BC Artist and Author Creates Kids' Books that Focus on Diversity

Roz Maclean is a wonderful artist who hails from the Comox Valley. She has turned her passion and vision into a successful line of children's books that teach inclusion and diversity. www.rozmaclean.com 

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

Evan:

welcome back to DDA encouraging abilities podcast. I'm your host. DDA communications manager Evan Kelly, today, we're talking with Roz McLean now Roz is a local award winning author of children's books that deal a lot with diversity, communications, emotions and inclusion, which, of course, is right up Didier's alley. Roz is also a visual artist and illustrator and an educator in the Comox Valley here in British Columbia. She likes to investigate ideas of human nature, diversity, relationships, community, mental health, interconnection and the natural world through an anti oppressive and LGBTQ and inclusive feminist lens. They've written a couple of books illustrated even more, in addition to having a portfolio of artwork that covers abstract ink drawings animals, one set of works called insufficient arts art, rather which focuses on British Columbians with disabilities. That and more can be found at Roz mclean.com and I'll say this a couple of times, it's Roz with NAC mclean.com

Roz. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Roz:

Yeah, thanks so much for having me now.

Evan:

I always begin my podcast with you know, people I've never met before. So tell me a little bit about a little bit about yourself?

Roz:

Well, yeah, I'm a children's book author, illustrator, and I'm on Vancouver Island in the Comox Valley on the traditional territories of the Comox people. I have a dog. I live here with my husband.

I like to go in the forest, yeah, I don't know. It's, it's, it's funny to try to sum yourself up.

Evan:

I mean, you, you obviously do a lot of art. Art is your is that you're like, the number one passion in your life.

Roz:

Ah, I think, I mean, it's definitely been a common thread throughout my life, and it's funny, I guess when your passion becomes like your job, because it is my passion, and now it's also my job. So it doesn't always feel so passionate, but it's been a really common, consistent, yeah, thing in my life that I've always turned to and enjoyed doing is that something you studied in the past,

I'm really lucky that I grew up in a really, like, arts and rich environment with my family. My parents are both artists, and my mom worked at like, arts umbrella when I was growing up, so do have classes there. And I grew up in North van as well, and they had, like, lots of enrichment stuff going on in their school district. And then I also went to Emily Carr and SFU for a little bit. I didn't finish up degrees there, but I was there for a little while. And then, yeah, and then I'll just take classes, like, here and there. It took, like, infection course one time. So I'm always learning, yeah, and because, it's because

Evan:

I look at your art on your your portfolio on Instagram and stuff like that. And it's, it's, it's, you run a lot of different styles, and it seems like quite a bit of different mediums. I just love your your ballpoint pen work. It's really, really detailed and very realistic. So you've got some obviously, influence from all over the place, and not just one particular, particular medium or style.

Roz:

Yeah, yeah. All over the place is a really great way to describe it. That's how I feel a lot of the time. I'm very much like, Oh, what about this? They're like, Ah, I could do that. And it's very like, kind of counterbalancy, like, I'll work on something really detailed for a while, then I'll be like, Oh man, I really need to, like, feel like I want to do something more loose and abstract. So yeah, all over the place is a great, great way.

Evan:

You mentioned your your work. It's your passion has become your work. So is this a full time thing for you?

Roz:

Whether books, yep, yep, I'm author, illustrating is what I'm up to these days, which is amazing. I don't know. Not many people can say that that's that's quite an accomplishment. Yeah, I feel really lucky, very grateful.

Evan:

So what inspires you?

Roz:

Definitely, like life experience. And I think, like, I have a lot of big feelings about like the world.

Evan:

I mean, the election just happened in the US. I don't know when this podcast will be coming out, but it happened, like, a couple days ago and like, so you know that it brings up all these big ceilings, and it

can be really hard to know what to do with all of that, and to feel very

Roz:

Yeah, to for me, I can get kind of like, stuck. And and so art isa place to kind of put that energy and all those feelings and kind of the dreams that I have, and I know many people have, for like, hey, things could be different and better. So I think I'm really inspired by by envisioning just better possibilities.

