Six Questions with Tara Dairman

Tara Dairman (she/they) writes middle-grade novels and picture books about kids with strong passions and big questions about the world. Tara’s books include The Girl from Earth’s End, the All Four Stars series, The Great Hibernation, Go, Baby, Go! (illustrated by Olivia Amoah) and Desert Girl, Monsoon Boy (illustrated by Archana Sreenivasan). These titles have been named to best-of-the-year lists by A Mighty Girl, School Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and more. Tara has traveled to more than 90 countries, and now lives in Colorado. Visit Tara's website at www.taradairman.com or find her on social media: Bluesky Instagram Facebook

1. How do you know your idea will make a good book?

When it won’t leave me alone for days, weeks, months. When it feels like something I haven’t quite seen before, but would love to read. And when it feels like something I’m particularly qualified to write through, my combination of life experiences, interests, and storytelling skills.

2. Once you’ve created a first draft, what’s your next step? Critique group? Check in with your agent? Tuck it away to let it age?

Critique group! Feedback from trusted critique partners always makes my manuscripts stronger. (I have learned over the years, though, that I need to limit the amount of feedback I take in so as not to get overwhelmed—especially with a novel draft, I really can’t handle notes from more than two people.) Time away from the manuscript also really helps.

I try not to send anything to my agent until it’s as strong as I can make it on my own. A wise editor once told me “I can only read something for the first time once,” so I try to respect my agent’s and editors’ professional energy and expertise and turn in my best work at that point.

3. What has helped you build resilience along the bumpier parts of your path to publication?

Community. Writing is such a solitary pursuit, so I’m so grateful for the critique partners and groups I’ve had over the years—for their feedback on my work, yes, but also for accountability, cheerleading along the way, industry-experience-sharing, and commiseration when things are tough.

Books come and go, but the friendships I’ve made through the kidlit world are forever! They’ve made my life so much richer; book people are the best people. 😊

4. Where did you get the idea for your newest book? What was your inspiration?

Go, Baby, Go!, illustrated by Olivia Amoah, is my second picture book, and I got the idea for it when my oldest kid was an infant. I would jog her to daycare in her stroller, passing lots of other walking and jogging caretakers with young kids. As we adults huffed and puffed and negotiated changing weather and hilly terrain (we lived in Colorado), the kids enjoyed themselves like they were on a roller coaster ride! I thought that contrast in experiences could make for a fun picture book. I also really wanted to see more PBs showing moms in physically active roles, rather than domestic ones.

5. What was the process or timeline for this book, from idea to publishing?

Ha, this one took quite a while! I wrote it in 2016, while my first kid was an infant. I think it went out on sub in 2017, and garnered interest from Peachtree in 2018. I signed the contract in 2019, and then the pandemic and a distributor changeover at the publisher led to a multi-year delay. Once Olivia signed on to illustrate, though, the schedule picked up again and now the book is out! The baby who inspired it is nine years old now and helped read from it at the launch party.

6. How was the editorial process? Did you do any revisions? If it’s a picture book, did you have a lot of collaboration with the illustrator?

I don’t think I had to revise the text at all—a first for me. And while I didn’t collaborate directly with Olivia, I did provide photos of the landscape in Colorado, which she used for reference for the setting of the story. I love that we ended up not only with a book that shows a mom in a physically active role, but that we also ended up with a mountain west landscape, which you don’t see in PBs as much as a more typically east-coast- or Midwest-inspired one. And I love the dynamism and sense of fun Olivia brought to both main characters in the book.