graphic novel, I’m certain she’d never have put her pencil down.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I don’t know that any road is smooth when you are pursuing something creative. There are a lot of high highs and low lows, so I think that your fulfillment has to come from the work you are creating. Not all of your work will get published, but if you stretch yourself and learn from each project you create, then it will never have been a failure or a waste of time. On the other hand, if you don’t love the work and you don’t try to grow from it, then it will be hard to stick it out through those lows. I may be naive, but I still have hope that some of my unpublished projects will see the light of day–even a reimagined version of that first awful picture book I wrote.
What’s something about your work that sets it apart—or what makes your work different?
I make picture books and graphic novels for kids, though I hope people of all ages read and enjoy my books! I will admit that I’m a bit envious of illustrators who have distinctive styles. You can spot a Mike Lowery, Jon Klassen, or Sophie Blackall book from a mile away and there’s something really awesome about that. But for whatever reason (maybe it’s the adrenaline that comes with learning a new artistic skill while under a deadline), I tend to illustrate each project in a different style. For example, I designed the two picture books “This Is a Sea Cow” and “This Is a Seahorse” to look like a child’s homework assignment. I wanted the art in these books to mimic a child’s workspace, so I photographed a lot of found objects and scanned them into photoshop to make a “workspace-collage.” There are pencils and crayons and all kinds of crafty stuff strewn about the pages. Meanwhile, my graphic novel is sketched and inked (digitally) with no photography whatsoever. So, even though I think it would be amazing and probably advantageous to have a distinctive illustration style, I really enjoy challenging myself with new illustration approaches. It keeps me creative!
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
For book-making stuff, they can reach out to my amazing agent Jennifer March Soloway at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. For school visits, people can contact me directly through my website cassandrafederman.com. And they can follow me on social media (as of now, that is Twitter and Instagram @CassFederman)
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.cassandrafederman.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cassfederman/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/CassFederman
Image Credits
Kenchy Ragsdale (author photo)
