[SPEAKER_04]: Christian parenting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the Bible for Kids Podcast with your hosts, author Trisha Goyer, and author and co-creator of Veggie Tales, Mike Noraki.
[SPEAKER_02]: If instilling biblical values and kids is important to you, this podcast will give you the resources, wisdom, and hope to do just that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now let's join our hosts, Trisha, and Mike for this week's episode.
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back to the Bible for Kids Podcast.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Mike Niraki.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm Trisha Goyer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Today our guests are Jack and Liz Hagler.
[SPEAKER_01]: But before we get to them, we'd like to start every Bible for kids podcast with a Bible verse.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mike.
[SPEAKER_04]: absolutely today's verse is from Hebrews 4, 12 and 13.
[SPEAKER_04]: For the word of God is alive and powerful.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword cutting between soul and spirit between joint and marrow.
[SPEAKER_04]: It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.
[SPEAKER_04]: Nothing in all creation is hidden from God.
[SPEAKER_04]: Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes and he is the one whom we are held accountable.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jack and Liz Hagler are the creators of a five book Patrick Wigglesworth's bizarre Bible adventure series, published by Tindale, books one through two year out, and four or five are coming in 2027.
[SPEAKER_01]: They love to engage children with God's Word in their own language through graphic novels, humors, and crazy adventures.
[SPEAKER_01]: Liz is an illustrator and author with a BA in our ending list from UC Davis, and she's illustrated the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Animal Storybook and the early readers Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's hot Sunday school and homeschooled her children.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yay for homeschool moms.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Dave from Western seminary and served as a pastor, teacher, executive coach, engineer, and homeschooling principal.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have been married for over 40 years, live in Northern California, have three married children and five grandchildren.
[SPEAKER_01]: Their first book was hooked on the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: When they're not writing, you can find them playing pickle ball,
[SPEAKER_01]: or at beautiful Lake Tahoe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jack and Liz, welcome back to the podcast.
[SPEAKER_04]: Glad to be here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh man, it's been a few years.
[SPEAKER_04]: We were talking just before we got on the air.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe three years.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, so it's wonderful to see you all again and see you've got new books coming out.
[SPEAKER_04]: But before we talk about the books, I just want to close my eyes and lay back and have you tell me about Lake Tahoe.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we rented a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: We rented out a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, probably two months to to the house.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's so great.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was about to ask if you live there.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're around, which would be a brave thing to do.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's a lot to ask if they can invite us to go right with them, Mike.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do you live in Northern California?
[SPEAKER_03]: We're live in the Salinas area, which is kind of by Monterey, Carmel, but a little inland.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up in Northern California, too, but way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so the last time you're on this show, you were talking about book two, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's five books now in the Patrick Wiggledworth series.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's five.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then the third one is, um, what is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: A song through Malachi?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the two coming out next year are going to be the new testament, um, the first one's Matthew Mark Luke and John, and then, um, from Axel to Revelation.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the last one.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that comes out in October.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah, it comes out in October.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're super excited to have the New Testament make a whole package and that'll be that'll be comprised of books four and five then and that's yeah so four is the gospels and then five is acts through Yes, well, that's great.
[SPEAKER_04]: So can you tell us a little bit reminder our listeners how you came up with a title and just a little bit about the overall structure of the series and you know and just how you got started writing
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, so when Jack was a pastor a year ago, I was the children's pastor and I realized kids had a lot of Bible verses, but they didn't know the big ideas of the Bible and even I didn't even understand it to be honest with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was so complicated.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had a graphic design background.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where we started this process of trying to come up with the big ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: So our first book we worked on over time is homeschoolers, you know, we were homeschooling on
[SPEAKER_00]: was hooked on the book and it we had a poem for each book in the Bible and so that was we took that out on the market and a lot of people liked it for just the poems structure for each book but we realized the kids didn't have they didn't really get it it was more like a library book but they didn't have a it wasn't a story like real story
[SPEAKER_00]: So, then when we work with Child Evangelism Fellowship, all of the kids were walking around with the Wimpy Kid books and all these dogmen, dogmen and dogs, and dogs, and all the graphic novels.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm an illustrator, and so basically I'm like, okay, Lord, here's the one book that we had with the hooked on the book, and here's the Wimpy Kid, and how can we make this so it goes into that market?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we wrote specifically for a lot of Christian kids to become Christians, and,
[SPEAKER_03]: that we wanted them to laugh and be able to understand these concepts so well the kids eat up graphic now i mean it's just the fact i mean we pick kids sold 300 million you know copies and yeah augment i think is 60 million i mean obviously it's a good luck to breeders a lot of these breeders and boys just that don't want to read they can look at the pictures and kind of
[SPEAKER_00]: go that way.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, or are they get into reading because it's a picture assisted kind of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And humor, humor obviously.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, lots of fun and humor.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's how it all started really.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we'd use a lot of those pieces in these books.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we've been writing them, we developed the storyline as you know, as you guys know, are you a writer too or are you a writer
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a writer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we must not know about developing the worlds and how many hours it takes to figure out all the characters and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we had two worlds, obviously, the Bible world and Patrick's world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So combining those two together was like complicated.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it's speaking of Northern California.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's worse.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there is a town called Gas Gas K, G-A-A-S-Q-U-E-T. That's over by the coast.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we drove up there, and it's a small little community.
