Yevgenia Nayberg, "Another Tongue" (Neal Porter, 2026)

Summary

Podcast Summary: New Books Network – Interview with Yevgenia Nayberg, "Another Tongue" (Neal Porter, 2026)
Date: July 24, 2026
Host: Mel Rosenberg
Guest: Yevgenia (Zhenya) Nayberg

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Episode Overview

This engaging episode of the New Books Network’s Children’s Literature Channel, hosted by Mel Rosenberg, features a dynamic interview with acclaimed author-illustrator Yevgenia (Zhenya) Nayberg. They discuss Nayberg’s latest works: the picture book Another Tongue (2026) and graphic memoir Chernobyl: Life and Other Disasters (April 2026). Through warm banter and insightful questions, the conversation explores language, identity, diasporic childhood, transitions between languages and genres, ways illustration and text intersect, and artistic inspirations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction & Recent Publications

• Nayberg’s Productivity: Two books released in one year:
  • Another Tongue (picture book, July 2026)
  • Chernobyl: Life and Other Disasters (graphic memoir, April 2026)
  • Upcoming: Not So Superhero (February 2027)
  • All published by Neal Porter at Holiday House.
  • [00:40–01:09]

2. Book Covers, Endpapers, & Artistic Details

• Another Tongue physical design praised for its thoughtful case and endpapers, representing linguistic (Cyrillic and English) and cultural duality.
  • “Just like learning a language, you know? And one stripe is white, one stripe is black.” – Nayberg [02:53]
  • The importance of "always check under the jacket" for hidden artistic details.
  • [02:23–03:15]

3. Themes of Another Tongue: Language, Identity, and Migration

• Origin of the Book's Idea:
  • Inspired by personal experience navigating multiple languages as a bilingual (Russian/Ukrainian) who learned English as an adult.
  • Not feeling like the same person in English:
    • “It's a very complicated mixture of who you are and how you identify and how a language forms you and influences you.” [04:23–06:06]
  • Desire to create empathy for children learning new languages and awareness for monolingual readers.
  • Fostering hope and normalization for immigrant kids:
    • “I just want people to feel hopeful, but also... to have an idea what others feel like when they have to learn your language.” [05:39]
• Childhood Anecdote:
  • The phrase “Vampire State Building” (instead of Empire State Building) from her son, showing the joy and humor in language errors.
  • [06:06–07:24]

4. Writing Across Languages

• Shifting Between Russian and English:
  • Though concepts originate in Russian, writing must be done in English for the U.S. market.
  • Russian sentences are longer and less succinct; writing in English influences style and thought process.
  • Approach to translation: sees it as an opportunity for cross-cultural enrichment of the text.
  • [08:28–10:48]
  • “English is just, like I said, a language informs the way you think as well. So I have to account for that.” [08:56]
  • On English conciseness adding flair to Russian writing.

5. Process and Interplay of Writing and Illustration

• “When it's my text, I sort of automatically know how to [illustrate] it. I think a lot of my stories… come from a visual place.” [11:48]
• Illustration Comes Easily: Years as a visual artist bring confidence; writing still carries self-doubt (“imposter syndrome”):
  • “Writing is a little more difficult because... I have been writing for about 10 years. So that's where I still struggle. That's where I still need inspiration sometimes, which is, to me, is the sign of being an amateur still...” [12:55–13:09]

