I’m pleased to share the announcement for my most recent sale.
Announcement above reads: Karen Boss at Charlesbridge has acquired world rights to Meet Maude Delap, Jellyfish Scientist by Michelle Cusolito, illustrated by Ellen Rooney. This picture book biography introduces readers to the pioneering Irish scientist who was the first person to raise jellyfish through their complete life cycle to understand their metamorphosis from larva to adult. Publication is scheduled for Summer 2025. James McGowan at BookEnds represented the author, the illustrator represented herself.
Since people like to hear the story behind the story (me included!) I thought I’d share some background.
I learned about Maude in 2016 when we were living in Ireland. Before we moved back to the States in 2017, I did as much research about her as I could. I read Irish books that featured her and articles in local magazines. I talked to Nigel Monaghan, the Keeper of the Natural History Museum, National Museum of Ireland. I accessed several of her published papers, including the one that ultimately became the focus of this book. I visited the archives at the museum and read every letter she sent to the Keeper of the Museum over the course of forty years, from the late 1800s and into the 1900s. Reading Maude’s letters helped me get to know her. She started to feel like a friend.
From 2017-2022, the challenge was to figure out how to tell her story.
I started writing, but then I felt I needed to do more research to fill in some gaps. I dug deeper and read every scientific paper Maude published or was referenced in. I communicated with a researcher who has written about Maude as a single woman living in rural Ireland during the turn of the last century. I also interviewed a U.S. expert on jellyfish, emailed with a jellyfish scientist in Ireland, and emailed with a scientist who is working to preserve Maude’ legacy.
But writing is never a linear process for me. I still couldn’t find my way in, and I had other projects that needed my attention.
In 2018, I launched Flying Deep. Then I wrote Diving Deep and launched it in 2022. I sold A Window into the Ocean Twilight Zone in 2020 and completed all revisions and edits by the summer of 2022. (That middle grade book is currently in the proofs stage. It goes to print next month! Woot!)
In between, I kept working at MAUDE. I tried writing lyrically, but that didn’t work. Then I crammed in too much information and had to cut a ton. I made multiple picture book dummies trying to figure out why it wasn’t working or what I could do to make it work. I labored over it. I slept on it. I titled it MAUDE MADE IT HAPPEN. Then MAUDE MAKES HISTORY. Still, the book didn’t work.
Then my friend Sarah Albee suggested I change the voice, and that opened everything up. I found my way in. I wrote in a more conversational tone which lead to the title becoming Meet Maude Delap, Jellyfish Scientist.
My agent, James McGowan and I sold this book a year ago. Yup. I’ve been sitting on this news for a year. My edits were completed last spring. Ellen Rooney signed on to illustrate it over the summer. (Yay!)
And now, in September of 2023, we get to finally announce it.
I can’t wait for all of you to meet Maude. I think you’re going to love her as much as I do.