Guest Post: Karen Leggett Abouraya Talks Art Process with Susan L. Roth
“As a collaborating partner, Susan L. Roth is like an insistent mother the night before a school project is due. ”
Karen Leggett Abouraya and Susan L. Roth have collaborated on picture books for years. Yes, collaborated, which isn’t something authors and illustrators are known to do in North American publishing. We’re all carefully schooled in detachment in the creation of picture books, right? Here’s a different take on this.
Their picture book, Zamzam, is an ode to family love that reaches its arms around the world, and an exploration of the big and little differences that colour us human. It’s also a verbal-visual collaboration.
A Rare and Joyous Collaboration
by Karen Leggett Abouraya and Susan L. Roth
As a collaborating partner, Susan L. Roth is like an insistent mother the night before a school project is due.
“WHY AREN’T YOU WRITING?” she texts, telling me to hurry up and get the next manuscript finished.
The prize is not an extra TV show or ice cream, but a book filled with Susan’s luscious collages. Susan and I have written and illustrated three books together: Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt’s Treasured Books, Malala Yousafzai: Warrior with Words and Zamzam.
Our most recent book, Zamzam, is the story of a little boy who has grandparents in Egypt and America. My husband is the Egyptian grandparent and fact-checker, I am the American. I tell the story and Susan cuts the paper. It was my husband who first noticed that the tabla (drum) Susan created actually looked Pakistani. We sent her a photo of the Egyptian tabla in our living room and now it’s in the book. That’s collaboration, including the good fortune of having my Egyptian husband looking over our shoulders.
I asked Susan how our collaboration is different than working on another author’s manuscript.
It’s different because with every conversation, it takes an hour to shoot the breeze since we care about our families and gossip.
How do you decide what paper to use…and then find just the right paper?
It depends on what’s in my pile. If I find the right paper in the pile, it’s because I decide it’s right. Sometimes I go shopping for paper, but I prefer finding stuff like an old ad or telephone book or a piece of paper that came in the mail or the wrapping from a cinnamon roll if it doesn’t have any sugar of course. I don’t like bugs on art unless they are made by me out of paper. I am very conscious of conservation and recycling and making use of available materials in interesting ways, but only if I can make it work.
How do you approach a manuscript that includes a country you know only a little, like Egypt?
“I realized the people are real and they don’t walk facing front while standing sideways, however gorgeous and inspirational all those millions of images are. ”
Karen (L) and Susan: photo courtesy of Karen Leggett Abouraya
If at all possible I go to the country with the collaborator, as I have done in Puerto Rico, Italy, Mexico, and France. If I can’t go to the country, I look it up in the 1940 Encyclopedia Brittanica in the basement and if all else fails, I look on the computer if my grandson is here to help. You and I went to Egypt together, but that was after Hands Around the Library was published and we had a chance to present it to an audience at the actual Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
Karen and Susan, jacket flap copy © Susan L. Roth
Susan added, “Egypt for me was a very far away place, totally exotic, a place of supreme art history. With this collaboration, it became a contemporary place that consumed my whole being. It was amazing and very much alive – our collaboration changed my perception that Egypt is just mummies. When I went to Alexandria, Egypt, I was on hyperalert for everything – I realized the people are real and they don’t walk facing front while standing sideways, however gorgeous and inspirational all those millions of images are. And if you are really lucky you get to eat koshary, the delicious street food made of lentils, rice, pasta, spicy tomato sauce and fried onions. I can just smell it and OMG, thinking of it makes me hungry right now!”
Our next edition of Zamzam coming up, with a side of koshary!