And I'm also really inspired just by like ideas of connection, like connection to nature, like I am, where I am right now. There's like, tons of forests and ocean and wildlife and everything, which feels really great, but yeah, nature is also always been something that I found really inspiring and awe inspiring,

yeah, and I've inspired also by other artists. Like, it's, it's just really cool to see what people do. And it's always, yeah, I'm, I'm often blown away by other artists too, and it's very invigorating.

Evan:

Yeah, we're, we actually run a very robust art program through DDA for for a lot of our adult clients, and I'm just, they just took part in possibilities. Now, possibilities is another organization here on the lower mainland, and they do an annual art show and sale every year inclusion. They call the inclusion art show and sale and, yeah, stuff our clients come up with, and other people with disabilities, and specifically for the disability community, the stuff they come up with just absolutely mind blowing. And it's, and it's, obviously, it's very affordable art, and it's, you know, I would always encourage people to come to DDA website. We've got a lot of our artists showcase there as well.

Roz:

So that's really cool. Yeah, absolutely. Now your books deal a lot with inclusion and diversity. Why is this so important to you?

Roz:

Um, I think the idea of inclusion and, yeah, diversity, they've been a really, like, core care throughout my life, and, like, my family's life. My older brother has an intellectual disability and and Yeah, and so we him, and I went to school in like, the 90s, and inclusion was like a very new idea. And so I really watched my brother and my family, like navigate that and do a lot of advocacy work, and yeah, to just see the bumps that would come up and the limits and the barriers that were in the way to inclusion and acceptance and to just kind of come up against all these, like old ideas. So that was just something I think that's like very core to, like, all of my memories.

And then I also ended up working in schools as a special education assistant and intervener. And intervener is someone who works with students, students and individuals who are deaf, blind and and yeah. And that was another area where I just got to see, like, all the possibilities that I encountered with the students I was working with,

yeah. Yeah. And then also, kind of, like, what structures are in the way in those school experiences that I came across. So I think that, like throughout all of that, and throughout just like what I've been like, you know, reading and learning and everything I just, I have this, like, very core belief that, like, every person has value and and diversity is very valuable. And these kind of, like norms of,of like abledness And like, just expecting people to be one way that's like, this super productive way, like, it's just, it's not good for anybody. But also, you know, I see how many people get left behind andand aren't cared for under that scenario. So, yeah, it's just like, it's in my heart. So I just, I feel it and I think about it.

Evan:

Well, that's great. So what is the inspiration? You know, we'll get right into your books here. Like, what is the the inspiration behind more than words, that's, that's, that's more of your newest, newest one, isn't it?

 

 

Roz:

Yeah, yeah, that's the most recently released book I have. And so the full title is more than words, so many ways to see what we mean. And the inspiration for that really came from working in school. I worked in vancouver public schools for 11 years. And yeah, like I said, So supporting students with disabilities and who are deaf, blind and so communication was, like a very recurring theme like that was especially students who are deafblind. Part of that role was figuring out communication systems that were like, especially for how those kids were interacting with the world, andyeah, and then so. And then the other part of that was like, communicating with the rest of the class and the rest of the school and the rest of the staff about, like, okay, like, this is how the students communicate.

And so there are the specifics of that that are unique to whoever is, you know, using alternative communication. But then there are also those, like, general conversations. It's like, yeah, like, we don't just talk by talking. We we communicate in all these different ways, and that's really normal, like we all do that. And it's also, you know, normal and common for there to be people who don't communicate through talking.

And then part of it too was Yeah, so I really wanted to normalize that, and then I really wanted to provide something for educators who are in those space, who might not feel super confident to like lead those conversations all on their own, like they might not feel like they had all the knowledge or tools, but they might still want to have those conversations. And of course, you know, like a teacher might not have a student who is non speaking in their class, but maybe there's students in the school, or just in their community, there's people, and so they want to have those conversations, and then so I think a book is just a really easy way to start having those conversations and start discussions now talk about the main character In this in the book more than words.