[SPEAKER_03]: We changed the name of Gas Kit, but there actually is a small little community up in Northern California, which is where we have Patrick from.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Probably not far from weed, just inland.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just in this land.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how far do they go?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it about your regas?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my dad lived in Crescent City for a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So the name Wigglesworth then, where did that, where did that?
[SPEAKER_03]: So, so the, so throughout the book is smathered some different Christian historical.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's a guy named Smith Wigglesworth.
[SPEAKER_03]: Who was an evangelist actually was a plumber who became an evangelist in England and we love the name Wiggles I mean we just love the name.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so that's how that and then Patrick actually came our daughter We ask a while would be a fun name first name in our daughter suggested Patrick so that's where Patrick came from
[SPEAKER_00]: you know you're figuring out how to put all these.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh yeah yeah yeah it's great to take a little bit from reality and you know combine a little bit of fiction you're making your own thing it's it's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah I love it so you're doing the writing and the illustrating.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah what's your favorite part of that process?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think the thing is is like, so the way we work is we kind of brainstorm together for different directions and then I kind of write a goal into knob hill grocery store sit there with the music going in right away and then and then we come back and then we brainstorm like the drawings and then we go back and go we work on top of each other like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Liz is the, you know, really imagine it's fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm the engineering side.
[SPEAKER_03]: She goes crazy creative.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we kind of bring it all back together and say, does this really even fit the Bible?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: But then we just kind of go back and forth and back forth and back and forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the illustrations we pull in, you know, yeah, but it is involved in like editing the illustrations a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh, that works, so that doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, I don't know which is my favorite because just working as a team with my husband gets to be the favorite part of that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, that of course, that begs the question then what's the least favorite part of writing and illustrating?
[SPEAKER_04]: There's got to be some challenges.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: You mentioned, you know, like the creative part and the structured part, you all kind of like blue sky and idea and then have to kind of narrow it down to an outline and then look outline or what's that process for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the least the hardest part for me is I spent a lot of time gives it, even before we bring it to Tindale, we've developed all the illustrations before.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when a section gets cut,
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pictures too.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, you're killing my darlings, you're killing my darlings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we lose both.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that, that is, I think my least favorite part is when we're both tired.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're trying to still write and we get short, you know, we got to stop, we got to get out of here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh my goodness.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a that's a danger for me with writing.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like when I run out of time, when I start to get tired, run out of time.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's like, all right, just plan plan accordingly.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, but it's like, all right, try not to get up too close to that deadline.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, speaking of deadline, it's time to take a break.
[SPEAKER_04]: So we're going to take a short break.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we'll be right back on the Bible for kids.
[SPEAKER_04]: struggling to keep kids focused during church.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back to the Bible for Kids podcast, Trisha and I are speaking with authors, Jack and Liz Hagler about their Patrick Wigglesworth series.
[SPEAKER_01]: And love that you both came from ministry.
[SPEAKER_01]: When did you first call, felt called to that writing and illustrating part of it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Did it just come naturally?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that was, that was me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was my dream as a child.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, so for me, I wanted to write Nellistory Children's Books.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this was before Google trying to figure out how to do it or any of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I went to California College of Arts and Crafts after I went to Davis and had a degree.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I became a graphic designer.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but it was always about writing children's books.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was always about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it was a messy process.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't figure it out, you know, and the connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just started working on the side and then we made connections along the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: God just opens the doors, you know how he works.
