Latest / Book Flood Podcast / Encore Summer 2026: Charlotte Cheng (E65)
Transcript
- Thomas Nixon: Welcome to the Book Flood podcast. I am your host, Tom Nixon. My guest this week is Charlotte Cheng. Charlotte has written and illustrated a variety of books, including Night Market Rescue, Roar Chew, I Miss You Most, and Bobo Loves Dumplings. Represented by Red Fox Literary, Charlotte has spoken at a wide variety of events, given school assemblies, and taught interactive workshops for both children and adults. These events have included the ALA Conference, LA Times Book Festival, Bay Area Book Festival, and the Your Author series of the Los Angeles Public Library. Charlotte has also been a guest speaker at both Harvard and Stanford universities. Welcome, Charlotte. Charlotte Cheng: Hi, thanks so much for having me. Thomas Nixon: ⁓ I'm so glad you can be here. I am a big fan and particularly of one book, which we'll get to, but definitely of your books. But let's start with a career trajectory for you. Where did you start before being a writer? Charlotte Cheng: Okay. ⁓ well, ever since I was young, I can trace it all the way back and I have pictures of my first novel that I wrote in fourth grade. I even had a page long dedication page. And I remember it sparked when I read Anne of Green Gables. yes, and Anne Shirley being that character who lived in stories, I always had a nose in my nose in books. so no meeting this character who's lived in these stories and then decided to write her own inspired me to do so as well. But you know, I come from an immigrant family, Asian family, where they said, hey, that's not a very reliable industry. So I decided to also pursue education and cognitive science at Stanford University when I went there. The whole time, though, I couldn't stop writing and drawing. And so I knew it was something that would always surface in me because I knew it was something that was necessary in my life. So over time, I started going to conferences learning about the craft of writing children's books. And it took me 10 years to sell my first book to traditional publishing. But along the way, I learned so much. I self-published some books too, like Bobo Loves Dumplings. And I've just enjoyed every step of the journey. Thomas Nixon: So I always have to point out because people out there think two things about writers, authors. One is that it happens overnight. And here you are in overnight 10 year success story. And that's the norm. mean, people get out there and they're doing it. The other thing is that authors are all millionaires. Yeah, no, the rarity is, I mean, are there some? Yes. Charlotte Cheng: Maybe. Thomas Nixon: But especially if that's what you do for a living. But I appreciate you sharing that. So you're one of those rarities. You're both an author and an illustrator. As I was looking through your books, I noticed that you tend to either be the author or the illustrator, but not both. Is that by design? Charlotte Cheng: It's just by coincidence, I would say. My style, my artistic style, lends towards one type of story. And that's where I started off in the children's book space. I was hired to illustrate multiple books. And I learned a lot through the process. When I start, when I was writing my stories though, my stories often didn't match my style. And I really struggled with that because I was trying to write towards my style. But at a certain point I realized, wait a second, why not have another illustrator illustrate my books, you know, to better match the style of the story that I'm writing. And I've just been absolutely blown away. by the illustrators that have illustrated my books. There's no way I could have illustrated it in the way that they did. I hope one time down the line, there's a story I'm writing that I know matches my style, but I'm perfectly honest with myself about when that's a good match and when it's not. Thomas Nixon: That is so smart on your part. I have seen so many folks who, I'm gonna make this work. I'm gonna make this work. Well, maybe, but when you look out there in book world, you don't see a lot of folks that do both. Charlotte Cheng: Yeah, and it's it's threading the needle of the story you want to tell again and your style. And you have to work with a publisher that likes both and also likes the story. It's quite difficult. I'm flirting with one right now, but it's still in development. I'm still iterating on it, but it can be very difficult, yes. Thomas Nixon: So your next book up is Icy Fruit. What can you tell us about this? Charlotte Cheng: ⁓ I See Fruit is a very personal story of mine. It's actually a true story about how my grandfather started a popsicle company in Taiwan. And part of it was he worked on a jingle that was played on TVs, on radios throughout the streets of Taiwan and became just like a song that an entire generation was aware of. And so I wasn't a, I didn't know about this history until my grandfather passed away. And at the funeral, my entire family learned the jingle, the popsicle jingle. And I started asking questions. I'm like, what is this? What is this jingle? Why are we singing it? You know, what is this company about? And I started interviewing my father. My father would dig through the archives. asked my aunts and uncles. So we started gathering these notes and