Hello Inklings!

This month’s Ink Splat Author Interview features Inklings Book mentor and debut author, Kerry Aradhya. Kerry’s book, Ernő Rubik and his Magic Cube.

Kerry shared with us that her curiosity was sparked when she was buying a Rubik’s Cube as a gift. Who created this iconic puzzle toy? How did it come about? Once she started researching those answers, she knew she had to write a book about it.

Learn more about Kerry at kerryaradhya.com.

Writing Challenge

Inspired by a Captivating Character

Ideas for creative writing come from all sorts of places, but one excellent way to find inspiration is to read stories about intriguing people. Kerry Aradyha was inspired to write her book about Ernő Rubik, in part, because she was fascinated by the question: How did Ernő Rubik come up with his idea for the Rubik’s Cube?

Your writing challenge this month invites you to allow your creativity to take the lead. Notice the questions that pop to mind in your day-to-day life, such as “How was that invention created?” or “Why does that (fill in the blank) work the way it does?” Follow one of those questions and do a little bit of digging. Who is the person, or who are the people, behind that invention? Who else might have also wondered how a particular concept, phenomena, or tool works, just as you did, and what did their discovery process look like?

Once you find a real-life character who captivates your imagination, play with telling their story in an interesting way. You’ll want to honor the facts of their life, but as the author of this version of their story, it is also up to you to contribute your own creativity. Maybe you’ll write the story as a poem, or like Kerry did, as a picture book, as a newspaper article or in your own unique way.

The childhood-to-adult journey Ernő Rubik took as he followed his curiosity all the way to inventing the Rubik’s Cube is expansive. What made you choose to tell this story in picture book form? 

I was recently joking with someone that I view the world through picture books, but there’s actually some truth to it. I tend to write pretty succinctly and love how much information and/or feeling a picture book can convey in so few pages. I’ve never felt the urge to write in a longer form, other than maybe an early chapter book, so whenever I get an idea for a book, I automatically think of it through a picture book lens. Will it work in that format? Because I knew I wanted to focus on Ernő Rubik’s creative process, and that process was very visual (involving geometric shapes plus trial and error in building both the exterior and interior of the cube), I didn’t have to think long to know it could work in a picture book form.

When writers create picture book texts, they know that an illustrator will be paired with their project further down the road, and that person will create the visual world that tells at least half of the story. Did you imagine images as you wrote in the first place? Did the images that the illustrator created surprise you in any way? 

I do frequently see images in my mind while working on my manuscripts. It just happens organically, without me thinking about it. But now that I am thinking about it, that may be one of the reasons I enjoy writing picture books and have never been drawn to writing longer works with fewer illustrations. Seeing the images energizes me and helps me feel like the story is actually unfolding as I write. And even though it seems antithetical, I think it also helps me leave room for the illustrator. If I’m seeing an image in my mind, I don’t need to describe exactly what I’m seeing and can concentrate more on the action and other components of the story. By the time I saw Kara Kramer’s amazing illustrations, I had forgotten about any images I might have imagined while writing, so I was definitely surprised – happily surprised – by the art. I especially love how Kara incorporated more shapes and patterns into the story than I could have ever imagined. As an example from one spread, Ernő is sailing in a boat composed of the seven shapes that make up a tangram—a puzzle he played with as a child. Kara also incorporated intricate geometric designs into the endpapers, which are being adapted into a coloring sheet for book events.

Did you feel any personal sense of connection with Ernő Rubik or with his journey?

I got the spark for this story when I was buying a Rubik’s Cube for a family friend and realized I didn’t know anything about when, how, or by whom it had been created. I started researching and just kept getting pulled further and further in. I chose to write the story because I found Ernő Rubik’s creative process so interesting, with hopes that children would find it as interesting as I did. But what I didn’t expect was how strong of a connection I would feel to Ernő Rubik when I read his memoir Cubed: The Puzzle of Us All, which was serendipitously published while I was in the middle of my research. I identified with the way he has always followed his passion and curiosity to see where they lead, without necessarily worrying about the outcome. I also felt like we had some similarities in our personalities and in the ways our brains work, plus definitely identified with how he described his creative space, full of “bits of paper with scrawling notes and images” and other items that “occupied every corner, the shelves, the floor, the table…” Creating amidst chaos is very natural for me, too!

A special thank you to Kerry Aradhya for sharing with us! 

As a collaborating artist with the Society of Young Inklings, Kerry Aradhya loves playing with words and immersing herself in the creative process. She is the author of the picture book biography Ernő Rubik and His Magic Cube (Peachtree, 2024) and more than a dozen poems in children’s magazines like Ladybug and Highlights High Five. Kerry also enjoys freelancing as a science editor and performing with a quirky modern dance ensemble in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lives with her family and their cute but naughty pooch named Sofie.

Visit kerryaradhya.com to learn more about Kerry and to follow her literary journey.

Check out Kerry’s book and all of our recent Ink Splat authors’ works at our Bookshop.org Store.