About Milica — Bookman and Garabaghi

I am new to the world of writing children’s books but I am not new to telling people about the world.

For decades, I taught university students about economic development in Asia, Africa and South America.

For decades, I conducted research across the globe and shared my findings with colleagues via a dozen published books.

And for decades, I wove reality and fantasy into tales of foreign places to my children and grandchildren.

With this background, writing children’s books with an international theme seems like the natural next step.

To learn picture book writing skills and to hone my craft, I have taken several children’s book writing courses and attended seminars and conferences. In 2020 I will be taking the 12 x 12 Picture Book Writing Challenge.

My husband of 4+ decades claims I have graphomania (the obsessive impulse to write). I think he’s right but still, every once in a while I stop writing to prove to myself that I can do something else.

Sculpt

What does one do with a left over styrofoam head where a chemo wig used to rest at night? Poke it with DeCecco spaghetti, of course. What else?

Paint

I wish I could say that I was inspired to mix colors, to vent some deep war wounds, to boldly brush my emotions over canvas. But that would be untrue. I merely had a white hall wall that needed decorating and I wanted immediate gratification, at low cost. Michael’s had a sale on small canvases. A quart of red paint sufficed.

Bake

I come from the Danube river valley where the Austro-Hungarian baking tradition (exemplified most famously by the Sacher Torte) merged with the Ottoman focus on sweets (baklava, anyone?). My only entrepreneurial venture was the creation of a dessert catering company, Danubian Desserts, started with a girlfriend after not much thought. It was hard work, much harder than our day jobs. Fortunately, we soon drowned in our own success (drown being the operative word here).

These digressions never lasted long. I always reverted back to my passion: writing.