Tonya Duncan Ellis joined Social Media Manager Cat Galeano on Instagram Live to celebrate the book birthday for They Built Me for Freedom: The Story of Juneteenth and Houston’s Emancipation Park, and to talk about how the Highlights Foundation was part of her writing journey.

Watch the conversation or read the full transcript below. (Please note: closed captions are being added to the video below. When they are finished, you can see them by hovering over the bottom of the video and choosing the “CC” icon.)

FULL Transcript:

Cat:
A big hello to our Highlights Foundation family. We are so happy to have you here with us. For those that may not know me, I’m Cat Galeano, my pronouns are she/her. I’m the Social Media Manager at the Highlights Foundation, aka the person resharing your posts, responding to you with blue and green hearts. That’s me. I’m joining you from Westchester, NY on the traditional lands of the Seewanoy people and apart from all the fun things that I get to do at the Highlights Foundation, one of my greatest joys is celebrating the book birthdays of our community members, faculty and friends. Because all your wins are our wins!

And today I have the honor of celebrating Tonya Duncan Ellis and her debut picture book They Built Me for Freedom: The Story of Juneteenth and Houston’s Emancipation Park. It is illustrated by Jenny and Jen, Jennin Mohammed, which I wrote the spelling, but I got tripped up: Jenin Mohammed. We are so excited to have you here with us today.

But before we get started, I just want to remind our viewers that joining in on any Highlights Foundation spaces, to do so with no hate, no harm and no harassment of any kind.

And now let’s get started. So my first question for you is how are you feeling today? Today is publication day, so please let us .now how you’re feeling?

Tonya:
I’m feeling amazing. I was actually jumping up and down before I got on because just with all the nervous energy and excitement and…I’m so grateful for all the love for your book community. All the well wishes and comments today, it just feels so good to have my book finally live in the world after all these years of work.

Cat:
That is amazing. I see some people in the comments saying they’re also feeling great. So I love that. I love that the general consensus today is good feeling. So yay for that. So my second question is for you, Tanya is? Can you talk a little about, a little bit about the idea of how this book came to you? And what that process was getting it on the page.

Tonya:
OK, I’m sorry we had, like, a power blip, so I didn’t hear your question.

Cat:
That’s OK. I saw you like, spiral, and I went “uh-oh!”

It’s OK. Technology’s our friend. Sometimes it’s our friend, sometimes it’s not, so I’ll repeat it for you. Can you talk about, a little bit, about the idea of how this book came to you and what your process was like to get it on the page?

Tonya:
Yes, well, I, in 2020, I got a book called The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and it recommends taking artist field trips. So around that time, right before–or it might have been after the pandemic hit–but I decided to visit Emancipation Park in Houston, where I live. I read about it and I passed it all the time going to my church in Houston’s Third Ward area. And so I just said, let me walk on the grounds. I’ve never actually been there, so when I went to the park, I actually got chills thinking about my ancestors in this area, because this is the first spot where they celebrated freedom after Juneteenth, after the formerly enslaved people learned they were free and I was like, wow. I go by this all the time and my ancestors actually were on this ground celebrating their freedom and some of the lines from the book came to me when I was there. And so afterwards I went home, I did research on the park and wrote my first draft of the book.

Cat:
So, this might be a tight….

Tonya:
So, I submitted….oh, sorry.

Cat:
No, go ahead please.

Tonya:
OK, well then after I wrote the draft, I submitted it to–I actually didn’t even have an agent then. I sent it to one of my friend’s agents and who rejected the story. And then in the meantime, I signed with my agent. And she took me for a middle grade book, but I sent her this manuscript. I said this has got to be published. This is before Juneteenth was a holiday and she didn’t exactly like the way it was initially; the initial version. So I took it back to my critique group and one of them suggested that I personify or look at some books about personifying the park.

There’s one book called School’s First Day of School and some other books where objects and buildings are personified. So I read that, reworked the book and then took it to a Highlights Virtual Summer Camp that I was a part of because I was a member of a group called Amplify and I still am a member of Amplify Black Stories group that was sponsored by the Highlights Foundation and the Brown Bookshelf. And David Bowles, author David Bowles was my mentor. So he loved the manuscript, he encouraged me and I continued to work on it, sent it back to my agent. She loved it in the new form. And then sent it out on submission and it sold really quickly, within like a month. My, my editor wanted to acquire it from HarperCollins. So it’s been a wonderful journey.

