Authoring Encouragement
Sean Taylor, award-winning children’s author, describes his journey as a writer and underlines the importance of staying true to one’s own story.
Episode Notes
(02:24) How the journey started: trips to the library, and an up-and-down primary school experience
(08:23) Studying at Cambridge, gravitating to fellowship over scrutinous scholarship
(15:23) Some of Sean’s inspirations, featuring a reciting of Robert Graves’ poem, Flying Crooked
(17:45) Advice for writers on how to nurture ideas into form
(20:40) Describing the mechanics and joy of working with illustrators
(22:53) Thoughts on the value of physical books in a screen-obsessed world
(24:34) Why independent bookstores and libraries need our support now more than ever
(31:19) Sean reads from his latest book, How to Be Cooler than Cool
The builders we interview on this show frequently cite the encouragement they received at an early age to explore their passions and find their purpose. And that’s exactly the kind of human encouragement you’ll find in the charming, award-winning children’s books authored by Sean Taylor– stories that include Hoot Owl: Master of Disguise, the recently published How to Be Cooler than Cool, and over 60 others.
In his talk with Jesse, Sean offers advice for aspiring writers, as well as any builder with aspirations to write their own story and forge a unique path in life. You’ll hear why he opted out of the strictly scientific approach to literature that was prevalent during his time at Cambridge; how he found fellowship and honed his storytelling in London as a member of a group called The Basement Writers; and how he found his ultimate calling to write stories for children. Along the way Sean recites poems that have guided him, shares the methods that inspire him, and affirms the virtues of a mantra that you’ll find woven into many of his works: in all things, be yourself.
Guest Bio
All about Sean, in his own words.
Helpful Links
Sean’s website
IndieBound.org: Find an independent bookseller near you
+ Episode Transcript
Sean Taylor [00:00:00] Look what Cat found. These sunglasses. Cool. "You know what?" she said, "I'm not just any old Cat at the playground. I'm a real cool Cat who can glide backwards down the slide looking cooler than cool with extra cool on top." Yeah. But uh-oh, now look what Cockatoo has found. Groovy. "You know what?" he said "I'm not just any old Cockatoo. I'm a super-cool Cockatoo who can dance coolly along the seesaw doing a super-cool cockatoo boogaloo." And so it goes on, I don't write stories with messages. My hope with what I write is to encourage children, to give them heart. But this is a story I would say broadly about being yourself, not trying to be what other people want you to be, but just being yourself.
Jesse Purewal [00:01:02] Just being yourself, no matter what stage of the building journey you're on, you're always being pulled in different directions by people around you and possibly even by competing thoughts or open questions in your own mind about what it is you ultimately value and why? We've hosted a number of builders on this show. Who've talked about discovering and living by their purpose. And many of them have come from the business world. But today on the show, I talked to Sean Taylor, the award-winning British children's author. Sean has published over 60 books and he's best known for his picture books for two to six year olds, titles like Hoot Owl, Master of Disguise, A Brave Bear, and his latest piece, which you heard him read from at the top, How to Be Cooler Than Cool.
Today on the show, Sean and I talk about his origins as a writer, the formative experiences he had at school, at university, and in writers communities. And how he sees writing as a journey. Sean also answers a number of my questions about the writing process with beautiful poems, from the likes of Emily Dickinson and Robert Graves. Offers a perspective on the importance of reading physical books and patronizing bookstores and libraries. And shares some of the techniques he finds indispensable to writing. We get started with Sean reflecting on his early years.
Sean Taylor [00:02:24] I had a mum who would take me to the local library every few weeks, and I could pick five books to take away for no cost. And I had a dad who would read to us, in fact, a mum and a dad who on a nightly basis would read stories, poetry, books that they loved, they'd share them with us. And I'd be taken into bookstores as well and be told buy any two books that you want. I thought all kids had that, but I've since realized that I was very lucky. And of course it nurtured a love of story.
Jesse Purewal [00:03:04] Well, there is a section I love on your website, the About page, you've written the question. When did you become a writer? And you've answered it, when I was six. And I think it's a simple statement yet in some ways, so profound. And I'd love for you to talk about how you became so passionate, not just about reading, but about writing so early in life and how you learned to cultivate it in yourself when you were young.