6. About Chernobyl: Life and Other Disasters

• Creation and Structure:
  • Written as a graphic memoir, with the original draft taking around six months but significant work in editing and illustration thereafter.
  • Written as a play/screenplay with dialogue, requiring careful translation and making speech sound “fluid and natural and non-exotic”.
  • [14:00–15:16]
• Blurring of Character and Reality:
  • As family members appear as characters, seeing them in both artistic and real-life context blurs the boundaries:
    • “My characters sort of became the real people and the real people became characters.” [17:19]
• Artistic Influences:
  • Theatrical set design background informs her approach to page composition and pacing.
  • “You deal with space and you deal with time. And you have to control both in theater and in books.” [19:33–20:47]
• The Intertwining of Micro and Macro Events:
  • The memoir sets a child’s personal artistic ambitions against the backdrop of the Chernobyl disaster:
    • “It's the only way to show the world through something small… War and Peace is about this huge war, but also about... the little lives.” [21:37–22:04]
  • Contrast between ordinary family life and catastrophe becomes central narrative device.
  • [22:05–22:45]
• Memorable Family Anecdote:
  • The story of keeping a radioactive braid as a memento after radiation from Chernobyl is found in her hair:
    • “...if you had this radioactive braid, you should get rid of it, but that didn't occur to them. As long as it wasn't attached to my scalp, I guess it was okay to keep.” [23:05–23:32]

7. Artist-Author Collaboration & Career Reflections

• Openness to illustrating others’ stories if she loves the manuscript: “I have to love the story, though. I have to be honest. I really have to connect to the story.” [24:13]
• Origin as a writer:
  • First book, Anya’s Secret Society, was encouraged by agent Anna Wolfanger.
  • Transitioned from illustrating to writing due to encouragement, bridging her Russian and American identities.
  • [26:37–27:04]
• Difference between 19-year-old immigrant self and current success:
  • “It’s hard to say whether I would be grateful or excited if today’s me showed up and said... I would probably say, sure, but what about Picasso? You know, I still have four more years.” [28:34–29:28]

8. Dreams, Aspirations, and Advice

• Dream: To art direct a substantial animation project (“something a little more substantial…on the scale that I would like to do it”). [29:59]
• On youth and creative ambition:
  • Was once “a pretty miserable young person” and now advises students:
    • “Try not to be profound. ... The older I get, the less profound I want to be. I just want to be funny. I want to be light. I don’t need all that weight anymore.” [31:27–32:27]
  • Embracing ordinariness:
    • “A lot of [what young people feel] is not special. A lot of it is just normal. … The faster you do it, the better it is for your writing and for your art.” [32:31–33:10]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Language and Identity:
  • “I'm not the same person when I speak English. I don't think in English, I think in Russian. It's a very complicated mixture of who you are and how you identify and how a language forms you and influences you.” – Nayberg [05:03]
• On Childhood Mispronunciations:
  • “Vampire State Building” – her son’s mistake, a real one due to language learning [06:18]
• On Blurring Reality and Memoir:
  • “My characters sort of became the real people and the real people became characters.” [17:19]
• On Artistic Process:
  • “When it's my text, I sort of automatically know how to do it.” [11:48]
• On Self-Doubt:
  • “Is this an imposter syndrome? I think it's justified. ... I don't feel super confident every time I start to write.” [13:09]
• On Advice to Young Artists and Writers:
  • “Try not to be profound. ... The older I get, the less profound I want to be. I just want to be funny. I want to be light.” [31:27]
  • “A lot of [youthful angst] is just normal. … The faster you embrace [being ordinary], the better it is for your writing.” [32:31]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:40 — Introduction of new books and publisher
• 02:23 — Book design details: jacket, endpapers
• 04:23 — Discussion on language, immigration, and the source of Another Tongue
• 06:06 — Vampire State Building anecdote
• 08:28 — Writing in English vs writing in Russian
• 11:48 — On illustrating her own stories
• 13:09 — Imposter syndrome as a writer
• 14:00 — The making of Chernobyl: Life and Other Disasters
• 17:19 — Memoir, family, and blurring characters with real people
• 19:33 — Theatrical influences in illustration
• 21:37 — Interplay between personal and historical in narrative
• 23:05 — Radioactive braid story
• 24:13 — Openness to future collaborations
• 26:37 — How Nayberg began writing
• 28:34 — Reflection on career and past aspirations
• 29:59 — Dream to direct animation
• 31:27 — Advice to young people and students

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Yevgenia Nayberg’s books fuse poignant recollections of childhood, migration, and artistic journey with humor and visual eloquence.
• Her work bridges cultural and linguistic divides, offering comfort and insight to immigrant children and opening windows of empathy for native readers.
• Artists and writers are reminded to accept the “ordinariness” of experience, to surrender a little seriousness, and to find inspiration in the everyday—advice grounded in both personal and professional wisdom.

