Audrey Sauble is a children’s author, a science illustrator, and an aspiring naturalist obsessed with slugs, bugs, and trees, among other things.
Audrey started writing and illustrating children’s books almost eight years ago when her oldest was a toddler. Since then, she has published several nature-themed picture books and activity books.
As a children’s author, Sauble wants to inspire others with curiosity and wonder when they encounter nature. In addition to writing and illustrating books, she’s taking that goal outside now with a series of preschool story times at a local nature center.
Audrey’s newest book, Acorn Party, is a mixed-up counting story featuring real animals from the Pacific Northwest. In this book, a Douglas squirrel tries to plan an acorn party, but he gets distracted along the way. It takes a little help from his friends for the party (and the counting) to get back on track.
Audrey shares book recommendations and kids’ activities on her blog as well as on Facebook and Instagram.
Why do you write in the genres that you do?
I write a mix of fiction and nonfiction picture books, and to really answer that question, I’d have to back up about eight years.
Back then, my oldest was a toddler, so we were reading tons of picture books. There were all the favorites, with The Cat in the Hat, Harry the Dirty Dog, and Amelia Bedelia, but we also started finding easy nonfiction books and informational fiction at our library – things like Emu by Claire Saxeby, If You Decide to Go to the Moon by Faith McNulty, and Mailing May by Michael O. Tunnel.
I’d always thought nonfiction meant factoids and blurbs like the Eyewitness series. But I fell in love with the genre as we discovered more and more narrative style informational books.
Eventually, my oldest asked a question about eggs. The question turned into a conversation, and I decided that the conversation needed to be a book, Who Laid the Egg?
I’d always wanted to write a book but had never found a project that motivated me enough to finish it (or one that was short enough to feel like I could finish it!). That project was so much fun that I started a second one about rockets, and I’ve kept going ever since.
Do you keep a notebook of ideas?
Yes! And they’re a bit of a jumbled mess since I’m always coming up with new ideas. Sometimes the notes are a full story—beginning, middle, and end—but often, they’re just an image or two with a question attached.
It would probably take me 10-20 years to develop, write, and illustrate every idea I have so far. And I probably won’t run out of new ideas any time soon!
Fill in the blank: “People will like your book if they like stories about…”
Exploring nature, unusual questions, and especially bugs! Nearly all my books focus on nature themes. Most of them are nonfiction, though my newest one, Acorn Party, is a “fiction” counting story that features real-life animals from my region. My books also tend to have semi-realistic illustrations.
What are your thoughts on typewriters?
I’ve never tried one, but it would be fun to experiment with one someday! Some people manage to write on tablets, but I need to have a keyboard, and a semi-clanky one at that to feel like I can make any progress. However, I do like the ability to edit as I go, so I’d probably stick with a computer in the end.
Would you rather own a bookstore or run a library?
Oh, that’s hard! Probably a library?
With a library, people would borrow the books—but then they’d bring them back eventually. I think it would be a lot harder to let go of some books in a bookstore. Plus, it seems like bookstores would have a lot of extra paperwork, management, and marketing involved to keep them running smoothly.
What is your favorite website that you use to promote your writing?
I think Instagram mostly. I have two accounts now—one for nature journaling/art projects specifically and one that’s focused on science, nature exploration, and children’s books. I also have a blog on my website for book recommendations and activities but don’t update that as frequently as I’d like.
What are your passions/obsessions outside of writing?
Nature journaling, gardening, bug chasing, and of course reading!
I started nature journaling by accident. After finishing a couple of picture books, I realized that I should practice more. So, I started trying to find opportunities to draw from real life instead of relying on reference photos all the time.
I’d been sketching outside for a few months before I found an online group and realized that there was quite a large online community for nature journaling. Since then, I’ve started teaching nature journaling classes and hope to develop that into a program for school visits as well.
I like gardening too, but it seems to be the thing I neglect when life gets busy. It does help to provide a habitat for bug chasing, though, and I get as excited about hoverflies and orb weavers as I do about ripe tomatoes.
Who is on your Mt. Rushmore of greatest/inspirational authors?
I don’t like picking favorites, so questions like this are hard! I’d have to start by narrowing it down to only focus on the ones in my own genre, especially the ones that are author-illustrators, since my favorite books are usually those with amazing artwork as well as great stories.
If I narrow things down that much, I’d have to pick:
- Mo Willems – Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, and the entire Piggie and Elephant series!
- Doreen Cronin – Click, Clack, Moo—such a great sense of comic timing
- Melissa Stewart – author of Feathers: Not Just for Flying and a number of other amazing nonfiction books
- Jason Chin – Grand Canyon, with absolutely incredible illustrations and a beautiful story, plus a couple dozen other gorgeous books.
Of course, that leaves out Stacy McAnulty, Jennifer Ward, Kate Messner, Steve Jenkins, Candace Fleming, Kes Gray, and all my other favorites!
Have you ever mentored another writer with their writing?
Yes, though less for writing and more for how to get a book ready for publication. I’m in a couple of groups on Facebook, where other authors frequently have questions about basic book layout: what size the illustrations should be, how many pages, how to decide where the text goes.
My other side gig is book design, so sometimes, I end up walking new authors through the process and helping them get their books ready for print. I’ve also made a couple good friends in the process.
How do you measure the success of your writing career?
For me, success means getting to do a program or a story time and having the families come up afterwards to say that they had never realized that spiders could be so adorable or that bees could be green. It’s fun to see new book reviews and to get sales too, but my main goal as an author is to get kids excited about nature, so I love getting to see that happen.
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