HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR INNER CHILD ALIVE? Question to 2 children's and teen's books authors and their Answers

In the past 6 months, I've been proceeding passionately with my goal: internationalizing myself and my career as a children's and teen's books illustrator and author.

For this reason, I've packed my bags often and taken my courage and portfolio to visit international book fairs.

So, I've come in contact with different publishers, translators, and authors from France, Chile, Germany, and more.

HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR INNER CHILD ALIVE WHEN WRITING FOR THEM?

This question kept burning inside of me for some time already, worrying me that the more I grow old the less I'll be able to keep up with the magic, surprise, and simplicity of children's vision of the world. Nor with the angry, demanding, and rebellious yet strongly determined vision of it that teenagers have.

So I asked it to Sylvain Zorzin and Eva Rottmann, and here's what they had to say:

Sylvain Zorzin - author of numerous French kids' books

Festival du Livre de Paris, April 2024:

I met Sylvain there, and he was one of the few people who was open to me, even though I didn't speak good French. 

I noticed his illustrated books on a stand and he spoke to me about his works with enthusiasm. I told him about myself and my early career, and he gave me some nice advice. 

So I asked the question. 

He was surprised and was very honest: his inner child had fallen asleep over the years, it was there, but not awake. 

When he had children himself, his inner child was reborn:

I would sit next to their bed at night and they would beg me for a story. When I sat there reading it I would see something in their eyes. They would light up and try to grasp that world, they needed to enter it and know what was happening. So that's when I started writing. 

To this day, he has published more than 35 books for children and some for teenagers. 

His story inspired me: not proceeding with this effort only for myself and for my inner girl who is struggling against a horrible and worrying adult world, but rather doing it for the children of today and tomorrow.

Eva Rottmann - German author of YA and teens Books

Frankfurt Bookfair - October 2024:

After a couple of intense days, the Fair, one of the most important in the field, was about to come to an end. Right after the meeting with the winners of this year's German Jugendliteraturpreis (German Prize for Youth Literature) I had to chance to get closer to this author, who won the prize in YA category right the night before.

To be honest I was feeling a bit lost in that moment, especially because of the language barrier and the lack of interpreters on the latest meet and greet with the authors.

So, I checked again the winners list and I realized I could ask Eva the question:

I have lots of work-in-progress material of stories to be addressed to teens and yet I've never felt farther from teens nowadays while it's hard to face my wounded inner teenager and the impact "she" still has on my present.

Eva Rottmann has been an adult for way longer than me now and I noticed her fresh, energic, and young attitude the night before. So I told her about me and asked the question, specifically about one's inner teenager:

It's a good question. I really don't know. I guess it's just over at one point.

"But you still have a strong, live one, how do you do?"

It's here but I guess It might be over soon, maybe in some years it will be gone. At one point, it simply goes away.

So, Eva's "secret formula" is maybe just really radicated in her, and I find adult people with such a live inner child or teen fascinating and interesting. Probably not worrying too much about other people's labels and expectations of how you should be and what you should do at a certain point in life.

Eva Rottmann wrote a novel about skaters teenagers who back one for the other, and provide for each other as a family should do, and "her sensitive language moves confidently and with profound ease in the cosmos of adolescence. In an outstanding coming-of-age novel that takes youth seriously in all its shades" (The Jury of The Prize).

This conversation, and generally all my recent Buchmesse 2024 experience gave me a sort of confirmation that my inner dreamy and demanding teenager has been (and still is) longer inside of me compared to friends my age.

I am afraid to lose it or kill it with logic but maybe I won't just waste this chance of having more time together and keep on writing.

banner: Illustration from my book, "Il costruttore di cornici - O construtor de Molduras" © Miriam Panieri