Jane O'Connor, GOOD JOB, GEORGE!
[0:01]Hi, this is Vivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
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[0:41]Jane O'Connor is the author of Good Job George.
[0:45]She is also the author of the best-selling, fancy Nancy series, which Disney Junior has made
[0:50]into an animated TV series.
[0:52]She's also an editor at a major publishing house in New York.
[0:55]The job George was inspired by her granddaughter, who receives constant praise from her
[0:59]proud parents.
[1:01]Welcome, Jane.
[1:02]Thank you so much for coming out.
[1:03]Moms don't have time to read books to discuss your latest book, Good Job George.
[1:07]Well, thanks, it'll be so much for inviting me.
[1:10]Yeah.
[1:11]Oh, my gosh, it's really nice to see you in a while.
[1:15]Look at that, so for people listening, this is so crazy.
[1:19]So when I had my one and only it turned out meeting at Penguin Random House with Margaret
[1:24]Anastis, my editor from Princess charming, he was just on our Zoom saying hi to us both.
[1:29]I was sitting in her office and were you there right when I got there or something?
[1:34]I said, I think I was.
[1:36]I think you were too.
[1:37]I was being a writer and editor at Penguin Random House, so that I don't just stalk the
[1:45]office.
[1:46]Well, you were there and she introduced us and I was so excited because I was like,
[1:52]oh, my gosh, I've read every fancy Nancy in the world daughter, seriously, she was
[1:57]obsessed, my older daughter.
[1:59]And then we realized that your son was confronted with my brother, who of course I've known
[2:04]like forever, which is crazy.
[2:06]So I mean, he could have mentioned to me that that's many connections, many connections,
[2:14]but that's very exciting.
[2:16]So before we talk about Good Job George, your latest picture book, can you back up and just
[2:21]explain how you became, were you an editor first, were you a children's book author
[2:27]first?
[2:28]Like, what is your whole trajectory?
[2:30]Like, how did we get here?
[2:31]Well, it's been a long trajectory, but I was an editor first.
[2:36]I've been an editor in children's book publishing forever.
[2:42]And for a while, I was reviewing books as well between jobs and I was doing some reviewing
[2:50]for the time, Sunday book review and the more books I read, the more I wanted to try
[2:57]and write one.
[2:58]And so the first book that I wrote was a young middle grade novel called Yours Till
[3:04]Niagara Falls Abbey about a girl who goes to summer camp and is miserably homesick and
[3:11]was very much patterned on nine-year-old Jane.
[3:15]But I never, I never went to being a full-time writer.
[3:20]I really enjoyed editing and I kind of did both.
[3:25]And then I was publisher of the mass market imprints at Penguin Children's Books for about
[3:33]ten years and I was really, I was really wanting to write more and I asked and they let
[3:41]me go part-time and go back to just editing, not being a publisher.
[3:48]And that was when I started writing Fancy Nancy, Fancy Nancy was the first picture book.
[3:55]I ever wrote and I also wrote the first adult novel that I ever wrote.
[4:04]And so it's been now 20 years that I've been part-time and I get to do both things which
[4:14]is a great combo.
[4:17]That's amazing.
[4:18]I just love that.
[4:20]How did you come up with the idea for Fancy Nancy and then now George?
[4:25]Like where do these characters come from in your consciousness if you could even answer
[4:29]that question?
[4:30]Yeah, no I can.
[4:31]I was as Zippy kind of half mentioned, I have sons, I have two huge grown men, but no little
[4:41]girls to play dress up with or have tea parties with.
[4:45]And one night I was making dinner for my family and all of a sudden the name, Fancy
[4:51]Nancy flew in my head and I got kind of the beginning of it and the end.
[4:58]It was the middle that took me a while and it was patterned, I am not a fancy person
[5:05]and I was not a big doll lover or playing with it, but I like to dress up.
[5:12]And every Sunday, when I was five, my grandmother and my great aunt used to come to visit
[5:20]and I would come one thing out in a pair of my mom's high heels and two-two dripping
[5:27]jewelry and I thought I looked glamorous and so that was the kernel for the idea.
