Episode 34: From Freelancer to Bestselling Author — Writing Lessons from Newbery Medalist Jerry Craft

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How can staying true to your story unlock your biggest creative breakthrough?

In this episode Ashley Cisneros Mejia chats with award-winning author and illustrator Jerry Craft, creator of New Kid—the first graphic novel to ever win the prestigious Newbery Medal.

Jerry opens up about his inspiring journey from a reluctant reader to a New York Times bestselling author, sharing how his personal experiences of feeling like an outsider became the foundation for a story that resonates with readers of all ages and backgrounds.

Tune in to hear Jerry’s candid insights on the power of perseverance, navigating countless rejections, and staying true to your creative vision even when the odds are stacked against you.

Whether you’re a freelance writer seeking to get published or a creative professional in search of inspiration, this episode offers invaluable wisdom on storytelling, tenacity, and building a successful career as a writer.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• About the challenges Jerry overcame before breaking through with a traditional publisher.
• How to transform personal experiences into universal stories that resonate with diverse audiences.
• The importance of perseverance and resilience in pursuing a creative career, even after facing repeated rejection.
• Why staying true to your vision and avoiding limiting labels can be key to long-term creative success.

Time Stamps

00:01:29 Introduction to Jerry Craft and his award-winning work.

00:03:19 How Jerry Craft transitioned from working in advertising to becoming an author

00:04:19 How Jerry’s personal story inspired New Kid and the character of Jordan Banks.

00:06:35 The challenge of writing for middle-grade readers and balancing innocence with maturity.

00:15:43 How Jerry Craft first got into self-publishing

00:18:37 How Jerry Craft first found out that he won the Newbery Medal

00:23:19 How life changes once you win a Newbery Medal

00:27:02 How Jerry Craft transitioned from self-publishing to becoming a traditionally-published author

00:32:32 A season of rejection and perseverance

00:34:07 Finding the right time, the right editor, and the right publisher

00:36:01 The process of creating a graphic novel

00:37:41 There really are no overnight successes

00:41:10 Glowing emails, hate mail, and book bans

00:53:53 Jerry Craft’s and Kwame Alexander’s forthcoming book, J vs. K

00:55:18 Jerry Craft’s advice for aspiring freelance authors and creatives

About Jerry Craft

Jerry Craft is the New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of the graphic novels New Kid, Class Act, and School Trip. New Kid is the only book in history to win the John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature (2020); the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature (2019), and the Coretta Scott King Author Award for the most outstanding work by an African American writer (2020). Jerry was born in Harlem and grew up in the Washington Heights section of New York City and now travels the world telling kids and their families about the importance of reading.

Learn more about Jerry and buy his books at: https://jerrycraft.com/

Noteworthy Quote From This Episode

“I included a story about the moth and the chrysalis because kids want to help and they cut it open to make it easier. But it’s the struggle to break out  that strengthens the wings and makes the moths strong enough to fly. If you open it for them, their wings don’t get strong and they can’t fly. So I have had 30 years of pushing to get out of this chrysalis.”

Jerry Craft

Listen Now

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Read The Transcript

Note: This video transcript has been lightly edited using AI for clarity and readability.

I[00:02:53] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: In this podcast episode, Jerry and I explore his journey as a writer and illustrator, the impact of his award-winning work, and what happens when your books get banned. So without further ado, let’s jump into the episode. Thank you so much, Jerry Craft, for being on the Talk Freelance to Me show. How did you go from working in media and advertising to being an author?

From Media to Literature: Jerry’s Journey to Becoming an Author

[00:03:19] Jerry Craft: I always wanted to draw. I didn’t want to write because I always hated to read. And I try to think back to why I didn’t like to read. As a young African American boy growing up in New York and Washington Heights, I just never saw myself in print, TV, or movies. It was always like looking through a window at somebody else.

[00:03:45] Jerry Craft: It really wasn’t until I became a dad myself, reading to my kids because I wanted them to love reading. That was when I started seeing myself, because I started meeting authors. I started going to book festivals, having a relationship with a bookstore, which I never had as a kid, and having a relationship with a library, which I also never had as a kid.

How Personal Experience Shaped New Kid

[00:04:10] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s amazing. How much of yourself did you put into Jordan, and what has been the feedback from readers about Jordan’s character?

