Welcome to Tuesday Debut, my friends!

Today we have an extra special debut-ess, the lovely and talented Kerry McQuaide who is both author and illustrator of her debut picture book, and who is also the Regional Advisor of SCBWI Eastern New York – my local chapter – and I was lucky enough to attend her launch party on Sunday and get a signed copy of her gorgeous book!

From Kerry’s book launch at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, NY 5/4/25 (photo credit Angela Calabrese)

But first, we have a giveaway winner to announce from last week!

The winner of a signed copy of Jenny Andrus’s book, ELSA’S CHESSBOARD, and a portable chess set and how-to brochure, perfect for travel, is. . .

KAREN MORGAN!!!

Congratulations, Karen! Please email me and I will get your prize to you!

And we have a new giveaway this week from Kerry, whose publisher is offering to ship one giveaway copy of THE BIGGEST, HIGHEST WAVE (so unsigned) to one lucky winner anywhere in the US. Please comment on today’s post by Monday May 12th at 3PM Eastern to put youself in the running to be the randomly selected winner!

And now, please join me in welcoming Kerry McQuaide!

The Biggest, Highest Wave

Written and Illustrated by Kerry McQuaide

Peter Pauper Press

May 1, 2025
Fiction

Ages 3-8

Girl versus nature.
Surfer versus wave.

A graceful, gritty, and courageous female surfer faces the mighty force of nature’s waves—inspired by the world-famous, record-breaking swells that occur in Nazaré, Portugal. It’s a testament to the human spirit and a young girl’s ability to get back up after being turned upside down.

SUSANNA: Welcome, Kerry! We are so delighted to have you join us today! We are all looking forward to hearing about how THE BIGGEST, HIGHEST WAVE came to be! Where did the idea for this book come from?

KERRY: Four experiences formed the Venn diagram of inspiration for The Biggest, Highest Wave. (And it’s an example of how sometimes a seed of an idea or feeling can take a long time to germinate and blossom into a story!)

1. I took my first surfing lesson pre-pandemic on a trip to Costa Rica, and when I stood up on the board and rode a wave to shore, it blew my mind! The natural force that you can harness and feel beneath your feet was thrilling and awe-inspiring—the closest thing I can imagine to a magic carpet ride! That feeling stayed with me and I kept thinking about it.

2. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of 2021. I spent most of of 2022 recovering from surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation—talk about being wiped out by something huge, impersonal, and out of your control! But by the end of 2022, I was writing again and I was riding high on an “all clear” from my doctors.

3. Then I attended a CWHV workshop with Francis Gilbert, an editor whose presentation was about finding the “big feelings” in our stories, particularly from life experiences and childhood memories. She basically said, stop worrying about the “rules,”of writing picture books and focus on the feelings.

4. The documentary series, 100 Foot Wave, came out and and my heart was in my throat the whole time I watched it. I knew how powerful those little, baby waves I had surfed felt. And here these surfers were charging down massive, record-breaking waves in Nazaré, Portugal. I went to sleep thinking about the powerful (and terrifying) forces of nature and life and how small (and resilient) we are in the face of it.

SUSANNA: Which comes first for you: the writing or the illustrating?

KERRY: It has happened both ways for me! But with this book, the words came first.

SUSANNA: How long did it take you to write this book?

KERRY: In my memory, I woke up the morning after watching that documentary and the rhyming text came pouring out on the page fully formed. BUT THAT’S NOT HOW IT HAPPENED! When I go back through my folder, I have messy, handwritten notes (Nov. 2022) and my five or six typed revisions (through Aug. 2023), notes from several critique meetings—with both my picture book critique group and my SCBWI regional critique groups, and a “final” draft by September 2023. So almost a full year! 

But what I woke up with that first morning was the big feelings I knew I wanted the story to deliver.

My workspace (not too messy, actually!)
favorite snack: I love any kind of juice spritzer and Cape Cod potato chips! (Why are they so good?!)



SUSANNA: Did you go through many revisions?

KERRY: Yes, it went through several rounds of revisions over several months. By September 2023, I just had the “final” text, but I had almost no idea for how I wanted to illustrate the story.

Then I went camping and ocean paddle boarding with friends. A storm blew in on the last day. Just as we were turning into shore, these big swells started rolling in, again not Nazaré big, but big enough to dump us off our boards and send us through the washing machine (where you get spun around underwater.) We were all fine! We swam to shore, but we were full of adrenaline and very happy to be on land. As I sat in the sand catching my breath, I could see in my head how I would illustrate my character after she falls off her surfboard! 

(When I’m illustrating, I will often get up from my desk and get in to a pose I’m trying to draw. Going through the actions physically can unlock my understanding of how to draw it or inspire a different approach. This was an extreme and unintentional example of that, but it worked!)

Once I had that illustration solved, I was able to really have fun with the rest of the dummy.

That’s us, headed out for an ocean paddle boarding adventure in calmer waters

SUSANNA: When did you know your manuscript was ready for submission?