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For More:

• Find Another Tongue and Chernobyl: Life and Other Disasters via Holiday House (Neal Porter Books).
• Follow New Books Network for more insightful author interviews.

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Transcript

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I'm Mel Rosenberg, everybody, and welcome to the Children's Literature Channel of the New Books Network, which I am lucky to host. Actually, I'm not so lucky. I founded the channel and nobody else wants to do it. And I'm here with the illustrious, the amazing, the Atlichna, the Maladiec author, illustrator Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg, who's celebrating two books, not one. Jeez, you are productive. So tell us about your brand new books and then we'll choose one. Maybe we'll pick both of them.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Okay, well, my latest came out on Tuesday and it's a picture book. Yes. Called Another Tongue. I have it here. Surprisingly, Incredibly. Yeah, incredibly by Chance. And I have a graphic novel that came out in April and it's called Chernobyl Life and Other Disasters. So two books this year, incredibly.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And you have another one coming out in February.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

I have another one called not so Superhero, but that's going to be 2027. Not too soon. I still have a little time.

[Mel Rosenberg]

We should be so. Well, we can have another interview then. You know, nobody's going to shoot me. And I might convince you to become a co host someday.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

We can try.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah. I mean, you have all of the abilities, you have the hair, which I don't. And you're a real superhero. Let's talk about Another Tongue. A few words about this incredible book. I should say that all your books, these recent ones, are all published by the incredible Neil Porter at Holiday House, right?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

That's right. Yep.

[Mel Rosenberg]

You're big time, Jenny. You're big time.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Yeah, I was pretty. I got pretty lucky with Neil. With Neil Porter as a publisher, with Taylor Norman, the new editorial director. They've been all really great. It's been a fantastic experience working with them. Really, really nice.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I don't know, Lucky. You've won numerous awards and prizes and starred reviews. Oh, I'm talking too much. Get out your book. Show everybody your new book. Another Tongue.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

I don't know how to show the whole book, but that's. That's the book. I'm very happy with the case of this book, so. Because not many people look at the cases. I just want to show the case because it's just such a nice.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I've been waiting for that moment because I knew you were hiding something under the.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Yeah, always, always check under the jacket because.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Show us again. Show us again. Take off the jacket.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Take off the jacket. There you go.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Wow. Gorgeous.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Just like learning a language, you know? Yeah. And one stripe is white, one Stripe is black.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And then the end pages and then the.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

The end papers. Yeah. So you have a Cyrillic end papers, and then you have a Latin or English. You can say endpapers.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And now's the time to talk about the book, to show a few spreads, and to read from it.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Oh, you want me to read.

[Mel Rosenberg]

No, I want you to talk about the book first, where the idea came from.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

I don't like reading my books aloud, but I can show you some spreads. I don't know how to center them. I don't know what you can see.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Okay, I can read. This is your tongue? This is my mother's tongue. You want me to read. Continue. The first language you learn is also called a mother tongue.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

All right, well, you're probably not going to read the whole book, right? Let's move on to this.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yes. Incredible.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

And then I guess we shouldn't spoil the ending, right?

[Mel Rosenberg]

No, we shouldn't spoil the ending. Listen, everybody, this is a gorgeous book. It's gorgeous. It's artistic, it's eloquent, and I love it. I love it. So where did the idea come from? A mother tongue, another tongue? And how did you manage to convey this? Because most American children, they have a mother tongue, but they don't have another tongue.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Right. I remember talking to a girl, and she said, I don't speak Russian. I speak plain. Because she really was unfamiliar with the concepts of multiple languages. But I am, of course, familiar because I had to experience learning another tongue. Not as a child, as an adult. Well, I grew up bilingual with Russian and Ukrainian, but those are similar languages. And growing within the culture of two languages is different than learning a completely different one, as you know. And I guess I've always had this life hate relationship with English because it's not my language. I'm not the same person when I speak English. I don't think in English, I think in Russian. It's a very complicated mixture of who you are and how you identify and how a language forms you and influences you. So all of those are not necessarily children's topics, but they do affect a lot of children that move from a country to country. And I would really like for the children to feel that whatever they experience is normal. It's okay. A lot of people experience that, but also to give them hope that eventually things will work out. I thought things would work out much faster than they did. I thought it would only take me a couple of months to learn English, and it took me years to learn English, and I'm still learning, I think. But I just want people to feel hopeful, but also, I think for people who are unfamiliar with the concept, to have an idea what others feel like when they have to learn your language, it's not an easy journey.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I love the spread with the Vampire State Building.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