[SPEAKER_00]: It opens the doors along the way and you go, okay, that's the next direction, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: But the goal, I wanted to write Nell Street Children's books.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a doctor's Zeus fan.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I was like, oh my gosh, let's make it fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's how did an engineer get wrangled into this?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, when I was, I became a Christian at UC Berkeley of all places.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was twice a half in happens, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a hotbed evangelist.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Holy Spirit works everywhere.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I got really excited about three years later, I ended up going to seminary.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was doing engineering and then took some leave leave and went ahead and to seminary, but I remember my very first Old Testament survey class.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, a lot of people go to seminary, they have Bible college and they have background.
[SPEAKER_03]: I knew almost nothing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I walk into the Old Testament survey and Dr. Hughes was our professor.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I remember the very first class he began to share about kind of the over the big picture of the whole Bible and I was at student and set there with his mouth open and what.
[SPEAKER_04]: Really, that's what this is, blah, blah, that's amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and from that time on that was always really a passion for mine to help for me to learn and then to help other people understand, you know, the big picture.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, the children's book part came, you know, through Liz.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we, you know, when we started to work on that, um, did write a lot of poems.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was always writing poems.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that part of the poem stuff, when we worked together, you were always writing the family poem for Christmas or whatever.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: But Liz was a dry, really, the driver on the coast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I love, I love, you know, just the story of that big picture coming to you later in life, you know, just having kind of, you know, already developed a worldview, but then not, for that not being familiar to you, then just being laid out and opened up.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's such a cool thing, because so many of us who have grown up in the church can take a lot of that for granted and really not think about it, you know, but just to have that completely fresh take on it, that's amazing.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, um, you mentioned Dr. Seuss, uh, who is a fellow California, I believe, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep, Daddy.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, um, uh, who, I mean, I've see he's one of your favorites.
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, do you have any other favorite children's book authors and maybe ways that they've influenced your work?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think I always loved the Wizard of Oz because the whole bigness my mom had the original books, you know, as a child, and they were beautifully illustrated.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still have them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I love the concept of the whole universe and all these little quirky people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, that was big.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then now we're reading a lot of Ronald Dahl.
[SPEAKER_00]: We love his, you know, creative stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: We got his biography, we're listening to his stories, and man that guy went through a lot.
[SPEAKER_04]: But he was like a fighter pilot.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Talk about the life experience, you know, he had a crazy life.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: did he did all this other stuff?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually use him then.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it?
[SPEAKER_04]: I was going to say rolled all I use him as an example in, you know, a class in creativity that I teach just about the value of having those other types of experience.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, my goodness.
[SPEAKER_04]: What they can bring into your work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: He has a book boy and then he has the other one afterwards to stick over.
[SPEAKER_00]: do think that is so important because most of us don't we're trying to do these things more younger but when you get older you have a lot more life experiences to pull from you know I was talking to Jack about developing characters and all that we have a lot more people experience so the characters come a lot easier rather than having to contrive them when you I was younger trying to figure this out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think most people really understand
[SPEAKER_00]: how things compound, you know, right, right.
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, there's so much of writing is just pulling from your own experience kind of reformulating and combining it with with the experiences and personalities.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's we do have one thing fun to share so book for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew Mark, Luke and John, I know your characters go into the Bible, but Patrick's family is actually going to move to the Middle East, send my family, actually lived in Middle East.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I was nine years old, I actually lived in Jerusalem, Jordan right before the sixth day war.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad was an ophthalmologist and he took an assignment for a year and it just happened to be right before the war.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was a nine-year-old living in this compound,
[SPEAKER_00]: with the British, under the British mandate.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of these pieces from book four, I mean, I spoke pigletten because I couldn't speak Arabic.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we picked up in this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: There in this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's kind of a fun thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people wouldn't know about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was an actual real story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a nine-year-old in the Middle East.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the war broke out, we actually left and went to Cyprus for a month and then we came home.
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow, wow, he had to use pig Latin to escape, is that right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah, the pig Latin, what's the biggest name on the on-base?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't speak Arabic, so we had a, he made up a language kind of, you know, pig Latin.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, this generation doesn't even understand how much we talked in pig Latin.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it's only!
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you guys were pig Latin fans?
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love, yeah, we won't, we will spare the listeners now from communicating the rest of the, we should do a whole episode again.