KERRY: My deadline for finishing the dummy was the Portfolio Showcase at the SCBWI winter conference in early February 2024. I brought my dummy to several more peer critique meetings in December and January leading up to the conference, and I felt like it was ready when my critique partners and the regional peer critique group all gave me enthusiastic thumbs up. 


SUSANNA: When and how did you submit?

KERRY: This is a real conference success story! In the Portfolio Showcase at the SCBWI NY conference, I attached a physical dummy of The Biggest, Highest Wave. 

Two days after the conference, an editor reached out and asked me to submit a digital pdf. (Side note, at the previous conference I had visited Kinokuniya New York—an incredible bookstore—and I fell in love with a picture book Hank Finds an Egg (Peter Pauper Press)—the paper quality and design was gorgeous—and that was the publisher who reached out!)

SUSANNA: How long after you found out about your book going to acquisitions (if you did) or after you submitted were you told it was a “yes”?

KERRY: I heard back less than two weeks later. I couldn’t believe it!


SUSANNA: Wow! That is fast! When did you get “the call”, which these days is more likely to be “the email”?  (Best moment ever! 😊) and how did you celebrate (if you care to share 😊)

KERRY: Yes! Seriously, best email ever! I did a happy dance and called my husband. He was so happy for me and brought home a bottle of champagne.

SUSANNA: How long was it between getting your offer and getting your contract to sign?

KERRY: About two weeks.


SUSANNA: Wow, again! So speedy! Was the contract what you expected in terms of advance, royalty percentage, publication timeline, author copies etc.?

KERRY: The timeline was tighter than I expected. My editor asked if I thought I could deliver final art by August, which gave me 5 months, but I was confident I could finish it. I already had solved the hard design problems, so I really just had the fun part left! However, I was very careful with my calendar and planning to make sure I had time blocked out for revisions or unexpected life stuff popping up. The contract was pretty standard for a smaller publisher. I’m the author and illustrator, so the royalty rate is 10% and I received 30 author copies.


SUSANNA: Can you tell us a little about the editorial process?

KERRY: Mara Conlon, my editor, has been such a pleasure to work with! I felt like she loved the story and from the very start had the same vision for the book that I did. The publisher wanted to add an author’s note about why the waves are so big in Nazaré. That lead to involving some expert readers to fact check the science, which in turn lead to some edits of the actual text.

The opening line was: 

The biggest wave
the highest wave
born on the ocean floor

The biggest wave
the highest wave
thunders to the shore.

I loved that first line! BUT waves are actually “born” (start to form) when wind hits the surface of the ocean and sends the energy down through the water. So we changed it to:

The biggest wave
the highest wave
rolls to the ocean floor

The biggest wave
the highest wave
thunders to the shore.

There were a couple of other little changes like that in the text. But the author’s note went through several revisions, trying to keep it short, readable, and accurate.


SUSANNA: What was your experience of the illustration process like?

KERRY: I had so much fun illustrating this book! I knew that the design of the book needed to be a vertical format as soon as I wrote the first line. But Mara recommended we push the vertical format even further, and after a back and forth with the production team, we decided on a 7” x 12” final trim size.

I always start drawing on paper, and move my pencil and colored pencil or pastel drawings to my iPad, and I do all the final color corrections and file clean up in Photoshop.

And we had to make room for the final spread with the author’s note, so Mara also suggested merging two of the underwater spreads, both because we needed the pages and because the story didn’t require that extra page turn where the character remains in peril and the reader is kept in suspense. 

I was really happy with those changes. I already had a color palette, I had my character design and the book design, so I could have fun with the final art. As I was working on it, I kept thinking, “I’m so lucky. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”

(above and below) text and illustration copyright Kerry McQuaide 2025, Peter Pauper Press

These are the two underwater spreads from my dummy that got merged into one in the final art. 

SUSANNA: Did you get to see advance reviews from Kirkus, SLJ, etc? What was that like?

KERRY: The Biggest, Highest Wave was named a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection! This is an amazing honor and I hope this means it will get into the hands of more kids.

SUSANNA: Congratulations! That is a HUGE honor, and says a great deal about how wonderful your book is! How long did it take from offer to having the first copy in your hand?

KERRY: At the 2025 SCBWI winter conference—so almost exactly one year after I got the offer—I met my editor in-person (we had emailed and talked on the phone) and Mara surprised me with an advanced reader copy! I was so happy with production quality. The paper is beautiful and the colors really pop. (And the whole process was lighting fast to have it out for this spring/summer.)

SUSANNA: What kind of marketing and promotion has your publisher done for this book?

KERRY: My publisher submitted The Biggest, Highest Wave to the Junior Library Guild for consideration and to all the review publications and awards that take publisher only submissions. After the JLG Gold Standard announcement, they are planning a book signing for their booth at the American Library Association conference. So I will be at the ALA conference in Philly the last weekend in June, and we’ll be giving away signed promotional copies of the book. 