[00:04:18] Jerry Craft: Jordan is a 12-year-old boy who grew up in Washington Heights. So the house where he lives is the house where I grew up. That’s my house, that’s my neighborhood. The basis of the story is my life—where I wanted to go to art school. My mom and dad did not want me to go to art school because they thought this whole art thing was a fad that I would grow out of. “Oh, it’s a cute hobby, but it’s not a job.” So instead of sending me to the art high schools I had applied for, like Music & Art or Design—and I got into both—they sent me to a school called Fieldston in Riverdale. So Jordan, every day, like me, got on that M100 bus and went from Washington Heights, which is all Black and Latino, to Riverdale, which was almost exclusively white, middle class, upper-middle class, and upper class.

[00:05:19] Jerry Craft: So it was like going from one planet to a completely different planet. Especially as a kid, I wasn’t used to that, so that part is definitely me. I was always one of the youngest and the smallest kids in my class, so that part is also there. Me and my friends were just good kids. There’s nothing in New Kid or Class Act or School Trip where you’ll feel uncomfortable letting your kids read it.

[00:05:50] Jerry Craft: They’re not sneaking around behind their mom and dad’s back, they’re not smoking or drinking or cursing. In my opinion, it’s very PG. I really love capturing the innocence of middle grade—that’s my niche.

The Challenges of Writing for Middle Schoolers

[00:06:06] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: I was curious about that too—why you chose the middle grade. Maybe you could talk more about that, because it feels like there’s this bridge between still being childlike, but also exploring identity and belonging. You really do a masterful job of exploring those themes.

[00:06:35] Jerry Craft: One of the difficult things about writing for kids is figuring out how to make it nice and innocent, but not boring for them. Kids tend to read up—they want to read about older kids. A 14-year-old is not going to want to read about a 10-year-old, but a 10-year-old will read about a 14-year-old.

[00:06:59] Jerry Craft: So the challenge was how to make it cool enough so that kids want to read it, but also literary enough so that teachers will embrace it. And again, on the edge, so that kids think it’s cool, but it’s still something that a parent or teacher can feel good about sharing with their kids. If you did a Venn diagram of all those pieces, I had to find that sweet spot in the middle.

[00:07:28] Jerry Craft: One of the parameters I put on myself was the language. For example, I don’t use “ain’t.” I kept the language clean enough where an English teacher could say, “Okay, I can teach this in my class.” And as a result, New Kid is in some school curriculums.

[00:07:53] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s amazing!

[00:07:54] Jerry Craft: Yeah, I’ve been to schools where kids are doing homework and book reports on my book! That gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

[00:08:05] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: What came from you—right?

[00:08:07] Jerry Craft: Exactly. They’re doing homework assignments on New Kid. A lot of schools even make it summer reading, or the book for all incoming sixth graders to read. I’ve gone to schools where they bought 1,400 books, and they do a “one book, one school” read, where even the custodians and the school bus drivers read it!

[00:08:31] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Wow.

[00:08:31] Jerry Craft: Then they’ll bring me in to do an assembly.

[00:08:36] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s interesting. It sounds like, from both a strategic and a storytelling perspective, you’ve had to think about all these different audiences—the teachers, the parents, and of course, the kids. Have you noticed a different response from the adults who read it, like the custodians or bus drivers, compared to the children?

[00:08:59] Jerry Craft: Absolutely. If you read it, depending on how you grew up, you might think, “Oh my God, that was my life!” I was always the only Black kid, or the only Latina girl, or the only Asian kid. So even though Jordan is African American, if you’ve ever been that “one” person, you’ll get the story. If you’ve ever been the only girl in a class of boys, or the tallest kid, or the smallest kid, you can identify with Jordan.

[00:09:34] Jerry Craft: Even teachers connect with it. On the very first page of New Kid, it shows Jordan falling. He says, “This is how I feel every single day of my life—like I’m falling without a parachute. I’m not really falling. That’s called a metaphor. I learned about them in English.” So now, if a teacher wants to do a breakout session on metaphors, they can. The kids are like, “Oh, what’s a metaphor? Let’s do a homework assignment on this.”

[00:10:00] Jerry Craft: I grew up in the Schoolhouse Rock era—Sesame Street, Electric Company, Mr. Rogers, and all those shows had teachable moments. It’s hard for me to do entertainment that doesn’t teach in some capacity.

[00:10:31] Jerry Craft: When I go to schools, I’m like the fun uncle. The teachers are mom and dad, and they’re saying, “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” Then I come in and say, “Hey, when you go on social media, be really careful about what you post because it can haunt you forever.” Then the kids will go to the teacher and say, “Did you know that posting on social media can have long-term consequences?” And the teacher’s like, “Yes, we’ve been telling you that since second grade!” But they don’t listen to the teachers—Uncle Jerry told them, so now they’re listening.

