Author Dan Gutman and Editor Elizabeth Law talk about HOUDINI & ME

[Music] Holiday Housebooks for young people presents Dan Gutman, author of "Who, Dini and Me." In conversation with Holiday House Editor, Elizabeth Law. Hi, I'm Elizabeth Law and Editor in Holiday Housebooks, and this is the guest book podcast. Our guest today is Dan Gutman, a household name to your kids ages 7 to 12, because it is series like My Weird School, which is sold 29 million copies and counting, and the New York Times bestselling series, "The Genius Files." Dan's here today to talk about his new book, just released, called "Who, Dini and Me." Hi, Dan, and welcome. Hey, Elizabeth, how you doing? I'm not bad. So anyway, Dan, after 10 years of writing books for different series, what made you think of writing a middle grade novel about who, Dini? You did, Elizabeth. You were bugging me for a decade to do something, and finally, I threw an idea at you and you accepted it, and I had no choice but to write it. Well, I'm only too happy to claim credit for this when I actually did absolutely nothing, but it is true. Yeah. And over the years, there were two or three things that you pitched that I wasn't that enthusiastic about, and they all went on to be hits, right? I don't even remember what they were anymore, to be honest with you. I know I turned down, Casey, at that. Did you? Well, hey, 20 publishers turned that down, Elizabeth. I actually think it's good for listeners who are interested in editorial to know that it's in our form, that it's just not as obvious. That something doesn't come out of the manuscript pile, and sort of the cloud's card and a bird flies through with a sign coming out of his mouth saying, "That's seller," and it's a subjective business. Yeah. It actually took me 10 years to find a publisher for that book, because everybody turned it down, and I thought it was great, and eventually I did get it published. I'm really glad I didn't quit on it, because I'm really proud of it today. I'm glad to hear that story, and I'm also glad I didn't quit on asking you for ideas, because that did, finally, after I tried to nag enough that you remembered that I wanted a book from you, but not so much that you would get pissed off and go away. We came to Houdini. What did, finally, crystallize this idea in your mind? Well, yeah. I live in New York City, as do you, and I have this hobby of collecting addresses of famous people, where they lived. I live on the Upper West Side, and I was walking around my neighborhood. Just eight blocks from my house, there was a plaque on the wall, one of those oval plaques that are all over the place that say a famous person lived there, and I went closer to look at it, and it was Harry Houdini, the famous magician and illusionist, and escape artist. He lived the last 22 years of his life there. I didn't know much about Houdini, but I thought it was cool, and I like to write historical fiction. I thought, "Let's check out Houdini, and I started to research him and learn about him, and it made me want to write about him. I concocted this idea about a kid. What if a kid were to live in Houdini's house over on 113th Street in New York? What if he was able to communicate with Houdini who died in 1926, by the way? Communicate with Houdini by text message. That would be so cool." That was the kernel of the idea, but it didn't really come together for me until I started reading about Houdini and learning about his, one of his most famous escapes, which was called metamorphosis, where he would switch places with another person, usually his wife, best. I got the idea in my head, "Well, what if Houdini were to switch places with this kid from the present day?" The kid goes back to the 1920s, and Houdini comes to the 21st century. That would be really interesting. That was the genesis of the book, and we took it from there. I didn't realize the kids today know who Houdini is, but they do, right? It's funny. I do a lot of school visits, as you know, and I often sit around a table at lunchtime with kids, and we just talk. It's funny how kids, even like first-second graders, they know certain American icons. They know Houdini. They know who Bay Bruth was. They know who Elvis Presley was. They know who Marilyn Monroe was, and there's just certain people that long after they're gone, really young people know who they are. They've become iconic Americans. That's so interesting. Marilyn Monroe, my goodness. I guess we'll have to talk about a Marilyn Monroe book for middle-grade readers. Marilyn and me? Yeah, Marilyn and me, right. Okay, maybe not. So Houdini changes place with the kids. I'm pretending as if I don't know what happens in this book, and of course I edited it, and I do know. But how did you, so Houdini comes into the future at one point? He comes into our present day and walks around time square. How do you think Houdini who died in the 30th sun-ton, right? 26. 26? Halloween night. Halloween night. So how did you think about what's he going to notice when he walks around time square today? Well, I went to time square and kind of pretended I was Houdini. I've known that he very often performed at a theater called the Hippodrome, which was over on the 6th Avenue, I think in 44th Street, something like that. Gigantic theater. They had all kinds of acts performed there. The theater's gone, of course. But there's a building there called-- There's a building called the Hippodrome. It's right, it's galactic book. She's to be in it a zillion years ago. Yes, and there's like a plaque inside that describes that Houdini used to perform there. So I started there and I kind of walked around pretending I was Houdini. Oh, the elevated train. It's no longer there. Oh, there's a Stephen Sondheim theater that used to be some other theater, you know? And I just kind of walked around and thought, like, well, Houdini, he wouldn't know that people ride around on electric bikes and knock them over when he crosses the street. He wouldn't know that a hot dog costs $4 now in a sense, you