They also helped me set up my initial bookstore events at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck for the launch May 4th and a window display, book signing, and story time at Books of Wonder in Manhattan June 7th 11:30am. The window display will go up May 27th and come down June 8th. If you’re in the city, Books of Wonder (42 West 17th St. NY, NY) is a must-visit bookstore!

Peter Pauper Press has been very supportive. When I told them about your blog, they offered a copy of The Biggest, Highest Wave for this giveaway!


SUSANNA: Describe any marketing/promotion you did for this book.

KERRY: I did a cover reveal, a book trailer, and some “behind-the-scenes” posts for social media. I am adding teachers’ resources and curriculum guides to my website because I’m a big nerd and I love stuff like that. I am also adding a ‘Visits” page and I’m trying to schedule library, school, and bookstore visits spaced out over the next year. I love public speaking, but like I said, I’m an introvert, so I need time to recover built into my calendar.

SUSANNA: How long was it between the time you started writing seriously and the time you sold your first picture book?

KERRY: The short answer is… it felt like forever!

The slightly longer answer is I finally “got serious” about pursuing traditional publishing in 2018. I actually went to the SCBWI in-person meetings (and talked to people and made friends!) I started volunteering for the region and in 2019, I became Assistant Regional Advisor, where I hosted webinars and organized Zoom author visits for our in-person meetings. I joined 12 x 12 and multiple online critique groups. I set up peer critiques in my region and I finally found my amazing critique groups (who I still meet with every month.) And in January 2020, right before Covid, I took over as SCBWI Regional Advisor for Eastern NY. Being involved in the community helped me focus on my craft and center kidlit publishing in my life.

The tldr answer is, I was always interested in books as an art form, but for about ten years before 2018, I was battling some pretty serious social anxiety, and it wasn’t until I got that under control that I could focus on pursuing traditional publishing.

SUSANNA: What is the most important/helpful thing you learned on your way to publication? (Or what is your most helpful piece of advice for up and coming writers?)

KERRY: Make friends! (And write and write and write.)

Find your writer buddies and your community of illustrators. If there’s not a critique group that you can join, then be the person to form one. Alone this is one of the most opaque, disappointing, and confusing paths to pursue! But having friends who are also trying to understand the industry landscape and improve their craft makes the journey worth it.

There are sooo many ups and downs in this business. But if you have a writing community—if you have friends who are thrilled for you when you finish a new first draft, friends who understand how exciting a champagne rejection can be, friends whose literary judgment and opinions you can trust—you can keep creating, keep your sanity, and enjoy the process and each other’s company along the way. 

(And just keep writing! Have fun with your writing. Experiment and keep improving.)

SUSANNA: Great advice! Anything else you’d like to share about your book’s journey from inspiration to publication?

KERRY: I think we covered it! Thank you for hosting me and The Biggest, Highest Wave on your fabulous blog! 

And thank you to your readers for their interest in my book and my publishing journey! A great way to support authors (even if you can’t buy every book!) is to request a copy for your library. Many libraries offer an online “Purchase Request” or “Suggest a Title” form on their website.  It can often be found under sections like:
“Library Services”
“Contact Us”
“Request a Purchase”
If an online option isn’t available, you can usually make a request by speaking with a librarian at the front desk or filling out a physical form.

Here’s the info you will need to request my book (and you’ll have my undying gratitude if you do!):

The Biggest, Highest Wave by Kerry McQuaide
Publisher:  Peter Pauper Press, Inc. (May 1, 2025)
Language:  English
Hardcover:  32 pages
ISBN 978-1-4413-44885 

SUSANNA: Thank you so much for joining us today, Kerry! You had so much fabulous information to share and I know we all learned a lot and are grateful for the opportunity! Wishing you all the very best of luck with this and future titles!

Readers, if you have questions for Kerry, please post them in the comments below and if she has time I’m sure she’ll respond! And remember, your comment puts you in the running to be the randomly selected winner of a copy of THE BIGGEST, HIGHEST WAVE if you submit it by Monday May 12th at 3PM Eastern!

Author/illustrator Kerry McQuaide

website and social media links: 

https://www.kerrymcquaide.com

Instagram/Threads: @KerryMcQuaide
@jrlibraryguild
@peterpauperpress

Twitter: @kerrymcquaide
Facebook: @kerrymcquaide
facebook.com/kerrymcquaidebooks
Bluesky: kerrymcquaide.bsky.social

You may purchase Kerry’s book at:
(all links below are book-specific)

Indiebound/Bookshop.org
Amazon
Barnes&Noble

We can help our debut authors successfully launch their careers by:

– purchasing their books

– recommending their books to friends and family

– recommending their books to our children’s teachers and librarians

– recommending their books to our local libraries and bookstores

– suggesting them as visiting authors at our children’s schools and our local libraries

– sharing their books on social media

– reviewing their books on Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and other sites where people go to learn about books.

Thank you all for stopping by to read today!  Have a lovely, inspiration-filled Tuesday!  Maybe today is the day you’ll write your debut picture book 😊

Missed any previous Tuesday Debuts?  Check them out HERE!