Ask the Author: Kevin Christofora
Answered Questions (7)
Kevin Christofora
As Amira Can Catch points out, America is the melting pot because of its ability to bring people of all races, religions and ideals into one place. It is a place of diversity and therefore, a place for tolerance. Tolerance is the modern buzzword, but it is a core social value of America.
Kevin Christofora
Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?
I wish I could say something cool like traveling to underground caves or deep dark places….however…The most recent book, TGIT, Thank Goodness It’s T-Ball Day, was inspired by the letter “T” and then my brain spun to TGIF. A very well know and really liked idea, that Fridays are awesome because some people don’t work the next day. T stands for the T days in the week. If parents cant remember when T-ball is, now they can. Easy brainwashing. I want to get to Pizza Pie Day so bad! However, it is my personal mission to keep these books real and accurate at the same time. There are so many ‘bad” books. Not bad stories, just badly organized or having no rhyme or reason. I don’t do well with illogical concepts. I have an imagination second to none, and love crazy far out books! (like Shaun Tan, Tales from Outer Suburbia, but if you are going to talk about something real- like baseball….then be true to the game, or don’t call it baseball, invent some other name. Where was I? Ah-yes, I just cant do Pizza Pie Day until the next book because how can you field a ball and throw it to first if you don’t know how to catch and throw. Yes! So we got TGIT and now we can throw. We have to learn how to catch…..and then…Bam! Then it’s Pizza Pie Day! The next title for catching the ball is yet to be finalized. The working title is : “There is a New Sheriff in Town”. I am excited to see where it goes!
I wish I could say something cool like traveling to underground caves or deep dark places….however…The most recent book, TGIT, Thank Goodness It’s T-Ball Day, was inspired by the letter “T” and then my brain spun to TGIF. A very well know and really liked idea, that Fridays are awesome because some people don’t work the next day. T stands for the T days in the week. If parents cant remember when T-ball is, now they can. Easy brainwashing. I want to get to Pizza Pie Day so bad! However, it is my personal mission to keep these books real and accurate at the same time. There are so many ‘bad” books. Not bad stories, just badly organized or having no rhyme or reason. I don’t do well with illogical concepts. I have an imagination second to none, and love crazy far out books! (like Shaun Tan, Tales from Outer Suburbia, but if you are going to talk about something real- like baseball….then be true to the game, or don’t call it baseball, invent some other name. Where was I? Ah-yes, I just cant do Pizza Pie Day until the next book because how can you field a ball and throw it to first if you don’t know how to catch and throw. Yes! So we got TGIT and now we can throw. We have to learn how to catch…..and then…Bam! Then it’s Pizza Pie Day! The next title for catching the ball is yet to be finalized. The working title is : “There is a New Sheriff in Town”. I am excited to see where it goes!
Kevin Christofora
I always have a book to do. I have a list! All the other moments of the day…. I work on promoting my book and networking. I am working on creating cartoons series for television.. I feel like the kids would love it! I am working on networking with MLB players to help read to more kids. I want to get MLB players to come back to their home towns and rebuild community fields for more kids to play on. I am working on more charity events and helping more kids. Anyway I can!
Kevin Christofora
Oh, sitting and working while no one bugs you. LOL- yea right! No!!!! the best part, for me… is…It’s fun! I get to write about what I like…and when it actually hits home with my audience….I love it. It ramps me up to do more! I feel like I made a difference in a positive way. That is the absolute best! The more kids hands, I can get more books into….. the better the world will be. It will create more bed time reading, smarter kids through education, and create family bonding time. I like all of that!
Kevin Christofora
I am lucky. When I have writers block….i get up and act it out. The best part of my writing is that its real, it is my life, it is all about kids, and teaching baseball and life lessons. When I am in public, I keep my eyes and ears open all the time. I constantly look around me, and not face down in the phone as life passes me by. I am a fan of facing life….face forward! I hear things, I hear stories, I see situations for real life examples. I relate the outer experiences to my real life and the actual baseball techniques are the easy parts. I do hit walls, sometimes I feel like I need more, more excitement, more fun. Sometimes real life is just kind of ho-hum, so I always try to sneak in as much learning while being fun and not getting caught. And when I am really really really stuck, I call Dale, my friend and illustrator. He is ridiculous and very funny…just look at his amazing art and illustrations. If you can’t get fun out of Dale, then you need to check your pulse! He is the end all to writers block!
Kevin Christofora
I started writing in 2005. I usually don’t answer that question. Most industry people say, I don’t care how long it took you to write this. some work 20 years some do it over night. The most important thing is to write and to write well. I try to influence as many kids as I can to just write, and save it. You can never recapture the thoughts and visions of your age. Old people try to write as if they were a 10 year old, but it doesn’t work. Write and write, that’s what I hope to help kids dive into. They need to see a vision on why. That’s what kids need. They need rewards. This one is just a longer payday. Even if it is just a scrap book to read at your wedding? Or friend’s 50th birthday party. Remember when ?…! LOL How long it takes to write isn’t a good measuring stick. How often? I try every day to write one thing. I feel good if I hit 5 days a week. I don’t punish myself, I do the best I can. Life gets in the way some times. It there are a million things going on, yes, I miss a week some times more. but I always come back to it. Sometimes at night , sometimes morning. When I find a moment or something that I just can’t lose, I stop and make it happen. Sometimes I envision newlyweds busying an old house…and being in the attic and finding a box, my box. it looks like those old newspapers that are all yellowed and from 19-what? Old stuff. And they start reading what I had. I didn’t meant to leave it there, I died and no one knew it was there…..who knows what will happen. Maybe I will live long enough to create something out of it. It has my joy and my tears, all spread out in ink on paper. Things I would never remember, but things I don’t want to forget. I got them and who know where the road will take me.