[SPEAKER_04]: We should do a whole episode again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, for people over 50, they could understand that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyhow, yeah, so that's was one of the exciting things about, you know, you see how God brings things together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's pretty fun because I just watched a video of my dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: He passed away about 10 years ago, but he was talking about the experience and I thought, you know, he would be really excited to see how the next generation is carrying on these legacies.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of another fun thing of, you know, seeing how God works in each of these generations of our lives, right, and takes one generation to the next.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just so fascinating that now you can, you're taking today's reader.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that verse that talks about, um, the work that we do now is for generations to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's experiences that you experience are more for generations that you can even imagine and now they apply to these books and this fun and completely interesting way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us a little bit more about books for and five and what we can expect from that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well we talked about book five.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we talked about the fact that he's going into the gospels and he has his experience through the gospels.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like their other books where he's going back and forth, but in this particular case he's actually has his family's taken excursions to Bethlehem.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so they're going to certain to the Jordan River.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a whole
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's some fun things there.
[SPEAKER_03]: They go to Petra.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they have an experience that Billy gets lost.
[SPEAKER_03]: Billy's on phone.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's on FaceTime and it's lost on FaceTime and anyway, he gets stolen and...
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting things that were in the decisions to make that because we had, you know, you built your world in one's place and I didn't want to start a whole new world.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the Middle East.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we kept some of the, because they home school together on the phone, you know, so we kept some of the stuff together.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it, and then in the book five, he actually, they come back home and, and have, enter into, it's the final thing because in book one, Patrick is doing this, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: writing down in his journal, but he's not sharing it with his family because he was concerned about all the questions he would get But book five is the big reveal to everybody So there's the whole thing about how it comes together the big reveal and him trying to finish writing His sister finds out about his experience and so now there's this whole big.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, oh, what's gonna happen at the end?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah
[SPEAKER_00]: And then also building up at the end of the Bible, the revelations at the end, and winding that whole two tracks running.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we don't want the series to really end, although it kind of ends.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're trying to end.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's always prequels and you know, you don't know what I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm all these ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, I don't want to end it, but I don't want to end.
[SPEAKER_04]: How how how how long are each of your books?
[SPEAKER_04]: You have like a typical word to about you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to 65ish pages.
[SPEAKER_03]: 30 more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the other ones are depending and well, it's a last shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: A 10-day old put him down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm took out some of the pages.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want him to like.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, 255 to 150 is 250 is and that's you know, so um and you know and Trisha and I are both writers, so we know what it takes to to write a book, but then when we're done writing we just hand it off and then it's illustrated and comes back all nice, you know, but that's gotta be
[SPEAKER_04]: you know that the added pressure of also illustrating it as well has got to be a lot can you kind of run through what a typical day looks like you talked about it a little bit you kind of go away but when you when you get into say just the writing happened first and then illustration or you do it kind of concurrently what is that process like for you guys.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, like I said, we kind of run an outline out and then I do a rough draft and then we put the pictures in we kind of put images that we're going to go in and so then I spent after well after we've edited a time, you know, it's getting cleaner and so put all the images in and we kind of then we pass it on to our kids we have, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: six adult kids what we have three biological but they've all got married so we pass it through the grapevine and they're all like oh I like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like this and they all have kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's a helpful process too, and then and then we go back and we read edit it and have to redraw And then I basically sit and draw all the characters out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's helpful because I'm a little on the ADHD.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes my characters are like, wow, how did that come out?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's like, well, that doesn't even work.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we go back.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of back there.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it depends on, you know, chance of your question.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, or obviously early on, it's more about the writing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then later on in the process, it becomes, but it didn't be, it interrelate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the gags, the gags are the big thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're working on gags and how we can knock out words.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're constantly editing.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we knock up a bunch of words and use it in the picture instead?
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the one thing that we do have that we can do that you guys don't, because you don't illustrate.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can bounce off each one a little bit more.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I know there is a lot of people out there that are like wondering how they can get published or maybe they have stories that they've written to their kids or poems or all these family things.
[SPEAKER_01]: How did you get published when you were first and then known and get connected to a publisher?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we had, when we were in Seminary, we had some friends that worked for Maldon Mobile.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that was kind of the first connection, and I was working as a graphic designer.
[SPEAKER_03]: I never do an illustration.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, then I got the illustration jobs.
[SPEAKER_00]: That opened the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I couldn't work the deadlines of those illustrations.
[SPEAKER_00]: The early reader Bible was like three months if illustrations write a Christmas time and I had little kids and everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like wow, this isn't going to work for my life and that's where we kind of stepped out and said let's work on these projects on while we're home schooling those 15 years and then when we're done.
