Interview with Carlyn Beccia, author of Who put the "B" in Ballyhoo?

What drew you to children's books? I've been a graphic designer for the last ten years and I've been doing illustration work on the side. I was often told by the corporate world that my illustrations were childlike, which isn't necessarily a good thing in the corporate world, and I started to listen to them after a while. I went to some of the SCWI (Society of Children's Writers and Illustrators) conferences, which is a great resource if you're just starting out and trying to learn about the industry. I learned about the process of submitting manuscripts and I got this story accepted.
What was the process of finding a publisher like? I'm actually a pulled from the slush-pile success story, and it's not your typical pulled from the slush-pile story because it didn't start with a manuscript it started with illustrations. I am crazy about the circus, so I'd sent out a lot of circus art, including to my current publisher. Not the kind of cutesy circus posters we think of today, vintage carnival posters. My editor loved them, and responded, wouldn't it be great to write an alphabet book about the circus? That's a great idea, I said, why don't you find someone else to write it? And she responded back, why don't you just take a crack at it.
It took me a long time to do. A year and a half of research and writing. And, granted, there's not a lot of writing, it's a children's book. But sometimes when you have to write brief that's the toughest type of writing there is.
Every character in my book I had to get down to three sentences, and these people had wonderful stories! So I had to say a lot though the illustrations.
How did you go about researching the book? I went though a lot of old newspaper clippings. I contacted an excellent circus historian, Janet Davis, and I checked out ever book from the library I could get my hands on.
I went through a lot of resources, there are tons and tons of circus pictures, and going though vintage posters I was really able to create this visual library in my mind so by the time I needed to illustrate it was easy.
What initially attracted you to sideshows? It's not the circus as we think of it today, it was more about the dime museum, more about the sideshow. A lot of Barnum acts are featured in the book. I really think it's an interesting part of American culture, when you think of how little contact people had with each other and then this circus comes to town. There's nothing that exists today like it, no show that has the same effect on American culture. People say all the time Circus Day was bigger than Christmas, and it really was! Christmas was mediocre compared to Circus Day. People would get so excited. Schools would close down. Banks and businesses would close down. It would cause all this disruption, good disruption, and it was all started by the circus posters.

Read more about Who put the "B in Ballyhoo? at whoballyhoo.com

Read more about Caryln Beccia at carlynbeccia.com