That's actually.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Is this a true. A mistake or you made that up now?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

No, it was a. It was a true mistake. My son said Vampire State Building, and my son was born in America, so. But because he grew up in a Russian household and his first language was Russian, a lot of English that he absorbed a little later was also, you know, it was a second language for him as well. So it was really fun mistake. And, you know, I, I wrote down things that he said, not necessarily English and Russian as well. Just the weird, funny things children say. My mother used to, you know, take notes when I spoke as I was learning to speak, and I did the same for my kids, and that was one of the things that I wrote. So, yeah, they, they became useful. So. And, you know, of course, everyone's favorite spread, huh?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah. So can you show us the spread? Because you're also the illustrator. Of course. I get two interviews for one every time I talk to you.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Yeah.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Welcome to the Vampire State Building.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

And of course, there is, like, a little nod to my favorite Saul Steinberg and his depictions of New York, which I usually try to stuff into all of my New York books.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Well done. So what I want to talk about, because. Okay, so we've talked already about languages. And before I go to another language, I, I, I wrote for a period. You know, I, I left Canada when I was 17, and I live near Tel Aviv, and for many years, I wrote children's books in Hebrew. And then I realized, and like you say, it's a different me when I started writing the books in English, it's a different kid talking. And you have the same experience.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Yeah, and not just when I write. Just when I speak, I have the same experience. I think it's very normal. We're slightly different people in every language.

[Mel Rosenberg]

No, but I mean, we had this raz govor last year. When we write, we're writing to our child. And in your books, there's, you know, all the time, there's this dialogue with the Bekie of Genya and Little Genya. But you write your books in English or in Russian?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

I write my books in English because English is structured differently. If I were to write a book for a Russian publisher, obviously I would think in Russian and I would write in Russian. I guess I still think about A concept in Russian. But the moment they begin to write, I have to switch to English. English is just, like I said, a language informs the way you think as well. So I have to account for that. I have to think in English in order to write in English, because it's very different.

[Mel Rosenberg]

But I would like to know what would happen if you wrote a story in Russian. And the reason I'm saying this is, now you can correct me, because I'm more often wrong than right. But now that I'm looking back at your wonderful books, and I know quite a few of them by now, it is Evgenia who's moved to the States, looking back at the quirks of little Zhenya living in Kiev, and maybe that's a good reason for writing in English. What would happen if you wrote a story from your inner child, forgetting about America, just in Russian? What would that look like?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

It'll probably look very similar. Russian sentences are longer. The way we write and express ourselves is less succinct, I think. And there's just a Russian literary tradition. I kind of like to write when I write in Russian, using sort of this English way of writing, which is very precise and a little shorter. I really enjoy that because I think it gives my Russian writing a certain flair. So I might employ that, or I might not do it altogether. If I were to write a memoir, let's say, in Russian, I think I would try to stick to what I know to sound more authentic and true to the way I used to speak or I normally speak when I speak Russian. But also, it's an interesting trick. I don't usually employ, I think, my Russian way of thinking when I write. But maybe I do subconsciously. But I don't make an effort to sound Russian when I write in English.

