This post was originally sent through my author newsletter on June 10, 2022. To subscribe to my newsletter and receive up-to-date news, musings, and more, use the form on my homepage: KathrynHolmes.com.
Welcome to the first edition of Creating While Parenting! I'm so excited to introduce you to my first interviewee, Lauren Gibaldi.
Lauren lives in Orlando, FL, with her husband and two kids, ages 8 and 4. She and I met as debut authors back in 2013; we both released our first YA novels in 2015. In 2016, our second books came out on the same day! (We also joined forces, along with two other YA authors, for a mini book tour in North and South Carolina that summer. Road trip!) Lauren is still one of the people I email for advice and feedback, and I really hope we'll get to hang out in person again sometime soon.
You can learn more about Lauren, including what's coming down the publishing pipeline next for her, at her website: LaurenGibaldi.com. Connect with her on Twitter and Instagram. And don't forget to BUY HER BOOKS!
I'm so grateful to Lauren for agreeing to be one of my guinea pigs (my very first guinea pig!) for this new interview series. So, without further ado, here are her answers to my three questions:
1. How would you describe yourself as a creator/artist/maker?
I'm what I (delightfully?) call a wri-brarian...a writer/librarian. While my two professions are completely separate, they intertwine in fun ways. I've been writing most of my life, going a bit more professional in college, when I had a column in a local newspaper. I was an editor/copywriter/article writer after that, and then my first novel, The Night We Said Yes, came out in 2015 with HarperCollins. Since then I've authored two additional novels, and co-edited (with Eric Smith) an anthology, Battle of the Bands, which released last year. I've been a librarian for almost 11 years, starting at a college campus, and then moving to a public library, where I am now. As a librarian, I predominantly work with children—recommending books, making displays, and creating/enacting programming and storytimes. I use my writing abilities to create scripts and songs for storytimes. I use my knowledge of books coming out to make recommendations. And on the other side, I use my knowledge of books coming into the library, and their popularity, to gauge what I might want to write, what might be missing in the market. It's a fun crossover, one I'm really proud of.
2. How does being a parent impact and interact with your creative life?
It admittedly makes everything harder, but also better, if that makes any sense at all. In my writer life, I have to force myself to write in the small snippets of time I'm allowed. It makes me value my free time more. It also makes me proud of what I'm doing in the time given. And, of course, my kids are inspirational—their likes/dislikes/quirks...all of them inspire me. I mention a banana moon in my third book, This Tiny Perfect World, because my daughter would always refer to it as that. In my librarian life, they're a great inspiration. I create programs around things they like, knowing other kids like similar things. Have I written my own educational songs and rhymes around Disney princesses, superheroes, Star Wars, and the like? I have! My daughters give me ideas, and I want to make them proud. And it's fun singing the songs I create for them. Also, I keep up more with children's literature. I may not have read Dog Man were it not for my eldest. And for them, I can always bring home all of the amazing books coming out. A current hit has been Endlessly Ever After—a choose-your-own-adventure picture book which is the ultimate in creativity.
3. What keeps you most connected to your creativity these days?
Well, for the librarian side, my paycheck, haha. But mostly my love of doing what I do. I love creating my programs at the library. And with writing, sure, I have off months when I don't find inspiration or time to do what I want. But I always come back to it. It's a need, I guess. A desire to keep doing it. Knowing how happy and accomplished it makes me feel.
