Ani Castillo: Art is a Therapeutic Thing
Ani Castillo was born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico, where she studied communications, art, and digital media. She is the author and illustrator of Ping and Spark, and her art has been exhibited in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S., and her popular cartoon, Pupa & Lavinia, ran for 10 years in Mexican newspapers. She was also a cartoonist for The Toronto Star and Metro Canada. Ani now lives with her two young daughters in Toronto, Canada. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Ani Castillo
In this post, Ani discusses how the early days of the pandemic inspired her new children’s book, People Are My Favorite Places, her advice for other writers, and more!
Name: Ani Castillo
Literary agent: Samantha Haywood and Amy Thompkins
Book title: People Are My Favorite Places
Publisher: Little Brown
Release date: January 2024
Genre/category: Picture Book
Previous titles: Ping (2019, Little Brown); Spark (2021, Little Brown)
Elevator pitch: People Are My Favorite Places is a book about loving people. Especially when becoming aware of how precious they are to us, after we’ve been separated for a while.
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What prompted you to write this book?
When the pandemic started and we were at the beginning of our first lockdown here in Canada, I started thinking about the word “emerge”. I thought about myself and everyone else as little moles living inside of our own mountain holes, and I started wondering who did I want to be when I emerged from the isolation, which I thought would last only a couple of months.
Since I had a bit more free time in the morning, when I would have usually been driving my children to school, I decided that I would start writing in my notebook every single morning. My intention was simply to become better at writing in English since English is my second language. Lo and behold, weeks turned into months and months turned into years, and I amassed a huge mountain of notebooks where I was practicing my writing.
One day I was writing about how I felt about this whole pandemic thing. And what I wrote was that I didn’t miss the restaurants or the places I visited before lockdown.
I wrote: “What I miss is the people. PEOPLE ARE MY FAVORITE PLACES.”
When I wrote this little sentence, I was in the middle of creating a different book. But I knew I needed to forget about the other book and work on this concept further, since I became passionate about this message and this lesson I learned through indescribable loneliness and isolation.
What I learned is that my people and loving people is what matters the most to me in life. I called this “my gift from the pandemic”. To have become aware of how important people are to me.
I suppose I was always aware that people are important in my life. But when I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything, I realize that I would have given anything just to be able to sit with my mom and dad somewhere back in Mexico, and just hug them and chat with them.
I realized how I would have paid any price to be able to fly back home to Guadalajara and attend my Grandma’s funeral. Or even to see her before she passed, at a moment when the borders were closed. I realized how much I missed going to my friends’ houses. Not because of the houses themselves, but because I missed sitting down with them and talking and hugging and laughing.
When I wrote this little sentence in my notebook, I realized I needed to write a book about this.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
It has taken about three years from ideation to publication. And I think the only thing that changed is that my editor and I tried for the concept to be applicable to more situations other than pandemic lockdown. There are many times when people are separated from one reason or another, and many times when we really miss each other. So, we wanted to make the message a bit more universal.
What we wanted to preserve was the value of cherishing each other, always. Sometimes because we can’t see one another, but sometimes because we can! We need to appreciate the gift that it is to be able to be with the people whom we love.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
Yes. This book has been targeted for children. Yet, when I have let my adult friends and relatives read the book, they often start crying. I feel like the book encapsulates a sliver of a feeling of what it felt having the people we love the most being completely out of reach.
There have been wars in the world. But the pandemic was the whole entire humanity fighting the humongous and terrifying battle against a virus just to stay alive. The stakes were at their highest and there was so much fear and uncertainty. Having every single one of our loved ones being part of a species that was endangered was a stress that we have never felt before, as humanity as a whole. So many of us lost people whom we adored. So many of us lost precious, irreplaceable moments with our loved ones.
Reading this book brings emotions and solace all at once. Because the message behind it is of gratitude and appreciation of the people we have right now and with whom we can create new moments, new memories, and new love. We cannot go back to those lost years. But we can live the rest of our days being more intentional and loving towards the humans we are lucky enough to love and to be loved by.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
As I was mentioning when I told you about my notebooks, I wrote that one little sentence “People Are My Favorite Places” and the whole book sprouted out of it. It was a very clear message to me, and very straight forward to write it from there. I knew exactly what I felt and what I needed to say through the text, so the manuscript came together incredibly quickly.
I guess the main surprise is that I really loved doing the drawings, so I took my time with those. If you look at the textures of the illustrations, they’re full of pencil scratches and decorative painted patterns. I wanted to really savor and enjoy creating them. My kids thought it was funny how much time it took me to do every single one of the illustrations. Even up to a week for a single page! I obsessed over the hair styles and the textures and the clothes. But I feel like it was part of the processing of my emotions while painting.
In a way, it was a healing experience to really spend time processing what happened inside of me during isolation, through playing with color pencils and watercolors and gouache. I’m aware that art is a therapeutic thing, and I hope that the reader can feel the sweet, good healing and loving feelings I experienced while creating the art for this book.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
To be honest, what I want most out of life is to be able to help creating a more loving world. That is a huge part of my mission! I value tremendously to learn about love.
People Are My Favorite Places invites the reader to LOVE. To LISTEN. To EXPLORE. To OPEN OUR HEARTS. To CHERISH our loved ones.
Some younger readers won’t remember what it felt like to experience the isolation of lockdown. But most of humanity definitely remembers those challenging, dark days. Many of us learned that we had lived our lives giving our people for granted!
So, if we can remember how much we missed them, how precious phone calls became, what an incredible treasure it was to hug each other once again, maybe we will create a society in which we truly value connection, community, mutual support, togetherness, and love.
I also invite the reader to get to know our people better. To dive inside of their worlds. To be interested in others! Hopefully that would increase understanding for each other, and we would feel less lonely on this planet.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Goodness! I would say that it’s really good to have a notebook where you write your thoughts. I don’t carry a notepad or anything. But I find that writing every day, just putting a timer on and pouring your thoughts into a page for a time, can give you a ton of excellent raw material. Sometimes you write a bunch of whining and complaining and boring stuff. But sometimes a sentence just JUMPS OUT OF THE PAGE!
When there is a concept or a thought that makes your body buzz with emotion, I think it’s necessary to listen to it. To feel it and to explore it further. Once, I was struggling to write my second book and I asked fellow author Iain Reid for advice. He told me, “Chase that sense of excitement.” I wrote that on a tiny piece of paper and taped it to my wall so I wouldn’t forget.
I think him and I refer to the same feeling. There is magic in some ideas. And if the writer can sense that magic inside, if you can listen to it, respect it and protect it from the elements, it is almost like a force of nature. And the reader will naturally feel it as well.
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