Sean Taylor [00:03:28] Yeah. What I mean by that answer, I want that to be reassuring to other people and to children because there's nothing really different to me, at least in my origins as a writer, most children learn how to write at the age of five and six, and I was exactly the same. And what I've done, I've stuck with the writing, so there was a turning point in my teens where I started to write, because I wanted to write not because someone asked me to write, or told me to write.
And I've never looked back from that, so I don't see that as the moment I became a writer, and I don't see the moment when I first stood up and performed a poem as being when I became a writer, or when I first published a book, or when I first won a book prize. These things were all on a one continuum, which began when I was five or six and first managed to write some words on paper, I'm still doing it and I'm still growing into it, I think, aged 56. I have a lot to learn, a lot to improve, and that's a good feeling.
Jesse Purewal [00:04:38] Sean talk about those teenage years you mentioned, and what doors you saw opening? What kind of waves of transformation were happening in your life? What was going on? And what was the thing that happened that made you feel called to, as you say, really want to write and be purposeful about going in that direction?
Sean Taylor [00:04:55] It's lovely to think back on this and try to make sense of it. And what I say may or may not be the whole story. But my recollection of early school years was of underachievement. I was put into quite a sort of formal boys only, quite academic school system, wearing a tie, wearing a cap back in those days, sitting in rows in the classroom, taking exams twice a year, very, very young from the age of eight, taking exams. And that didn't really work for me. I was regularly very low down in the sort of classroom tables that they would create of our exam results. They'd read out the positions in reverse order. They'd say 26th was Jones and 25th was, and I'd always be down there in the twenties.
I was underachieving for much of what we call our primary school age. And something happened that was very significant to me when I was 14, so I was in an English class and we'd been asked to write a piece for some homework. And I remember the teacher came in, Mr. Pembury an interesting character, white beard, quite a brisk thoughtful teacher. He wrote poetry himself, I think. And he said, oh yes, I've marked your homework. And there was one that was exceptional. One that was exceptionally good. He carried on. He said, oh, I did something I've never done before. I gave this piece of writing 10 marks out of 10. And I'm sitting there wondering what's going to happen. And then he put my notebook down in front of me and said, that was a wonderful piece of writing Taylor, thank you.
And I was astonished. And what's important in the story really is that piece of writing, unlike anything I think that I'd ever written before was something that came from deep inside my heart. My grandfather had died a few days, possibly weeks before that day in question. I don't remember what the assignment was, but I had ended up writing a piece reflecting on the death of my grandfather and speaking openly about the experience of his passing, so it was a huge lesson for me to write truthfully. And maybe that's why I underachieved for so many years as a youngster. I was trying to do something that I thought would be right. I was trying to please others. I was trying to fulfill somebody else's expectations, so yes, a key moment as a teenager and I suspect that has resonated through my writing ever since, to write from the heart.
Jesse Purewal [00:07:48] Well Sean, thanks for that honest reflection on the heels of the experience you had. I'm guessing it really fueled some excitement for you in the direction of continuing to pursue writing. You studied literature at Cambridge. And I have to imagine that being at university there was in some ways a magical experience, but I know that there were in your mind, some more balanced reflections that you would ultimately have on the instruction that you got in literature and writing while you were there. Can you just talk about your experience at Cambridge in terms of how you looked at it then, and maybe how you regard it now that you've gotten to go on this journey as an author in life?
Sean Taylor [00:08:24] Yeah. Again, it's an interesting period of my life to reflect on. I expected it to be magical and I worked very hard to get a place at the university. And yeah, my expectations were very high. They gave me a scholarship. I suppose at that age, you don't really know quite what it is that you expect, and there were moments of magic. And I probably owe an awful lot to the three years of study in terms of learning about the craft of writing, but it was very scientific, there was a tradition of literature that ran through the Cambridge curriculum, going back to the 1950s when literature was... Its reputation had been a sort of woolly humanities subject, which didn't really prepare people rigorously for life. And practices were introduced where it became a sort of scientific study of poetry, and story, and novels, so there was a lot of that, what they called practical criticism, which was a sort of dissection of the texts. There's a wonderful Emily Dickinson poem, which just comes to mind.
A great, great poet, I think. And she starts a poem, Split the Lark and You'll find the Music, Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled, Scantily dealt to the Summer Morning, Saved for your Ear, when Lutes be old. She's questioning whether if you want to find a Larks song, can you find it by cutting open the bird and looking at what's inside the bird? And that was some of my experience at Cambridge and a rather negative experience, so it didn't feel as though it was propelling me into the magic of writing in the way that other experiences in life did.