[00:11:00] Jerry Craft: I know I have a self-guided trajectory of what I want to do for kids and adults. Jordan is very respectful of his parents. A lot of times, when you see parents in cartoons, they’re portrayed as idiots—they can’t do anything, and the kids are the smart ones. How many times have you seen the dad try to fix something and suddenly there’s water shooting out everywhere?

[00:11:31] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Yes!

[00:11:33] Jerry Craft: Or the dad tries to fix a socket, and the whole neighborhood blacks out. In my books, sometimes the kids are right, sometimes the mom is right, sometimes the dad is right. Everybody gets their moment to shine.

[00:11:52] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: I’ve read about that—there was this time in pop culture where the father was often the butt of the joke.

[00:11:59] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Oh, yes.

[00:12:00] Jerry Craft: Always.

[00:12:00] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Yes! And I didn’t make that connection until we were speaking. That was one of the things I took away—Jordan’s relationship with his father, his grandpa, and even Mr. Pierre.

[00:12:12] Jerry Craft: Right.

[00:12:13] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: The wisdom that these men impart on Jordan—it’s all from a place of love. Even Jordan’s mom—you can tell that she wants Jordan to go to RAD for the opportunities.

[00:12:25] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: It’s not that she doesn’t believe in her son.

[00:12:30] Jerry Craft: Right. But like my parents, they had only heard the term “starving artist,” so they thought I’d be living in their basement until I was 60. Even in TV commercials—there’s one, I forget what it is, maybe Doritos—and the kids are making the dad do push-ups to get a chip!

[00:12:47] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: And I’m like…

[00:12:54] Jerry Craft: Are you kidding me? And it’s adults writing these commercials! Why are adults making adults seem so stupid? Then kids go home and treat their parents with no respect.

[00:13:07] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s so interesting.

[00:13:07] Jerry Craft: It really is.

The Road to Success: Winning the Newbery, Coretta Scott King, and Kirkus Prizes

[00:13:13] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: I noticed that immediately on the cover—you’ve got the Newbery Medal. Let’s talk for a minute about what a huge deal it is to receive those awards. What’s that process like? Do you get nominated?

[00:13:23] Jerry Craft: No, for the Newbery, you don’t know you’ve won until you win. I knew I did well in mock Newberys. Schools often hold mock Newbery voting to engage students with books, and I’d see on social media, “Hey, at Southern Penn Elementary, our mock Newbery winner is New Kid.” And I thought, “Oh, cool.”

[00:13:45] Jerry Craft: I knew kids would like it. But I also knew that a book about an African American boy, written by an African American man, and done as a graphic novel might not be what traditional awards typically recognize. There are a lot of books with African American protagonists that focus on misery and trauma.

[00:14:23] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Yeah.

[00:14:24] Jerry Craft: And some people don’t get it. I always say, imagine if the only books women had were like The Handmaid’s Tale.

[00:14:33] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Oh, wow, yes.

[00:14:34] Jerry Craft: Right? Great protagonist, but it’s all misery and trauma. So growing up, if the only books you have are about slavery, the civil rights struggle, or systemic oppression—it’s important, but imagine that’s all you have. How many African American movies are about someone who’s been in jail for 40 years for a crime they didn’t commit?

[00:15:00] Jerry Craft: Then, at the end, they get out, but is that a happy story? You just watched two hours of misery, and now they’re free in the last 15 minutes. What do they do now? It’s still a story of hardship. I wanted to tell a happy story.

[00:15:42] Jerry Craft: I tried to get traditionally published from 1994 to 1997. I got so many rejection letters that in ‘97, I went to the library, got a book on how to self-publish, and self-published my first book: Mama’s Boys As American As Sweet Potato Pie. It was a collection of my comic strips. Because I wasn’t going to do the misery book.

[00:16:11] Jerry Craft: Then I self-published more books. Other authors came to me, saying, “Hey, we can’t get published either. Can you help us?” So, I started my own publishing company. For the next 20 years, I worked with other authors to publish their books. They’d send me their manuscripts. If I liked them, I’d illustrate them, do the layout, and upload everything to IngramSpark or CreateSpace. I’d give them the login so they could print their books forever.

[00:16:56] Jerry Craft: By that point, I’d given up on traditional publishing. I didn’t even know what the Newbery was. When my kids were around eight, I found Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. It had two little stickers on it—the Newbery and Coretta Scott King awards. I loved it. As a 40-year-old, it was the first book that felt close to my own experience. Ten years later, I became the second author to win both the Newbery and Coretta Scott King awards.

