NCEC in the News!
Carmen Agra Deedy: Children's Book Author
Researched and written by Michelle Lampley
On Monday 15 September in the fall semester of 2008, Carmen Agra Deedy was invited to campus as a guest speaker by several UNC Greensboro departments. Deedy told the audience an elaborate story of a young Carmen Deedy who discovered her love of reading through one dedicated librarian and a very important book, Charlotte's Web, by E. B. White. At the end of her storytelling performance she sang a small song of her love for the library and referenced a few books that are very dear to her heart: Madeline, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, and Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.
Carmen Agra Deedy is a storyteller, a writer, and an editor. Her main focus and passion, however, is writing. "I love the liberation that writing allows. The writer's life is so different; it's more internal. A writer is constantly present in the world and constantly porous in her boundaries to the world." She began writing as a way of leaving behind some record of herself for her children and has been in the business of writing children's books for twenty years now. She has written seven children's books including her most recently finished work, Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale, which was named a Pura Belpré Medal honor book. According to the Association for Library Service to Children, the Pura Belpré medal is awarded to "A Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth." Martina the Beautiful Cockroach is available for children in both Spanish and English.
Deedy was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1960. Her family immigrated to Mexico in 1963 after the Cuban Revolution and entered the United States in 1964. She then spent her adolescent years in Decatur, Georgia, where she discovered her love for stories. "My generation in the South--we were steeped in stories." She was unable to attend a university or college in her early years, but she has never considered that a reason not to be educated. She feels, "There's no excuse for you to not learn." She now lives with her three daughters in Tucker, Georgia. At the age of twenty-nine she finished her first manuscript and submitted it to be published. In 1989, her first attempt at getting published was successful. Beginning storytelling, at that point, seemed to fall into a "parallel career path" for her. She attended Jonesboro, an inspiring festival of storytelling, for her first time in 1989. In 1995 she was invited back as a feature teller. Storytelling came naturally for her because she had a "gut-level love of stories." Deedy still finds that she's still "stunned at the idea you'd pay someone to do this." Writing, however, a career she didn't feel she had really "owned" until ten years after her career began, was what she'd come to love. After her first publication she found herself increasingly busy with performances and writing her second work. In order to fulfill her artistic duties while caring for her three daughters, she hired a manager.
Nancy Kavanaugh works as Carmen Deedy's manager. She handles bookings, answers any inquiries about Deedy, negotiates and writes all agreements and contracts with clients, provides clients with publicity material, and provides Deedy with a weekly schedule. Deedy does three festivals a year, presentations, keynote speeches, workshops, writers conferences, and literature conferences, all of which Nancy schedules. She is in such high demand that it is unnecessary for Nancy to market her. Carmen Deedy has found it necessary to have a manager, though, not only because of the amount she is able to do now in less time, but also because her manager acts as a middle person between her and her clientele. This is important to Deedy because it cuts out the ability for the clients to negotiate their payment.
Nancy Kavanaugh also meets with Carmen Deedy once a year to discuss what pro bono work she should plan for the year. Deedy strongly recommends doing this type of work because she believes there is "a karmic aspect to it; you give and you get." She recommends going to schools with flyers offering to do a thirty minute presentation for free. The catch is that if they like you they will ask you back and pay forty-five dollars for a forty-five minute presentation. The objective in this is to demonstrate what you can do; it's not an instant profit. Her business strategy in this as well as the hiring of a manager is that one should, "Let go of a nickel to make the buck."
Upon establishing a career as a writer/storyteller, Carmen Deedy found herself in many awkward situations. She had to learn the importance of a contract and making someone stick with a schedule and payment that they agree on with you. Her largest obstacle to face, however, was learning that as a writer she would not simply have time to write. She had to make time. "Don't wait for the moment when you feel it," she says. "Always write." She advises that writers carry notebooks so they may write whenever there is time along with the time they make. Deedy views the difficulties she's had in her career as ways of figuring out writing "disasters" from which she learned.
Deedy admits that the business of writing is somewhat saturated, but she asserts that "Good stories are like cream. They rise to the top." Her advice to aspiring writers is that they first ask themselves a few questions, "Why do you want to be a writer? Do you see it as romantic? Do you like to write?" She believes a writer's goal should always be to do good work "Don't lose sight of that goal; always ask yourself are you doing the work?" "You'll spend an afternoon for a word, but it's wonderful. Writing is an action, not a philosophy. You just have to do it."
Carmen Agra Deedy has been in the business of writing children's books for twenty years now and feels she is just beginning to "learn the craft in a solid way." She strives for excellence in her work, which she defines as doing the best she can at the time she's working. Though the success of her books would make one think otherwise, Deedy does not feel that she's accomplished this yet, and she strives to "leave something behind that can be a sanctuary for children." She is currently working on putting out three different books: Fourteen Cows for America, The Library Dragon Returns, and Refugee. Refugee, a book that was inspired by her own life, is sure to not only touch the hearts of a diverse range of children and adults alike, but perhaps become that sanctuary Carmen Deedy strives to create for children.
This case study was conducted in September 2008 by Michelle Lampley, a Film and Television Studies major in the Media Studies Department.
These case studies were compiled and archived as part of the former BELL (Building Entrepreneuruial Learning for Life) Program's Entrepreneurial Innovation in the Arts (EIA) initiative to provide a library of examples of how artists in many different fields have achieved success. The cases were researched and written by UNCG students.