Cat:
Well, I, I do want to say that I’ve had the very, very luxury of getting to read this before today. And I read it multiple times and I just want to say I cannot express enough how beautiful your version of personifying the park as the main character really elevated this book because I can, I can foresee like what other people probably were thinking and in the process when you queried the original version of saying like it was missing that thing. That thing was exactly what you nailed. The, the perspective from the park for me just tied the entire story from the past and what is the history of the park to the present. I just thought you did that beautifully.

And I also want to shout out your illustrator who just took your words and made them like explode. Because the illustrations paired together with the words were incredible. So thank you for that. It was just…what a beautiful book. Please, please, please do yourself a favor. Request it at your library, go order it for yourselves, for your friends. Everybody needs a copy of this book. So just to kind of tell you, I was so moved by it. So thank you for for giving me the chance to read this ahead of time. Can you talk about, I mean you kind of touched a little bit upon it but a little bit more, if you can talk about your journey and how the ighlights Foundation has played a part, part in it.

Tonya:
OK, well, so before I when I was thinking about writing picture books, I attended an SCBWI virtual conference and heard Kelly Starling Lyons from the Brown Bookshelf, who was one of the sponsors, in conjunction with Highlights Foundation, reading her book Sing a Song. It had us all in tears. I was on the Zoom like, you know, hiding my face because it was so beautiful. And I said I want to write a book like that, that is a work of art that teaches me about my history, makes me proud to be an African American woman. So she-and she’s one of the people who’ve kind of mentored me and shepherded me in through the Amplify Black Stories cohort that’s sponsored by Highlights. And so after that virtual camp I told you about, I won a Highlights Foundation Scholarship, sponsored by the Brown Bookshelf. And actually got to go on site at Highlights.

So it was kind of like a full circle moment because I was there about 5 days. I helped facilitate a chapter book conference there for three days and then we had an Amplify Black Stories reunion in the last few days.

And during the time I was fortunate enough to get added notes from my editor for They Built Me for Freedom. So I was in my own cabin there on property, looking out at deer and rabbits hopping through the forest. It was just so beautiful and tranquil and peaceful doing the actual edits on the book and adding in different passages or stanzas in the picture book and then reading aloud in my cabin. So that was like an hours-long process. So it felt so good to know that I had been working on this at Highlights and then that I was back there doing the actual edits.

And another thing I didn’t mention is that during that first virtual Summer Camp, I took part in a poetry session with Lesléa Newman. Who was through Highlights and that kind of encouraged me to write more lyrically and just get the confidence to use poetry because the picture books that I write are more lyrical. Those that I’ve–They Built Me for Freedom is A lyrical type piece. And that kind of gave me the confidence to write in the poetic form. During my time at Highlights. So I can’t say enough about all the encouragement and support that I’ve gotten. And even being a part of the Amplify Black Stories cohort gave me the confidence, looking at my fellow cohort members, I was so inspired by them and that’s what led me to even seek agent representation and come along this whole journey. So Highlights has been pivotal. I’m just so grateful for you there at Highlights, even as a little girl reading Highlights the magazines–I never would have imagined, you know, that I would be able to be there on campus, doing work and and creating my own work.

Cat:
Well, thank you for sharing your story because a: I didn’t know all that and you know, thank you for sharing all of that. It was, it’s so special to hear how pivotal the Foundation has been in the classes you’ve taken with us and and your experience with Amplify and all of that, like how it has rounded you into the into the magnificent author you are today. So that is so wonderful and special. And thank you for sharing that.

So you kind of touched upon this too, but we’re gonna go a little bit in depth. But this is your first debut picture book, cause of course you write the the Sophie Washington stories. So, but this is your first debut picture book. So was there a big shift when it comes to your writing style from chapter books to picture books and where did they–say oh, I think you also touched on like the idea came from when you walked along the park. But just sort of like tell us about that whole writing process, versus chapter books versus picture books. And of course, like the moment you were like, um, this needs to be a story.

Tonya:
Yes, well, for me it is very different. I write in prose with my chapter book series, and they’re about 100 pages. Whereas the picture book is from 500 to 1000 words and so every word counts and for me, I love playing with words and language and it’s kind of like working a puzzle when you’re trying to make the story work with a picture book. And before I did it, I kind of felt like for me, writing a novel or a longer work was way easier. Picture books seemed like something I couldn’t even do, and I actually saw an Instagram post I posted in the winter of 2020. I had taken a picture of some books in a bookstore, and said one day I’d like to do this, but I kind of in my mind, didn’t even think I could do it, so I, I really after I saw Kelly Starling Lyons’ book and wanted to write picture books, I got involved in the 12 by 12 chapter book, or picture book community: there’s a group called 12 by 12 Picture Book Challenge, run by Julie Hedlund. And so they teach you a lot about picture book writing.

