PERFECT MATCH

I’m thrilled to welcome my friend and Kids Book Crew fellow teammate Lori Dubbin to the blog today, to talk about her soon to be released picture book PERFECT MATCH: THE STORY OF ALTHEA GIBSON AND ANGELA BUXTON, illustrated by Amanda Quartey and to be published by Kar-Ben Publishing on September 10th, 2024.

A bit about the book:

Perfect Match is the true story of two outstanding women tennis players, Althea Gibson and Angela Buxton, who were treated as outsiders by the elite tennis world of the 1950s because of their race and religion. They met on a Goodwill Tennis tour and became close friends, ultimately life-long friends. They each finally had an ally on and off the court. When they became doubles partners in 1956, their teamwork and perseverance made them champions.

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Now on to our interview:

M. Lori, I’m so glad to have this chance of talking with you about your new book. For starters, can you share when and how did you discover you wanted to write books for children?

L. My first children’s picture book draft was a story about my youngest son’s experience when we moved from Maryland to Florida and how he missed the autumn leaves. He was 6-years-old at the time. He’s now grown into an adult and I’ve grown into a nonfiction picture book writer. The most important thing about this story, however, is how it awoke the writer in me and began my writing journey. I still have the manuscript in my files; I review and revise it from time to time. It’s changed back and forth from prose to rhyming text, but it’s a story very close to my heart. Perhaps I’ll feel ready to submit it one day…

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M. Lori, that’s wonderful! My first book Santiago’s Dinosaurios, is also a story about my son’s experience when we moved to the USA from México, so I can relate. What a coincidence! I hope you get to publish it one day. Can you please tell us what inspired you to write PERFECT MATCH?

L. The inspiration for Perfect Match came when I took a nonfiction writing class and the teacher suggested that nonfiction reference and trivia books were good places to find “golden nugget” nonfiction topics. I started looking through a nonfiction book we had, a gift my oldest son had received for his Bar Mitzvah – Great Jews in Sports by Robert Slater. I landed on a page about Angela Buxton, a Jewish and British tennis player. I had never heard of Angela, but the text next to her photo mentioned her doubles partner was Althea Gibson, whose name I recognized. I was immediately intrigued. I wanted to learn more about them and the tournaments they played together.

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M. That’s so interesting, and also good advice for those interested in writing nonfiction and mining for ideas to write about. What was your writing journey with this particular story? How long did you spend on the querying trenches? Were you agented when you sold it?

L. It took approximately nine years, 60-something revisions, and five title changes to get Perfect Match to publication. I found it harder to write about two people vs. one and I wanted to be able to give each of them the same amount of time in the manuscript. It took a while to find just the right balance for two main characters. Althea and Angela were also seven years apart in age and didn’t start competing at the same time or in the same country. I kept putting the manuscript away and coming back to it.

Before getting an agent, I had received critiques on the manuscript from two other agents (each at a different conference). They were quite intrigued with the subject matter, so I knew I had something memorable. However, I also knew from the critiques that I had a lot of rethinking and revision to do. I needed to narrow the focus and put Angela and Althea’s friendship and tennis doubles partnership front and center. Flash forward four years, I signed with agent Joyce Sweeney because I had reworked Perfect Match and two other manuscripts – one of which had received a second place Rising Kite award at an SCBWI Florida Regional Conference in January 2020. With Joyce’s expert guidance, we submitted Perfect Match to seven publishers between July 2021 and April 2022. We received some very complimentary passes. Then in July 2022, we got a “Yes!” Joyce called to tell me, and I couldn’t believe it. What a joyous moment!

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M. That’s such a good story, Lori! It proves that persistence pays off, but also that writing a book takes a long time and requires a lot of work and revision. Now, can you share how much input did you have on the illustrations?

L. I had a lot more input than I expected about the illustrations – with the editor! I was extremely happy that she sent me sketches from the beginning, and I was consulted on the illustrations along the way. I was asked to give input about tennis in the 1950s from my research, for example: the shoes, socks, outfits, and the balls of the time were all white and players didn’t wear shorts yet.

As I mentioned, Angela and Althea were also seven years apart, and I was able say that Angela’s age on certain spreads needed to be a little younger (when Angela first got serious about tennis) and older (when she went to see Althea competing in London). It was a very positive experience and I learned so much about the production side of creating a picture book, which I know will continue to serve me well.

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M. I’m glad that you had such a positive experience working on this book with your team. What message are you hoping readers will take away from this book?

L. Althea and Angela’s story is especially relevant today. We live in a world of increasing hatred. It is so important to treat each other with kindness and respect and form bonds despite differences, like Angela and Althea did. The more I learned about the prejudice they faced and how they both continued to play the game they loved despite the discrimination of the time – the more determined I was to put the story in the hands of young readers who might be facing similar challenges. In Angela and Althea’s case, it led to realizing their dreams.

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M. I agree with you, Lori, I also think your story is very relevant nowadays and I hope it will inspire young kids to be more kind and respectful to those who are different. Any new projects that you’re currently working on that you can share about?

L. I have two manuscripts out on submission right now, and I’m continuously revising others. I’m enjoying the revisions I’ve been making to a story I’ve been working on – a retelling of an old Yiddish folktale.

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Lori, that’s so exciting! I wish you the best with your book and all of your other projects as well. Thanks so much for chatting with me today and know I’ll be cheering you on in this journey. Congratulations!

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LORI’S BIO

Lori Dubbin is a writer and former early childhood educator. She enjoys researching and writing about people just outside the framework of history who have made extraordinary contributions to the world and who model kindness, compassion, and perseverance for young readers. When Lori isn’t researching or writing, she likes taking walks, solving crossword puzzles, and reading with her grandson. Lori is an active member of SCBWI and the 12 x 12 Picture Book Challenge. She is represented by Joyce Sweeney of The Seymour Agency.

Twitter/X: @LoriDubbin
Website: loridubbin.com
Bluesky: @loridubbin.bsky.social

Thanks for reading!

M

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📸 Cover photo by Todd Trapani.