This is an unusual interview because we are speaking to Dina Sabry about her new picture book which is still in the publication process and you can be a part of it. Let's speak to Dina to find out more about this wonderful new book and how we can be a part of the publication process for God's Love Letter - Creation. Tell us about your new book. GOD'S LOVE LETTER - CREATION is a 32-page lyrical picture book for all ages—from 4 to 99+ :). It is a personal letter from God to the reader, written in first person—God's, expressing God's love for us through all of His creation. I purposefully crafted the text in lyrical form, so that it reads like a piece of music. I wrote you the heavens and the angels, sound and time, the universe—with its infinite galaxies, planets, and stars. Just for you. Out of Love. The book is much more than a "mere" account of the events of creation. My hope is that, after reading the book, readers will feel their heart full and their spirit high for they know they are deeply loved and cared for by He who made us and loved us first. The book will be in hardcover and will include 14 intricate watercolour spreads by the incredibly talented, Alice Wong, illustrating the 13 stanzas I wrote. It will be in landscape format (11 x 8.5 inches or 216 x 280 mm), which means that each illustration will be 22 inches or 56 cm wide. It's going to look amazing! :) I currently have a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign running till 15 July 2022 to help fund the production and printing of the book. What inspired you when working on this project? I started this project five years ago - September 2017 to be exact. My daughter and I had a bedtime ritual, where I would hop into bed with her and we would chit-chat, pray, and eventually she would fall asleep. One night, she turned to me and asked me if I knew why God created us. “Why do you think?” I asked. “Because God wanted a family,” she said. Her answer moved me. God wanted a family. Not out of boredom or loneliness, but out of love. So I set off to create a lyrical picture book that depicts the many ways God expresses His love for us, and it made sense to start with creation. I also knew that I wanted to make it personal, which is why I wrote it in first person—God's. Talk to us about the creative process for this book. It is a rare and special moment, when a writer has an inspiration, sits down in front of an empty page, and the words just flow. This is what happened with this manuscript. And while the text has been revised and refined over the last five years with the help of my critique partners and Beta readers, the spirit of the original text remained unchanged. Once I decided to self-publish the book under my own publishing brand, a new and exhilarating creative process started. I am grateful to have found Alicia Chiuminatta and Vijaya Bodach, two very talented line editors, who provided me with great feedback, and who I can now call friends. And after extensive research, I came across Alice Wong's portfolio, my wonderful illustrator. I fell in love with her watercolour illustrations—they are so full of heart. Alice is an amazing artist and she is also a wonderful human being. I relish our brainstorming sessions and conversations as she goes about illustrating each verse. It's a truly collaborative process, and it enriches us and the book in many ways! Did you encounter anything unexpected while working on this project? How much time do you have? :) I knew that self-publishing a picture book will be hard work - but I had not realised just how much I'd need to learn in a short period of time! Finding my editors and illustrator was the "easy" part. Then I needed to figure out the printing process: POD or offset printing or both? If offset, what about fulfilment centres? Book size? Paper quality? With or without end papers? DPIs? CMYK vs. RGB? Pricing? Distribution? Shipping costs? Packaging? The list is endless. And when I realised how expensive it was going to be to publish my book at similar standards to that of a traditional publisher, I needed to figure out ways to fund it. That's when I decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign, which is still running until July 15. And, of course, that carries its own set of steep learning! :) I also surprised myself to be honest. I'm an introvert - and yet I needed to put myself out there for all the promotional work - making videos, knocking on people's doors asking if they would promote my campaign or carry my bookmarks. That's nerve-wrecking. But I think it's been a necessary process. The book is about love. And at the end of the day, if this campaign succeeds, and the book gets funded and published, it will be because of the collective efforts of a whole community of people who believed in this book and contributed to it in many ways. I hope more people will want to join us. Now for something completely different! Which would you choose: a breakfast of yogurt and cereals or a traditional full English breakfast with sausages and eggs? Why? Hmmmm that's a tough one. The Swiss in me picked the yoghurt and cereal first! :) But then I remembered my time in Cambridge, UK, as I was studying for my Coaching degree, and the English breakfasts there were delicious too. :) No sausage for me though, I'm vegetarian - but definitely eggs and beans. So I think I'll go for both! Have a bit of egg, bean, grilled tomato and toast. And finish with some yoghurt, cereal, and cut fruits on top. :) Thank you Dina for sharing with us the learning curve and the development of this picture book. We are happy to be a tiny part of this book's journey by helping to highlight it here. We wish you and God's Love Letter - Creation every success and hope that our readers will check out your Kickstarter and be a part of its publication. Sandra Yoong-Chia Bio: Dina Sabry Dina works as a certified individual, group and Gallup strength coach. She is also an author, poet, and picture book writer. She was born in Egypt, and lives since more than 30 years with her family in beautiful Switzerland. Dina wrote her first short story when she was eight. Her love for poetry and the musicality of sound was ignited when she was nine, and she has been feeding that fire ever since. She enjoys writing fiction, non-fiction, informational fiction (using a fictional framework to present nonfiction content), spiritual, and lyrical picture books. For her spiritual picture books, Dina writes them under the pen name “Agape” – which stands for the highest form of Love. Dina has always had a keen love for the written word. In fact, she owns more books than she could ever read in a lifetime. But nothing measures up to her love for picture books. Crafting a well-rounded story filled with heart in as few words as possible is an art and joy. In her world, picture books are not “just for kids”. They are a powerful form of writing that can touch the soul of all people of all ages. When she is not coaching, writing, reading, or buying books, Dina loves to sing in a Gospel choir and enjoys teaching little ones at her local church.
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SCBWI ICRThis is the blog for the International Central Region of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). You can learn more about SCBWI here and about the International Central Region here. Archives
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