Meet Dawn Young

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dawn Young.

Dawn, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Having loved math and science in high school, I wanted to study a STEM field in college. I went to Villanova University and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and later from the University of Phoenix with an MBA. For years, I worked as an engineer and, then, manager at Honeywell. Although the hours were long and the workload was demanding, I loved my job and found it very rewarding, but with three little ones at home at the time, I felt it best to leave the corporate world temporarily to raise my children. My kids and I visited the library all the time, and after reading them story after story after story, I became obsessed with children’s books. Some of my best memories include reading to my kids while they were plopped in my lap, all giggling at silly, clever picture books. I couldn’t read enough of them. I even got my teeny tiny toddlers their own library cards in order to exceed the individual check-out limit.

In 2007, my creative side combined with my picture book obsession compelled me to pursue a career in writing. At the time, however, my kids were still small and they kept me very busy, and I became very involved at their school, so I’d say early on I was more of a part-time writer. Around 2010, I got really serious about writing and began attending conferences and writing retreats, taking classes, joining critique groups and writing ALL the time. When I started out, I was strictly a rhymer. I studied rhyme extensively, but then I thought it would be best to branch out and be more diverse with my style, so I started writing in prose as well. I read thousands of picture books, studied the craft of writing picture books, studied figurative language and sound, and made picture book dummies. I couldn’t learn enough.

After I had several manuscripts ready to go out on submission, I researched publishers and agents. In this industry, it helps to have an agent. Many publishers will not accept unsolicited manuscripts, so having an agent opens doors, but getting an agent is not easy, as you’ll see…

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My road to publication was anything but smooth. It was long and winding, with its share of dips, detours and dead ends, and tears, many, many, many tears! In the beginning, I tried to submit on my own. The rejections, sometimes personalized with positive feedback, but most times a form letter, poured in. The first few rejection letters made me cry. The next few made me angry. Soon after, I simply became numb. At one point, I tore up several manuscripts threw them up in the air and all over the house and sobbed. What was I thinking? Leaving a very promising, lucrative, rewarding job just to be rejected time after time after time. Hadn’t I worked hard enough, read enough, written enough, studied enough? Was I worthy of publication? I guessed no. Adele was playing in the background. Needless to say, I couldn’t listen to Adele again for a VERY long time.

But, while I was grappling with my rejection letters, and searching my soul for answers about what I should to do, something happened. Something remarkable. Something unexpected. Something incredible. I discovered it during my parent/teacher conference.

My girls (twins) were in the fourth grade at the time, so a parent/teacher conference was nothing new to me. I went in hoping for a glowing report from the teacher and a chance to peek at my daughters’ work. I met with the teacher and got the glowing reports, but then, while looking at one of their files, to my surprise, I saw my daughter’s My Hero paper and I got a glimpse into her heart. In her paper I read this…

“My mom is my hero because she has met with a couple of agents to show them her book and none of them took her book. So, she showed me that I should never give up. My mom is brilliant, pretty, nice, awesome and an amazing book writer. And I want to thank her for showing me to never give up. She always fills my bucket and never dips into it. She’s the best mom that I could ever wish for! I love her!”

Right then and there I knew what rejection was to me – an opportunity to do something invaluable, to teach my children to NEVER give up. I could have told them this but showing is so much more effective. I had no idea that my daughter was watching. No idea I was her hero because I didn’t give up. Finally, the numbness subsided, and I grew determined to defy the odds and be one of those writers that emerges from the slush pile and gets discovered.

Fast forward to 2016, after several more years of submitting to agents, I received a referral, and I signed with an agent. I was ecstatic and I felt validated: someone in the industry actually believed in me. She submitted my work to publishers, and although I received some positive feedback, the rejections continued. Then, in 2017, my agent, scaling back on her client list, dropped me. I was devastated, to say the least. I didn’t know if I had it in me to continue, so I looked for a job and even went on some interviews.

I figured that if I went back to the corporate world to work, my kids, especially my daughter who wrote the My Hero paper, would be old enough to understand that I wasn’t really quitting, but rather changing directions. I thought, they’ll support me, and they’ll believe me, but the problem was I didn’t even believe me. I didn’t know what to do, so I threw myself a pity party and invited some of my writer friends. Luckily, my incredible critique partners RSVP’d NO and instead, kicked me in the butt. And I’ll never forget this – on that very day, after one of my critique partners sent me an encouraging message on Facebook and wrote, “I believe in you,” I went outside and noticed, that a plant that I had written off as dead, spouted. A beautiful little flower, a sign of hope ̶ my sign of hope ̶ appeared.

I regrouped and emerged even more determined than last time to pursue my dream. Shortly after, I subbed to an agent that I thought would be a good fit for me. Fortunately, she felt the same, and I signed with her. In 2018, after years of reflection, revision and rejection, I sold my first picture book, COUNTING ELEPHANTS to Running Press Kids, Hachette Book Group, which released March 3rd 2020 and, then, THE NIGHT BAAFORE CHRISTMAS to WorthyKids, Hachette Book Group, which released Oct 2019. More good news – recently I sold THE NIGHT BAAFORE EASTER (Jan 2021) and THE NIGHT BAAFORE THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL (June 2021) both to WorthyKids, Hachette Book Group.

Dawn Young, Children’s book author – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I write humorous children’s picture books. I love to write funny, wacky stories. My goal is to make kids laugh. In COUNTING ELEPHANTS, THE NIGHT BAAFORE CHRISTMAS, THE NIGHT BAAFORE EASTER and THE NIGHT BAAFORE THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, I went for craziness and chaos.

In the writing community, I’m known for writing in rhyme. My NIGHT BAAFORE series is written in rhyme. Knowing that most publishers prefer prose over rhyme because too often they see rhyme that is subpar, I worked on my perfecting my rhyming skills. I find it challenging, yet extremely rewarding. Some of my favorite books are written in rhyme. I love when the rhyme creates a rhythm that makes the words flow, as if your reading was set on cruise control.

I’m also known for my love of STEM and particularly math, but as former mechanical engineer turned writer, I don’t get many opportunities to do math, except of course when I help my kids with their homework, which usually doesn’t go well, since they do not appreciate my math enthusiasm. We all know most kids roll their eyes at the thought of math, so I wanted to get kids to have fun with math. With COUNTING ELEPHANTS, my goal was to make the book fun to read so kids would feel a sense of enjoyment, connect that feeling to math and have a more positive view of math in general.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Perseverance. This industry is filled with nos. Rejections are inevitable and frequent. And I certainly had my share, but you have to glean what you can from them, put them behind you and move on. Looking back, I can say that the rejections I received were actually a blessing. As much as I dreaded them and resented them, they made me work harder, think deeper and get more ingenious. I learned to accept them and later appreciate them. I have a quote I like to remember when things aren’t going as expected: “Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ― Dalai Lama XIV

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dawnyoungbooks.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dawnyoungbooks/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dawn.young.1865
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/dawnyoungPB

Image Credit:
Book illustrations
The Night Baafore Christmas by Pablo Pino
Counting Elephants by Fermin Solis

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