[Mel Rosenberg]

No, but I mean, I'm thinking as an uprosneniye, because what happened, like with my book with Emily Sador, is that I wrote it in English and then it got published in Hebrew. So I had to fix it for the Hebrew publisher. My Hebrew had to be translated to Hebrew. But then it came out of the States and I had to retranslate it back into English. And actually, when that happened, the text improved a lot because they had these filters of the different cultures. So just as a thought exercise. Which brings me to my next question, which is something that troubles me. Well, that troubles me in a good way. How do the two languages work for you? As an author illustrator? I do not know how to illustrate anything. And you are one of the best Illustrators in the whole world. How does this work for you? You explain this to me. If you were to write, you'd explain to me how this interaction between the two languages of the art and the text.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Well, that's very easy for me as an illustrator. It's very easy because I've been doing it for so long, and I'm not even worried about it. I was just talking to my mom, actually, who is an illustrator and an artist, about my next possible book and about these issues that I have with the manuscript and some problems I need to solve. And she said, but how are you going to illustrate it? And said, oh, it's not a problem. I'm just. I'm going to illustrate it. It's not a problem. When it's my text, I sort of automatically know how to do it. I think a lot of my stories, I mean, I write the stories first, but they come from a visual place, so it's very easy to reach that space and grab it. I don't have any trouble with that. Maybe something very technical, you know, the ratio of the width to length of the page, something like that, A gutter. But never conceptually. I find it very easy. Writing is a little more difficult because, you know, I'm a young author. I have been writing for about 10 years. So that's where I still struggle. That's where I still need inspiration sometimes, which is, to me, is the sign of being an amateur still, because for my work as an illustrator, I don't need inspiration. I can just roll out of bed and do it.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So are you trying to tell me that you have imposter syndrome as an author?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Is this an imposter syndrome? I think it's justified. It just, you know, experience helps you to feel more effortless and relaxed. I'm not there yet. I don't feel super confident every time I start to write. Sometimes I do, but I still feel a bit dynamic.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah, well, you shouldn't. You shouldn't. Let's talk now a few minutes about Chernobyl, and then we can go back and compare them and sum up, et cetera, et cetera. Chernobyl is a completely different kind of children's book. And it's, you know, I mean, another tongue. I don't know how many. How long it took you to write it, but maybe less than a year. But Chernobyl seems to me it must have taken years to write this book. Or am I wrong?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Well, the original draft took about six months. And then, of course, editing and illustrating that, that took much longer. And it's a longer book. It's, you know, it's 145 pages.

[Mel Rosenberg]

140 pages.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Yeah. Well, it doesn't mean that it's easier. A good picture book may take a long time. This one, another time. It was a really quick book. I was just really lucky with this one. I have. I've written some books that were way more torturous than and difficult, but another tongue happened really quickly somehow. But I think it's the only book like that that I've ever written that was so easy. But Chernobyl was hard because it's a big undertaking. It's a graphic memoir. There's a lot of text. It's a different type of text. It's written as a screenplay or as a play with dialogues. It's a very different structure. And also I had to actually translate because it is a memoir. It's a true story, more or less. And I really had to find a way to translate everything that was said, all the dialogues to make them sound fluid and natural and non exotic. So that was a big part of the job.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Can you please show your incredible book to our fascinated readers?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Here you go, fascinated readers. So yeah, this is the soft cover version. We have a hardcover as well. So yeah, it's a pretty dense, dense book. Yeah, a graphic novel is a lot of work. Anyone would tell you. So that was pretty interesting. But it was also really cool. It was a fun. Fun is not the right word, but a very rewarding, exciting project.

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[Mel Rosenberg]