facts. And I shared it with my editor, Lori, who's published the last few books that I've come out with. And she was just very intrigued. So we went ahead and worked on the story together. It's definitely a story of love, a story where I know a lot of my family members are so excited to see that my grandfather's adventure is gonna be shared with the world. Thomas Nixon: Nice. When is that coming out? Charlotte Cheng: It is coming out May of this year in 2025. Thomas Nixon: ⁓ nice. What is your writing process like? Charlotte Cheng: ⁓ it's all over the map. If you look at my books, I write in a lot of different styles. For example, Night Market Rescue is in rhyme, and so is I Miss You Most. But Roar Chu is not in rhyme. It is very action packed and more of a call and response. I See Fruit is more narrative. So it really depends on the story I want to tell. I have I live in Google Docs. So I have a Google Doc that is literally called picture book ideas and you'd be surprised where those ideas come from. I have a five year old daughter, like Roar Chu came from a joke that she told. And so the title actually came from her. And I Miss You Most was written when my other grandfather passed away. That just flowed out of me in two hours. It just came out as rhyme in two hours. Versus Night Market Rescue took me 10 years and the first version I wrote of Night Market Rescue was not rhyme. It went back and forth from not rhyming to rhyming to not rhyming to rhyming. So it really depends on the story on how long it takes me to get it to the point where I'm happy with it. And then you you bring it to the editor and my agent and they've got notes so you've got to revise. I was talking at a recent event and it was a bunch of us authors just hanging out which is one of my favorite things. was several panels and we were talking about the art of revision. and how an author's life is actually probably mostly 80 % revision, 20 % original creation. Because from where you start to where you finish, half of the battle is getting it to a point where you're happy with it, where it's polished, where it's ready to go, an illustrator can use it, the editor's happy, the agent's happy. So I would say that's sort of my writing process is getting that first draft out and getting feedback from a lot of different people, iterating on it, exploring the voice. So I have a lot of like the rhyme versus not rhyme and then polish, polish, revise, revise until until you get there. Thomas Nixon: That's interesting. And it's interesting that you share that same sort of history of editing with many other writers as well. And the book that I really like is Roar 2. So I mean, I like them all, but for some reason, well, I discovered it, know, whatever that means. How old is that now? Charlotte Cheng: Yeah. Yeah. Roarch U actually only came out last year in 2024. I'm pretty excited that we announced last month that it got selected as a Dolly Parton Imagination Library book. So that's going to be going out to hundreds of thousands of kids this year. So pretty excited about that. And you know, it got some love in the New York Times as well. So I'm glad it's been such a fun Thomas Nixon: Yeah, that's fair. Charlotte Cheng: interactive experience for kids, parents, educators, librarians alike. They've all enjoyed reading that book to kids. It is such an interactive book. So, so yeah, I'm glad you like it too. Thomas Nixon: So I'll have to, next month I have to go to a have to. I'm going to a bunch of schools for Read Across America and I've been looking for a book and I think maybe that's the one I wanna do. Charlotte Cheng: ⁓ and I'm happy to give you tips. Like my favorite thing is when I say roar, I point to the kids and they say chew and they love it. They're just ready to go and you sort of build up in volume. There's just a lot of ways to read it and keep the kids engaged. Thomas Nixon: ⁓ wonderful. So when you're not writing and illustrating books for children, you also write K-12 curriculum for Disney and for other companies. How is that different from your other writing? Charlotte Cheng: ⁓ it's very different actually in many ways because the books I write for children's books, they come from deep within me, right? A very personal touch. Like I just told you, it's about my grandfather's night market rescue features. My street dog that we rescued from Taiwan is the main character in the story. Roar Chu is actually dedicated to my husband because in many aspects of that book, I'm the dragon and he's the phoenix. Usually dragons are considered male and phoenixes are considered female, but when we had to go through COVID together, I was the dragon who didn't know how to slow down and just take care of myself. So lots of that personal piece. When it comes to curriculum writing, from concept to execution, there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen and there are a lot of more restraints about what your creating and what are you writing, right? You have to really delve into the standards, the learning standards, the learning objectives, backward plan all the way back. And it involves a lot of different types of experts and skill sets. So when I'm creating curriculum, I'm often working with multiple teams from sales to marketing to game designers, programmers, UI, UX people, art directors, know, all