Kevin Christofora
I laugh when people call me an author. I didn’t grow up ever thinking I would be. And sometimes I still feel awkward, but I can’t deny it with two books done and the third coming soon. So now I am owning up to it! I am just a dad. I am your average guy, I do normal stuff. I grew up in a family business which taught me how to do many life skills at an earlier age, like cooking and cleaning. I use to work in a meat department and at 16 years old was telling grandmothers how long to cook their chicken. It is a crazy memory. After having children of my own and becoming a coach, I found a huge need. While doing my own homework on how to make practices more fun, I found major organizations willing to teach groups of parents how to be better coaches. I loved the fact that someone knew that all these volunteer parents don’t necessarily know how to coach. It doesn’t make it a good experience just because someone is there. We have all seen it. Yes thankful for the coaches time, but it wasn’t the best experience. And to no fault of anyone person, the fault lies with the organization offering the program. I took classes and brought those classes back to my organization after I became president. It doesn’t matter what sport you coach, all these classes were geared to teaching kids. The classes were more about learning kid psychology, and learning parent-coach communication skills all from experienced veterans who have had all the same experiences. Not only did I coach the coaches, I coached the parents to show them how to be better sports parents. (we all need to learn these things) Together- I built an incredible little league that grew from 87 to 357 in two years. And you might ask why. The how and the why was the effort to make it a better experience for “everyone” involved. If the parents were not happy, they would not sign their kids up. It’s pretty simple. If mom ain’t happy, ain’t no one happy. Funny, but true in sports too. We shortened up commutes, changed practice locations, worked with school activity/concert schedules to avoid conflicts of sibling kids and parents having to be in too many places at once. We had an intelligent and common sense approach to running an organization that no one could argue with. They just kept coming back for more and they brought their friends too.
With all this going on… I was dumbfounded at how many little kids showed up knowing nothing about baseball. Neither did the parents. And it wasn’t just baseball, it was basketball, flag football, everywhere I went. My wife told me not to be frustrated, that’s why they brought them to me… for me to teach them. During this same time frame…I was reading books to my kids at bed time. I used to fall asleep reading them. My speech would slow and slur, the book would fall on my nose/face…and my 5 year old son would poke me and say…dad…wake up. LOL. when you get up at 430 in the morning, 8 pm was considered late!
I said….if I could write a book about baseball the same way maisey mouse writes for little kids, I could teach the game and keep them interested in reading at the same time. Short bedtime reading, educational and fun. When they showed up to the field, they would know which way first base was and what home plate was. I wanted to write a book about what I did every day on the field. It was fun and we all went home and fell asleep due to good physical exercise. The kids never wanted it to end. the parents would say we have to go. It’s funny, some parents at sign up say…my kid goes to bed at 6 or 7 and we cant be here too late to break the routine. I just say…it’s okay, just come. Leave when you have to. Once they come….watch out…they never want to leave. Parents are flabbergasted how much they just keep going and find their second wind, and how they all can eat a whisker later than normal time and go to bed so much quicker because they were burning up all that energy. It’s an awesome ‘awakening’ for ‘new’ sports parents.
With all this going on… I was dumbfounded at how many little kids showed up knowing nothing about baseball. Neither did the parents. And it wasn’t just baseball, it was basketball, flag football, everywhere I went. My wife told me not to be frustrated, that’s why they brought them to me… for me to teach them. During this same time frame…I was reading books to my kids at bed time. I used to fall asleep reading them. My speech would slow and slur, the book would fall on my nose/face…and my 5 year old son would poke me and say…dad…wake up. LOL. when you get up at 430 in the morning, 8 pm was considered late!
I said….if I could write a book about baseball the same way maisey mouse writes for little kids, I could teach the game and keep them interested in reading at the same time. Short bedtime reading, educational and fun. When they showed up to the field, they would know which way first base was and what home plate was. I wanted to write a book about what I did every day on the field. It was fun and we all went home and fell asleep due to good physical exercise. The kids never wanted it to end. the parents would say we have to go. It’s funny, some parents at sign up say…my kid goes to bed at 6 or 7 and we cant be here too late to break the routine. I just say…it’s okay, just come. Leave when you have to. Once they come….watch out…they never want to leave. Parents are flabbergasted how much they just keep going and find their second wind, and how they all can eat a whisker later than normal time and go to bed so much quicker because they were burning up all that energy. It’s an awesome ‘awakening’ for ‘new’ sports parents.
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