And I immersed myself in that group, and I learned how to write picture books from that. So I highly recommend that and also different courses I took through Highlights or learnings I had through my other cohort members. Just even reading their works helped me as well on that journey. But I really learned and studied all I could about picture books and read hundreds literally of picture books. To learn about the craft, but it, it is different, yes.

Cat:
I, I also love that you were candid about how fearful you kind of were about switching from writing the chapter books to picture books. And that the importance of sort of re-educating yourself on something that you weren’t familiar with. The style you weren’t familiar with, going in and reading as many picture books as you could. I love that you shared that because so often like when we’re published, sometimes it could feel like, well, I’m published. I know what I’m doing, but like when you’re exploring a brand new genre like picture books that switch–it is important to just educate yourself and re-educate yourself and re-learn and and, and absorb new information so that you’re your writing could be even better. So thank you for sharing that. Also, I did want to point out that Kelly Starling Lyonz is here and she did send all her love in the chat. So I did want to make sure that we knew that we saw her pop in since we are mentioning her. So we did see you. And my final question for you, Tonya, is what do you hope kids will take away from your book?

Tonya:
I hope that they’ll learn more about the history of Juneteenth and–this, and learn and understand that this is American history. This is a part of the fabric of America. And also I hope that they’ll become curious about their own communities learning about, because there’s so much history all around us. And, you know, that we go by each day and and get interested and curious about exploring things, historical things in their own community as well as learning about Juneteenth and its importance.

Cat:
And like the fact, you know, as somebody who is kind of a history buff and likes to learn about that stuff, I didn’t really realize there was like a literal park where all of this took place. So when I was reading the picture book and the back matter, I was like, whoa, I did not know this, the correlation between that holiday and, and the movement and what happened that day versus, you know, the connection to the park. So I found that incredibly insightful, so I cannot wait to see kids and parents and teachers and educators and everyone really picking up this book and learning that. And now I’m like, if I’m ever in Houston, now I definitely want to go to that park because I read your book and I’m, I’m now knowledgeable and the importance of that park and I even went on Google and searched the park and what it looks like now because like in the back matter you wrote information about the fact that like it needed to be renovated. And I was like, wait a minute–now I want to know more. So like really, that was so helpful that you wrote that back matter too. Because it definitely had me wanting to know more.

Um, so, yeah, I just want to: congrats! Do you have anything else that you’d like to add before we wrap up?

Tonya:
Well, I just, I just want to thank you for inviting me here today. Thank you everyone tuning in for your support and thank you to the Highlights Foundation for all your encouragement along my journey.

Cat:
Always. That is what we’re here for. I, personally, as the person that runs the social media, I like, I mentioned and kid around that I’m the one that’s always resharing your posts and liking all the comments and everything–but my biggest joy is being able to celebrate our community in ways like this. And, and showcasing their work and their new stories that came from spending time with us. So thank you, Tonya, for being here with us today and congratulations again on this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful book: They Built Me for Freedom: The Story of Juneteenth and Houston’s Emancipation Park.

And right, yes, I have it right in front of me, but I don’t have, I don’t have the hard copy but I do have the digital copy, so. But please, do yourself a favor. Order a copy if you can. You can purchase books at our Virtual Bookshop powered by bookshop.org. And surprise, surprise, if you know or may not know, Tonya will be on our beautiful Highlights campus, Foundation, Highlights Foundation campus this July, co-hosting the Black Voices In-Community Retreat for Storytellers. So if you’re interested in seeing Tonya in person and you’re in-community, please consider joining. You can join and sign up on our website highlightsfoundation.org. Thank you so much Tonya, for joining us today. Thank you everyone for being here. We’re so honored that you spent time with us. And go, and run and go buy that book please.

Tonya:
Thanks so much. And I would love to see you this summer. I can’t wait to get back to Highlights. It’s gonna be amazing.

Cat:
Register on our website people. Thank you, Tonya. Thank you everyone. Take care.

Tonya:
All right, thank you. Bye bye.