Is there some catharsis involved in telling your story and in sharing some intimate things about your life with the public?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Good question. I don't know if it's a catharsis necessarily, but it was interesting to examine my relationships with my family now that I'm also a mother and an adult. I think it's a very interesting situation. And now I feel that my characters sort of became the real people and the real people became characters. So it became a little mixed up. I was talking to my stepdad on the phone and he was congratulating me on something. And the words that he used, I thought he speaks just like Leon, which is the character from my book. And then I realized, oh, wait, but he is Leon. He is the character. So the kind of tricks this book played on my memory and my brain is quite remarkable. For myself, I don't know about the public. For the public. It's really strange that now there are strangers that know so much about me and people that quote me because they know me. It's a very strange feeling.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Can you show us a couple of spreads from your book, please? And maybe read if you feel like it?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Sure. So I don't know. This is one of the earlier spreads, so I'm gonna read it. That is me at 5. I have a boy's name, pants and short hair. Why do you have a boy's name? Are you a boy? I'm tired of explaining myself. So she goes to her mother. I want a girl's name, a dress and long hair. Oh, please don't be banal. I want to be banal.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Incredible. Is there a word for banal in Russian? So this is incredible. You started out, if I'm not mistaken, also designing and doing artwork for sets and for movies and for theater. Correct me if I'm wrong, for theater. And how did this impact, if at all, illustrations for this particular book, which is a kind of more, I don't know, theatrical perhaps.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

In my mind, it's all the same. It's the same language. You deal with space and you Deal with time. And you have to control both in theater and in books. I think with something like a graphic novel, you see it a little better than in a picture book, because you can really control the pacing of it, just like you have to do in theater, especially, let's say, in opera, where the changes of scenery, so to speak. To speak roughly, you have to time it to an aria, for example. And it works very similarly with a graphic novel, because sometimes you want to speed things up or you want to slow things down based on what's going on, but also you want to change the mood, sometimes very drastically. It also happens in picture books, but just because a graphic novel is just a longer form, you get to do it many times. And you can show a passage of time, for example, without words. So you can have those wordless spreads that can work really beautifully and words that are. Or spreads that are just empty, which could give you a certain pause. So you can really, really control the narrative visually. So it's very similar to theater, for sure.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And also it's similar to animation. I can see this as a.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

An animated movie, more so because, you know, it's frames. Yes, of course.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And the other thing I really like about it is that you have this little girl who's trying to get into art school. Her big dream is to be an artist. And in the. In the backdrop of this, what's getting in her way is this huge global accent disaster. And you've played so well between the global. The massive event of Chernobyl and this little girl who doesn't really understand exactly what radioactivity is and what's going on has to be Kyiv. And I love this interplay, but that's

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

the way to do it. How else can you do it? It's the only way to show the world through something small. Unless you have a scientist or historian who is only concerned with the global impact of things. If you're an author or a reader, you really want to get down at the level of the character. Tolstoy did it the same way. You know, War in Peace is about this huge war, but also about, you know, the little lives.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

So this is.

[Mel Rosenberg]

This is a classic Russian or Ukrainian Slavic story. In my mind. There's. There's a classic touch to it and more so that the smaller the life of the main character, in a sense, and the bigger the cataclysm that the world is going through, the better it seems to work well.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Contrast works great. Everybody knows that. Hollywood knows it, writers know it. You have to have contrast to make it interesting. So, yeah, of course it works.

[Mel Rosenberg]

One of my favorite parts of the book is when I don't remember who it is, somebody in their family, there's radioactivity in the apartment, and they go around with a Geiger counter and they find the radioactivity is in the braid that you kept when your hair had to be cut. Is this all true?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Yeah, it's all true.

[Mel Rosenberg]

What a great story.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

I think what's funny about it is not that I kept my braid, it's that my parents allowed me to keep my braids. So you would think if you had this radioactive braid, you should get rid of it, but that didn't occur to them. As long as it wasn't attached to my scalp, I guess it was okay to keep. So it's. It's also interesting how people perceived radiation, how much they knew or understood, which was very little, of course, and even

[Mel Rosenberg]

less for a young girl. And you've done this so well. So. So what I want to ask you now is a very jealous question. As an author, I get to know incredible artists such as yourself, and then I have a dream. I mean, you have a dream. I have a dream. I have a dream of someday having Evgenia, Zhenya and Nyberg illustrate one of my stories. That's a dream. I'm allowed to dream.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Thank you. That's really sweet.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Thank you. But are you ever going to go back to illustrating other people's stories?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Sure, if I love a story. Absolutely. Definitely.

[Mel Rosenberg]

That's good news for everybody else.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

You know, I have to love the story, though. I have to be honest. I really have to connect to the story.

