How to reserve your experimental energy for form rather than content: A Daniel Nayeri Q&A and Cover Reveal for THIS IS A DOOR

It was on February 21st of this very year that I attended the Anderson’s Bookshop’s annual Children’s Literature Breakfast yet again. Folks, this is a grand affair. Imagine a room filled with 200-some teachers and librarians, all seated at small tables. And at every table? A children’s author or illustrator is sitting there, all of them local to the Chicago region. The main event, however, is a series of BIG name authors and artists at the front of the room. Folks like Peter Reynolds and Aaron Reynolds (lotta jokes there, you bet). People like Sara Pennypacker and Jennifer A. Nielsen. Folks like… Daniel Nayeri.

At this point, I like to think that he’s a man who needs no introduction. I mean, how many Newbery Honors does a guy have to win before we start assuming other people are familiar with his work? Choose your favorite Nayeri title if you like (mine is his latest win, The Teacher of Nomad Land) but you can’t be denying that the man was blessed with the gift of gab.

During his time at the podium, Daniel regaled the crowd with tales about his graphic novel series, the influence of Tales From the Crypt, and a small mention of his upcoming middle grade latest. It is a book truly unlike any he’s done before. This Is a Door (out October 27th) is an experimental title, of a fashion. The publisher, Sourcebooks, describes it this way:

A groundbreaking hero’s journey from National Book Award and Newbery Honor winner, Daniel Nayeri! A young boy, a mouse, and a dog set out to find their purpose in this fairy tale adventure told in an innovative visual format that offers a one-of-a-kind reading experience.

This is the tale of a boy named Nothing the Younger, who lives in a city on the mountaintop of a far-off and long-lost country. Everyone calls him Ing, and while he has no parents, he does have two friends: a dog, Pöppy, and a mouse, mOmO. When King Cyrus calls for a hero to find and defeat the Giantess ravaging the countryside, the king’s son, the Wander Prince, answers the call and Ing decides to follow. Along the journey, Ing (and his friends) must traverse the Land of the Dead, survive an encounter with the terrifying wimmelworm, and discover the truth of his mother and father . . . so that he may find what he’s been seeking all along—his best purpose. 

The text on each page snakes, climbs, jumps, and explodes into shapes and forms that unravel the story. This Is a Door is full of fun surprises and poignant musings that flip the classic hero’s journey on its head—all in an artistic and inventive package that is a wonder to behold.

(Honestly, it would pair mighty well with Philip Stead’s A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic)

Intrigued but confused? Never fear. You can watch Daniel present the book himself here:

But really, why even speculate about the book when you can talk to its creator? And I’ll tell you what, while we’re at it, we’ll reveal the cover too:

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Betsy Bird: Daniel! What an honor and a pleasure to speak to you again. Particularly when you are in the business of doing such strange and interesting things with the books you create. Your Author’s Note goes quite a bit into narratology and how it relates to this story. While one could argue that you’ve been working with the notion of the hero’s journey in every book you write (particularly your picture books) THIS IS A DOOR is far more open about these influences. Can you tell us a bit about where this book came from?

Daniel Nayeri: This one was a mix of things. I had just finished a revision on a how-to nonfiction book called HOW TO TELL A STORY, which is an interactive creative writing book full of prompts for stories and chapters on various story elements such as motivation, conflict, plot, theme, dialogue, etc. Throughout the book I had to give examples, and I found myself playing with characters in a fabular world about a boy named Nothing, who sets out along with his friends, a dog and a mouse, to find his name and purpose. So I had the characters swirling around in my mind. And then we got to March of 2020, and I was stuck inside my house for some reason I can’t remember. I was sitting at my desk, daydreaming about the joy of wandering, wishing I could write something about a proper journey. Of course, any reader knows that if you can’t go anywhere, the best way to go on a journey is a book. So I took out my notebook and doodled the phrase, “This is a door,” in the shape of a book cover, with the “a” positioned a bit like a doorknob.

You can see that original doodle in the image below. 

