DropCap Partner Spotlight: The Gryphon Press Featuring Emilie Buchwald & Dana Buchwald
DropCap’s long standing relationship with The Gryphon Press has resulted in many translation rights contracts for their amazing catalog of titles.
It is our pleasure to share a little about The Gryphon Press, with mother-daughter team Emilie and Dana Buchwald.
On your website you claim that your books are meant to be the “voice for the voiceless.” This is indeed a noble mission. Can you please expand a bit and tell us a bit more about how you started this beautiful project?
After I retired as publisher of the literary nonprofit Milkweed Editions, I thoroughly enjoyed spending time outdoors with my dog—the first time in many years I had time to have a dog, I also began reading the blogs of various animal protection groups and found out to my surprise and dismay that some children torment and harm dogs and other animals.
I looked for picture books about caring for animals and found that most picture books in the marketplace featured cartoon animals rather than real ones with real issues.
I decided that a press dedicated to books about real animals faced with real problems, including homelessness, puppy mills, spay-neuter, the relationship between a child and an animal, and protecting wild and other animals from harm, was necessary.
DropCap negotiated a translation rights deal for A Warbler’s Journey, published by Gryphon Press, into Turkish, in 2020.
What does your creative process look like?
We look for well written manuscripts dedicated to animal wellbeing. After acceptance, we work with the author to edit the text and then find the appropriate illustrator/artist who we believe has the skill to bring the story to life visually.
We spend time with the artist and the writer to fine-tune the art and its placement on the page, as well as how to best integrate the text and art for maximum effect and artistic merit. We spend many hours researching the topic we are addressing as well.
It’s Raining Cats and Cats is another title from The Gryphon Press that secured a translation rights deal in Chinese with the help of DropCap.
What has been the most rewarding part of working with children, parents and educators?
We’ve been pleased by the outpouring of encouragement from parents, educators, and children.
A number of organizations dedicated to animal protection use our books in their story time and read-aloud programs as well as key educational tools for various issues, like stopping puppy mills, valuing migratory birds and their habitats, what proper companion animal care looks like, as well as social-emotional topics, such as: Social Awareness, Relationship Skills, and Responsible Decision-making.
We believe that our books offer not only opportunities for social emotional learning but also, in this time when there is so much trauma, help children by offering them peaceful solutions and loving relationships with animals.
We have also forged long-lasting and deep connections with others in publishing and education; for example, the relationship we have developed with the publishers in China who licensed the rights to many of our books to use in their educational efforts there.
Of course, the best is when children themselves share their delight in reading our books and tell us which parts of the book/ which characters they like best.
DropCap agents negotiated a translation rights contract for Gryphon Press’s Cookie’s Fortune, into Simplified Chinese.
What is the “key ingredient” of your titles, what are the factors that allow you to approach the human-animal bond in an appropriate, engaging, and non-didactic manner?
We work to create a marriage of text and art, beginning with outstanding, well-researched writing complemented by engaging, accurate, and beautiful illustrations.
Our aim is to provide books that are entrancing in their art and language while drawing children into the perspective of the animal/s’ perspective in a safe, but honest and poetic way.
Our hope is that each book will be reread many times with satisfaction and pleasure, and that the book will enrich the reader’s understanding of and empathy for animals.
The first time a child opens the book, she can page through the book and understand the story by looking at the art; the next time through the book, she will spend more time reading the text and deepening the experience.
Friends in Fur Coats, published by The Gryphon Press, was translated into Chinese with the help of DropCap agents Monica Meehan and Allison Olson.
What plans do you have for the future? Any specific markets that you want to reach thanks to your collaboration with DropCap?
We’re working on a new title in our environmental series, titled Coyote’s Wild Home, written by Lily Kingsolver and Barbara Kingsolver. The book will publish in the fall of 2023.
Our collaboration with DropCap offers us the opportunity to reach out to publishers around the world who also wish to introduce children to loving relationships with animals as well as literature that sparks joy in itself and offers educational value in terms of vocabulary and the expressiveness of the text and art.
We’ve been heartened by the response of readers in diverse cultures to our titles.
DropCap is proud to showcase The Gryphon Press’s titles at international book fairs around the world.
And finally, your team is very special: how does your relationship as mother and daughter impact the activity of Gryphon Press?
We respect one another. We learn from one another. We have different strengths. And, most important, we enjoy the process of working with writers and illustrators to create books that make a difference for animals.
As far as being mother and daughter, it does afford us a shared history and a shorthand for communication and common ideals. We feel lucky to share this experience with one another.