Evan:

Oh yeah. Is this person? Yeah, because I don't have the book in front of me. Is they? Are they deaf, blind or communication in some other way?

Roz:

Oh, no. So yeah, that's great question. His name is Nathan, so he's a young boy, and the premise with Nathan, it's a book starts and it says that Nathan doesn't say much, but he has a lot on his mind, and so we never really learn why Nathan doesn't say much. And I wanted to leave that open like it could be because Nathan has a communication disability, and it could be because Nathan's really anxious. It could be because maybe Nathan doesn't know English, so I wanted to leave that open. But the way that Nathan, he's really interested in, in building, or like digging puddles in the in the schoolyard, in like with the rain when it comes like to to make canals and everything and connect them. And so he kind of tries to reach out to friends to play with them, but they don't really like get it.

And then through his story, we are also introduced to all these other kids in the school who communicate in these different ways. So, you know, there's things like the iPad or sign language, or even just like wearing different kinds of clothes or or drawing or painting. So, yeah, and then, so eventually he he does make connections with other students, but it's in a bit of a non traditional way.

 

Evan:

And so how do you like? How take me through that process? How do you formulate this idea, from from start to finish, where you know, how do you develop the story and and then, of course, the accompanying artwork to go along with it.

Roz:

Yeah, yeah. So I've, I've found that every book is different. That I've been working on for more than words that was actually had many different shapes before it finally landed on the story that that's in the book right now. So what I really wanted to do is, have, you know, a main character, but also have it not just be the main character story. So I really wanted to find a way to, like, kind of traveled through all these different modes of communication, and so it actually was quite tricky to figure out how to tie those things together. It's not really a common way of telling stories in published like, and the kind of thing that comes up when you're like, submitting things to publishers is, like, they do have, like, you know, specific formats they're that they're more used to and comfortable with. So it took a couple of iterations and a couple of, like, sending it out, and then the publisher would be like, Oh, I like this. But like, Could this be different? And so there were, like, different characters and different it started out much more simple. It started out with it was more just kind of like, this is what communication is about. And then like, kind of just going through these different modes. And then eventually it became more and more like main character driven. Actually, once I did get connected with my publisher, they actually, we decided to make the book longer so there was more room. Yeah, because yeah. So this is getting in the weeds a little bit. But, like, often publishers 32 Yeah, I know often a book is 32 pages long, so when you like, submit, you kind of, like, plan on that. But they offer, yeah, yeah, yeah, for a kid's book, for a picture book, but they were able to make it 48 pages, so that gave us a lot more room to balance Nathan's story and the rest of the content of the book. So yeah, it was a lot of, yeah, yeah. By the by the last kind of draft, I, like, knew about Nathan, but I didn't like, exactly know his, like, journey in the story and how that was kind of luck.

Evan:

Now, given a lot of back and forth, would you at all, pardon me, be drawing on your experiences as a teacher's assistant in Vancouver and stuff like that.

Roz:

Oh, totally Yeah. Like Nathan's digging pedals in the field, and that's like, such a vivid memory of just remembering being out of recess with the kids, and they're all in there, in the pedals with their shovels and whatnot. So yeah, it's very flashing back to that work. No, I don't want to ask about how the story ends or anything like that. Don't want to give anything away. People can buy the book.

Evan:

Is a happy ending, so that's good. And you've got a lot of press on this. This was even featured on CBC kids, wasn't it?

 

 

Roz:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really fun. Now, is that something you you help do, or is that something that, does the publisher sort of take that on and connect the dots?

Roz:

That's a great question. They are definitely they kind of take on that whole side. I don't know the exact mechanisms, but that was just something that I got, like, an email about one day, it's like, Oh, that's great. So stuff like that, it's always like a wonderful surprise, yeah, that always helps. Help, hopefully helps, yeah. Now, in terms of, like, sort of,

Evan:

Now, back to the to the sort of, the research and the communication for this particular book, did you have to do any sort of research on different types of communication for people who might be non verbal.