Jesse Purewal [00:10:16] And in some of those experiences, I think you were part of a writer's group in London, when you went on to live in London and you learned a lot by being a part of it. What happens, Sean, in a writers group? And how did being in that kind of company push you and help you to continue to grow? What kinds of perspectives and opportunities did it open up for you at that stage of the journey?
Sean Taylor [00:10:39] Yeah, one thing that immediately jumps into my mind is that it was a social experience and it was an equal experience. I've described this quite formal education which was, the teacher was the jug full of water and the student was the empty glass. That was my experience to a large extent. And in that group, it was a much more democratic and equal sharing, it varied from week to week but there was a core of 15 or 20 of us who would meet on a Tuesday night in the basement of an old town hall in Cable Street in East London. Very important for me, there were key factors which did move me on as a writer, so one was a weekly incentive to write. I started to develop a discipline where I'd sit down and write, and it was almost like the motivation that a deadline gives you.
And then there was the discussion which was lively and generous as well, so I was both receiving constructive criticism. In other words, people being honest, sometimes pointing out things that weren't good enough, but generally wanting to encourage you. And I was also learning how to give that or maybe finding out I was able to give that, so the dialogue was very fruitful. And then there was a third element, which of course I'd never really touched on in studying literature, which was finding out about how to get this stuff out into the world, which is difficult in fact. And so we would go and stand up at festivals and in pubs and read out our poems, do performances, and we'd publish booklets and go to events with other writers groups and so forth, so there was a kind of dynamic and purposeful effort going into making the writing come to life and get off the page, and walk out into the world.
Jesse Purewal [00:12:45] And Sean as I've listen to the words you've said, lively, generous, honest, encouraging. These are all attributes that I believe at least I find in great writing and in particular great children's writing, so maybe you have some attributes found your way into your writing style through that experience, but talk about what the unlock was in terms of you realizing that maybe that could be a great audience for your passion, and your skill set, and your story.
Sean Taylor [00:13:09] My writing journey feels a very organic one, so there was very little deliberate action on my part in terms of assessing opportunity or weighing up what was going to be best for me in terms of a sort of writing journey, you might call it a career, I don't think of it like that. Through writing poetry for adults, and performing it, and publishing it with the writers group. I began to get invited into schools and what happened was being among the children and working creatively with them. Effectively encouraging them to have a go at writing poetry.
It just sparked all sorts of creative ideas in my mind about writing about them and writing for them. I gave that a try and when I entered a competition to write a story for five to eight year olds sponsored by a big national newspaper here in the UK. I got the second prize in that and it was rather like my moment with the English teacher when I was 14, it came as a surprise to me. I mean, it came as a delight, but through that I had got an offer to have an agent and it wasn't an easy path ahead. In fact, for many years after that, I had quite a barren time sort of trying to write for children and not getting anywhere with it in terms of being published. But it did set me off on this different track, which I adore, I couldn't be more happy with the way that that came about and the fact that I'm now writing for young people.
Jesse Purewal [00:14:43] And Sean at the top you talked about how you see yourself always learning and growing as a writer, you've just used the word organic to describe the way that some of your craft has come about over time. It makes me wonder, do you see yourself evolving and sort of moving with the forces that shape the world around you, or do you have to steel yourself against some of the forces and find a way to kind of create a tunnel through different parts of the lived experience in order to continue to write in the way that you want to and find the focus that you want? How would you reflect on that?
Sean Taylor [00:15:17] Can you take another poem, Jesse?
Jesse Purewal [00:15:19] I think we can take as many poems as you've got to serve up today.
Sean Taylor [00:15:23] This is Robert Graves, one of my favorite poems it's called Flying Crooked, so he describes a butterfly and it goes like this, The butterfly, the cabbage white, [His honest idiocy of flight], Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight, Yet has who knows so well as I? A just sense of how not to fly: He lurches here and here by guess, And God and hope and hopelessness. Even the aerobatic swift, Has not his flying-crooked gift. That poem comes to mind because I'm like that butterfly really Jesse, I'm going to give you another metaphor here.
