INTERVIEW WITH CATHY CAMPER:
Author Cathy Camper joins LitPick for Six Minutes with an Author! Cathy is the author of the just released graphic novel Lowriders in Space and Bugs Before Time: Prehistoric Insects and Their Relatives. Cathy has published articles and stories for children and adults, and currently reviews for Lambda Literary online. Cathy is a librarian, and coedits a tiny magazine about candy called Sugar Needle.
In addition to being a librarian, author, and editor, Cathy is an artist. She started doing the seed art portraits to create seed icons of people of color that she admires. She entered them every year in the Minnesota State Fair, starting back in the late 80's, when the other seed art was very staid and white - think portraits of Nixon, Elvis etc. The seed art display there is viewed by thousands of people each year and her hope was that they'd see her portraits, and if they didn't recognize them, wonder who is that? and maybe do a little research to learn more. The portraits are all made using the natural colors of the seeds, without any paint or stain. Some of these portraits include James Brown, Bessie Coleman and Bob Marley.
How did you get started writing?
Maybe writing is partly genetic, because before I could even write, as a kid, I’d tell my mom stories when she’d get out her sewing basket to mend things. Sometimes she wrote down those stories as little books, and then I illustrated them.
On the Arab side of my family, both my Dad and uncle were writers, so I grew up with a strong love of books, in a house where books were discussed and the idea of being a writer was enticing and enigmatic. In high school I won a poetry contest and the prize was to go to a week-long writing workshop at an out-of-town college, during the summer. Being recognized like that for my talent made me feel like my writing had value.
Who influenced you?
As a young writer I was greatly influenced by Virginia Hamilton, who I’d argue is equally as talented and as important as Toni Morrison. Her work deserves much more attention, but I think because she wrote for young people, she never got quite the status Toni Morrison did. All her books for kids are good, but Arilla Sundown is my favorite. Hamilton wrote about brown kids and mixed race kids, and purposely gave them stories that were works of art, at a time when there was nothing else like that around.
I didn’t read superhero comics as a kid. But we always had tons of Mad Magazines around the house, and everyone read them until the pages were falling off. They were especially fun to read while eating cereal, because it didn’t really matter if you dripped milk or Fruit Loops on them. I also read Krazy Kat at a very young age, because my folks had an old book of the black and white comics, and I’d get to read it on sick days, when I stayed home from school and was stuck in bed. I think I learned as a kid that all kinds of wacky things are possible in comics - they’re like movies without a million dollar budget - and as a writer, it’s fun to stretch the medium to see just how much you can get away with.
Do you have a favorite book/subject/character/setting?
Hey I’m a librarian, how can I have just one favorite book? : )
I’m super excited about how the category of comics and graphic novels for kids has grown. I really like This One Summer, by the Tamakis - I love good coming-of-age stories. And it’s so thrilling to finally see books like American Born Chinese and Persepolis, by people of color, and stories like the Tamaki’s book and Raina Telgemeier’s comics, that are about kids’ experiences, instead of the same old stereotype white, male superheroes.
I also want to mention - as a librarian I do book talks, and I’m always amazed to see that whenever I mention the book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, it’s the one book that draws exclamations of devotion from both guys and girls - “I LOVE that book!” I loved it too, when I first read it and now, but to think that it was written in the sixties and still gets so much love from teens? Wow! It’s what I aspire to, my writer’s dream, that one day one of my books will also resonate so well with kids.
What advice do you have for someone who wants to be an author?
Aim yourself in the direction you want to go. So much of how we all turn out is based on luck, there’s a lot we don’t control.
But if you want to be an author, then do the things that authors do. Write, write, write. Make daydreaming a top priority, go off-line and take long walks, bus rides or do anything else monotonous that lets your daydreaming blossom. Read like a hungry caterpillar eats. Take classes. Talk to other writers. Collaborate. Share you work through zines, readings or online forums. Stay up late sharing passionate ideas about things you’ve read. Fall in love with totally the wrong person because you love what they write, then write about them when they break your heart. And be sure to use your talent to give back and help other people too.
Know that every day you’ll never stop wondering “Am I finally an author now?” But after several decades of living like this, you’ll certainly be more of an author than you were when you first asked yourself that question.
Where is your favorite place to write?
All my life, I’ve had full-time jobs (mostly as a librarian), and so I’ve squeezed in writing around work. Early on, I taught myself to write anywhere. On the bus, walking to work, on my breaks at the library. Tons of my best ideas, biting dialogue, story plots or even interesting character names show up on scraps of paper, napkins, the backs of library call slips, or in notebooks I carried in my bag. I write manuscripts on my computer, usually at home. But I also like going to cafes so I can eavesdrop. Lots of good ideas come from other people’s conversations.
What else would you like to tell us?
I work as a youth services outreach librarian in Portland Oregon, and so I go out to schools all over the county, and work with kids grades K-12. I help them learn how to use the library catalog and databases, and I do book talks and zine workshops. I love that my job connects me to kids of all ages this way, so I get to hear your stories and adventures. A lot of adults never interact with kids or go into schools unless it’s because they’re parents, so I feel lucky it’s part of my life.
I hope my book Lowriders in Space inspires you to write or draw. Raul III (the artist of the book) and I both love fan art, and he drew the book with Bic pens, because that’s what all kids draw with in school, right? We hope our book inspires you to be creative too.
Cathy, thank you for spending six minutes with LitPick! Congratulations on the release of Lowriders in Space!
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