They say “a picture is worth a thousand words” and whoever "they" are sure have it right! Illustrations bring the words of "Sweet Dreams UVA" to life, especially for our little readers. I am thrilled that we found an extremely talented illustrator, Adam Schartup, to give our characters, CavMan, Junior and let’s not forget Marquis the Mouse, shape and color. Adam was great to work with throughout the process, from test sketches, character conception, and story boarding to our final production. He moved countless trees, lines, clouds, and bridges as we worked together to capture Charlottesville and the University of Virginia as best we could!

One of our first big challenges was determining how best to depict the iconic architecture of Grounds so that children could immediately recognize the actual buildings when they see them in person. The University of Virginia, particularly the Rotunda and the Lawn, have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. UNESCO identifies localities of cultural heritage that are “of outstanding value to humanity.” In short, the neo-classical architecture of UVA and Monticello, Mr. Jefferson’s adult home, reflects the ideas, principles, and values of Mr. Jefferson and ought to be preserved for posterity. For a more thorough explanation of the UNESCO designation, please click here.

In order to capture the detail and design of the architecture, Adam and I toyed with the idea of using photographs of the main buildings as the background to the illustrations, onto which filters and his talented gift would be applied to achieve the desired effect. Ultimately, we shied away from this approach to preserve the artistry of the project. I believe we chose wisely and that Adam brilliantly depicted UVA for our little readers!

One of the most fun aspects of writing the book was bringing the story to life through the illustrations. I spent a lovely afternoon in Charlottesville taking photos of UVA grounds for the illustrator, with a special focus on taking pictures from perspectives that I could not find online. It was a perfect excuse for a quick visit to Charlottesville from Richmond.

The day was beautiful and crisp and Grounds were buzzing with students enjoying the sunshine and warmer weather! My mom joined me and my nearly 1-year old son for the afternoon outing. We started at Bodo’s Bagels to fuel up, and after a bagel sandwich and  bojo we were ready to begin. 

We divided the picture list into two categories: Central Grounds and the Corner. We tackled the Corner photos first and cruised Rugby Rd, 14th Street, Main Street, Gordon, and several other residential roads. We executed the “park, flashing lights, sprint around the car" technique, and successfully took every shot we needed without even a warning from the officers patrolling the neighborhoods around UVA.

Next we tackled Central Grounds where we opted for the less daring "parking garage and stroller" technique. We captured scenes of the Lawn, Rotunda, libraries, the chapel, the serpentine walls, gardens, pavilions, amphitheater, Rouse Hall, and several other landmarks around grounds!  
 
For the “hard work” we decided to treat ourselves to Carpe Donuts, but unfortunately they had already closed! So instead, we went by Calvino Café because they carry Carpe Donuts and we needed our donut fix. After a short jaunt down 64, we were back in Richmond
before rush hour with lots of photos to provide the illustrator!

With the  contract signed, sealed, and delivered and an early summer release (gotta have the book in time for Wahoo football season) ahead, there was still much to do. At that point in the publishing process, the manuscript had been reviewed, edited and scrubbed about 40 times before I submitted it to Mascot, so I was not planning on major editing work for the verses once I sent it to Mascot. But, what really needed attention were the illustrations. I had lots and lots of ideas for the illustrations, and aimed to show my little readers the iconic architecture around Grounds, familiarize them with the most frequented UVA places and lingo, and of course get them excited to cheer for the Hoos!

I wrote detailed descriptions of the visual effect and specific images needed for each spread, or 2 adjacent pages of illustrations, to provide the illustrator. That said, I knew illustrators had lots of experience with capturing a little one's imagination so I built in some flexibility for the illustrator to be creative! I was thrilled to see my verses begin coming to live for our little Hoos!

After much research, I found several publishers who had already acquired a CLC license.  I knew the next step was trying to find the best fit for my book.  To determine this fit, I had to call the publishing companies, shop the book, and discuss terms. Armed with a great idea and the belief that if my son needed a UVA book, many others would too, I jumped in. But sure enough, disappointment was there to meet me. 

The first publisher I contacted had fees that rivaled all four years of my undergraduate education (granted it was in-state and almost a decade ago!) and also kept more than a third of the proceeds when royalties and the like were said and done. My economics and business analysis training (and common sense) kicked in and I quickly realized that I would have to sell nearly 4000 books just to break even. I knew we couldn’t afford that option and continued on to find another publisher. 

The next publisher on my list was Mascot Books.  Mascot Books is a Virginia company with lots of experience working with first time authors.  They specialize in children’s books about schools and universities. After perusing everything I could find on their website and finding that I really liked their vision, I contacted them. After a week of discussing my vision for the book, learning about their in-house illustration options, and negotiating terms, we decided that "Sweet Dreams UVA" would be a great fit as the newest addition to the Mascot Books family. 

