MARIA ANTONIA finds inspiration to write from in many places. Whether it's a nugget she read from history, something observed on a photowalk, or a family legend that may or may not have become a tall tale, she's ready to jot it down in her notebook. Her debut picture books, The Christmas Elephant (2024) and The Runaway Sheep (2025), are to be published by Paraclete Press. She has published magazine stories in Spider, Storytime, and Clubhouse Jr. She received an honorable mention for the kidlit picture book contest #PBParty in 2020. In addition to writing, she also enjoys a nice cup of hot tea and capturing the world with her camera. She has lived along the Mediterranean coast in Sunny Spain, among the hustle and bustle of Busy New York City, and currently resides not far from a very famous waterfall in the Great White North of Canada.
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* Before I was a children's writer, I worked behind the scenes in both theatre and film.
* My first year of teaching began in Queens (New York City) in September 2001. If you know your history you'll know that about a week later our city was rocked to its core when the Twin Towers were attacked and fell on 9/11. It made for an interesting first year of teaching! But I'm thankful that my 2nd and 3rd graders and their families were all safe.
* When I travel, I love to visit historic and literary sites. Some of my favorites have been: Green Gables on Prince Edward Island, the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites in DeSmet, South Dakota, and Mansfield, Missouri, and the Betsy-Tacy house in Mankato, Minnesota.
* I don't eat chocolate for health reasons. But, I do love licorice—Yum!
* I love to drink tea! My favorite kind is Darjeeling. (Partly because I love how that word sounds.) Speaking of tea, I think I need to make another pot...
Q: When did you begin writing?
A: I remember as a child being fascinated by grown-ups who wrote in cursive. I don't think I could even read yet and I would write the cursive letter e over and over, convinced that I was writing! My earliest story was called DUCKLING ATTACK! It was about (surprise, surprise) ducklings and featured a villain wearing underwear with red hearts all over. I think I was around 10 years old when I wrote that masterpiece!
Q: Where do you get your ideas?
A: I find ideas everywhere! From family history and conversations I have with people. From blog posts I read or videos I watch online. Sometimes it's just a line that haunts my brain or an image that comes to me. I wrote a story about a goat named Speedy, based on a childhood memory from when my family lived next door to a farm. Whenever my friends and I saw Speedy, we'd be off on a run. None of us wanted to be on the receiving end of his headbutts!
Q: Do you have advice for young writers?
A: Learn the craft of writing, then do it. One of the hardest things for me was to allow others to critique my stories. But I'm glad I did for they have helped me grow as a writer. For every story that's been accepted for publication, I have many more rejections for that same story! The thing is to practice by writing and rewriting. Don't be afraid to rewrite.
Q: What books did you read as a child?
A: I loved the Babar books! And the books by Beatrix Potter and Dr. Seuss. I come from a family of five kids, and our mom read to us a lot of books—like the classic fairy tales, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Princess and the Goblin, and A Bear Called Paddington. When I was about 8 years old, she read us Anne of Green Gables and I fell in love with all things Anne! Then came the books I read on my own: The Black Stallion, Nancy Drew, the Little House books ... all hold such wonderful places in my heart.
Q: Why do you write for children?
A: I remember being a teen and putting all children's books behind me. One of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis, dedicated his masterpiece, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, in this way:
My Dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result, you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
That was ME! (Well, not really, but you know what I mean.) When I was in university, I took a Children's Literature course (in addition to all the Shakespeare and Jane Austen and Charles Dickens that I was studying). And I was introduced to books that I had never read before, from authors like E. Nesbit and Arthur Ransome. That's when I realized, I LOVED these stories. I loved the innocence and the imagination and the happy endings. I was ready to start reading fairy tales again.
It took a few years before I actually started writing for children, but I did read a lot of kids' books. (I also became a teacher at that time!) These were not wasted years. I was getting life experience. I was reading in my genre. And then came the birthdays of my nieces and nephews. I couldn't afford expensive gifts, so I decided to write a story for each of them. As a child, I loved watching the "Fractured Fairy Tales" segment from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. I decided to take my favorite fairy tales and mash them up. From there, I went on to write so many other stories.
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