of those people. We all are aligned in a goal and we're all working together to create this learning experience for kids. Now, in some ways I will say the similarities are that in the publishing industry, I often say it takes a village to publish a book. And so in that aspect, I can see the parallels, but I will say as an author, I usually only interact with the editor and the editor is doing that whole, coordination in the background, right? And so I get to meet them maybe once a few times at an event or a conference. So I would say that's a little bit different in that aspect of it versus in the EdTech curriculum space. I am collaborating every day with different people to make that curriculum come alive. Thomas Nixon: With Roar 2, you got to collaborate with Dan Satet, the National Book Award winning illustrator. How did that come about? Charlotte Cheng: Well, so that's also something that people might not be aware of. Oftentimes the author, illustrator don't get to interact with each other. Usually when a publisher acquires a manuscript like mine, they work with me to select an illustrator. They usually propose a couple illustrators and I get to pick. And so when Lori, my editor, Lori Hornick said, I'm thinking Dan Santat might be a really great illustrator for this book. I started laughing a little bit when I got that email. It's like, ⁓ sure. Yeah, why not? Because I know how busy Dan Santat is. when, yeah, right. And so when she came back, ⁓ yeah, he said, yes. I was just blown away because, you know, I'm sure he gets a lot of requests. But yeah, but I would say I met Dan way, way, back when one of my first conferences I went to, he taught an illustrator intensive that I attended. And it just blew me away the tips and tricks that he taught there. And since then had been following his career. We were Facebook friends and things like that. So I had some connection with him. We weren't like friends necessarily, but I did message him when I found out he agreed to do my book. I'm like, Dan, thank you so much. And he said, you know, it was one of those rare manuscripts where when he read it, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with it. And he said that was a very rare occasion. And so I thought that was really, exciting to see that the manuscript I wrote spoke to him so well. And then when you are collaborating, usually what happens to keep things streamlined, what they'll do is when Dan has sketches, the initial sketches, he'll send it to the publisher, and it'll get reviewed by the art director, by the editor, a few other people before they send it to me to also provide feedback. And then they sort of organize that feedback before they send it back to Dan, right? So if there's conflicting notes, they're gonna resolve that before it gets back to him. And that process goes back and forth between pencil drawings to the final inks to the final color. So it is a lot of back and forth, but Dan and I don't necessarily are talking back and forth on the revisions. It is a collaborative effort, of course. Like I said, it takes a village. to get those illustrations done and then to make the book after that. Thomas Nixon: What a lovely sentiment on his part that he already knew what he wanted to do with the book and it probably makes it easier, but still, no, and that's a good get for the book and for you. Because now did he win the National Book Award before your Roar 2 came out or after? Charlotte Cheng: Before, before. when he got the National Book Award, he had, I think just finished the illustrations. So he had agreed the year before and I went, I was cheering him on from the sidelines the whole time. Like, oh my gosh, like, I remember, like, first time for everything, like, I remember getting that book signed by him and going, wow, I feel I, I, I Thomas Nixon: ⁓ well. Charlotte Cheng: connect with that story so much because I also traveled through Europe with my orchestra group in high school. So like the story he wrote was just so impactful for me. So seeing him just climb that journey was so great and him getting the Cabal Cop medal and be equal. So I was just absolutely flattered to have a book illustrated by him, right? Have my story illustrated by him. I will say one thing, one some, a strategy or tip that I recommend. I wouldn't go hog wild with it, but when I write a manuscript for a picture book, because I've illustrated before, I try not to be redundant. What I'm saying and what the images are showing often are not the same. And I think it leaves space for the illustrator to really express themselves in the story. And also I think it becomes more engaging for the reader. because the illustrations aren't just exactly repeating what the words are saying. And what I do with my words is I try and add in the other senses, the sense of smell, the sense of touch, the sense of sounds and things like that. And so I think usually what happens, I've never had an illustrator turn down one of my manuscripts. The first illustrator we pick always agrees. So I think there's something to be said about writing a story or manuscript that... that will attract an illustrator and get an illustrator excited because they know they can express themselves in different parts of the story as well. So I Miss You Most, which is the next book about the loss