AUTHOR Q & A: Amal

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An interview with Amal Author and illustrator of My Key

Q. What is the inspiration for this story? A. Baltimore libraries. I think there are about twenty in the area which means you’re never far from one. But one summer I wasn’t anywhere close to Baltimore. Keep in mind, I was no bookworm, just liked wandering around the buildings themselves and finding pictures in various books. That summer, multiple days of boredom set in hard and the word maybe translated into a sound that made me wince.

One afternoon a neighbor moved out of the building and piled picture books, hardbacks, paperbacks, magazines, you name it, in the mass outside her door. I assumed this meant she didn’t want them, so I collected the lot, created my own library, and started comparing book covers—because covers count.

Instantly, the world turned into a more interesting place. Instantly, with my whole heart, I fell in love my local home libraries.

Q. What is the most difficult part of your artistic process? A. Finding models (and praying they don’t have a growth spurt before we finish). Once the text is near completion I begin to storyboard and work out thumbnails, but I often work from models and the searching for one and getting things coordinated part gets pretty tricky. I’m extremely fortunate to have met the little girl who acted the role of the character in My Key. She had her own ideas about how this kid went about using found objects to build herself a key!

Q. What is the most satisfying part of your artistic process? A. When I’ve found the model! Not kidding. By that point the storyboard is complete, so are the thumbnail sketches, and often I’ve already decided which to use. BUT I won’t go beyond this point because magic can happen when someone other than the creator interprets a story.

I can easily rebuild my initial sketch for any new interpretation then return to the drawing part, which happens to be on total par with my above favorite part, because I love the feel and look of pencil on canvas before getting into any painting. Q. When did you start writing/ illustrating? A. In elementary school I think we were taken twice a week or so to the school library where Mrs. Hopkins became narrator to whatever books we put in her lap. She’d read until she couldn’t read anymore. But we weren’t allowed to leave her library until our teacher returned, so she let us loose. I was attracted to nicely bound books, my favorite was the Encyclopedia Britannica, but I hadn’t a clue what was on the pages other than a lot of words that seemed to be screaming out for pictures...

Q. What is your favorite part of this book? A. When the main character goes about building herself a key out of the stuff she’s found. It’s something we used to do all the time and could pick our way into almost any locked door.

Amal is the 2020 Winner of Clavis Publishing's Key Colors Competition with My Key. A graduate of the Academy of Art University, San Francisco, she currently resides in Port Jefferson, NY.