know? And he wouldn't know that people stand there in the middle of time, square, dressed as the statue of liberty without moving. So he would kind of be a little bit freaked out about all this and I just kind of took it from there. You know, that reminds me that you're really-- I always say you're the most kid-friendly writer I've ever worked with. I hope you take this as a compliment, but I kind of think that you're a nine or ten year old boy yourself, you know, in terms of that you can really hit-- you slightly write exactly how they think. And that's because I have the brain of an eight year old Elizabeth. Exactly. Well, that's a good thing to have in the-- have it our profession. I never matured beyond that point. Yeah, but-- and yet you wrote adult books first, right? Unsuccessfully. That's why I left. I wasn't any good at it. I didn't know why you became a children's writer. That was one reason. The first reason was my adult books completely about baseball and stuff like that. They didn't sell. I wasn't good at it. I didn't enjoy doing it. And then my son Sam was born and around the same time. And I started reading a lot of children's books with him for the first time since I was a kid. And I thought, "A, I can do better than this." And B, I thought, "Well, let's give this a try. Nothing else is working." And as soon as I started writing for kids, I felt, "This is what I'm good at. This is what I should have been doing all along." So then I switched to writing for kids. And fortunately, you and I were able to meet because I asked my editor, was it Roger Divine over at Penguin? Roger Divine, he was an adult. He edited adult books at Viking. Yeah. I can Penguin, yeah. He was my editor. I said, "Hey, could you put me in touch with a children's book editor over there?" And he put us in touch. And that's how we got to know each other. I love that story because I like anything that favors persistence and people, you know, sticking with it before they, which, well, I'm not going to digress here. Instead, I'm going to ask you my favorite question, which is, "I don't think a lot of people really don't have books get made." And as a kid, "And as an adult, I had a lot of questions about it until I finally got into the field." And my question was always, "What does a book start out as? And how does it change before it comes out?" So did you, did this idea sort of come to you fully form? Did you workshop it? Did you do a lot of drafts? Let me think about that for a minute. You know, I know some authors, they're geniuses. They sit down at their computer and just start typing into a blank screen. And the ideas somehow magically flow from their brains. I can't work that way. I'm a planner. And I plan my whole story out from start to finish. And what I, I used to do it on computer. But I found that on computer when they, when my outline started to get too long, it didn't fit on one screen anymore. And it became difficult to cut and paste back and forth. So I started using three by five file cards. And I would just like, as I was brainstorming or researching, I would jot down an idea on a file card, you know, a piece of dialogue, a description of a character, some trivial fact, whatever it is. If I thought it might fit somewhere in the book, I put it on one file card. And I just accumulate a stack of hundreds, sometimes 200 cards. And then I would just kind of lay them all out on the floor. and start gathering the cards together that go together, and little by little, I'll sort of weave together a story that makes sense from start to finish. And that's my outline for the book. And of course that will change along the way once I start writing when certain things work or don't work. But that's my plan. And then I will call up you, I'll say, Elizabeth, hey, let's go have lunch together. And we'll sit across the table with, I have my stack of file cards, and I'll go through the card by card and tell you the story. And if you like it, we'll do the book together. And if you don't, you'll say, thanks for lunch, but that's a terrible idea. It's not going to work for me, but tell it to another publisher who will sell 200,000 copies. So I'm never going to make that mistake again. But what about what's you, so when you turn the manuscript in, we say that there are authors who can't wait for an editor to, editors, there are authors who really need an editor, and authors who take Umbridge at any editorial suggestions. Where would you think you follow in that spectrum? Somewhere in the middle. I like to, I like, I'll rewrite my manuscript like a million times. Every day, I'll sit down at my computer and I'll look at what I wrote the previous day and try and make it better and try and make it smoother, whatever. So that when I finally turn that thing into you or my other editor, my hope is it's so perfect. They can't possibly find anything wrong with it. Of course, you always do, but I like to turn a clean copy. I think it's like, that's what you do as a professional. And when you give me your comments back, you know, initially I get like, you send me like a two, three page single space letter, which is very intimidating with all these things that I did wrong. And I think, oh, no, what am I going to do now? And usually, you know, once I look at over, I'd feel like 90% of the time the suggestions my editor makes will make the book better. And if I, and the 10% that I think won't make it better, will negotiate. I'll say, look, I think this would be better my way. And here's why. And usually the editor will say, you know, hey, it's your name on the book. If you feel strongly about it, let's do it your way. That's actually a pretty good summary of the editorial, the editor of the relationship, except for my point of view, I try really hard to couch editorial feedback. First, I write a lot of positive things at the beginning of the letter. I always end with positive things. And I sprinkle nice positive notes throughout the manuscript. But inevitably, all the author can hear is what I intend is