of my grandfather, the illustrator Cindy lost her grandfather within the same year. And so that story, I also had some art notes where I'm like, these are what the words are, but this is what the image shows. And you could just see how much of herself she put into these stories. really in every spread, that grandfather on that spread is a mixture of my grandfather and hers. Right? And so there's beauty in leaving that space when you're writing a picture book. Thomas Nixon: So your publisher or at least one of your publishers is Rocky pond books. They have a focus on social emotional learning and mental health. How did you end up connecting with them? Charlotte Cheng: Well, Laurie first was attracted to Night Market Rescue, which is the first book that we came out with. And it's a story about a street dog that discovers a night market. And you think off the bat, what does that have to do with mental health, social-emotional learning? But the whole journey is that this dog explores the night market, discovers some amazing things, but then finds a lost girl. And the two of them work together to help her find her family. And spoiler alert, guess what? He also finds it home. So it's this whole, think, Rocky pond. There's some, there's a lot of warmth in the stories that they publish warmth about, you know, caring about family, about mental health. So the next book that we did with Roar Chu, it's about self care, really. It's a dragon who has a cold, doesn't know how to slow down. Phoenix is trying to help dragons slow down and recover. And at the end, Phoenix gets the cold. Right? And that's what actually throws the dragon down into a different state of being the caregiver and realizing, ⁓ look how important it is to slow down. So all of these are really just family or concepts that can help a kid process what's going on in their lives. So I would say like, I miss you most is the, is dealing with loss. So all of those books sort of tied to different pieces of that to help kids process. So I would say that's why it's aligned. when I first had Night Market Rescue, Lori asked what other stories I had. And so, you know, I shared some of these ideas and she really loved Roar Chu, I Miss You Most. And we have two more books coming out together this year, actually. I See Fruit and another one called Amma's Purse, which is about the magic that can be found in your grandmother's purse. Thomas Nixon: Many of your books seem to have a Taiwanese theme, which is probably not surprising. Is that intentional on your part? Charlotte Cheng: I would say so. also remember, and I really recommend if you're trying to explore writing for children, to attend events and conferences where authors, editors, and other people can speak. Because I remember, again, all the way back at that conference where I got to take an illustration intensive by Dan Zantat. Amazing. Another wonderful author, Composting, was speaking there. And now Ying actually has a few books out with Rocky Pond as well, which is great. But I remember something that she said that was that really locked into me because before then I was just writing stories with animals and you know, just generic characters. But she said, you need to find that unique voice that only can come from you. What is that voice? What are those unique experiences part of your lives that offer something new and fresh that a publisher has never seen? And I kept thinking back to when I say I'm from Taiwan, some of the responses have been, ⁓ that's great. I love Thai food, which is actually Thailand. And me having to explain the difference and where Taiwan is, what is a night market? know, that was, they'd ask, ⁓ what, what, what is it known for? And I would say night markets and I'd have to explain what a night market is. So I knew, wait a second, not a lot of people know about these night markets. And so that's what started the journey of saying, Well, what is my unique voice? And I really like pooling from that heritage, but I also like pooling from other parts of myself. We're speaking at the ALA conference this year at a poster presentation about this concept of multiple identities saying, hey, I'm not just Taiwanese. I'm also a dog owner, like my street dog, right? I am a grandchild, so I love my grandparents. things like that, I'm a mother, I don't know how to slow down. So what I often do is I'll take my heritage, but I'll merge it with another part of my identity that is almost universal in a way. And so when you pair that together, kids who aren't Taiwanese can connect to the story, but also kids who are Asian and Taiwanese feel seen and feel included in that story as well. So there's a little bit of a magic in merging those different identities together to tell a story. Thomas Nixon: What are you working on now? Charlotte Cheng: ⁓ man, I've been iterating a lot of different ideas. haven't. It's been tough choosing which one to work on, but I can throw out a couple ideas. My family comes from pirates, actually. Two very famous pirates. One was actually featured in Pirates of the Caribbean. So I'm working on a story about my pirate heritage. Yeah, okay, go ahead. Thomas Nixon: So I'm gonna stop you right there. Your family comes from pirates. This is a thing, okay? That is very cool. Charlotte Cheng: Yes. It is a thing and I, it is pretty