[00:17:55] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s incredible!

[00:17:57] Jerry Craft: Right? I didn’t even know what those awards were at first.

[00:17:57] Jerry Craft: As a reader to my kids, if you had told me that 10 years later, my book would win those same awards, I would’ve thought you were crazy.

[00:18:08] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: You’re literally creating magic as a writer, taking abstract ideas in your mind and turning them into something tangible. For these prestigious award committees to recognize that—it’s profound.

[00:18:23] Jerry Craft: Right.

[00:18:33] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: How did you feel when you won?

[00:18:37] Jerry Craft: I’d heard you get a call between 3 AM and 6 AM. So, the night before, I left my phone on—something I don’t normally do. I woke up at 5:30, just staring at the ceiling. Around 6:15, I thought, “Okay, well, it was nice to dream about.” I closed my eyes, and then my phone rang.

[00:19:00] Jerry Craft: The voice on the other end said, “Is this Jerry Craft?” I was thinking, “If this is a credit card call, I’m going to be so mad.” But then they said, “Congratulations, you’ve won the John Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.”

[00:19:52] Jerry Craft: And for once in my life, I was speechless. I said, “Wow.” I didn’t even realize how big of a deal it was. I didn’t know it was like the Oscar of children’s literature. So, I thanked them.

[00:20:19] Jerry Craft: Then they told me, “But you can’t tell anyone until the announcement is made.” So, I had to sit on the biggest news of my life for a few hours. Then, at 6:42, I got another call: “Congratulations, you’ve also won the Coretta Scott King Author Award.” I was blown away.

[00:21:01] Jerry Craft: Usually, they announce the winners during the American Library Association’s winter meeting, and in June, they have the convention where they give out the awards. There’s a big dinner, speeches, all of that. But because of COVID, I had to do the whole thing from my office.

[00:22:00] Jerry Craft: I watched the live stream of the announcements, recording it with my phone in one hand, shaking because I knew it was coming…

[00:22:04] Jerry Craft: But it’s like maybe a two-hour ceremony, and of course, the Newbery is the last one. Once they announced it, my phone started ringing off the hook. Kwame Alexander, who won in 2015, called me to congratulate me, along with Meg Medina and Derek Barnes. It’s been life-altering—just a whole new level since then.

[00:22:40] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: So, what does that look like—more opportunities, more introductions, more money? How does your life change after winning these awards?

[00:22:51] Jerry Craft: More everything. So, this is the actual Coretta Scott King Book Award. Before that, I won the Kirkus Prize.

[00:23:00] Jerry Craft: So, New Kid is the only book that has ever won all three of these: the Newbery Medal, the Coretta Scott King Author Award, and the Kirkus Prize.

[00:23:07] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Wow.

[00:23:07] Jerry Craft: Yeah, not just the only Black book—the only book ever to win all three.

[00:23:17] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Congratulations!

[00:23:19] Jerry Craft: Thank you. So, to go from being relatively obscure to being the only author ever to achieve that—it’s mind-blowing. When you think of classics like Charlotte’s Web or The Wizard of Oz, it’s just wild.

[00:23:35] Jerry Craft: One of the funny things is that schools that had already booked me were calling to confirm. They’d say, “Hey, congratulations! So, you’re still coming to our school, right?” And I’d be like, “Of course, I’m still coming!” Then they’d ask, “Are you still charging the same rate?” And I’d say, “No, now you’re getting the Newbery rate!” I had trips lined up to Beijing and Hawaii, but then COVID shut the world down for two years, so all of that got canceled.

[00:24:15] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Wow.

[00:24:16] Jerry Craft: Yeah. But in terms of book sales, once you win these awards, every library buys it, and it will probably never go out of print. When you walk into a Barnes & Noble, sometimes it’s in the award section, sometimes in the young readers’ section. I’m like, “Hey, can you put that in the award section?” I’ve got the Newbery and Coretta Scott King posters up on my wall.

[00:24:58] Jerry Craft: I also got to travel to the UAE. I went from Sharjah to Dubai to Abu Dhabi. That was a work trip.

[00:25:10] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Just another day at the office!

[00:25:11] Jerry Craft: Yep! I also went to Hawaii for 10 days and visited about four schools there. They even had a quiz bowl like Jeopardy based on my book. I’ve been to Kenya with Kwame Alexander, visiting schools.