I thought, would it be possible to write an entire journey that way, with the text forming itself into the story, akin to concrete poetry? It felt like the perfect pairing with a hero’s journey because there something formulaic (or at least proscriptive) about the notion of a monomyth. But could I write a hero’s journey explicitly, with the chapters mapped to the stages of the journey and everything, while reserving all my experimental energy for the form rather than the content? That was the initial spark that got me going. 

BB: Okay, but this was the first thought I had while reading this book: HOW do you write it? I mean, quite literally, how. Did you, I dunno, do it by hand? Did you have loads of visual directions, like a person making a graphic novel (which, in your career you have also done) might? Like, just logistically, how do you make a book like this? 

Daniel: For about three months, I did experiments and worked out the rules of what I called “an illustrated middle grade novel with no pictures.”

From there, I started to lay out the stages of the hero’s journey.

And with that outline, I went spread by spread. First, I would draw for myself a format for the text to take, based on the chunk of story I wanted to get across.

Once I had every page formed and written, I had to present it somehow. Good thing I was cooped up in a room for a bunch of weeks (I think it was raining a lot or something?). I went into Powerpoint and started moving letters around. It was exactly as laborious as it sounds. I felt like a printer with an old printing press, arranging letter forms one at a time.

I loved every minute to be honest. 

BB: Well, your entire explanation leads, quite naturally, into my wondering whom your partner in crime might be. Which is to say, who created the visual component of the typography? The Art Director? Someone else entirely? 

Daniel: Indeed, the first person I thought to approach with this was an old friend from my days as baby editor at HarperCollins. Lauren Vajda now runs a brilliant design firm called Verso Design. I knew she would get it, and she did. Of course, we joked that I had basically done the least efficient version possible (like painting with an Etch-a-Sketch), but Lauren and her colleague Bob Beerman were able to bring the necessary polish and design chops to fashion the ideas into a file that publishers would recognize. That was a delightful collaboration wherein we appraised every spread and standardized even more of the underpinning aesthetic principles. 

BB: What, to your mind, is the ideal way of reading this book? I imagine it’s a bedtime book or a book a kid might read themselves, but I’m not willing to dismiss the idea that it could also be a book a teacher could read (albeit with some visual aid). When you wrote it, did you imagine how it could be used? 

Daniel: The format is nice and chunky, and it’s a lay-flat binding because we wanted the physical experience of this book to be perfect for poring over (say if you’re laying on your floor) or for a teacher to hold up so that students can look at the spreads as the listen. For that, we had the incredible enthusiasm of Ben Rosenthal at Stonefruit Studio and Art Director Celeste Knudsen who made sure it became an object. But also, I should point out that while the text is doing all sorts of stuff on the page, the story was written to be read in a linear fashion. There are lots of designs, for instance, that could have been non-sequential on the page that are therefore experienced more like a WHERE’S WALDO or BUSY TOWN spread. But we eschewed those kinds of designs so that the story can be read aloud–and still works. That was a particular challenge with this one. 

BB: Finally, when I saw you speak recently you mentioned that you work in a variety of different mediums of children’s literature. So far you’ve created picture books, novels, and graphic novels. What’s next for you? What worlds are left for you to conquer? 

Daniel: I’m not sure it feels like conquering, but I do hope I get to play in as many sandboxes as they’ll let me. I’m collaborating with an author I’ve admired for years, and we’re working on a proper mystery series. I’d love the chance to make gamebooks and manga. I have a board book series I’d love to do, something colorful like if Sandra Boynton created HELLO KITTY and Dick Bruno colored it–wouldn’t that be a wonder? It’s all so delightful and fun. I really don’t know how I got here, but I’m awfully glad they’ve let me in the door, and I’m thankful, Betsy, that you’d do the same. Thanks for chatting with me.

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Ah, he’s good people, he is.

And to top it all off, the book’s a beauty as well. Take a gander:

Big time thanks to Daniel for such an intensive deep dive into his process and this wholly original creation. Thanks too to Jamie Tan and the team at Sourcebooks for aiding in this reveal and Q&A. This Is a Door is out October 27th so be sure to look for it then.

Filed under: Cover Reveal, Interviews