I don't want the two to sort of become mixed together, but I see my writing a bit like a garden, so now don't think of me as the butterfly, but think of me just as a person who goes out into the garden and I check what is growing there. And sometimes nothing very much is growing. And sometimes there are surprises and there are fruits growing or wonderful flowers, and that feels like the experience I have with the sort of possibilities that writing offers me. There's this garden. Sometimes it's a bit barren. Other times it's full of wonders. And I'll go out there and choose something to work on and see what happens, so it's a flying crooked journey that I'm on as a writer.
Jesse Purewal [00:16:55] If I bank off the gardening version of the metaphor for a second. I think the question that comes to mind is how to know whether the seeds you're sowing are the ones that you believe will produce the most fruit or flower the greatest, or whatever's your sort of outcome for the garden type. I'm imagining as a writer, you still are being choiceful about the seeds you're planting, so that you're not disappointing yourself when you come out to the garden each time. But sometimes you have that experience. You talked about when that professor came to you with his long beard in your mid teens. That you're in some ways trying to get to more of those and fewer of the disappointing examinations in an anatomical way of literature that you had to endure maybe in your college years. But talk about just the way you think about how to cultivate that garden, if you would?
Sean Taylor [00:17:45] There are ways in which I'm led by for example what's being published, so I've been quite successful as a picture book author. In fact, I have a book just come out in the states, called How to Be Cooler Than Cool, which has just come out from Candlewick Press out there. And that's probably the 30th picture book that I've done, so there's a way in which I've been sort of channeled into certain directions by what's being published and what's been enjoyed by readerships. But I would want to go back to the word organic and also stress that really it's quite a wild garden, this one that I'm describing to you. And I feel as though I just scatter seeds, so I'm a great collector of ideas. And I think all writers should be, probably our key tool is the pen and the notebook we keep in our back pocket as we'd walk around the world or however else we get around the world, so I'm scribbling down little ideas.
It might be a snatch of language that I've overheard on a bus. It might be watching a film and there's a little bit of a story and it sets me off thinking this could be a nice beginning of a different story. These are the seeds and they're really quite random and I don't filter them. I think that's probably one of the keys of creativity is to sort of shut off your filters, collect the ideas. I have files of ideas, and if I want to start on a new project, I'll look through them, and I'll leaf through them, and maybe 90% of them feel lifeless to me, but the 10% are often really exciting. And there'll be things that I've forgotten. Just little jottings, little ideas and suddenly somewhere I'll think yeah, that's the one I want to do. Yeah, a wild garden and it's quite out of my control, really, Jesse. I think that's perhaps a theme of what I have to tell you about the way I work.
Jesse Purewal [00:19:47] Sean, you mentioned the recent book, How to Be Cooler Than Cool. You talked about being the author of illustrated children's books. I want to ask you about the illustration component of what you do. Obviously below a certain age the story is really premised on the pictures. In fact, the pictures sort of are the story up until five or six and we're really learning words. And even as we get later in life, the pictures are so important in terms of conveying the intent and the emotion behind the words. Talk about the process of working with an illustrator as an author, the way that you need to get to some degree of congruence on what the story is and how it's brought to life and whether the person who is illustrating is improving things as they're drafting things up, whether they're more staying in the mode that you'd have them in based on what's in your brain, or whether there's some give and take there?
Sean Taylor [00:20:40] It's a wonderful process, I do delight in it. And it's one of the things I love about working with picture books. I actually think of it as a 50/50 relationship, and I'm very happy to go with the flow on that. The sort of dynamic is the publisher will suggest illustrators to me or an illustrator to me, and I can have my say on that. And then I'll be sent rough sketches of the book and I can give some feedback and I don't tend to interfere with the creative process of the illustrator. I wouldn't just limit it to being improved, it's sort of reinvented, it's re-imagined, it's re-dreamed by the illustrator.
I really love that and I think it's a great honor to have someone spend months of their time working on a story that I've written. I will pick up on aspects, if the storytelling is in some way damaged, or slowed down, or sent in the wrong direction by the illustration, then that's what I'll pick up on. It feels almost like you write a play and you're sitting there in the theater and watching all the color, and the life, and the music, spin around the auditorium sparked by your idea. Sometimes an illustrator can have that strong of an effect on the story, so it's a very pleasurable aspect of my work, Jesse.
