Our annual SCBWI Germany & Austria picnic was held at Catherine's house this year. Thank you for hosting, Catherine. The attending members (with family) had a great time. And this year, in addition to good food, friendly chat, and the book exchange, we had something very special, and I got to be a part of it. I had the honor of presenting Sanne with her Crystal Kite Award.
It was so exciting!!! I am so glad I could share in her special moment. We are all so happy for her.
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| picture by Linda Hofke © 2019 |
It was so exciting!!! I am so glad I could share in her special moment. We are all so happy for her.
YAY, SANNE!!! Congratulations!
Of course, I couldn't miss the opportunity to ask Sanne for an interview. She kindly agreed.
Of course, I couldn't miss the opportunity to ask Sanne for an interview. She kindly agreed.
Could you tell us a little about
yourself and how you got started in publishing?
Hi Linda, thanks so much for doing this! In many ways, my career has
been a typical woman's career: I married a man who turned out to be very focused
on his professional career - and we wanted children. So I decided to make
family life the centre of my existence for a while. I had a degree in Art
Therapy and a training in Special Needs Education, so it felt
right at the time to stay at home with my own children instead of working with
other children and looking for child care for my own.
When I was forty, Finola, my third child, was ready for kindergarten,
and I was more than ready to start working. I wasn't sure anymore if I wanted
to work as an art therapist though. In a way, the therapist (the carer, the
nurturer - whatever you want to
call it) in me had been - and still was
- fulfilled and, at times, challenged in family life. It was the artist in me
who claimed her right. Illustrating children's books had been my childhood
dream, and I had always drawn for my children, so I decided to find out how to
make it a profession.
Tell us a bit about your winning book
and how you got the idea to write it.
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| Picture © Sanne Dufft, 2019 |
Tell us a bit about your winning book
and how you got the idea to write it.
It began with an image I had been working on for my portfolio: A little
boy asleep, snugged up with a life size lion. (Now don't ask how I got the idea
for the image. I don't know. It was just there.)
Soon, a sentence joined the image: 'Manchmal braucht man einen Löwen.
Besonders, wenn es dunkel ist.' ('Sometimes, you just need a lion. Especially
when it's dark.') In hindsight, it is easy to say: At that point, the whole
book was there already. A lion, a brave little boy who is afraid of the dark, and
a granny (or, as in the North American edition of the book, a Nana) who knows
what the little boy needs...
Nevertheless, it took me three years to finish it, and a lot of help and
encouragement from a lot of wonderful people around me. There was a trove of
online resources, first and foremost Mira Reisberg's Children's Book Academy.
There was the SCBWI Tomie DePaola award in which I was one of the runners up in
2015, which is why I have a handwritten note by Tomie up on my studio wall.
There were the SCBWI Europolitan conference 2015, from which I came home -
proud and dazzled - as the winner of the portfolio award. There was the
Europolitan Conference 2017 which provided me with enough skill, curiosity,
inspiration, and, again, encouragement to go on with what I was pursuing. There
was the little group of SCBWI illustrators with whom I met every month at my
studio to hone our craft. There were you lovely SCBWI folk who were always there to give me
feedback.
That's what critique partners are for, right? We all enjoyed seeing it develop from draft to draft and develop into the wonderful story that it is. It is such a beautiful book. Would you be willing to share a few photos from the book?
Certainly.
That's what critique partners are for, right? We all enjoyed seeing it develop from draft to draft and develop into the wonderful story that it is. It is such a beautiful book. Would you be willing to share a few photos from the book?
Certainly.
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| © Sanne Dufft, 2019 |
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| © Sanne Dufft, 2019 |
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| © Sanne Dufft, 2019 |
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| © Sanne Dufft, 2019 |
From first draft to final book, how many revisions did you have to go through until you had the lovely book we can now find in book stores? Did you get the idea and how long did it take from idea to published book?
I
don't remember how many revisions it went through. Certainly a lot! It was a
thouroughly chaotic process, which involved heaps of sketches and notes written
into my notebook, which I try to always carry with me, or on scraps of paper
when I couldn't find my notebook, and a couple of files on my computer... I'd
say it took about two years from first draft to the final version of the text
and a PB dummy. Once that was done and the publisher was happy with it, things
beame a bit more focussed and structured. I had a deadline then, which helped
to get things done.
