Young Adult/Middle Grade/Picture Book Author Liza Wiemer: MOMENTS OF RECOGNITION
“For this young girl to take the experience of reading my book, and then to apply it to her life was, to me, so profound.”
By Laura Segal Stegman
This interview and the transcript have been edited for length and clarity.
LAURA SEGAL STEGMAN
Hi, everybody. I'm Laura Segal Stegman, author of the Summer of Luck trilogy, and I'm presenting four author conversations on SCBWI's blog in July.
My guest this week is Liza Wiemer, an award-winning educator and public speaker. Her second young adult novel, The Assignment from Delacorte Press was named a Sidney Taylor Notable Book, among other honors. Her debut picture book is Out and About, A Tale of Giving. She's currently working on several picture books, a nonfiction book for children, and a middle grade book. Check out her website because I haven't even begun to paint the full picture of the amazing Liza's eclectic talents. Let's meet her and learn a little bit more. Hello!
LIZA WIEMER
Laura, thank you so much for having me. This is truly an honor.
LS
It's my pleasure. Let’s talk about moments of recognition that you've experienced during your career. Tell us about times when people who've read your book or your work got in touch and what that meant to you.
LW
I'm going to start by showing you my book, The Assignment, which is inspired by true events. It's about two brave teens who are given an assignment from their favorite teacher, a social studies teacher, to pretend that they're Nazis and either argue in favor of murdering Europe's eleven-million Jews or putting Jews in work camps, ghettos, and sterilizing them. And these two brave teens speak out and say, “This is wrong.” They won't do it, even when their classmates don't seem to have any kind of issue with this assignment. It is with this book that I'd like to address your question. There are three instances I want to share.
A few years ago, I was speaking in a large auditorium. At the end, it cleared out, except for me, the teacher, and one young man, and he came up to me. He said that he had read the book, and that it changed his whole perspective. He was thinking about killing himself. His parents had moved him to our area in his last years of high school, and he was really missing his friends and struggling, and that reading The Assignment changed his whole perspective. And I'm thrilled to say that years later now – it’s been at least three years – he's doing great. And that really was so humbling.
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| Liza Wiemer |
And then last school year, I got an email from a girl who had just finished eighth grade. She wrote to tell me that after reading my novel, she had made the decision to poll other girls in her grade because she herself had been experiencing sexual harassment. And it seemed that other girls were experiencing that too.
So, she polled every single girl in her entire grade, then she and another young woman presented this to the principal and the teachers. And it wasn't an easy thing to do at all. What she did was so incredibly brave, and I thought, “Wow.” For this young girl to take the experience of reading my book and then to apply it to her life was, to me, so profound. The idea that we need to be upstanders… that we need to not be silent when we see injustice is the whole message of the book.
Since the book came out, I've given nearly 700 workshops on the novel, about not being a bystander, about speaking up against all forms of hatred, bigotry, and injustice. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was presenting at a school, and a young woman walked past me. At first, she said, “Thank you so much,” and she walked out of the room. Then she turned around and came back with tears streaming down her face. This time, she said, “Thank you so much. I need to tell you how much what you had to say meant to me. To talk about the need for kindness and compassion in this world instead of being rude and cruel and mean to one another.”
One of the things that I’d talked about was the fact that that in this country, we're very fortunate to have free speech. We know about hate speech, but what's really missing is informed speech. And that even though we have the right to say things that are hateful, it really harms the essence of who we are. That really resonated with her. So, this is what keeps me motivated and driven to do the work that I'm doing.
And then I'm also very fortunate to present Out and About: A Tale of Giving for younger kids, a book about helping others in an anonymous way. Doing [things] in a way where you're not there for the recognition. It's such a universal theme, an important theme. These books are really giving me the opportunity to reach students of all ages. And I love it!
LS
Those are incredibly powerful stories. And thank you for sharing them, to be able to have your work make those kinds of impressions on young people. And think of all the hundreds that didn't come up to you. Those three alone are beautiful stories of the value of literature and of doing good, and speaking up and all those things that you mentioned. Thank you so much.
LW
Thank you. It's profound and it's humbling and I'm grateful for the opportunity.
LS
Again, thank you. Liza's website has curriculum guides, videos, excerpts from her interviews, and lots more. So, look for links to her site and her socials below. Thank you again, Liza.
LW
Thank you so much, Laura. It’s been an honor to be with you.
WEBSITE: https://www.lizawiemer.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/lizamwiemer/
BS: https://bsky.app/profile/lizawiemer.bsky.social
FB: https://www.facebook.com/liza.wiemer
Liza Wiemer is an award-winning educator with over twenty years of teaching experience. Her second novel, The Assignment, was published by Delacorte Press and has received 12 honors, including being named a Sydney Taylor Notable Book. To date, The Assignment has also been translated to Russian, Polish, Italian, and Korean and has been optioned for film. In addition, Liza has had two adult nonfiction books published and several short stories included in the New York Times bestselling “Small Miracles” series. Since August 2020, she has presented over 650 talks and workshops across the globe. She’s been interviewed by media outlets like NPR, BBC, and ABC, and gave a TedXTalk at the UW-Madison. Her debut picture book, Out and About: A Tale of Giving, was published by Kalaniot Books in August 2023. A graduate of UW-Madison, Liza has two married sons and lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her husband, Jim.
Laura Segal Stegman is the author of Summer of L.U.C.K., Ready or Not, and The Chambered Nautilus, a middle-grade trilogy from Young Dragons Press, all with Readers' Favorite Five Star reviews. She has been a presenter/panelist at literary events including NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English), Orange County Children’s Book Festival, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ (SCBWI) SoCal Harvest Day, San Diego Writers Festival, and LitFest in the Dena. She also does school visits and such events as the STEM Teacher Summit and serves as a judge for writing competitions sponsored by Society of Young Inklings, among others. As a long-time publicity consultant, she created PR Tips for Authors, which has been presented by The Writing Barn, SCBWI, and elsewhere. Non-fiction writing credits include work in Los Angeles Times and School Library Journal’s Teen Librarian Toolbox, among others. www.LauraStegman.com
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