Dan Santat is the Caldecott Medal–winning and New York Times–bestselling author and illustrator of The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend and the road trip/time travel adventure Are We There Yet? His artwork is also featured in numerous picture books, chapter books, and middle-grade novels, including Dav Pilkey’s Ricky Ricotta series. Dan lives in Southern California with his wife, two kids, and many, many pets.

I had the opportunity to interview Dan, which you can read below.

First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT. Could you tell us a little about yourself?

My name is Dan Santat and I’ve been making children’s books for nineteen years. I’m best known for titles like, Are We There Yet?, After the Fall, and The Adventures of Beekle – The Unimaginary Friend which won the Randolph Caldecott Medal in 2015. I also created the Disney animated series, The Replacements. I have been a geek for about 46 years, now.   

What can you tell us about your most recent graphic novel, A First Time for Everything? Where did the inspiration for this story come from?

It started back in 2019 when my oldest son, who was 13 at the time, asked me about the first time I fell in love. I thought about it for a moment and remembered this girl named Amy who I met on this three week trip through Europe back in 1989. My kids asked me about all the details of the trip and suddenly a flurry of memories rushed into my head. Memories about how I ran free through Paris without adult supervision. The time I went to a discotheque in Salzburg with a bunch of girls and ended up stealing a bike in the middle of the night to escape four punk rockers, and my personal favorite, sneaking into Wimbledon and watching the last set of the 1989 Men’s Semifinal between John McEnroe and Stefan Edberg. It was a life changing trip for me after a rough couple of years in junior high. I discovered who I was as a person and learned to like myself. A few days after the discussion with my son I was talking to my editor on the phone and I told her about this trip and she told me to turn it into a this graphic novel. Now, four years later, here we are.

As opposed to your other work, much of which includes children’s books based in fiction and fantasy, A First Time for Everything  is a memoir. What made you decide to explore the personal in a graphic novel memoir?

It goes way back in 2010 when I first met Gene Luen Yang, the author of American Born Chinese, at the Miami Book Festival. We hit it off immediately and started chatting about our lives and how we both ended up in publishing and we realized that we had a lot in common. Gene suggested to me that writing a memoir was something lots of Asian American kids would love to read and he encouraged me to try it. My initial memoir proposal was going to be about a period in my life when I first went to Thailand and met my relatives for the first time. It was during this time my mom had breast cancer and so it was emotionally taxing on me and I just wasn’t ready to tackle such a hard story. Thankfully, my son asked me about the first time I fell in love.  

How did you find yourself getting into storytelling, particularly comics and children’s books? What drew you to the mediums?

I wasn’t much of a reader back when I was a kid. My parents immigrated from Thailand so they weren’t familiar with most of the Western classics and the reading we did in school never really appealed to me, so I grew up watching lots of TV shows and movies. When I was a kid I remember wanting to become a filmmaker or an actor, but there was a really practical side of me that realized at a young age that there weren’t many Asian actors or filmmakers at that time. Any Asian actor back in the 1980s was either performing martial arts as a Chinese street gang member getting beaten up by Steven Seagal or Jackie Chan, or they were considered the jokes in the movie where they spoke in a funny accent and were always holding cameras. I realized as early as seven years old that storytelling in cinema was never going to be a reality for me. When I turned 11 I had a friend who introduced me to comics and I suddenly found myself engrossed in all these monthlies like Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Hulk, and it felt like a good balance between the marriage of reading and cinema and I started making my own little comics. They were often really bad fan fiction of superhero stories I was reading, but I never engaged in actually making my own stories until I ended up making books professionally. After completing my first picture book, my editor suggested that I try to turn my second project into a graphic novel. The thought of doing such a large project always felt daunting and so I never thought I had the time and discipline to finish one until, well, I actually finished one.

As someone who has worked many of their own picture books, as well as having collaborated with others, can you give insight or advice into what goes into making a picture book?