raising questions or little word things are like, no, I made a mistake. She's criticizing me. So I'm glad to see that none of that's getting through. And you just hear this correction, like a teacher correcting your test or something. We totally ignore those positive comments. You might as well not even put them in. You know, I do actually remember the one good suggestion that I made on the Spanish script. And so for the listeners, the kid in the book Harry has a cell phone, a flip phone where he's getting texts from Houdini. And of course, he doesn't believe it's really Houdini texting him. But he was born in Houdini's house. He knows he lives in the house that Houdini is to live in. And Houdini is citing all these things about his life, that all these things that only Houdini would know. And the kid is thinking, yeah, anybody could research this and figure this out about Houdini. But do you remember when I suggested by any chance? No. Because he lives in the house that Houdini, I said, have him get out of bed in the morning. And there's always a creaky floor board. Okay, Dan, nodding. Do you want to take it from here? Brilliant. Brilliant. Yes, you suggested that he gets out of bed steps on a creaky floor board. And so it's obvious that, well, you better explain it a little bit. Well, he's trying to get, you have to set it up before he ever meets Houdini, that like just one morning when he gets up. Right. Yes. I always had to remember not to step on that floor board because it made a terrible creak. Yes. And then when he's texting with Houdini, Houdini refers to the floor board. So the kid knows that it must have been real. Yeah, only somebody living in that house would have known that. Right. Yeah. Genius. You're a genius Elizabeth. What would I do without you? Okay. I'm never getting rid of this podcast. Thank you very much. But that is kind of an example of what editors and authors do. I just think my job is to help you make your story the best it can be. It's not to change it or put a stamp on it or anything like that. The other thing I remember doing in this ties in with the question that I'm supposed to ask you about is your book has what we call in the business backman matter. It has facts about Houdini and more information for kids who are interested. And I know one of our sales reps asked us to put more information about Wisconsin in it because there's a Houdini, because Houdini's big and Wisconsin, and it was going to help us sell the book there. Yeah. He lived in Wisconsin. When his family came over from what was it? Budapest? If I'm not mistaken, they settled in Wisconsin. First, I think in Milwaukee, then, Appleton, Wisconsin. So there's a Houdini Museum out there. Yes. And you mentioned that in the back matter. And what else is in the back matter? Do you remember besides the places? It's information about Houdini. What I like to do and I've been doing this for a long time back with my baseball card adventures and any book where I blend fact and fiction together, I kind of feel like I owe it to the reader to tell them what was fact and what was fiction. So I will say, hey, yes, Houdini really did live in this house. And these places that he went to, the hipodrome, Madison Square Garden, the Houdini Museum, they all exist. But these characters, they are fictional characters who do not exist. So I just feel like it will help the reader. And I think probably teachers and librarians appreciate it too because they want some nonfiction within the fiction. You know, this just reminds me of how well you know your audience. And I was hoping we could touch on that a bit because maybe one of the things I've heard the most about your books is that even kids who don't like to read like your books. We actually got a note just yesterday, which is let's see, one day after the book was released, where a parent said, I pre-ordered your book for my daughter because I'm struggling to rip her away from devices. I've bought a plenty of books that peek her interest and she'll read a few pages and then go back to video games. But your book arrived yesterday and she has already read it from cover to cover and ignored her screens. Well, how do you do that, Dan? What's your secret? That's nice, those letters, huh? Yeah, I love those letters. My secret is that I hated to read when I was a kid. You know, I was a reluctant reader and I thought reading was boring and I found it hard to do and my mother was really worried about me. You know, she used to buy me comic books, mad magazines, hoping it would get me interested in reading and it didn't really work. And so I think that because I was a reluctant reader myself, I relate well to reluctant readers and I know what boars those kids, you know. I've read lots of books where the author will go on for like page after page describing what the weather looks like or what the room looks like or what somebody's face looks like. And I'm always thinking like, who cares? Get to the action. So I like to think, who was it? There was some author who famously said the secret to my success is I cut out all the boring stuff. I don't know who said that, but I know our listeners can google it. Yeah, I'm trying to think it was a mystery writer, an adult mystery writer. Anyway, I cut out the boring stuff and hopefully what's left those kids who get bored easily will will will enjoy the story. And that brings me to the question, the subject of school visits because you're kind of the king of school visits, aren't you? Am I? I don't know. Well, you do a lot of them and I remember that you've been a natural at them since they first started. So what's your approach? It's funny. Yeah, I've been doing them for a long time. For so many reasons, I started doing them because well, it helps sell your books to, you know, tell your audience about them. I didn't count on my publishers to publicize me and promote my books, especially when I was starting out. I figured it was up to me, you know. It gets me out of the house for like four walls, you know. You get to