[SPEAKER_00]: we'll go ahead and put those together and submit it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, but this one, but this one, this particular book, we had been going to a children's pastor's conference.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we felt published, surfers.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the first book we've self-published, the hooked on the book.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we went to a children's pastor's conference, and we had a booth there, and Liz is a great networker.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So she was out there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everybody had all the booths and so forth, and then telling what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we met Mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: and Mark Campbell and so basically then he had connections with Dan and you know all the connects the way God works right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah but then we so we but I would say one thing is my encouragement is to go to a writer's conference for people and I went to Mount Herman's writer's conference this is right by where we live
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, for like three years in a row, just connect and to learn about the business, because I think that a lot of people, you really do need to understand the business of writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think if you're going to do it, that's, well, I don't know what, did that work for you guys?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, was that part of your problem?
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to the government for 14 years in a row.
[SPEAKER_01]: You picked it up sooner or the first quick was published in 1999, so my first conference was 93.
[SPEAKER_04]: Going and meeting people and connections, I think that's the meeting people and the connections and just kind of the longevity of it is really helpful because I think if you show up, if you say, okay, I'm going to go to one conference and get everything done, you know, you're kind of the person that everybody wants to stay away from.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, but it's like, oh, I want to, I'm just here to learn to be fairly to talk and then you establish shows relationship over time and I think you really get a lot out of them at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've probably were at Mount Herman's right as conference the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably probably the same table.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, so, and now you're working with Tindell on the on the books as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: So Dan had Dan had submitted originally when we wrote the first book.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'd sent a copy of it to Dan.
[SPEAKER_03]: and he had to actually share it with some different publishers.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thought something was going to work.
[SPEAKER_03]: It didn't.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we wrote the second one.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then so when he had two of them, he shared that with some different publishers.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the head of the Children's Book Division at the time with Tindale, looked at it, it was interested and actually gave it to her 10-year-old grandson to read.
[SPEAKER_03]: and he read it and he said to her grandma, you need to publish this book.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I've got to give it an executive green light, all right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're associated comapty girl books.
[SPEAKER_00]: Linda said, oh yeah, after Mike's after your books.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's his goals.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he's goals.
[SPEAKER_03]: He would, he would.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hwise, you know, the kids would start to, you know, kind of move to the next level of reading, you know.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they seem to be a little, like, longer books.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, well, that's, that's one of the things.
[SPEAKER_00]: We did do a lot of this on faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we had like, a lot of years that we weren't sure what's gonna happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: People were thinking, we're a little crazy, but I was having fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were having fun, so.
[SPEAKER_04]: We got to be a little crazy to try this, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty.
[UNKNOWN]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, so you're now, obviously, you're wrapping up your series with, you know, revelation, you know, which is probably, you know, the Bible says you don't want to go beyond that, so it's true.
[SPEAKER_04]: Kind of looking back now, you know, as your readers, you know, read these new books and then, you know, kind of take in the whole series, what do you want them to come away with when they have kind of gone through all your books when they read your books.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I mean, I think Liz always says she wants to make sure they laugh, that it's funny, that you know what I mean, that they have a fun experience, but certainly kind of what we said earlier on, that they would get a better flavor for the Bible, the bigger picture of the Bible, the story line as it goes through, you know, that, because most kids, again, you get a verse here and a story there.
[SPEAKER_03]: but a little bit more overarching feel for the scriptures and what God is kind of doing throughout.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that was sort of the whole idea of being in this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it would happen like they wouldn't even know they're learning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just would like it to be like they've just have so much fun they want to read these books.
[SPEAKER_00]: And but in the process they're actually learning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would also and we have free family devotions online for each book.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the idea is a lot of families, they don't really have much Bible background where they become Christians.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could actually sit and look at these, read these books together and look up the verses and start to ask questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to have it be a place that people are asking a lot of questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did that really happen?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did that not happen?
[SPEAKER_00]: What does the real Bible say that it sparks the conversation for everybody to start talking about it?
[SPEAKER_03]: I was going to add to that because at the end of each chapter, there's a Bible reference that shows on there.
[SPEAKER_03]: We really want them to not only read the stories, but then to actually get into the Bible and read the story from the Scriptures.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's wonderful.
[SPEAKER_04]: Just in a time, in a generation where Bible literacy is kind of waning, I think it's important to be able to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Jack and Liz, thank you so much for coming back to the podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you remind us?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where they can find out more about you and your books.
[SPEAKER_00]: Patrick Wigglesworth.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have all the information there and it links to Amazon.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can do Christian book distributors or whatever different places.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they are selling the first three now as a set.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's kind of, you can go for an old set, an old test and a package, or yeah, mostly Patrick Wigglesworth.com.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's awesome.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for listening to the Bible for Kids Podcast with Trisha Goyer and Mike Nuraki.
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