Children's books author Joanna T. Karachristos gave her first interview for The National Herald, the well-known newspaper in New York City focusing on Greek-American community.
Joanna was born in California in 1959 of Greek parents. She studied at the University of California, Santa Cruz and continued her studies at the Kapodistriako University of Athens, where she lives and has worked as a teacher of Greek and English philology. She can be reached on Facebook: Joanna Karachristos Books and Guides, and her blog.
The National Herald: How did you start writing/illustrating children's books?
Joanna T. Karachristos: I was a bookworm from a very early age and there were books that I was so fond of I would read them over and over again. When I had my first son, I searched for children's books that would also be instructive, a medium for learning. Being Greek, I guess I had been influenced by the fables of Aesop, who wrote simple stories which exposed profound truths for all mankind.
As for the illustrations in my books, I am working with a promising young artist who happens to be a former student of mine. As a student, Evanthia Koukoreba impressed me with her diligence and discipline and the fact that she spent her free time during recess drawing. She participated in a group under my direction in a Panhellenic student competition with the topic Hellenes of Pontos; Memories and dreams, past, present and future. In this competition she created the illustrations for the first part of the comic book The Remarkable, Diachronic Pontian Diogenes, which won first prize in the category Project.
TNH: Which book is the one that influenced you in starting writing?
JK: As a young girl growing up in California I loved Louisa May Alcott. I cannot remember how many times I had read Little Women and Little Men. Through her literature I also became interested in the Transcendentalist Movement and American history, especially the Civil War, which led me to read the classic Gone with the Wind. While still in elementary school I read J.R.R. Tolkien's books starting with the Hobbit and have reread them many times. As a teenager I was very impressed with Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, to name a few.
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