“A good picture book should be able to be read by anybody,” says Taylor Norman, editor at Chronicle Books in San Francisco and our guest on the podcast this week. As an editor it is Taylor’s job to find the right manuscript and shepherd it through the process from acquisition to print. No small feat as creating picture books is a multimillion-dollar industry creating memories that last a lifetime. As an art from picture books utilize the best of storytelling and art. “The crazy thing is picture books are considered a genre, but what's true about them is that they actually comprise as many genres as any other art form. There's not a picture book type of story. Every type of story is a picture book story. It just needs to be applied correctly to the form,” Taylor adds. Many alumni and faculty have made their name in picture books including past podcast guests like Eda Kaban, Shari Warren and Julie Downing. The process of writing and illustrating a picture book is more like storyboarding a movie, each frame or page needs to tell a full story and guide the viewer, or reader, along with or without words. And as most picture books have 50 words of less this ups the level of creativity and output by all involved.