meet with your audience and interact with them. It shows your publisher that you're out you're out promoting the bills. There's so many good, oh, and you get paid by the way. And you get paid, do you ever test material out in front of the kids? Yes, yes. Some I will sit around on lunch table with kids while we're having a pizza or something. And I'll read to them like a chapter of a book I'm working on and, you know, get their feedback. It's been wonderful for me. And the amazing thing is Elizabeth that I didn't think I'd be good at it. When I first started, like I don't do public speaking. I don't tell jokes. I hate parties. Any group of people more than two or three, I'm the one who says the least because I'm very shy, honestly. And I didn't think I'd be good at this, but I started doing it. And the more I did it, the better I got. And And now I'm completely comfortable talking before 200, 300 kids at a time. And in fact, I'm completely comfortable. It's like a cocktail party with a bunch of grownups, which is intimidating to me. I have to go hide in the bathroom. Sorry. Now that you're selling yourself so well, tell me how somebody can request you for a virtual appearance. Well, they should probably just go to my website, which is www.dangutman.com. There's some information there about what I do. And right now, you know, during the pandemic, I, I, I, 14 of my school visits from, you know, May and June were immediately canceled, obviously, because all the schools closed down. And I thought, gee, that might have been my last school visit. Maybe I'll never have one again. And I started doing virtual school visits, which I didn't, I wasn't sure if schools would want to do them, or if they'd be willing to pay for them. But the answer was yes on, on both counts. And I also found that yes, we're desperate. Yeah. Yeah. And it's fun too. It's enjoyable doing them. So I've been doing a lot of them. And so I'm, I'm not even sure Elizabeth, if when the pandemic is over, if I'm going to go back to doing in person school visits, because the part that I hated about it was the traveling. I just, I don't want to get up before six o'clock in the morning to take the subway down to Penn station and take some computer, commuter train to who knows where for two hours. And then get home and pass dinner time when I could like do three sessions online and be finished by lunchtime. It's the best. So even writers and what school visits are having basically the same question the rest of us are all having in the pandemic, which is what's life going to look like. There are things that we've regretted and things that we really are hesitant to give up when we go back to quote unquote normal life. Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, I'm enjoying them. And so I'm going to keep doing them after the after the schools open up and, and I feel comfortable going in public places again. I guess I have one last question to ask you before we wrap up. You love history, don't you? Isn't that something that really turns you on sort of particularly US history? Yeah, it's funny. In college, I never took a single history class. But I've been, you come fascinated by it. And I've written a lot about it now. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I just wondered if you, you know, there's any part of history that you haven't plumbed yet or something that you'd really like to be getting to or anything like that. Do you think there's a great unexplored idea? Are you fishing for a book idealism? Yeah. I thought maybe the pressure of a podcast would, you know, force like a dime and doubt of you or something. Well, you know, I'm interested in technology machines, especially the industrial revolution. My heroes growing up were Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers who I've already written about both of them. Another thing I'm kind of interested in is art history. I took a lot of art history classes in college and maybe we should talk about this after the podcast is over. Okay, I love this. I think readers are going to have to keep refreshing the holiday house website. See if we have any announcements of new books coming up. Yeah, I'd like to do something with either art or an artist from a long time ago. Oh, that could be really neat. Yeah, something. We'll have to keep talking about that. Okay. And I'm going to invite writers to, I'm just kidding, I was going to tell people to day lose your sight with suggestions, which is what all writers hate. You know what, you know, a relationship do. You should do a book about that clown bozo and he could. I'm always hearing you should get there and go up and to write about. But anyway, before we encourage that, we, so Dan and I had lunch in November to talk about possible new book ideas. We had lunch outside at the Francis tabern. Don't really know how it came about, but we found out, we suddenly found ourselves singing the theme to F Troop. Now, this is a part of the podcast that's only going to be meaningful to people who grew up watching 60s sitcoms like Dan and I did. But before we sign off, we're going to leave you with the opening bars of our second favorite sitcom from the 60s. So here we go. The end of the civil war was near when Clyde accident totally. The hero who sneezed abruptly seized retreat and reversed into Vic Tori. You know, you can't get this on any other publisher's podcast. I'd just like to say that, ladies and gentlemen. And now, Dan, we ask our guests to sign our guest book by leaving listeners with one last thought about who Dean and me or reading really anything you'd like listeners to take away from this podcast. What have you got to leave us with? Well, all I wanted to say was it's a new year, okay, 2021. And we're all starting with a fresh slate, clean slate now. And I hope everybody out there, all the kids, all the grownups read lots of books this year, but especially mine, okay? That's it. Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye. Thanks you guys. This is really fun. Thanks a little bit.