Jesse Purewal [00:22:08] And Sean, for the majority of our lives at least, reading has been a tactile exercise where pages are turned. I have children, perhaps you also have children that are having the experience of learning to read both in physical format and in digital format from quite the beginning of life, so I want to ask as an author, what's your perspective on the intersection of digital technologies and reading? And how do you think about giving children the benefits of learning and experiencing stories in new ways while still ensuring that they have a chance to have developed in them that respect for the printed word on the tactile page, that many, many, many generations of our ancestors experienced?
Sean Taylor [00:22:53] Yeah. Well, I think you've said something very important when you've said many, many generations because there's a danger that we think we know better than previous generations. The book was a very remarkable creation, and I say that rather than invention, because it wasn't invented in one go, it has evolved to become a very practical artifact to help people absorb literature and other forms, creative writing, and non-creative writing, all kinds of literature. And there are aspects of it such as the space around the words, which were designed to enable scholars to maximize the amount of time they could spend reading. They are huge aids to concentration and absorption. And I actually think we move away from them at our peril, so I strongly believe that the book is a wonderful artifact and also it's something that can save our children and ourselves from screens or help us escape from screens for a time, so I'm as you can tell, much more in favor of encouraging books and less the shift of literature into digital media.
Jesse Purewal [00:24:14] And Sean, if you could wave a magic wand as an author, what things might you wish to change about the dynamics that are in play today between authors, publishers, distributors, and readers, to make sure that authors are getting their fair shake and being rewarded for the things that they do uniquely well?
Sean Taylor [00:24:34] We right as we are at the sort of start of it, feels like a sort of food chain. We're at the start of a chain anyway, so we come up with the stuff and generally we're earning less than most of the people along the journey, so the publishers, or the distributors, or the booksellers, of course there are exceptions, so I think that's something that needs to be looked at, and it's a gap that's widening. There's proven research on that, and it's a worldwide tendency that there are certain people who are getting a lot, and then at the expense of that, there are a large number of people who are being left behind just by the nature of the systems.
I strongly believe in independent booksellers and I strongly believe in libraries, so I think both of those two things are to be encouraged in all ways. And in some ways you might even say preserved in terms of libraries. I don't know the situation of the state, but libraries, which are a wonderful resource for everyone in a community, they are for free. I mean, what else in this life is for free these days? And I described right at the start of this conversation, how important my journeys to the local library were in my formation as a person, there are many people who would share that experience, so they're under threat because they're not necessarily seen as important as other publicly funded bodies.
And independent bookshops, there you will tend to get a wider spread of books being sold than you do through the online sellers, so personally, I encourage people wherever possible to buy their books from an independent bookseller. I have a wonderful one here locally to us and we've become friends, there's this social connection, there's an exchange there, and they really do. If the independent book sellers are thriving, then I think you can be sure that you will get better books and a wider variety of books available because the authors in turn will be benefiting from those shops thriving.
Jesse Purewal [00:26:44] Well, there's also something semi sacred about the physical space of the kinds of environments, the stores, the outlets that you're talking about. It's not dissimilar from having a local butcher who's familiar with where all of the food came from and what ought to be recommended for your particular tastes or your meal plans. You come into these stores and people have read the books and they have honest opinions to share about the authors. And they will be able to tell you what to read next. The conversations can go on for hours and you find a way to drive real connection. And I think that community element is also so important and sure, you may be able to receive something with efficiency if you need it on a deadline or something like that online. But only the combination of the stores and the libraries are filling a really important place that in some ways could be argued as being a bit neglected, so I appreciate you calling that out.
Sean Taylor [00:27:39] Yeah. And they these days are very efficient. I can email my local bookstore and they'll have a book for me in 24 hours. They're able to do it just as quickly. And then I get to ride my bicycle to the bookstore and get a bit of fresh air instead of just waiting for a package to arrive.
Jesse Purewal [00:27:55] There you go. In the spirit of the bike riding. My last question for you is actually about wellness, and body, and spirit, and mind coming together. You've been writing for decades, you've written over 50 books. Obviously it's something that stirs your passion and speaks to a degree of discipline that you have, even if you're more like the butterfly than something that would choose a linear path. Sean, what are some of the things that you do, either the routines that you have, or the experiences you give yourself, the mantras you say, anything that keeps your mind, and your body, and your spirit in a place where you have so much to give as an author and as a storyteller?
