Category: Blog

Hello, my name is Hannah Spuler, and I’m a picture book author.

It’s been four years since my last blogpost.

Four years! Four years was enough for World War I to begin and end.
In four year’s time, a budding violin player can advance from dying-cat-mode into a musician.

In four years, a baby changes into a skirt-twirling ballerina.
And in four years, a lost-looking freshman in high school transforms into… a lost-looking freshman in college.

In the last four years…

1. I landed a picture book contract with a small indie publisher: Canonball Books. This is the reason for this post, so more on this below!
2. We navigated the Blood Clot Incident of 2019. It was 3.5 feet long. My husband is okay now.
3. The world’s response to Covid-19 changed the shape of publishing. And hair.
4. We detoured our educational journey and enrolled all our kiddos in a lovely little private school.
5. My husband underwent three brain surgeries and gamma knife radiation. He almost died. But he’s okay now.
6. We left the Midwest and headed to the Pacific Northwest, where we happily live today. We all made the trip in one piece, even the fine china (yes, there’s more to that story).

7. We now have two high schoolers, a middle-schooler, and three grade-schoolers.
8. Twitter changed its theme from cute blue birds to ugly black X’s. Why? No one knows.

9. My book is coming out within a few short months. Wheeee!!!

Each one of these items deserves it’s own post (except number 8), but I’ll stay focused. Let’s talk picture books.

In my last news post, I expressed the daunting feeling that the great expanse of publishing was staring me down, waiting. I had questions. Where do I fit? What is this for? How do I use this desire/skill/gift? I didn’t have answers, but I journaled, “I know an endlessly powerful Creator who knows and cares about the answers to my small questions. I only need to follow Him, one faithful step at a time.”

In March, 2019, three months after that post… I made a last minute decision to join my sister at a homeschooling conference in St. Louis. It was a three hour drive from our home in Peoria, IL, so I woke up before dawn and drove into an intensely beautiful fog. After I arrived, I sat in on a seminar given by several authors. During the Q/A, I asked one of them about his publishing journey. He chuckled. For him, publishing had just… happened. The path had been laid and he had walked it. The only thing necessary was to write the book. “Yeah,” I thought, rather glumly, “God just wanted that book published. That probably won’t happen for me.”

I’ve heard a few times that God has a great sense of humor, and it’s our job to laugh with Him. Even when— especially when— we’re the joke.

Several hours later, at the same conference, I stared— interested— at my hand, as it pulled a manuscript out of my tote to give to the owner of a small fiction imprint (guess which one!). I had about 10 picture book manuscripts in my bag to work on between seminars, and the action to pull one out and hand it to anyone was a complete surprise to me. I had approached the booth to ask about publishing in general, not to ask about submissions. In fact, my first question was prefaced with, “When I submit to an agent… in a year or two.”

If I’m perfectly honest, I hadn’t even planned on walking up to the booth… it was a spontaneous decision. It felt like cold-calling someone, which was not my M.O. at the time. But what did I have to lose? I had met with dead-ends all day. My questions were far from being answered, and with the lack of sleep and the afternoon caffeine crash distorting my perspective, I had been experiencing the dark night of the soul: conference edition, for at least the previous hour.

But here I was, after asking all my questions and receiving sound advice for a good 15 minutes (including not to self-publish board books because they’re considered products, not books, as babies can eat them). I marveled at the lull in the crowd at the usually swarming booth. The conversation led into submissions, and I asked if could show him a manuscript right then. I knew most of my stories weren’t polished, and I wasn’t sure which one I would give him. Still, before my nerves could catch up with me, I pulled out my binder, flipped through the pages and made a flash decision, smiling hopefully as he read it. He gave several timely suggestions, and I revised and submitted it through more official channels. Emails were sent. Updates were requested. Then Canonball acquired it, and the rest is history! Four years of it.

Which leads us to today! At long last: a cover reveal!

Becoming a children’s author is sort of like opening a bakery… except it’s nothing like it at all. In this strange new world of 21st century publishing, before authors share any of their treasured writings, they need to establish a following online. In other words, before I even bake the cookies (which are a special, secret kind of cookie), I have to start parading around the street with my baker’s hat so people know I make cookies. Even though no one’s allowed to eat any of them yet. Or taste them. Or look at them.

And then when curious people ask me what kind of cookies I make, I have to smile mysteriously and say, “Just you wait. They’ll be amazing! They will taste delicious (I hope)! And the secret recipe has flour, sugar, butter, and some other kind of magic chocolate bean grown in equatorial fairy tales.” 

Because if no one knows I bake, then no one will buy the cookies.

So this is me, telling you that I’m a baker—errr, writer. I love to write. I love to grab my laptop and sit on my couch, on my counter, on my bed, in the sun with a blanket on my favorite patio chair. I love to write (for a few minutes) in a field of grasshoppers that sing woody songs to me while the mosquitos nibble at my legs. In the evening, I love to hug and kiss the little people living in my house, grab my notebooks and hide in the schoolroom with the light turned low, trying to find the most whimsical word that rhymes with “hoot” (because owls) and occasionally yelling up the stairs, “Go back to bed!”

As a musician, my inner song informs the rhythm of the words I write. As an artist, the pictures in my head transform into words and fill the paper, lest they disappear forever into the place where all lost thoughts go, the junction between Wonderland and Never-Never Land.

Writing is the trap door for all the imaginative ideas in my head, the meaningful sentiments of my heart, the pieces that would otherwise stay hidden, unused. And with a finished product, I have a chance to contribute something good and lovely to the world that would otherwise be short one fantastically delicious cookie— I mean, book.