[00:25:27] Jerry Craft: And all the book fairs that once turned me down? They’re calling me now. I’m like, “Oh, now you remember me?”

[00:25:37] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: They’re like, “Remember us?”

[00:25:40] Jerry Craft: Yeah, now I do. Before, it was, “Beat it, and don’t ever call us again!”

[00:25:45] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s incredible!

[00:25:47] Jerry Craft: It really is.

[00:25:47] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: What a story—going from struggling to get traditionally published to now being in demand. It seems like the industry wasn’t ready for you back then.

[00:25:58] Jerry Craft: Exactly. Some of the rejection letters I got were downright insulting. It’s one thing to get a form letter, which I understand, but when someone takes the time to type out a personalized rejection like, “Dear Jerry Craft, the idea of this book should sell, but somehow it doesn’t. And the idea that any of your books will ever get published seems even more of a damn reality,” it’s just cruel.

[00:26:27] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s so mean! Do they feel better about themselves after that?

[00:26:29] Jerry Craft: Yeah, I actually include one of those in my presentations—I block out the name, of course.

[00:26:38] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s the sweetest revenge, though. Success in Dubai!

[00:26:42] Jerry Craft: Exactly.

[00:26:44] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s incredible! So, I know you’re published by HarperCollins now. Do they develop a marketing strategy for you? How do you get your books into the hands of readers today?

[00:26:59] Jerry Craft: Well, going back to the beginning, I was self-publishing for 20 years. That was a lot of work—not only was I always working on the next book, but I had to sell them myself. I’d go from the Harlem Book Festival to the Chappaqua Book Festival, always selling. Then, I’d work on the next book to make ends meet.

[00:27:39] Jerry Craft: I couldn’t keep that up. So, I asked a friend who worked at LitWorld if she could introduce me to anyone in the traditional publishing world. She gave me the names of three editors—one at Scholastic, one at Lee & Low, and I forget the third. I sent them query letters, and it was a lot of “thanks, but no thanks.”

[00:28:16] Jerry Craft: Then, three months later, I got an email from Scholastic saying they’d love to meet me. I went in thinking it would be a one-on-one meeting, but there were six people in the room. I had to present my whole portfolio. I talked about every book I had written and my approach, and they seemed interested.

[00:29:10] Jerry Craft: They asked if I had any ideas for a graphic novel. New Kid had always been in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t afford to self-publish it. A black-and-white version would’ve cost me about $3.50 per unit, and I’d have to sell it for $12 to make a tiny profit. But if you sell through a distributor, they want a 50% discount. So, it wasn’t financially viable for me to self-publish.

Handling Rejection and Perseverance in Publishing

[00:30:52] Jerry Craft: Scholastic loved the idea of New Kid, but after several rounds of pitching, they rejected it. I found another publisher who gave me an advance, but six months before the book was due, they canceled the imprint. So, I had to give the advance back, which had never happened to me before.

[00:33:51] Jerry Craft: I had to cash in my 401(k) to repay the advance, which was devastating. But eventually, my agent put the book up for auction, and six publishers were interested. Two of them saw it as primarily a “Black book,” which concerned me. I didn’t want to be pigeonholed into that box—this is a universal story. That’s why I chose HarperCollins. They saw the broader potential of New Kid, and I knew it was the right fit.

[00:35:35] Jerry Craft: I met my editor, Andrew Eliopoulos, and we clicked right away. He loved the humor and understood the bigger picture. HarperCollins was the right publisher at the right time, with the right editor. Everything aligned, and I signed with them in 2017.

[00:36:17] Jerry Craft: It took about a year and a half to create the book—graphic novels are a ton of work. There are thousands of illustrations and every detail, like character positioning, has to be perfect. It’s a labor of love, but the more you work on it, the easier it gets.

[00:37:38] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: I’m so glad you shared the backstory. You see the awards and success, but it wasn’t always peaches and cream, was it?

[00:37:49] Jerry Craft: No, it was a rough road.

[00:37:52] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Did you ever want to give up?

[00:37:54] Jerry Craft: I never wanted to stop creating books, but I was getting to a point where I couldn’t do it full-time anymore.

[00:38:01] Jerry Craft: So, I was looking for jobs at different schools, maybe as an art teacher, thinking I could have summers off. But I got rejected from those. I was like, “I can paint, I can draw, I can do Photoshop. I love kids, kids love me, I could coach the basketball team after school.” I didn’t know why I wasn’t getting hired. So I started subbing and working for different afterschool programs.

