Q & A with Sue Macy, Author of Miss Mary Reporting

Plus a Giveaway!
​By Chana Stiefel

In honor of Women’s History Month, I interviewed a role model of mine (and I’m not just saying that because she used to be my boss at Scholastic). Author Sue Macy has published 15 children's books about women in sports and journalism, including her latest book: MISS MARY REPORTING: THE TRUE STORY OF SPORTSWRITER MARY GARBER (Paula Wiseman, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2016). Sue shared some bits of wisdom & inspiration with KidLitTakeaways (KLT). PLUS, she’s offering a signed copy of her new book to one lucky winner. See details below!
 
KLT: You’ve written about many female athletes. What inspired you to go behind the scenes and write about Mary Garber—a female sports reporter?
SM: It’s easy for me to identify with Mary because she wrote about sports. Sports were her passion. On the playing field, you have all of the human emotions concentrated around an event. Mary felt that it was just as important to write about the losers as the winners. Nowadays everything is about winning, but there are textures and defining moments that an athlete can go through by losing the game or by missing the final field goal. So I love that Mary saw sports for more than just a tally of points at the end of an event. She wrote about the human side of sports. Also, she was born in Ridgewood, NJ, although she grew up in North Carolina. I identify with the Jersey Girl aspect. And she followed her passion for over 50 years, which is amazing.
 
KLT: How did you first learn about Mary and her career?
SM: When I started writing books 20 years ago, there wasn’t much written about women in sports. One anthology I read had a speech that Mary had given about women in sports, so I knew who she was and filed her away as someone worth knowing about.
 
KLT: What made you decide that Mary’s story would appeal to kids and make a great picture book?
SM: I thought she was a real character. The best picture book character is someone who is colorful and memorable. Mary was small, about five feet tall, and she was writing about basketball and football players and other huge athletes, so I imagined the visual contrast. I also thought that the arc of her life—how she conducted herself in an all-male arena and broke barriers—lent itself to a picture book audience.
 
KLT: Mary began her writing career back in 1940. Describe your research process.
SM: I had great fun researching the book. I travelled to Winston-Salem, NC, where Mary worked, and did research at the public library. The library has a North Carolina Room, with drawers and drawers of old-fashioned microfilm of all the local newspapers. So I started picking out reels from random years of Mary’s career. I made sure I got a couple from each decade. I didn’t read everything she wrote, but I got a really good sampling of the scope of her career. I found out that her favorite sport to write about was tennis, but she also wrote about everything from marbles to track and field and the soapbox derby.
 
KLT: What other gems did you discover?
SM: The librarian who works in the North Carolina Room, Fambrough “Fam” Brownlee, had played high school sports in Winston-Salem and knew Miss Mary. So I had the opportunity to speak to someone who knew her personally.
 
KLT: You also wrote about one of Mary’s role models, Jackie Robinson—a biography within a biography. How did that come about?
SM: I read in an obituary about Mary (who passed away at the age off 92 in 2008) that she admired and wrote about Jackie Robinson. Her newspaper wasn’t indexed, and my eyes hurt going through all those microfilms, but I found her article about a Brooklyn Dodgers game that she attended in 1947. I also found a wonderful column that she wrote in 1956 looking back at Robinson’s career and why he was so important to her and to baseball as the first African-American player in the 20th century. “It takes guts to keep your mouth shut and walk away,” Mary wrote about Robinson’s reaction to the some fans’ biased reactions toward him. “It is against every normal reaction of human behavior. But Robinson did it.” I wasn’t going to leave North Carolina until I found that.
 
KLT: Tell us about the path to publishing for MISS MARY REPORTING. Do you have an agent?
SM: Not currently. Editor Sylvie Frank had edited my book ROLLER DERBY RIVALS at Holiday House (2014). When Sylvie moved to Paula Wiseman Books, she called me and said, “I’m starting a new job. Let’s have lunch.” That’s the best possible call you could ever get as a writer! I pitched some ideas to Sylvie over lunch. But when I got to the idea of MISS MARY, I could tell…I was speaking emotionally. When an idea comes from somewhere deep inside you, it’s meant to be. It’s authentic in the best way possible. Sylvie loved it. It was the most seamless process I’ve had in all 15 books that I’ve done. Anything that starts with food ends up being a winner!
 
KLT: MISS MARY’s illustrations are stunning (and those eyeglasses!). Were you involved in choosing the illustrator, C.F. Payne?
SM: C.F. Payne is a #1 New York Times bestselling illustrator. The publisher chose him and I was thrilled. I did have some input when the sketches came in. I also sent him some photos of Mary and I found a press badge from that era on ebay that says, “Women and children not admitted,” which I shared with him.
 
KLT: What are some takeaways for aspiring authors (who may not yet have lunch invitations from editors)?
SM: Go to conferences! It’s important to network and meet people. As for the writing, for me it’s always about the passion. The more passion I have for a subject, the more fluently the writing goes and sometimes the more salable the manuscript is. If an editor sees that you’re really passionate about the story, there’s a better chance that he or she is going to listen to you.

Thank you, Sue, for the great advice and inspiration! Sue is generously offering a GIVEAWAY—a signed copy of MISS MARY REPORTING to one lucky reader. Rafflecopter details below Sue's bio!


 
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About Sue Macy
Sue Macy has written more than a dozen nonfiction books for young readers, including sports-based picture books, middle grade biographies, and young adult social histories focusing on women's sports, the Olympic Games, and the early impact of the bicycle and (forthcoming) the automobile on women's lives. In her previous life, she was an editor and editorial director of educational magazines at Scholastic and other publishers. She lives in Englewood, NJ, and can be reached through her Web site, suemacy.com, or Twitter @suemacy1.

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