[Podcast Announcer/Other Advertisers]

So.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

But, yeah, but I read everything. Everything that comes my way. Whatever editors, publishers send me, I read everything.

[Mel Rosenberg]

That's good news. So can you tell us a little bit about your new book that's coming out? Or it's premature. Just a few words.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Well, it's all done. So it's called not so Superhero, and it's about a child whose parents think that he must become a superhero. And they encourage him to go out and perform all these heroic tasks, but he's really not up to it. But he doesn't want to disappoint his parents, so he's trying and failing multiple times. So that's the gist of it.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Wow. We're going to have to have another interview. Sure. There's no way out of it. We don't have any other choice here.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

I know it's hard.

[Mel Rosenberg]

One of the books that you haven't written, correct? Me if I'm wrong. You have a book about the old typewriter, which I love. You have a book? I'm talking about the ones that I have and know and love. I hate Borscht, which is a classic. And your party for yeah, which is amazing. What else do I have of yours? You don't have a book about. Or maybe you do, you have a book and you have the book about being left handed. Anya is a. Yes. Anya's secret society, which is incredible. Anya. Anya being you?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Sort of me. Less me than Jenny and Chernobyl, but yeah.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Okay. You have a book about names.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

About names. No, I don't have. No.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So I'm going to suggest here that you have something very powerful in this. Eugenia Yevgenia. A one language, another language. Author, illustrator. I mean, you know, you could have continued to be this incredible artist and for some reason 10 years ago you started writing incredible books too. How did this happen? Did you just wake up and you can say, oh, I can write a better text than that? Let's go forward.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

I wish it was my then agent, Anna Wolfanger, who suggest. Yeah, so. And I thought, no, I can't, I just, I can't write in English. I can't write. Well, I didn't think I couldn't write. I was writing little bits of texts in Russian exclusively and I thought there is no way. But you know, I managed.

[Mel Rosenberg]

What is your first book?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Yeah, it was my first book, Secret Society. That was about. Yeah, 10 years ago or so. Yeah, so. And then it was kind of hard to go back because now I can choose what to illustrate, which is whatever I want to write. It's a very nice selfish position.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So what dreams have you? You came here. Here I'm here. I'm sitting in Israel. I think I'm in New York in the snow. So you came to the States when you were about 19. You know, if you came for high school, you'd be American. You came when you were 19, when you were already what I call baked as a human being. Definitely. And I think that if we spoke to 19 year old Jenny and we said, you know, you are going to be in a couple of years a world famous author, illustrator, prize winning, phenomenal phenomenon. Because I think you are, you should be very happy with your career in America.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Are you asking me or you ask an 18 year old? That's two different people.

[Mel Rosenberg]

That's exactly my question. I mean, I hope that you are very satisfied with your career right now. And if you told a 19 year old you Zhenya what would she say? She, she wouldn't say bloody incredible because she didn't say that in those days. What would she say? Maladec. Maladecna.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

I don't know. I think she probably wouldn't say that. I think she would just take it in stride and think, of course, what else? Or maybe, you know, I used to think about Picasso when I was 15 or 16 and think, okay, so he went through his Blue period when he was 23. So I thought, well, okay, I still have eight or so years to go and eight years is a long time. And for sure, by the time I'm 23, I'm going to be just as good or hopefully better than Picasso. So imagine my surprise when I turned 23 and I wasn't nearly as good. So it's hard to say whether I would be grateful or excited if today's me showed up and said, oh, you're going to be this amazing illustrator. I would probably say, sure, but what about Picasso? You know, I still have four more years.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Well, you could think about Mozart, who's been dead for 20 already, say, so there you go.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

I can always, you know, there is always consider the alternative.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Exactly, exactly. No, I think that you should be extremely, extremely proud of yourself. So other than be Picasso, what haven't you done? What is the dream like? My 50 year old dream was to publish a children's book in the States and it literally took me 50 years. What is your dream that's not going to take you 50 years? What haven't you done?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

I think I would like to art direct an animation project, but something a little bigger than a little tiny project, little animation project that I've done in the past, but something a little more substantial. That would be nice, I think. I don't know if it's my dream. I'm pretty happy where I am right now, so. But it would be something that I haven't really done on the scale that I would like to do it. So yeah, there you go. I had to make something up.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Is there anything that I haven't asked you before I ask you for some tips for writers and illustrators?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Oh, I don't know. You've asked a lot of questions. I hope I gave you all the correct methods.