cool. I'm pretty proud of it. And it's, I, my, again, my family, just, they're just like full of these stories that I hadn't heard of. So I also had to do that one. I had to go stop, wait, what? And, and I had to, traced it back. Like my family name is the same family name of these two famous pirates. One that basically brought a lot of people from China to Taiwan. called Zhen Chenggong. But my favorite person is Mistress Ching. You'll see it in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. There's only one Asian pirate that shows up. She's also featured in a recent show called Our Flag Means Death. And she was this amazing lady who basically, her husband passed away. She took over the helm of leading a pirate fleet for well over a decade. I forgot how long. Thomas Nixon: Mm-hmm. Charlotte Cheng: to the point where the Chinese government begged her to stop and offered her a government position just to make her stop. So it was just such a fascinating story. And I think, what does that mean coming from pirates? And I look at my relatives and look at myself, there's just like this passion, persistence, this grit that I see in like a lot of my family members and oftentimes in my daughter. And I go, that's the pirate. That's the pirate coming out, surfacing. So there's something there. So I'm exploring what a story like that would look like, just tapping into what does it feel like to come from a family of pirates. So there's that one. And I'm weirdly also exploring romance. I love reading romance novels. So I'm writing some romance stories as well. it's just, I recommend again, that list of picture book ideas that just keeps growing. And I just chip away at. Thomas Nixon: Mm-hmm. Charlotte Cheng: one story here, one story there until I find one that works for the editor, the agent, and everybody else. Thomas Nixon: Is there a book or a series of books from your childhood that still resonates with you? Charlotte Cheng: Right, well I mentioned Anne of Green Gables. I could not recommend that enough. That character Anne Shirley just lives within me. I have Anne of Green Gables shirts and socks and all sorts of things. I loved how fiery she was of a girl in this just quaint town. She clearly didn't fit in. She wasn't like the other girls and that was okay. And I just loved being at like able to see a character like that. Some other ones are actually Harold the Purple Crayon because I loved the idea of how a simple crayon could create worlds and spaces and imagination. And I think that stuck with me. If you look to my website charlotte.art and you look at my profile photo, it's a red pencil covering my mouth. because, and the kids always ask, why are you sharing this photo? And I say, it's because I share my ideas and thoughts and stories through the power of a pencil. And I think that really resonated with me as a kid. And then last one, would say Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are. All those books that he wrote that tapped into a child's perspective. I think he was unafraid and unabashed at saying, hey, a child sees so much more than we think. And therefore the books that I write are covering that, those concepts, often more complicated than the adults were saying that kids could comprehend. And I think that has influenced my writing too, like writing, miss you most, talking about loss. Now, when I read that story to classrooms and different spaces, I look up and it's often the adults that are crying, right? The teachers and the parents. And I look to the children, I worry that it's too sad for them, but they're not. They are asking questions. They're sharing their stories. They are ready to talk about it and they want to talk about it. And so I think that piece of Maurice Endak really plays into how I write as well. Thomas Nixon: Nice. What are you reading now? Charlotte Cheng: ⁓ boy, I do read a lot of good romance novels, so I'm gonna shout out Allie Hazelwood and Penny Reed. They're really great authors. I call it nerdy romance. Again, all of the heroines are very fiery and spirited. Recently, I've also been reading, you might have heard The Misfits, basically. It's a great series novel. And then with my daughter, she's five. So we've been reading Dog Man, Narwhal and Jelly, all those good things. And then I've been also visiting a lot of my author friends' events. So I'm just going to give a shout out to Saina Wedlich because she and I both wrote books about night markets. She's Nigerian, I'm Taiwanese. But we each wrote about night markets randomly at the same time. and also about naming ceremonies at the same time. And so she just recently came out with a book called The Space for Everyone that's really great. Another one is Soy Sauce by Laura Lee. She wrote a book about the creation of soy sauce from different origins in different countries. So I could go on, you know, there's books in every room of our house. but just a light sampling of what I've been reading. Thomas Nixon: Well, Charlotte, I want to thank you for coming on the podcast. greatly appreciate this. For our audience, please remember to like, subscribe, and share wherever you watch us, YouTube, podcast platforms, everywhere. And again, thank you so much, Charlotte. Charlotte Cheng: Thanks so much for having me. I had a wonderful time chatting with you about books.