I think there are two important things people have to consider when making a picture book. The first is that you’re not just telling a story, you’re creating an experience and you have to do it within a very constrained parameter of 32-40 pages. For me, that means that from cover to cover you’re designing every aspect of that book to serve the story. You have opportunities on the endpapers, the title page, even the jacket flaps and case cover. You’re not just an illustrator, you’re a book designer. The second part is that words have to be used sparingly. You have to generate the most bang for your buck with each sentence and with that you have to rely on illustrations to tell the other half of your story. Often times I’ll see books where the author will write text describing the action on the page when you don’t actually need to. It becomes redundant. The author and illustrator need to work together like an ice skating couple. They have to work in unison to make a beautiful routine, and with that comes a certain level of trust that you have to give to your partner.

As a creative, who or what would you say are some of your greatest creative influences and/or sources of inspiration?

From a professional point of view I love the writings of David Sedaris, Malcolm Gladwell, and Judy Blume. I also find inspiration from my peers like Shannon Hale, LeUyen Pham, Mo Willems, and many others. On a broad spectrum, I find inspiration everywhere. It’s not necessarily just in the craft of making books by writing or drawing. If I play a really good video game I try to understand the addictive qualities that make me want to play it for 18 hours straight. If I’m eating food I want to understand the little nuances that heighten the taste in the food. I once took my wife to a Lady Gaga concert and was absolutely blown away by the spectacle of the entire event. She put on an amazing show and everyone in the audience was mesmerized. Those are things you can take away to educate yourself in your own profession. You think about those little details and how you can improve your school presentations for kids or at book store events. The essence of my sources of inspiration derive from the need to understand the passion of the artist who created the art and why it moves people. I’m inspired purely by their passion and I try to match their energy in my own work.

What are some of your favorite elements of writing/illustrating? What do you consider some of the most frustrating and/or challenging? 

I think the power of a writer is that we’re ultimately in the business of selling emotion. Making the reader feel certain feelings by crafting a scene is easily my favorite part of the job as a storyteller. The best work comes from those who manage to make a reader feel a certain way with a variety of tools such as crafting beautiful sentences, or pacing the story in a way that the reader is craving to turn to the next page to see what happens. With all those tools at your disposal it can be a balancing act and that’s the challenging part of storytelling. It’s a fluid type of formula that changes its chemistry with each project you do. The other frustrating part of writing is that sometimes you’re writing about a feeling that’s so specific that you wonder if other people have those same feelings. I think we can all sometimes get in our own heads about feeling a certain way thinking you’re the only person in the world with those thoughts, but it turns out that if you write about anything chances are pretty good that you’re gonna find at least one person on a planet of 8 billion people who share those same thoughts.

Besides your work as an author/illustrator what are some things you would want readers to know about you?

I’m just an average guy who’s trying to get the most out of this one shot at life. I understand how fortunate I am being allowed to make a living telling stories for an audience of children and teenagers, as well as some adults, and so I don’t take any of that lightly. I’m always grateful for those around me and as time has gone on I’m thankful for those around me who’ve helped me along the way. I’m a parent of two boys, a husband to a lovely brilliant scientist woman for the last 20 years, and I’m always looking for a new experience. If you see me in public and you recognize me, please feel free to introduce yourself. I want to meet people. I want to imbibe everything in this world

What’s a question you haven’t been asked yet but wish you were (and the answer to that question)?

Q: If I had to turn any of my books into a video game which would I choose?

A: Sidekicks. It would just be a fun four player side scroller like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Are there any projects you are working on or thinking about that you are able to discuss?

The only project of my own that I have set in stone, so far, are three more sequels to my first graphic novel, Sidekicks. It will be a full story arc about the origins of all the characters and how they all tie in together. I’m also currently working on my first middle grade novel idea as well as a silly little picture book idea that is just purely for fun. I’m also currently working on five other projects with various authors at the moment which are all in various stages. I feel like I was in a rut for the last three to five years due to the pandemic and I’m finally coming out of that haze and now the gears in my brain are finally back in motion.  

Finally, what books/comics would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT?

“Family Style” by Thien Pham, “In Limbo” by Deb JJ Lee, “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin, and “Hoops” by Matt Tavares