[5:37]And I never imagined it would become such a big part of my life, but it was loads of
[5:44]of fun and especially going to bookstores where these little divas, which it was great.
[5:55]And then almost four years ago, my older son and his wife had a daughter and my first
[6:04]and she might be my only grandchild, but finally a girl in my life.
[6:10]But what I noticed was that even when she was like five weeks old, if she was trying
[6:19]just to smile, it was like, good job and it was everything got reinforcement, but it was
[6:29]always not, oh, it was always good job.
[6:34]And as she got older and we go to the playground, that's all I was hearing.
[6:40]It's a good job and I liked it because I think it makes kids feel important that they're
[6:50]doing something worthwhile, whether it's swatting at a mobile or learning to dress themselves,
[7:00]you know, every little step is an accomplishment.
[7:05]And so that's really where the idea came from.
[7:11]And George in good job George is very proud of himself for everything he can do, but he gets
[7:21]a little carried away and sometimes tries to help when it's not called for or you're not
[7:31]really listening to what your mom and dad have told you and it can wind you, can wind
[7:38]up where you're in a big mess.
[7:41]And so that's sort of the trajectory of good job, George.
[7:46]I wonder if I say good job enough.
[7:48]I hope I do.
[7:49]I don't know that that's one of my go-to phrases at the kids, but, well, your kids are
[7:53]probably, yeah, take it all, I would have met.
[7:57]Yeah.
[7:58]Oh, actually, this morning my daughter, who's almost 15, was like, I made my bed and
[8:02]I guess I was like, good job.
[8:03]So, you know, finally, I wouldn't say, but that's okay.
[8:08]That's funny.
[8:09]It's true we do.
[8:10]There is this whole culture of praise now that we should, and it's also, you can't praise
[8:18]people too much and then you have to pay something specific, right?
[8:21]We can't say you're such a good artist, it has to be like, you tried really hard at
[8:26]that painting.
[8:28]I love the effort you put into this.
[8:31]Yes, whatever the force is, yes, by talent or not.
[8:36]Oh my gosh, yes, crazy.
[8:39]So is Nancy ever going to meet George in this fictional world?
[8:44]Oh, you know, it's funny.
[8:46]My agent said to me, you know, Nancy's younger sister, Jo Jo, almost looks its way
[8:55]the artist has portrayed George and he said they look like they'd be friends, but I've
[9:02]never thought of kind of having a cross-current like that to be honest.
[9:09]It could be cousins, maybe you don't know, yeah, I've written a second book about George
[9:17]that's called George the Rescue, that takes place in a playground where again, he sometimes
[9:24]is coming to the rescue where no rescue is needed, and as you know, we have the same
[9:34]wonderful editor, Margaret Anastas, and it is great fun to edit and work on a book with
[9:42]her.
[9:43]And that's one of the things I really enjoy as a writer is just batting ideas back and
[9:51]forth.
[9:52]Once you have a manuscript to try and make it better, and she is super helpful.
[10:00]full and creative that way. She is. I'm sure you found the same thing. I am such a huge
[10:05]Margaret and I asked this fan. I told her, I was like, I feel like you need your name on this book
[10:09]on the front. You know, like, I feel like we did it together. She's like, no, this is what an editor
[10:14]does. And I was like, okay, great. But you being an editor also have your own, you know,
[10:21]you can put that hat on at the same time. So it's almost like your book has two editors right
[10:24]at the gate. Well, that can be a problem sometimes. You can start over editing yourself
[10:34]if you're a writer who's also an editor. And I definitely found that with the first
[10:40]for grown-ups that I wrote. I must have rewritten the first 50 pages like a zillion times. I was
[10:49]myself nuts. And tell me more about that book. Oh, well, actually this brings up another connection
[10:58]we have. My kids went to a school in New York and it was quite a really good school academically.