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| © Sanne Dufft, 2019 |
Tell us a bit about the illustrations.
(the style & technique and why you decided on those)
I
always work in watercolour, as this is the only technique I begin to feel
comfortable with. I love trying out other techniques, but with none of them I'm
anywhere near feeling confident enough to using them in the illustrations for a
book.
I
try to be a bit innovative in each book though, experiencing with some less
conventional techniques, whenever the story asks for it. My first picture book,
The 'Sand Elephant' (written by Rinna Hermann), is set in a sand pit and in a
huge (imaginary) sand castle. Here, I worked with a toothbrush, splashing the
paint on the paper to create a grainy, sandy surface.
In 'Paula knows What to Do', my latest picture book, I combined the
watercolour images with elements of gouache painting. In it Paula, the
protagonist, paints her own (gouache) paintings, which become part of the
waterolour scenery of the images in the book.
For 'The Night Lion', I used watercolours in a more traditional way.
Here, the story dictated the colour range of the images: There was the indigo
of the night sky and the raw sienna of the lion, which set the sene for the
whole book. And, of course, the crimson red feather on Magnus' (in the NA
version: Morgan's) hat, for contrast.
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| © Sanne Dufft, 2019 |
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| © Sanne Dufft, 2019 |
When we met, you were unpublished and
just starting your journey in the world of publishing. You've come so far. Can
you tell us about your journey and how many books you now have published?
I
think we first met in 2014, didn't we? In 2015, 'Der Sandelefant', my first PB,
was published. As of today, I have illustrated (I just had to count) nine. Six PBs, one
nonfiction PB, and two chapter books. Two of the picture books I've also written. Then
there are four book covers. If you count all books on the market which have my
name on them, including translations, there are 23.
I've already talked about all the support
and encouragement I've received on the way. What I haven't mentioned is that
since 2016, I have been agented by the wonderful Maria Bogade, who has not only
found publishers for my work again and again, but has also always been there
for me with advice, and, once again, encouragement.
Wow.
That is so exciting. I have enjoyed watching your career blossom. Now that you have much experience, is there any advice you can offer
to others?
Now, this question made me smile a bit... Experienced? Me? In many ways,
I still feel like a beginner... Whenever I want to start bringing an idea to
the paper, I wonder: How on earth can I do this? Sometimes I think - I
hope - this is an asset: As an artist, this mode of feeling clueless can be
helpful for finding a fresh, unconventional view of things. At the same time, I
would love to have a wider range of styles and techniques I can draw from. I'm
working on this.
Looking back, I must admit my 2015 self was naive in many ways: I had no
idea how difficult, exhausting, and demanding this process was going to be. But
I didn't expect to find so much love, support, and recognition on this
path either.
What has definitely been harder than I thought is the economic side of
it. I am lucky my family doesn't depend on my income, otherwise life would have
been a lot harder in the past few years. So, my advice is one beginners hear a
lot: Don't quit your day job (too soon). And: keep going. It is an exciting
path we're on.
What are you currently working on?
'Tinkas Tomaten' ('Tinka's Tomatos'), a picture book I've written myself
about a little girl who grows tomatoes on her balcony. In the beginning,
they're just little green leaves, but with a bit of care and perseverance and
some support, Tinka can observe how they grow, until she can harvest bright red
tomatoes - some of which she can give back to her helpers.
That’s a
great storyline. I can’t wait to see how it progresses. And I can’t wait to see
what else the future has in store for you. I think more good things are coming
your way, Sanne.
Sanne Dufft was born in Darmstadt,
Germany, in 1974. She spent her school career decorating the margins of her
exercise books and drawing portraits of her fellow pupils (who liked it) and
her teachers (who didn’t always…). She studied Art Therapy in Nürtingen,
Germany, and worked with children with a variety of special needs (and special
gifts) in Northern Ireland. She has illustrated her first picture book, Der
Sandelefant (The Sand Elephant), published by Urachhaus, Germany, in Spring
2015, and has since illustrated several children's books for a number of
publishing houses in Europe and North America. She is also the author of Magnus
und der Nachtlöwe (The Night Lion), Urachhaus, Germany, Paula Knows What to Do,
Pajama Press, Canada 2019, and Tinkas Tomaten (Tinka's Tomatos), Urachhaus,
Germany 2020. Sanne lives with her husband and three children in beautiful
Tübingen, in the South of Germany.
