Welcome to the Website!

And welcome to my newest book, Riding to Washington:

Riding to Washington is a new picture book written by me, Gwenyth Swain, and illustrated by the talented David Geister. The book is 40 pages long, full of stunning oil paintings  by Dave, and appropriate for children ages 7 and up. The publisher is Sleeping Bear Press. The ISBN is 9781585363247, and the cost is $17.95 in hardcover. It’s loosely based on my father’s stories of going to the March on Washington in August of 1963. The main character, Janie, is a girl who gets to go to the March. She’s a little like me, only lots spunkier.

A TEACHER’S GUIDE is now available!

Q&A on RIDING TO WASHINGTON

****Special thanks to students at Rockford Middle School, Rockford, MN****, who asked these questions, after reading Riding to Washington with their teacher, Traci Moore. 

Zack asked: After writing this story, would you write another story based on someone else’s experiences?

You could say that most of my books are about other people's experiences, directly or indirectly. For instance, I've written several biographies, which are all about other people and their lives. And most of my fiction, including the novel I'm working on now, is based on stories I've heard from members of my family. Of course, I add a lot of my own experiences into the mix as well.

Daniel asked: Why was David Geister chosen as the illustrator? And, how are illustrators chosen?

The author generally has nothing to do with the choice of an illustrator. I was just lucky that my publisher, Sleeping Bear Press, had worked with Dave Geister before. Illustrators and authors almost never have any direct contact with each other during the creation of a book, but in this case, I already knew Dave. We both worked together when I spent a summer as a costumed guide at Fort Snelling.

Tyler asked: Why did you write this story when you were an adult now and not a little girl? Why didn’t you write that you were an adult going to Washington?

I always wanted to go along with my father to the March on Washington, so writing a story about a girl who did go along was my way of getting to make the trip—in my imagination.

Samantha asked: How did you feel when you were writing your book?

Most of the time, I was just happy to be writing and sharing my father's experiences, by way of the fictional Janie. But sometimes I was frustrated. I started writing the book in the early months of 2000, and I collected LOTS of rejection letters. But I kept revising the story until I had something that worked.

Kayla asked: How do you feel about the book? Are you totally happy with how it turned out?

I couldn't be happier with the way the book looks. Dave did a great job with the paintings.

Rochelle asked: When did you first start writing the book, and when did the illustrator start doing art for it?

I first started writing early in 2000, and Dave started painting late in the summer of 2007, after he took a trip to Washington, D.C. He finished the paintings at something like 3AM on Halloween morning.

Heidi asked: What were you thinking about when you wrote the story?

I was thinking about my father, of course, but I was also trying to think like a trouble-maker. I was maybe too good when I was Janie's age, and I was really intrigued by her character.

Ashley asked: If you had a chance to go with your dad on that trip, would you?

You bet! But unfortunately  I was only two years old at the time. However, I grew up hearing about it when my father told stories, so it's part of my memories of growing up.

Jesse asked: How long did it take you to write this story? What took the longest? What do you do to edit and revise your first draft?

Writing took too long. The story started out sounding like the first chapter in a novel—too packed with details. You always have to pare away the details in a picture book manuscript, because you need to leave things for the illustrator to imagine and paint. You need to let the artwork TELL half or more of the story, so the challenge when you write is to keep in only the details that are absolutely necessary to tell the story.

Sierra asked: Why did you let Mrs. Taylor and Janie into the bathroom? It would have been more interesting if they didn’t get to go.

I wanted to give Janie a chance to come face to face with discrimination and unfairness. And then I wanted to show how, in some cases, you could change that unfairness. Maybe that boy at the gas station never let another black person into the bathrooms, but I bet he remembered the one time when he did. And perhaps that was his first moment of questioning the usual "No Colored" rules.

Shannon asked: How have these stories changed your life?

Just getting to share stories with people changes my life. I love to listen to other people tell me their stories. And I love to see how people react to my stories when I write.

Justin asked: What other stories did your dad tell you? Why did you choose this one?

My father's stories are too numerous for me to list. I put a whole bunch into my first novel, Chig and the Second Spread. I chose the story of riding to Washington because I just couldn't get it out of my head.

Cheyenne asked: Is it hard to put yourself in a story that wasn’t about your memory?

No, it's fun! Janie is much spunkier than I ever was, so it was really fun to write her character into the story.

Nick asked: How different was this story from your dad’s version?

Well, you can take a look online at a short memoir he wrote about the March, and see for yourself. It's at 

http://www.ourbrowncounty.com/0306s7.htm

Andrew asked: How did you make the choice of how to break the story into pages? Do you break it up as you write, or do you write the whole story and then break it up...or does the illustrator get to decide what goes on each page?

The illustrator, working together with the art director, generally makes the choices for page breaks. The artist created a "dummy" (folded sheets with just as many pages as the finished book) with very sketchy sketches in place, and that pretty much set the page breaks for the book. Most of the page breaks are where I would have put them myself.

Hannah asked: If you could go back to the revision stage, is there anything you would change or wish you hadn’t changed?

I wish we had two more pages in the book, that we could add a page break after Janie thinks "What's it [the dream] got to do with me?" That way the ending would be just a little more drawn out. But that's about it for changes.

***

Links Related to Riding to Washington:

You can find an article by my father, Henry Swain online. It’s called “A March of Hope,” and it’s at http://www.ourbrowncounty.com/0306s7.htm.

If you go to www.npr.org (that’s National Public Radio) and type in “March on Washington” in the search box, you’ll find wonderful radio coverage from the 40th anniversary of the March. And, if you’re interested in reading more books for young readers about civil rights, check out “Exploring the Civil Rights Movement” in Book Links magazine (Jan. 2008)—an annotated book list (including RIDING TO WASHINGTON) by Jeanne McLain Harms and Lucille J. Lettow.

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