[11:08]It put a lot of pressure on kids. And after my younger son got into college, I suddenly got the idea
[11:14]of writing a mystery where the college counselor winds up murdered at school. So you were really
[11:22]happy about the college placement? I was. I was. But it was this sense of relief and never having to
[11:29]think about it ever again. And so the book is called Dangerous Admissions. And then I wrote the
[11:36]main character is a copy editor who's always correcting mentally other people's grammar.
[11:44]And actually the kind of mistake that a copy editor would pick up solves the mystery.
[11:53]Love it. Is there are you going to go back to novels for grown-ups as you've had it?
[12:00]Or more? I wrote a second one. And now I'm working on a book. I went to Smith a million years ago.
[12:10]And most of the book takes place in 1965 with girls who are very good friends,
[12:20]their freshman year, have a huge blow-up. Stop being friends. And then it's the same group of
[12:28]characters 50 something years later going back for their 50 or three. I love it. Amazing.
[12:36]So it was like the big chill-ish, right? If you watch that movie, I don't know.
[12:40]Well, yeah, yeah. That was only a weekend. But anyway, that sounds great. And what was it like
[12:47]developing fancy-mancy into a show? And like the fact that you'd created this character one day,
[12:52]and now it's like had this huge lifespan. Well, Disney was just fabulous to work for. And at the very
[13:03]beginning, they consulted with both the illustrator, Robin Price, Glass, or of all the fancy-mancy
[13:11]books and me. But once they got down the basics of the show and how they saw it progressing and
[13:22]what directions they wanted to go in, we really had very little input. They knew what they were doing.
[13:32]I don't know how to write a TV show or produce it. So except at the beginning,
[13:40]there wasn't much involvement. And they also were writing their own books that were based on episodes
[13:49]of the TV show. So I was not working on those either. But I got to know the writers and the producers
[13:57]and the main director of the show quite well. And they were just wonderful.
[14:05]Wow. How exciting. Is this where you thought your life would go?
[14:10]You mean children's books? You're just your whole life. Like when you were a little girl.
[14:14]Did you hope it would go this way? Would you have had any clue?
[14:18]Oh, I don't think I had any goals as a child other than to win the next monopoly game
[14:27]and I was not in college an ambitious person at all. I kind of fell into my career really.
[14:36]But it was at a time when a lot of jobs were just low hanging fruit. If you wanted to get into
[14:44]publishing and you were in New York, you could do it. Now it's much different. I wouldn't have
[14:51]needed to be much more goal oriented if I wanted to get into publishing now. Wow. This whole
[14:59]whole thing has been a bit of an accident. Well, circuitous, let's say. circuitous. Yes, I love that.
[15:06]Has there been anything from meeting all these young fancy girls and hopefully boys from,
[15:13]although I don't know if you've gotten to meet as many, but that you've taken away and been
[15:18]surprised by or that's informed your next bag. Well, with my granddaughter just being in the playground
[15:27]and watching, there was one little boy in the playground she most often goes to and he was the kind
[15:35]who was sort of in everybody's business and trying to make sure everybody was doing what they
[15:41]were supposed to be. And there were times with fancy Nancy when I would, I can remember being
[15:50]at one book conference and there was a little girl who had her doll with her and her doll.
[15:58]I mean, it wasn't that huge coincidence. It was wearing the same outfit as another doll.
[16:03]And so all of a sudden I thought, oh, I've never done a book about dolls and maybe dolls getting mixed
[16:09]up and ending up with the wrong owner. And yeah, other times there were ideas that popped up.
[16:20]Mainly, it was just how funny the kids were at events and what they would say to you.
[16:30]It was one little girl. It was down south. It was an Oxford, Mississippi at a bookstore.
[16:38]And when she came to get her books signed, she whispered in my ear, I like to call my underpants,
[16:46]my privacy shorts. So that's fancy. Yeah, and there were just always comments like that.
[17:01]Oh my gosh. The doll, wasn't it Mirabelle, Vinniea, Mirabelle?
[17:05]Oh, yeah, Mirabelle of Vinniea, Sandaleer.
