5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Interview: Russ Cox

I’m excited to chat with Russ Cox today about his book Faraway Friends. Be sure to check out his wonderful responses and don’t forget to check out the Faraway Friends trailer found after his response to question one.

1. Can you tell us a little bit about Faraway Friends?

Faraway Friends is my first book that I wrote and illustrated. It is about Sheldon, an astronaut wannabe, seeing his best friend move away, while thinking his friend has moved to Jupiter. Inspired to see his friend again, he decides to build a rocket ship and fly to Jupiter. After completing his ship, he blasts off to the outer regions of space, only to have his fantasy end when his rocket ship falls apart and he realizes that he is still on Earth. During this time, a new friend lands right under his nose and they begin a space adventure together.

2. What is your favorite thing about being an author?

I enjoy interacting the words with the pictures to help moving the story along, often times creating new words.

3. What’s the hardest thing about being an author?

Grammar, spelling, and punctation can be tricky when writing or finalizing a final draft. I often times have to go look up words and grammatical rules that I may have forgotten. You do not want to look bad when submitting your story to your agent or an editor.

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4. If you could spend one day inside the world of any book which book would you pick?

This was the hardest question by far. With so many choices in the book world, it was hard to narrow it down to one, and it is not my favorite children’s book of all time (Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel). I select The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith. This one has everything that I love in a book which is humor, silliness, odd characters, and very twisted story telling.

5. What advice do you have for the young writers in my classroom?

Read, read, and read some more. There are infinite number of worlds and adventures you can read about which will influence your creative writing and drawing.

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