[00:38:36] Jerry Craft: But even then, I still didn’t know what I was going to do long-term. It was like, “Okay, I guess I’ll have to keep pushing.”

[00:38:41] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Forced into it.

[00:38:42] Jerry Craft: A lot of the stuff I’ve done, I was forced to do—forced to self-publish, forced to write because I loved to draw, but what was I going to draw? So I had to write my own stories to draw my own comics. If I had someone else writing my stories, I would’ve always been dependent on that person. I had to do it myself.

[00:38:58] Jerry Craft: So, I gave the story about the moth and the chrysalis, right? Kids might want to help by cutting it open to make it easier, but it’s the struggle to break out that strengthens the wings and helps it fly. If you open it for them, their wings don’t get strong, and they can’t fly. I had 30 years of pushing to get out of my own chrysalis and finally get published.

[00:39:49] Jerry Craft: I started New Kid in January 2017, handed it in by February 2018, but then I had to wait a whole year before it was even published. It didn’t come out until February 5, 2019. I had to wait. Then, I won the Kirkus Prize in October 2019 and the Newbery and Coretta Scott King awards in January 2020. Suddenly, people were like, “Who’s this new kid? He just came out of nowhere!”

[00:40:17] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Yeah.

[00:40:18] Jerry Craft: And now it’s in about 15 different languages. When I went to Dubai, it was in Arabic—there’s also Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, German, Albanian, Romanian…

[00:40:33] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s incredible.

[00:40:34] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: So, when you travel to these other countries, how do people respond? I feel like the experiences of microaggressions and otherness that Jordan, Drew, and Andy experience are very American, but do people in other countries still connect with those lessons?

[00:41:09] Jerry Craft: I got an email from a teacher saying her class vowed to be better human beings because they saw how their words and actions can affect others. They realized how much they could mess someone up—this was in New Zealand.

[00:41:37] Jerry Craft: In New Zealand, there was a kid from the indigenous Maori people. When we got to the part in New Kid where Liam’s dad drives off in his Mercedes on the first day of school and the neighbor freaks out, the teacher said the kids didn’t understand it. But the Maori girl said, “That’s because whenever someone like us drives away in a flashy car, it’s usually bad news.” That one girl opened up, and it brought the whole class closer together.

[00:42:37] Jerry Craft: I go into schools, and kids will say, “Oh my God, Mr. Craft, Angela over there is Alexandra!” They love Alexandra, and it’s a way for them to connect and support each other.

[00:43:27] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s so beautiful.

Navigating Book Bans and Controversies

[00:43:31] Jerry Craft: But the American part? That’s when people email me saying they’re going to burn my books.

[00:43:45] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Burn? I know they’ve banned it, which I wanted to ask you about…

[00:43:49] Jerry Craft: I get horrible emails all the time. I got one just yesterday. People will say terrible things and then disappear—bounce-back emails from burner accounts. It’s not people looking to have a conversation. Some have even started petitions to cancel my school visits.

[00:44:17] Jerry Craft: In New Zealand, kids decide to be better people after reading the book. But here in the U.S., people try to cancel school visits, get 400 signatures, and take the book out of libraries.

[00:44:44] Jerry Craft: One email I received said, “You must suffer from some kind of mental illness to think you need to indoctrinate a generation of kids.” I’m like, “For teaching empathy and kindness? Okay, guilty!”

[00:44:56] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Take me away!

[00:44:57] Jerry Craft: Right? Empathy and kindness! Imagine: “Hey man, what are you in for?” “Oh, I tried to teach kids to be kind.”

[00:45:05] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: So, when you first heard that New Kid was banned, what did you do?

[00:45:13] Jerry Craft: It’s funny that kids in Romania can read the book, but not in Texas or parts of Florida. I got a DM from Katy, Texas, where a woman got 400 signatures to cancel my school visit and remove the book from the library, which they did. But then the school board decided to actually read the book. Who would’ve thought?

[00:45:41] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Imagine that!

[00:45:43] Jerry Craft: They read it and realized, “Hey, this is a great book. There’s nothing wrong with it!” So, they put it back in the libraries and invited me to do the Zoom visit again. My friends were like, “You should tell them no!” But I went because it’s for the kids.

[00:46:03] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s the right attitude.

[00:46:06] Jerry Craft: So, they let parents opt out, and maybe five families did. And I don’t even talk about race during my school visits—I talk about how a kid who hated to read became the only author to win all three awards. That’s a Disney story!

