Monarch and Mourning Cloak

“In 2008, I began writ­ing a book called Two But­ter­flies, Two Lives because I want­ed to open read­ers’ minds to all the dif­fer­ent ways but­ter­flies live in and expe­ri­ence the world. Many chil­dren raise mon­archs in school or at home, so I knew right away that they would be fea­tured. I decid­ed to com­pare this pop­u­lar and famil­iar but­ter­fly to mourn­ing cloaks because they’re dif­fer­ent in so many ways. And yet, each butterfly’s unique behav­iors help it sur­vive in its habitat.

“Because but­ter­flies are so beau­ti­ful and grace­ful, I thought free-verse poet­ry would be the best way to share infor­ma­tion. Ini­tial­ly, I wrote a series of poems in two voic­es, but the first-per­son point of view wasn’t work­ing. Over the years, I con­tin­ued to revise, writ­ing draft after draft after draft and receiv­ing rejec­tion after rejec­tion after rejec­tion. The book’s design pays homage to this process by show­ing each poem atop a stack of papers.

“On a warm May day in 2023, I took the thick fold­er full of drafts out of my man­u­script grave­yard — the mid­dle draw­er of a large file cab­i­net in my office — and re-read the lat­est ver­sion, which I’d writ­ten in 2020. I still liked that draft, called Behold the But­ter­flies, and thought maybe what the book need­ed was an addi­tion­al con­cep­tu­al lay­er, and maybe it should tie into the art and design. So I put on my think­ing cap.

“A few days lat­er, I woke up with a burst of insight — maybe my friend Sarah S. Bran­nen was the solu­tion. Sarah and I had cre­at­ed three books togeth­er, and each time, her art uni­fied the text ele­ments and ampli­fied the sense of won­der. Like me, Sarah loves to observe and explore the nat­ur­al world and her art inspires read­ers to launch their own jour­neys of discovery.

“So I sent Sarah the man­u­script, told her what I was think­ing, and invit­ed her to go on a hike to brain­storm. A few hours lat­er, we had a vision for what the book could be.

“Over the next few weeks, I revised and Sarah sketched. We went on sev­er­al more hikes and talked by phone and email. Final­ly, we shared what we’d cre­at­ed with our cri­tique group, and they were blown away. That’s when we knew we were onto something.

“We kept on work­ing and, soon, every­thing was ready for sub­mis­sion. Along with the man­u­script, we sent three sketch­es and a final piece of art. Two months lat­er, we got great news. The book was accepted!”