[17:09]Sandaleer, yes. Oh my gosh. We read that one so many times. So what would your advice be for aspiring
[17:18]children's book authors? I would say read as many. If you want to write a picture book,
[17:26]read as many picture books of the kind of picture book you would like to write yourself.
[17:34]See how the story is structured. I'm not the kind of editor or writer who really would
[17:44]ever be good at doing like a mood piece. Look, I like something with a beginning, a middle,
[17:53]and end, a real story. And what I always do is I page out a manuscript when I've got a whole
[18:03]rough copy of it and see if something is happening from page to page. And if it's not,
[18:12]if it's just talking heads, you don't have a picture book. You need action and you almost can
[18:20]think of spreads as being like chapters where often something is left a little hanging.
[18:27]And then you turn the page and you find out what happened. So I would read a lot. I would try.
[18:36]Most picture books are 32 pages and start on page four, five. And just see if you can lay out
[18:45]what you've written and does it add up to a 32 page picture book. And the other thing I would
[18:56]advise is not to get to message heavy. You want a story to have meaning. But I don't think
[19:06]there are many children who like to get preached to. And I've come across an awful lot of books,
[19:14]manuscripts and in my career where they're really a message and a pretty obvious message.
[19:25]You want meaning through what happens to a character and the character is the most important thing
[19:34]and what happens to that character. And that will have meaning. But it should be in the background
[19:43]where you're reading to find out what happens next. If that makes sense, it does. That's good advice.
[19:50]Last question. What are some of the books that you've worked on as an editor?
[19:53]Well, now I mostly work on a series.
[20:00]that I created about, oh, I think it's almost 22 years ago.
[20:06]Their biographies for kids sort of seven to 11
[20:10]and the series originally was called Who Was?
[20:14]It still is called Who Was.
[20:16]But we added on what was books and where is books.
[20:21]And each one, they black and white illustrations
[20:25]and there are 112 pages.
[20:28]And there's, again, there's strong on narrative,
[20:32]not just reeling off the facts of a person's life
[20:35]or what happened at the Battle of Gettysburg,
[20:39]but a strong narrative poll.
[20:43]Again, to keep readers wanting to find out what happens next.
[20:48]And there are now 300 books in the series.
[20:51]Oh, my gosh.
[20:52]Yeah, well, of course I know the series.
[20:53]Wow.
[20:54]That's exciting.
[20:56]Amazing.
[20:57]Well, Jane, thank you.
[20:58]This is really exciting.
[20:59]And thank you.
[21:01]I said when I was on this floor, all those years
[21:05]that I wasn't working and I was at home
[21:07]and reading the fancy Nancy's a thousand times a day.
[21:10]Like the idea that off now in the future,
[21:13]10 years later, I'd get a chance to interview.
[21:15]It's pretty wonderful to talk to you.
[21:18]And I, again, I'm very happy for you
[21:22]with Princess Charming.
[21:23]And I'm sure it's the first of many to come.
[21:26]Thank you.
[21:27]Thank you so much.
[21:28]From your mouth to Margaret's ears.
[21:30]Yeah.
[21:31]Yeah.
[21:33]OK.
[21:34]All right.
[21:34]I'll see you at our event soon.
[21:36]OK.
[21:37]Bye-bye, guys.
[21:38]Bye-bye.
[21:38]Bye-bye.
[21:40]Hi, I'm Sydney Owens.
[21:41]And you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
[21:43]Moms don't have time to read books.
[21:45]If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology
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[21:51]Check it out.
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[21:56]All the authors have been on this podcast.
[21:58]Also, check out my TikTok at with Zibi and Tracy.
[22:01]My other podcast, Sex Talk with Zibi and Tracy.
[22:04]Check out Moms Don't Have Time to Write on Medium.
[22:07]And of course, my new publishing company called Zibi Books.
[22:10]And now back to our daily author interview site
[22:13]and a quick hello from some of my kids.
[22:15]Hi, hi, hello.
[22:17]Enjoy the show.