Roz:

Yeah, I did, yeah, because there was a communication system that I was like familiar with from working in schools, and then one area that I especially ended up researching was spelling to communicate. We have a family friend who, he lives in the US, but he spells to communicate, and, yeah, he's autistic and non speaking and, or minimally speaking, yeah, and, and he, he like writes about that and shares about his journey and how that kind of looks. And then so through the introduction of that, I went, and I like researched spelling to communicate a lot more. So that was, I think, the main area where I like it was more brand new to me. I was like, Oh, I hadn't really heard about this before, and I don't, I hadn't come across that in my work before, so I don't know how common that is here

Evan:

So moving on, a little bit of might be jumping around a little bit in terms of your your books library here, yeah, I am older, I am new. I am odd. I am new. Oh, I am odd. I am odd, I am new. Yeah. Now you didn't write this one. This was a book based on an autistic author, Benjamin Giroux. Was this something of a collaboration? Like, why this particular poem?

Roz:

Yeah. So we actually we're connected. We share an agent. So Benjamin had written this poem, and it like, really took off. And like, so a little background is that, for the listeners, is that Benjamin was 10 years old when he originally wrote the poem, and it was a school assignment, yeah. And so it kind of like took off, like on the internet and went viral, and he was like in the news and everything and so, and it was about his experience being autistic and how that felt for him. And it's a really beautiful rhyming poem, and quite touching and profound. And so they shared an agent, and they were looking to partner with an illustrator to like, pitch the book, yeah, so I ended up making up a couple pieces for that, and then we pitched it around. And then I got picked up.

Yeah, they did, yeah, they did give, like, input on the art before we moved forward and everything. So it was collaborative, like, a little bit like, it was more collaborative than like, if people, if authors and illustrators work together through a publisher, they usually don't really talk at all about the artwork. So it was more collaborative than that, but it was, it was matching his existing poem and creating art for it.

Evan:

Well, that sounds that sounds good.

Once again, for listeners that that book is called I Am odd. I am new by Benjamin. So if you're talking about 42 pages, that seems like an awful lot of artwork. How long does it take you to develop all the artwork for these books?

Roz:

A long time. Yeah, so I work, and it does depend on the book, but I work with traditional media, and I also will scan it in, and then do a bit of digital work as well, but it'll take me, I'd say, like, at least, like, six months to do everything to do, like the refs, and then they approve it, and then you make the artwork, and then you there's a bit of back and forth. So it always takes a substantial amount of time.

Evan:

Now, as an artist, do you sometimes submit some art for a book and they go, No, do it again. We don't like it.

Roz:

Oh, well, luckily, the system we have is I'll submit like sketches, and they'll respond to the sketches, and then so if things aren't working, then they let me know at that stage. And so by the time it's finished, there might be like, a little tweak, like, oh, this area needs to be better to read the text or whatever. But like, by the time I submit the final art, I'm not being told to redo anything.

Evan:

So, another book coming out, together a forest.

When's that slated for for publication? Or is it out already next spring? Next spring, next spring. 2025, yeah.

Roz:

So together, it is available for pre order now.

Evan:

Oh, is it okay? Good, good, good. So tell me a little bit about this book.

Roz:

Yeah. So this book is, it's about a class, and they go on a field trip to a forest, and there's one main character named Joy, and when they get to the forest, this class has an assignment from their teacher, and they have to pick one thing from the forest that they really like, resonate with, and they're supposed to draw that thing. And it's like a class art project. And so all the kids are choosing one part of the forest, so like mushrooms, or like ferns or like a squirrel. And as they choose,

we spend a bit of time with them, and we learn about kind of how they're relating to that element, and also how it it shows something about, you know, their personality or like, how they relate to the world.

And it also like highlights, either like an element of like neurodiversity or disability. And then joy, the main character, she has a really hard time knowing what to choose. So that's kind of part of the story.

And yeah, and then things happen. And then there's the story. But that's the main premise, nice. And that's kind of is tying in, sorry, it's kind of tying in like E College, ecological diversity and and human diversity. It's coming, covering some important bases.

