When picture book author Jeanette Hopkins visited Fairfield recently to record a Writers Voices interview with me on KRUU, she brought along her husband, Bruce, and his book, When Foxes Wore Red Vests: Finding My Sense of Place. Instantly I was intrigued by this book’s cover; it’s a gray-and-red tinted collage of squirrel skin, wood beads, Bruce’s sketches of birds, and a photograph of his grandfather perched on a car’s running board while scrubbing its roof.

Inside the book Bruce explores his Catskill Mountains youth by interspersing his own thoughtful essays and poems among family photos and evocative pencil drawings made by his late brother Barry. The mix works well. Readers come away not only with an awed appreciation of Bruce’s sense of place but also with a desire to bask in place themselves.

Chatting with Bruce, I learned that both the cover of his book and its contents were drawn from detailed journals he’s kept through the years.  Click here to hear more about Bruce’s writing process and how he and Jeanette nurture children’s love of nature.

Here’s Wendy Cavanaugh signing a copy of Pumpkin in the Sky, a colorful, fun picture/cookbook about baking pies.  Wendy wrote, illustrated, designed, and self-published this picture book to teach people that baking scrumptious pumpkin pies needn’t be a chore. Handle the dough, mix the pumpkin with your fingers, don’t bother chilling the butter–and you’ll still have a great pie, Wendy insists.

Wendy earned her B.A. from the University of Washington and completed graduate work there in Art History. While participating in Princeton University’s Teacher Education Program, she created a French café with fifth and sixth graders and helped them make crepes and éclairs.  She also teaches Transcendental Meditation.

Wendy’s one of three guests I’ll interview on Friday, November 18 at 1 PM on KRUU’s Writers Voices radio show.  The show will be rebroadcast Monday, November 21 at 8 AM and can be live streamed or downloaded (after the initial broadcast) from the archives of KRUU or from Writers Voices.

Jeanette Hopkins, who authored the picture book The Juggler (Ice Cube Press, 2011), will also be on the show.  So will that book’s illustrator, Stormy Mochal.  Stormy co-owns the Outside the Lines Art Gallery in Dubuque, and Jeanette is an educator and past member of the Iowa Writing Project’s Advisory Board.  The Juggler is an exuberant, rhymed picture book about a young French farmer who longs to juggle pot-bellied boars.  Jeanette’s whimsical text and Stormy’s exultant collage illustrations will enchant children while reinforcing counting skills.

Listen in to hear my conversation with these three delightful women!