[00:46:26] Jerry Craft: And speaking of Disney—LeBron James’s production company bought the rights to make New Kid into a live-action movie with Universal Studios.

[00:46:46] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Wow.

[00:46:46] Jerry Craft: So, what happened to me wasn’t racist, but me telling my story is somehow seen as teaching critical race theory and Marxism.

[00:47:00] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: It’s pretty bad when your personal experiences are seen as a threat.

[00:47:10] Jerry Craft: Right. Instead of banning my story, wouldn’t it make more sense to ban the behavior that made me want to tell it?

[00:47:32] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: I’m glad the administration eventually read the book and invited you to speak for the kids’ sake.

[00:47:39] Jerry Craft: It was one of the best book signings I’ve ever had. Around 250 people came out to buy books, and they were crying, hugging me, apologizing, saying, “This is not what Katy, Texas, is like.” Texas is both the most supportive and the least supportive place. They have amazing book festivals and libraries, but there are also those who don’t want their kids reading New Kid.

[00:48:25] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: And it’s the few who make all the noise—like you said, only five families opted out, but 400 people signed that petition.

[00:48:43] Jerry Craft: And sometimes, people just don’t do the research. Some folks don’t want their kids reading graphic novels because they think it’s a waste of time. Others think graphic novels are full of graphic content. So, we’re dealing with a lot of misinformation.

[00:49:07] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Yes.

[00:49:08] Jerry Craft: And there are people who just want to be angry and up in arms. On Goodreads, for example, there was a teacher who wrote, “I don’t think my largely poor, largely African American students are going to relate to this book about kids going to Paris for a week. So, I’m not even going to share it with them.” And I’m like, but your white kids can relate to a kid who flies on a broomstick and goes to wizard school to fight trolls, dragons, and dwarves. But a Black kid can’t aspire to go to Paris for a week? Which of these is actually more realistic?

[00:49:51] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Exactly. What’s so bad about aspiring for new experiences?

[00:49:55] Jerry Craft: Right.

[00:49:57] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: We want more of that! I loved School Trip—especially when the kids are in Paris and meet that older couple from Mississippi. The couple hears them speaking and realizes the kids are American, which creates this connection between them. I remember Jordan thinking, “Why does it take going to another country for us to suddenly become ‘American’?”

[00:50:29] Jerry Craft: Yeah, it’s interesting how when you’re in another country, you see Americans stop to hug each other. But here at home, they’re ready to fight or ban my book. It’s a strange dynamic.

[00:51:01] Jerry Craft: I put a lot of little things like that in New Kid to make readers think. Why is it that when you see an American abroad, you feel like they’re your family, but back home, there’s so much division?

[00:51:22] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: It’s so backwards, but I love that you included that in the story to make people think. It’s great for both adults and kids.

[00:51:31] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: I also loved the exploration of friendship between Jordan and Liam. Liam seems like he comes from a rich, affluent family, and he’s guarded, but all he wants is genuine friendship. There’s that moment where Liam gives Jordan a present, and Jordan feels bad for not having one in return. But Liam says, “You being my real friend is the best gift.”

[00:51:53] Jerry Craft: Right.

[00:51:54] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: When people accuse your book of promoting something it’s not, I love that you’re showing the importance of not judging others. You never know what someone is going through, and we can still be friends despite coming from seemingly different worlds.

[00:52:11] Jerry Craft: Exactly. I once got a really long, angry email asking, “Why does the white kid, Liam, have a bad relationship with his dad, but the Black kid, Jordan, has a good one?” I wanted to show that just because someone has money, it doesn’t mean they have everything they want. And when it comes to father-son relationships, there are so many books with Black characters who don’t even have fathers. Yet, when I include a Black father, I get backlash.

[00:52:33] Jerry Craft: And of course, the response is, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” But they always think they’re the ones in the right. No one who’s tried to ban my books has ever said, “Hey, let’s have an open dialogue.”

[00:52:53] Jerry Craft: After a woman in Texas banned New Kid, NPR, the BBC, and Don Lemon from CNN all reached out. Suddenly, I was on Joy Reid’s show with Art Spiegelman, the author of Maus—his book is about the atrocities of the Holocaust. New Kid is about a Black kid going to private school. But now, because of the controversy, people were calling me for interviews.

[00:53:29] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Isn’t it funny how the media only calls when there’s conflict?

[00:53:30] Jerry Craft: Exactly. It wasn’t newsworthy when New Kid and Class Act were just successful books. But once there’s controversy, it’s all over the headlines.

