Author Mina Javaherbin In Conversation

Mina Javaherbin

by Lupe Fernandez

Mina Javaherbin is author of GOAL! and Secret Message. Last May, I visited Mina at A Great Good Place for Books as she read from her latest picture book Soccer Star, illustrated by Renato Alarcao. No hardship or obstacle can keep Brazilian boy Paulo Marcelo Feliciano from playing the greatest game in his world - soccer.

Mina read from Soccer Star. The audience of adults and children followed along. She punctuated the action and pausing for emotional moments. Her passion conjures up the hardscrabble streets of Brazil, the salt-sea smell, the hot sand and the whoomp of the soccer ball. Though, Mina labored on this book for years, she ended reading with a choke in her voice, and a tear in her eye.

 There's not a lot of scoring in soccer. Does this reflect a "journey is more important than the destination" theme for you?
Soccer is a strategy game, it's like chess, really. It's not a contact sport and is pretty civilized compare to say, hockey, or the American football. It's an intense planning sport. I don't think in soccer journey is more important than the destination. I suppose the emphasis is on the fact that a well played journey will make it easier to achieve goals.

Soccer is popular all over the world. Why choose Brazil as the setting for Soccer Star?
Well this goes back to my book Goal! which had the soccer theme with a social justice angle and took place in South Africa, which hosted the last world cup games. I suppose I thought I'd do one about Brazil where the world cup takes place next, so Soccer Star was born while it did not shy away from displaying social justice issues of the children in Brazil.

Have you ever visited Brazil?
No, unfortunately I never have.

What was your working relationship with illustrator Renato Alarcao?
Ranato Alarcao is a name I first heard from my editor at Candlewick Press. We had no direct contact during the production of the book. As you know the manuscript is bought first and then the editor tries to find the best illustrator for the purchased written words. My wonderful editor found Mr. Alarcao. Of course there were suggestions from me as my editor kept me in the loop and asked my opinion during the art production of the book, but it is customary in the picture book world that the book's editor is the main liaison between the author and the illustrator. Renato and I connected on social media after the book's completion.

Your book Goal was about boys playing soccer in South Africa. Will there be a third book featuring the same sport? How about boys playing soccer in Iran?
I hope to write more soccer themed books and keep addressing social justice issues in them. One day I may also write about boys playing soccer in Iran.

How do you stay so awesome?
Funny you should ask since you and I actually met at "How To Stay Awesome Camp". As you very well know, we need to consciously surround ourselves with people who think we are awesome and that we think they are awesome as well. Life is too short and we are our own worst critics. So it's always better to stay awesome, like in that Lego movie!

The Management would like to thank Mina for granting this interview. 
For more Mina visit her website.

See our other October 2011 interview of Ms. Javaherbin. She discusses Secret Message and other awesome subjects.

Mina Javaherbin In Conversation with The Pen And Ink

by Lupe Fernandez

Edited by The Management

Exclusive Announcement!
The Secret Message written by Mina Javaherbin, based on a poem by Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet and illustrated by Bruce Whatley, will be part of an anthology taught in all 4th grade classes across USA. Mina was elated with joy. This publication brings approximately one million readership for her book. 

Mina began writing The Secret Message in 2000. The text for The Secret Message was submitted to the 2004 SCBWI Barbara Karlin Grant for emerging, unpublished picture book writers and The Secret Message was a runner-up. Mina received the award at the Century Plaza Hotel as about two thousand other writers clapped for her. This she said she’ll never forget. After mentioning this award on her resume, Mina was noticed by Studio Goodwin Sturges which sold the book to Disney-Hyperion Books in 2006. The book came out late October of 2010. 

Mina Javaherbin

The Craft

Mina is a professional architect. She uses her architectural education for writing as well. She says, “Creative thinking has a universal gestalt and understanding the different medium of expression can help the artist apply his or her education in interchangeable forms of art.” 

“Everything I learned about Writing I Learned in Architecture” is the title of a lecture she is hoping to offer in her architecture school alumni lecture series one day. 

Rumi

We talked about this in specific and she has interesting points in comparing blueprints to story outlines, foundation to plot, structure to voice and finally the infamous ARC of a story which comes directly from the word architecture.

Inspiration
Mina Javaherbin is also the author of Goal!, illustrated by A.G. Ford. In Goal!, a South African boy who plays soccer with his friends in an unsafe neighborhood. The boys deal with the bullies by standing together and thinking together as a team.

Soccer inspires Mina for its egalitarian nature. “It’s played all over the world.” The problems addressed in Goal! are not unique to one country. “People can learn to rally together and stand up to bullies. Soccer is a practice.”

For Goal! “The entire idea came to me in one sitting. I've been working on so many versions of soccer and nothing worked... once I realized that the games are going to be in South Africa I had the image of Ajani playing in the not so safe streets of a township and then everything flowed in.” Mina had watched the apartheid movement taking shape on their black and white TV in Iran Later she found out that activists such as Nelson Mandela had played soccer in prison to boost their morale.

The text of Goal! reads like a poem. “It reads like football cadence,” Mina said, “Action, movement. Poetry and Picture Books go together. It’s music to the ear. Literature has its own language and of course I wrote in metaphor.” Mina had minor changes from her editor. “The text should be ready to go, especially for a first time unknown author.”

High Praise

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

The Archbishop Desmond Tutu called Goal! “Uplifting and inspiring…and a gift to all soccer fans around the world.”

When the Nobel Peace prize winner Tutu wrote a quote for Mina’s book obtained by the Candlewick Press, Mina cried with joy, she said that she wrote a thank you letter for Mr. Tutu, “It was surreal to write a letter to Archbishop Desmond Tutu.”

The following are a list of awards and accolades for Goal!

• IRA Award Winner. IRA=International Reading Association 
• Nominated for California Young Readers 2011-2012 
• An Irma Black finalist 
• Nominated for the Texas Blue Bonnet Award 
• NYPL pick for 2010 
• Finalist for Chickadee Main Award. 
• Smithsonian pick for 2010 

Collaboration
With both books the publishers had asked, which artists Mina liked. Mina gave a list to her publishers. She said that in her experience her publishers did their best to accommodate back and forth collaboration between the author and the artist and that she was delighted about this.

Charlize and Mina

Charlize Theron
At a function for the Center For Living Peace in Irvine California - Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project, Mina met Charlize. “It was a charity function. Charlize is gracious, very pretty inside and out she had asked the kids, ‘What do you recommend to help stop the spread of AIDS?’ The kids had responded to Ms. Theron, ‘Give us a place to play soccer. Lighted fields at night so we can play. With no electricity, there’s too much sex, there’s nothing else to do at night.’ With this Charlize Theron is in the process of not only offering medication and lectures and awareness but also creating fundamental alternative option to channel the youth’s energy.”

A Sequel? 
When this interviewer asked Mina if there would be a sequel to Goal!? She said there would be “another book.” This interviewer suggested the following titles: 

1. Touchdown!
2. HomeRun!
3. Hole-In-One!

Mina responded, “You’re not that far off.”

Last Thoughts

“I think the enthusiasm of the author,” Mina said, “to promote (their book) will excite the publisher.”

“Don’t give up.” 

“Get creative; there is nothing more fun out there!” 

___________________________________________________
The Pen And Ink Blogspot would like to thank Mina for this interview.

For more on Mina Javaherbin:
Visit her website.
Watch the exciting book trailer for Goal!
Listen to Mina read an excerpt of The Secret Message.
Representation by The Red Fox Literary agency.