One of the things I most liked about this publisher was the way they made it a priority to bring to fruition my vision for the book. It seemed that they were there to guide and lend their expertise, but ultimately “Sweet Dreams UVA” would be my baby for my baby. 

My husband has published for academic journals and law reviews and has also self-published a debate handbook for policy and public forum debate through his organization The Great Debate. With his experience in the self-publishing world I felt confident that I could follow suit. WRONG!

Any true children’s book about UVA must include the mascot, the logos, and the colors, of course. All of which are trademarked, copyrighted, or both! Having Cavalier Man, the sabers, and orange and blue were absolutely necessary, so I needed to work with the College Licensing Company (CLC) who held the rights.

The CLC has agreements with universities across the country so that a company can obtain a license and use the trademarks and copyrights of that university in exchange for royalties paid to the school. This all makes perfect sense, so I began to research how to obtain a local CLC license. The long and the short of it is that it is not particularly easy for a company to obtain a license, let alone an individual.

Since I had not incorporated, did not have a prior sales track record, did not have a liability insurance policy upwards of $1M, and did not have a sample work product of my book on hand to send the CLC, I considered alternative avenues. Instead of obtaining the license as an individual and self-publishing, I could publish through a company that already held a CLC license for UVA.  I concluded that such a company would be my new path forward!

Once we settled into our new home, I threw myself into my project by recording all of the ideas, pictures, and rhymes I had been mulling over for months. The book absolutely had to rhyme. I find rhyming children’s books to be the most fun for an adult to read (rhyming attracts me to books I want to read to my son and attracted me to books I wanted to read to the students at Success Preparatory Academy in New Orleans). Rhyming books are also an excellent way to help little ones to develop an ear for like and rhyming words.  

It is a serious thing to represent an institution almost 200 years old, whose numerous alumni have held varied positions of responsibility and power.  On top of that, I wanted to convey a universal college experience to small children. The end product had to be timeless, sincere, and engaging.

With an appreciation of the task before me, I set to work. Many of the verses came easily and I loved every second of the creative process. The difficulty is that children’s books cannot be too long. I wanted to include so many aspects of UVA and the college experience to excite and introduce little ones to the rich traditions and culture of my beloved University, but it had to be short enough not to lose the little ones’ attention. The beautiful thing about writing is that you get to write, edit, re-write, mull, write more, edit more, and continue tweaking your creation. It is a wonderful process!

With the fun part of the book process flying, it was time to focus on the other part of the process that tends to be less exciting: publishing.

The resolution to write a UVA children’s book differs greatly from actually writing it. Our little man was only a couple weeks old when I decided to pursue writing a book for him, but as it turns out, I had significantly less “me” time as a mom than when I was working 60 hours a week. As the months passed the resolution remained, meanwhile JJ began rolling, eating solids, and crawling.

Next came the big move. As time always seems to do when you are enjoying life, it flew, and our two years in New Orleans were over. We took one last look at Uptown, our shotgun house, and happy life there, packed up the dog, Grits, cat, Corn Muffin, three live oak trees, our son and piled into our Expedition for the 1,000 mile drive. Our trek led us to Richmond, VA and the first home we owned. My husband took a position to practice law at McGuireWoods. Oh it was good to be back in Virginia, but so sad to say goodbye to NOLA! But with my parents right up the street from us in Midlothian, VA, it was amazing how much more “me” time I now had.

After boxes were unpacked, walls painted, and rooms decorated, I used my “me” time to work on my overdue book. There was much to do! 

We were living in New Orleans, when our firstborn, Jonathan Junior was born. At the time I was the Director of Finance for a charter school, Success Preparatory Academy, and my husband, Jonathan, was clerking for a Judge on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. We had made a 2 year commitment to be in New Orleans, and during our tenure made incredible friends and had many exciting weekends at festivals, parades, music shows, not to mention Mardi Gras!

I am a “Double Hoo,” Commerce ’05 and Curry ’10.  Jonathan graduated from the Law School in 2010 too and adopted UVA as his rooting interest since his undergraduate alma mater, WashU, is Division III.  While in graduate school, and even before that when we lived in Washington, DC, Jonathan and I had gotten used to attending football and basketball games, and enjoying everything UVA has to offer.  While we were living in New Orleans, we dearly missed our involvement at UVA.

We wanted to share our love of UVA with our son but since the drive from New Orleans to Charlottesville was a bit more than we could pull off in a weekend, we turned to literary means. After searching online for a suitable UVA Children’s book, I was sad to leave Amazon with nothing in my cart. It was disappointing not to find a cute children’s book to show our boy around Grounds, introduce him to the term Wahoo, and get him excited about everything Orange and Blue. This is when I resolved to write a UVA kids book, since I could not buy one I liked. Our son would certainly have a UVA children’s book, but it would just take a little longer to arrive in the mailbox than I had imagined!