[00:53:48] Jerry Craft: Now, I’m finishing up a new book with Kwame Alexander, who won the Newbery in 2010. It’s called J vs. K, and it’s about a fifth-grade artist and a fifth-grade writer who are rivals, competing to win their school’s annual storytelling contest. It comes out on May 6, 2025.

[00:54:28] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That sounds like such a fun story!

[00:54:29] Jerry Craft: It’s been great to work on.

Lessons for Aspiring Writers: Advice from Jerry Craft

[00:54:33] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: You’ve experienced so much, and I love the analogy of the chrysalis and how struggle gives you strength. Many of our listeners are freelance writers, doing copywriting for companies but dreaming of writing their own book. What advice would you give to those who want to go down the traditional publishing path?

[00:55:03] Jerry Craft: The biggest thing? You have to finish it. So many people have been working on a book since they were 18, and now they’re 47. I’m not saying they aren’t writers, but if you want to publish, you need to finish the book. If you’re not obsessed with making it better, rewriting, and putting in the time, it might just be a hobby for you.

[00:55:55] Jerry Craft: With my books, I would still be doing them even if I were self-publishing. By now, I would have 20 Mama’s Boys books. You’ve got to be obsessed enough to finish your work, no matter what.

[00:56:19] Jerry Craft: And when people ask me to read their manuscript, I usually ask what it’s about. If they say, “It’s a dystopian novel where a girl is a werewolf and marries a vampire,” I’m like… “Nope.”

[00:56:53] Jerry Craft: What’s unique about what you do? What can you bring? What book would have spoken to you when you were a kid? I always say, I write the books I wish I had when I was younger. It’s not that you can’t write a book about going into space, but what about the characters makes them relatable? Why is this character going to space?

[00:57:15] Jerry Craft: I read all my reviews—good or bad—even though they say, “Don’t go on Goodreads.” Now, the ones that give one star, they’re usually just angry, and there’s no benefit from that. You’ll go on Amazon and see, “New Kid, one star,” and then you read, “Yeah, my delivery guy threw it in a puddle.”

[00:57:38] Jerry Craft: What’s that got to do with me? Give your delivery guy one star, not my book! But if it’s a three-star review, there might be some helpful criticism. I want to hear what the issue is.

[00:57:58] Jerry Craft: One of the things I always talk about is: You have every right as a parent to control what your kid reads, but you shouldn’t be able to tell me what my kid reads. So if my kids are vegetarian, that doesn’t give me the right to go slap a hamburger out of your daughter’s hand.

[00:58:01] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: Right.

[00:58:10] Jerry Craft: So, finish your book. There are writing groups where people hold each other accountable, which can be really helpful. There are organizations like SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators), where they sometimes introduce writers to agents, hold contests, or bring in authors for Q&A sessions.

What Makes Your Story Unique?

[00:58:42] Jerry Craft: But again, what makes your book unique? Who’s your audience? Sometimes, I hear things like, “I want to write a book about Leon Spine, the guy who invented the spine of a book.” And I ask, “Would you read that?” They say, “No, but no one else has written about it.” Well, there’s probably a reason for that! Before him, books didn’t have spines—okay, but does that story need to be told?

[00:59:10] Jerry Craft: It doesn’t always have to be about suffering. It doesn’t always have to be historical fiction. I’ve gotten pictures from schools where a white girl with red hair and freckles is dressed up as Drew, one of my Black characters.

[00:59:25] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s life-changing.

[00:59:26] Jerry Craft: Exactly. She saw something in Drew and said, “I want to be him.” That’s powerful. It’s about creating characters that people connect with, no matter who they are.

[00:59:38] Jerry Craft: Also, be careful with contracts. Some contracts are horrible, and they’ll own you for the rest of your life while you get nothing. Get a lawyer to look at them. Some publishers might say, “I’ll sign you to a 10-book deal for $5,000.” And depending on your financial situation, $5,000 might sound great, but that’s only $500 per book. You’ll be working the rest of your life for pennies.

[01:00:11] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: That’s very wise advice.

[01:00:12] Jerry Craft: Yes.

[01:00:14] Ashley Cisneros Mejia: I love that you’ve held your ground when it comes to your vision—how you wanted your work to be marketed and the stories you wanted to tell. It’s refreshing to see.

Thank you so much for your time today and for this inspiration. Be sure to grab a copy of New Kid, Class Act, and the latest, School Trip. Follow Jerry on social media and check out his website, too!

[01:00:40] Jerry Craft: You’re welcome. Thank you.

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