Sean Taylor [00:28:30] Yeah. Thank you for asking that, it's good to share. I listen to music and this might even take me back slightly to the whole screen question. I have an old, I mean, it's funny talking about it as being old, but I have an old iPod, which is not connected to the internet, so it's one of these, well it's probably about 10 or 12 years old, but I love that it's got like 180 gigabytes of music on it and it's not connected to the internet. And incidentally, everything I said about the book, that's something else to say, books are not connected to the internet, so they're not this distracting thing where you've kind of looking at one thing, but behind it, there is an infinite layer or there are infinite layers of other things which you might be doing if you're reading a digital story, so I love that.
That's just my music and I use it to block out the world a bit. And I sometimes feel I sort of surf from the music in my writing, so that's a little aid that I have. I light a candle sometimes, there's a lovely, I think this is an Intuit saying that in a flame lives the oldest man and the oldest woman in the world and they know all the stories, so I just quite liked to have a flame there. It's just a little reminder that this is writing time and I do, it's not a mantra, but I will just pause before I start writing. This is all on the good days. Don't assume that I do this at six o'clock every morning, but these are on the good days or when I know I've got a decent block of time. I will just say to myself, three intentions for the piece of writing.
Just pause and reflect on what it might be that I'm trying to do before I step into it. And then I'm probably head off and start writing something that was a long way from those intentions. But I find that's a useful starting point. Like most of us I've had a long relationship with caffeine, but I'm actually experimenting working without any caffeine at the moment, which is a new experience for me. I read something about how well, just how addicted we all are to the stuff. And certainly I count myself among that. I think I've been using it for 30 years as part of my writing process. It's been there, tea or coffee beside me, but I'm having quite an interesting experience in the last, it's just three, four weeks of writing without caffeine. And it seems to be going quite well.
Jesse Purewal [00:31:02] Okay. Well, good to hear. I will check in with you after another three to four weeks and make sure that you are still on that trajectory. Sean, do you have a favorite section of your new book, How to Be Cooler Than Cool or a favorite passage that you wouldn't mind reading out a bit to our listeners?
Sean Taylor [00:31:19] Sure, so this is a book about some animals who find a pair of sunglasses. It won't be as fun for you listeners without the pictures, but see if you can find a copy of the book and I can promise you they are a delight. They are by a French illustrator called John Julian. This is the third book that we've done together. I'll just go from the beginning, I think, and read you a bit of the beginning. It goes like this. Look what Cat found. These sunglasses. Cool. "You know what?" she said, "I'm not just any old Cat at the playground. I'm a real cool Cat who can glide backwards down the slide looking cooler than cool with extra cool on top." Yeah. But uh-oh, and then the picture shows a disaster. Now look what Cockatoo has found. Groovy. "You know what?" he said "I'm not just any old Cockatoo. I'm a super-cool Cockatoo who can dance coolly along the seesaw doing a super-cool cockatoo boogaloo. I'm too cool for school."
And so it goes on and it's a story about these... There are four animals in it. And I don't write stories with messages. My hope with what I write is to encourage children, to give them heart. But this is a story I would say broadly about being yourself, not trying to be what other people want you to be, but just being yourself. Which might even take me back to being a teenager and being handed that exercise by my English teacher, Mr. Pembury.
Jesse Purewal [00:33:00] Well Sean, you've spent a wonderful lifetime being yourself, encouraging, lively, generous, and honest. And you've been generous with your time, and your energy, and your input today, so namaste for that. Best of luck with your new book and with everything else that you've got up your sleeve.
Sean Taylor [00:33:17] Thank you, Jesse. It has been a pleasure and all good wishes to you and your listeners.
Jesse Purewal [00:33:27] Thanks for listening to Breakthrough Builders. you can subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, I'd be grateful if you could spread the word by leaving a rating and a review, it really does help other people find us, and please tell your friends. Breakthrough Builders is a Qualtrics Studios original presented and produced in collaboration with StudioPod Media in San Francisco. The show is hosted and executive produced by me, Jesse Purewal. Our writer is Todd Bagnull. From StudioPod Media, Deanna Morency is our show coordinator. Editing and production by Katie Sunku Wood. Additional editing and music is provided by Nodalab. Our designers are Baron Santiago and Vinsuka Chindavashak. Website by Gregory Hedon. Photography by Christy Hemm Klok. Special thanks to the entire Breakthrough Builders crew at Qualtrics, including Ali Rohani, James Wadsworth, John Johnson, and Kylan Lundeen.