[Mel Rosenberg]

That's my job. What advice do you have? You're drawing from your youth 10,000 miles away, different era, different culture. The Soviet version of the Ukraine in the 80s. What can you say to young people today? What should they do to succeed?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

I don't know. I wish I knew I was a pretty miserable young person. I don't really have an answer that's not going to be platitude. So, no, I don't. I don't have an answer. I would like to say, oh, you

[Mel Rosenberg]

were a miserable young kid.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Yeah, I'm a regular person with, yeah, definitely a lot of misery baked in, for sure. So I don't really. I don't have an answer. The only answer that I give or advice that I give my students, where I teach my illustration students, that I just tell them, try not to be profound. Because I remember that when I was young, I really wanted to say everything that was boiling inside of me and I really wanted to show it all and explain everything that was happening within me and how deep I was and how profound I was. And now, of course, the older I get, the less profound I want to be. I just want to be funny. I want to be light. I don't need all that weight anymore. So I give them this advice, but I don't know if they're going to take it. It may take just some time for them also to become less and less profound with age.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So is it a matter of not taking yourself too seriously?

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Yeah, mostly, yeah. I think just we have such a wild emotional inner life as young people, obviously at any age. But I think the young people really don't understand that what they experience is very common and they feel that if they share it is going to be very, very special. But a lot of it is not special. A lot of it is just normal. And I think once you embrace the fact that your ordinary and normal and what you feel is shared with so many, I think the faster you do it, the better it is for your writing and for your art in general and maybe for your well being overall.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I think that we've just received the best window on your work somehow. And that is that you've taken this light and fluffy way of looking at your life, at your youth, somehow not taking it all too seriously, even though perhaps when you were young it seemed serious. And now looking at it from a lens of several decades and you've gone back and said, ah, you know, it wasn't this whole thing about hating borscht was no big deal. It's not so bad after all this thing about speaking two languages, not so bad after all, you can learn. And I think that that now gives me a little perspective on your tremendous authorship.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Thank you.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah. So, Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg, we have to go. It's been wonderful, been Wonderful interviewing you again. It was great bumping into you in February in the snow in New York. And I can't wait until we meet again and keep writing books so that I will be able to interview you.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Thank you, Mel. And congratulations on the successes of your book. It's really exciting to follow that.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I am very lucky. You are gifted. I'm lucky. And I have a great illustrator too. You see, that's true.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

He's fantastic.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Orit Magia. And so before we sign off and I want to just shout out to our dear friend Jennifer Byrne, who introduced us in the first place. So thank you, Jennifer. And I'm Mel Rosenberg, still the host of the Children's Literature Network for the New Books Network. The children's. How many times am I going to get this wrong in my life? What am I? I'm the host of the. Why I should write it down. I should say it in Russian. Yeah. Ochin Radio to be the host of the Children's Literature Network of the channel of the New Books Network. And I've been here with Evgena Nyberg Zhenya, celebrating two new books. Two new books, one from two days ago. Hold it up, please. Another tongue, please. Incredible book. Rather than buy this one. It's funny and it's moving. And Chernobyl, which is not only Chernobyl, it's Chernobyl Life and Other Disasters, which came out in April, which is another opus. Time to hold it up, Genya. Okay. And one coming out in February, all of them published by Neil Porter, a wonderful imprint of Holiday House. And it's been great seeing you and wish you all the best of luck and a wonderful year. Until we meet again.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

[Podcast Announcer/Other Advertisers]

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[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back, so I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So there goes my big idea for the commercial.

[Evgenia Zhenya Nyberg]

Give it a [e-mail] switch upfront payment

[Podcast Announcer/Other Advertisers]

of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is busy. See terms.