In the children’s publishing industry, I’m the whole package—I can write and illustrate. I had an easier time getting an agent because I can do both.
When did you graduate from BYU?
BA English 2008, MA English 2011
What is your job/position? And how would you describe what you do in that job/position?
I'm a children's illustrator. My job is to read widely in the children's market to monitor industry trends; maintain an active social media presence; collaborate with authors, editors, and designers to develop artwork for children's books and magazines; and visit schools to talk to kids about literacy and the book-making process.
Describe the path that you took from your BYU English degree to your current career, highlighting the important realizations and turning points that paved the path for you.
I earned a BA in English Teaching and taught 7th-9th grade language arts after graduating and while pursuing a master’s in English. One of the stand-out undergrad courses for me was Composition Pedagogy, in which I was introduced to the concept of picture books as mentor texts—for the first time I saw books written for children as models for rich, beautiful, complex language and literary devices.
During my master’s program, I took a course in Young Adult Literature in which I got to read for pleasure and found young adult novels to serve as mentor texts for students developing their writing voices in my own classroom. This was another class that taught me how to be a reader and a writer.
At BYU, my professional goal was to seek experiences that would help me become the best, most marketable teacher I could be. As a grad student, I applied for a job that would ultimately lead to illustration. I was hired as an assistant to the directors of the Central Utah Writing Project (CUWP), an organization dedicated to helping K-12 public school teachers improve writing instruction across content areas. I got to spend two summers planning professional development activities for the CUWP Summer Institute and attending each session as participant. This experience showed me what it was like to find community, to be with like-minded people who had similar goals and a shared passion for improving their craft. This was also important because I was so accustomed to academic writing, but in the Summer Institutes, I learned what it was like to write for, and about myself. I found a different writerly voice as I continued to study great mentor texts, many of which were picture books, which we used daily as writers in the Summer Institute.
After I moved to Rhode Island, I spent a lot of spare time drafting picture book manuscripts and writing for fun. While I analyzed and studied the pacing of picture books, I learned to love and appreciate the illustrations too. I began to wonder if I could illustrate my own stories.
The Rhode Island School of Design’s program in Children’s Book Illustration answered this question for me. As I completed this program, I joined the Society for Children’s Book Writer’s and Illustrators (SCBWI) because I knew the value of having a community of people like the CUWP Summer Institute fellows—people who understood struggle and success and showed up every day to become better artists and writers. At an SCBWI networking event I met the agent who helped me land my first picture book illustration jobs, and who later offered to represent me as an illustrator in the publishing industry.
What are the specific skills that you cultivated as an English major that you now use in your professional life? And how do you use those skills in ways that set you apart from your colleagues?
I learned how to write 30-page literary analyses of Jane Austen novels and teach middle school students how to read and write. The skills required to accomplish these tasks are applicable to my artist life. Every term paper and research project and lesson plan I wrote as a teacher was an exercise in critical thinking, close reading, and problem solving. As an artist, I also experience the same creative process writers undertake: invention, drafting, revising, and editing. And being able to communicate clearly with precision, subtlety, and persuasiveness is helpful because children’s texts are so short—the illustrator has to create a compelling visual world in the space of 300 (or fewer) words.
In the children’s publishing industry, I’m the whole package—I can write and illustrate. I had an easier time getting an agent because I can do both.
What are some of the surprising ways in which your English degree has helped you in your life?
Being an English major/teacher/reader of good literature has heightened my awareness of what it means to be human. As a parent I get to teach my own kids how to be good humans, and I often point to examples of good humanity in literature to show them the way.
I also regularly use my English degree as I teach my own kids how to read and write. When my oldest child started kindergarten at the height of the pandemic, I figured out how to home school and planned lessons that incorporated declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge. Her assignments demonstrated all phases of the writing process and we were inspired by many mentor texts along the way.
What do you wish you had known as an English major? Is there any advice you'd like to share with current students?
I wish I had understood failure. I failed at things, not because I didn’t show up for myself, but because they were too hard at the time. I wish I had known that it’s good to be in the zone of “this is too hard,” because that’s where you learn and grow the most. Even though I encountered many opportunities to develop “growth mindset” at BYU, that word wasn’t part of my vocabulary until after I graduated and entered the field. What I often told myself was, “I can’t do this, what am I doing here?!” instead of, “I can’t do this, yet.”
Contact:
sarita.rich@gmail.com