Evan:

So yeah, now once again, before I even go further, these books are of course, are they just available on Amazon? How do people get a hold of them?

Roz:

Um, wherever books are sold. People can get them if a bookstore doesn't have them, which they don't always, they can be ordered. So indie bookstores can order them too. And like, yes, book, the books are available on Amazon, just wherever you buy books.

Evan:

And do you have links available on your website as well?

Roz:

I do, yeah, yeah, and on the Instagram as well, excellent, the most active on my Instagram, but

Evan:

We're following you now, by the way. And once again, that is Roz mclean.com And yet another book slated for publication in 2026 correct, a mystery, a wonder,

Roz:

Yeah, yeah, that's the one I'm working on right now, and what's literally painting away this morning. No, I'm in the middle, oh, process, yeah. It's okay. Sometimes they need break. It's what you probably saw was the like announcement for the publisher acquiring that title.

Evan:

Yeah, yeah, in the thick of it. Do you want to talk about that one? You just want to leave it under wraps for now.

Roz:

Oh yeah, I can talk about it a little bit. So the mystery wonder is, it's basically, it's more like a poem, I guess, and it explores all these different vignettes of darkness. So like, you know, nocturnal animals, or like the deep sea, or like caves or watching shooting stars, so it's, it's going through all these kind of different scenarios, and, yeah, and hopefully revealing some ways of kind of being with the dark and the unknown and uncertainties that are, that are maybe new for readers,

and so that maybe they're Not so scary after all, kind of a thing, yeah, yeah. And it's not super, not super overt with that message, but yeah, that's, I think, definitely one of the takeaways.

Evan:

That's good, and that's, that's your that's for 2026,

Roz:

Or a solid year from that, good, good, good, yeah, yeah. So it's really interesting. The publishing process just takes a long time.

Evan:

Yeah, well, sounds like it, sounds like it. And do they just, this is more of a technical publishing question, because I just have no idea about this stuff. When they, when they, when they, they, when the publisher has, okay, we've got your book. We're gonna print, like, So and so amount of copies, or do they just sort of do it by order?

Roz:

Oh, I think they print a number of copies, like how? And I don't know how they make that decision, but they, yeah, they print a bunch of copies, and then they try to sell those. And then I think they can do a reprint if they need to,

Evan:

Good, good, yeah, well, I'm hoping it's in the millions.

Roz:

Oh, yeah, that'd be great.

Evan:

Okay, so the one thing I mentioned in the at the intro, this is the insufficient art project. Tell me about that. What was that all about?

Roz:

Yeah, yeah. So that was in 2021 is when that got released. So the insufficient art project was a series of portraits and interviews I did. And it was through a grant that I got a digital original grant from the Canadian Arts Council Council. And it's a series of portraits and interviews of people, indeed in BC who either had experience or relying on the disability assistance benefit. And so, as you can probably guess by the title, it was about that not being enough for people to survive on. And so, yeah, it exists as a website, insufficient Art project.ca,

Evan:

It's also insufficient art project on Instagram, so you can see an e book and on the website, there are the interviews in the portraits as well. No, you've also done, I mean, your artwork runs the gamut, as we talked before, the, you know, detailed ink drawings to your piece with hands, all your hands forming the, all the letters of American Sign Language, which is really, really detailed. Two simple, colorful, butter, fun little butterflies and stuff, and the portraits of the now, the portraits of the BC coalition of poverty reductions members and staff. Was that part of the insufficient art project? Or was that something different? It was a different thing, but it was related in that they saw the insufficient art project, and then they wanted to commission portraits in that style.

Roz:

So, yeah, I think, I believe they had a grant as well. So they wanted to highlight their membership and the people doing activism through portrait part.

Evan:

And then what did they do with those portraits?

Roz:

They have them on maybe, I don't know. I think some of them have them on their website. But also it was so that the membership could use the portrait, and some of the membership shows to get, like, photography portraits. So it was so that they could use them in, like, an activism context. So it's like if they were sending out something for press or or interfacing, I guess, on like a public level, that they could have that to represent themselves.