Today we’d like to introduce you to Caroline DuBois.
Hi Caroline, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My path to becoming an author was circuitous and serendipitous, even though I’ve been a lifelong reader, journaler, and writer. I grew up in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and my foundational creative journey included beloved literature teachers and dance teachers from middle school through high school, as well as creative parents who are both storytellers at heart. In college, I tried to follow in the footsteps of my oldest brother by pursuing law, but after a summer internship for a Tennessee congressman in Washington, D.C., I promptly returned to the women’s college I attended in South Carolina and changed my major from political science to English. That year, I happened to have a brilliant creative writing teacher who helped me become the editor of my college’s literary journal. Soon after, I landed a summer fellowship to study poetry at Bucknell University. After college, I earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts, where I studied under Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Tate and other greats in the poetry world. Over the years, my poetry has appeared in an array of disparate places, such as The Journal of the American Medical Association, Highlights High Five, Quarter Notes Magazine, and Southern Poetry Review.
After graduate school, I moved back to the South, married a singer-songwriter, worked in the private sector as an editor and writer, and began a family. I was pregnant and working in downtown Nashville on September 11th, 2001. After that terrible day, I feared raising a child in such a frightening and unpredictable world, and in the years that followed, my brothers and my brother-in-law were all called into active duty and deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. I began writing about how world events have rippling effects on individuals and familial relationships in unexpected ways. These experiences inspired my debut novel, The Places We Sleep (Holiday House Books), about seventh grader Abbey who is grappling with loss during 9/11. At its core, the novel is about the sustaining powers of friendship and creativity.
However, I didn’t get a contract for that novel until almost two decades later. In that time, it went through so many revisions, and I shared it with multiple critique groups. The serendipitous part of my publishing story is that the editor who eventually granted me a contract for the novel was a seventh grader during 9/11 in NYC. The novel published in 2020, which was a doozy of a year—to say the least. In Nasvhille, the beginning of the pandemic was also marked by a devastating EF3 tornado in early March that devastated my neighborhood and the surrounding communities, and then a Christmas morning downtown bombing. Soon after the tornado and during the pandemic, I began writing my second novel: Ode to a Nobody (Holiday House Books). This novel is about a young girl living through a tornado while chronicling her experience from nobody to somebody as she rebuilds her neighborhood and identity.
My third novel, All the Sunshine in the World (Holiday House Books), publishes July 28th, 2026. It’s about thirteen-year-old Tolly, who fears she was to blame for the accident that killed her older sister. If she could just get her phone back, she might find answers about the day Sunny died. It’s also largely about our complicated relationships with technology and nature. I’m super excited about this third novel because it has received starred reviews from both School Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews. Save the date for August 8th at 6:30 for a book birthday for All the Sunshine in the World at Parnassus Bookstore!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
For a very select few, becoming an author may be a painless, smooth road; however, for most writers I personally know the path to publication is lengthy and filled with potholes, flat tires, dead-ends, fender-benders, and the like—to borrow from a driving metaphor. Struggles I experienced along the way included finding the right manuscript to write. I wrote two other full novels and multiple picture book manuscripts before completing and getting a contract for The Places We Sleep. I also secured and lost an agent and received an extremely negative critique from an editor before finding the just-right agent and editor. Even with the right agent, my manuscript got multiple rejections from publishers before finding a home with Holiday House Books. Other struggles were maintaining a creative life while pursuing a teaching career, while also raising children, and wearing all the other hats one wears in life. It’s highly challenging to pursue the arts—and even more so while working a fulltime job that demands at least 60 hours a week. Luckily, I have a teaching job as the Director of the Literary Arts Conservatory at Nashville School of the Arts, a position that perfectly complements and inspires my writing career. So, even though it took me twenty years to publish my first novel from its conception, it’s been worth all the time, toil, and tribulations to see it in the hands of readers and on the shelves of my favorite local indie bookstores.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
In addition to having been an EL teacher and a literacy coach, I’ve taught English and creative writing at the middle school, high school, and college levels. Currently, at Nashville School of the Arts, I instruct young writers, and I’m so proud of the work I do and of my exceptionally talented students. I was honored to be a Nashville Blue Ribbon Teacher, a Teacher of the Year, and a nominee for School Teacher of the District. During my tenure, I’ve grown the writing conservatory in exciting ways, including a writer-in-residence program, a reading series, and monthly guests of authors, writers, poets, songwriters, directors, and other creatives. I partner with groups such as Southern Word, OZ Arts, The Porch, Parnassus, and Vanderbilt Bookstore. Two of my students became the Nashville Youth Poet Laureate, three participated and placed in poetry contests in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin, and others have gained scholarships for their compositions. A job perk includes getting to invite friends and authors into my classroom as guests. I also get to collaborate with the other conservatory directors and faculty, encouraging my students to write pieces with dancers, pianists, guitarists, singers, and visual artists. This school is such a well-kept secret in Nashville—so I want to shout it out here. The young performers and artists coming out of this public high school are majorly talented. Be on the lookout for them!
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Writing can be a lonely pursuit, but I’ve had so much inspiration and support along the way. I coerce my mom to read just about everything I write. She also writes and makes her own art, and my dad has written a novel in the past few years. Both of my brothers play music and write alongside their careers. My husband is a songwriter and musician and encourages, supports, and inspires me daily. He too reads everything I write. Both of my children are creative—and I count them as my number one fans. In addition to family, the group I owe the most credit is the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, specifically the Midsouth chapter, from which all my kid lit critique groups have sprung. I have formed lasting friendships and connections with authors, illustrators, and creatives through SCBWI. Additionally, I owe my agent, Louise Fury, the world. She does all the hard contractual stuff and has believed in me from the day she read my first manuscript. My editor, Sally Morgridge, at Holiday House, takes incredible care with my novels. I also currently belong to two critique groups—a kid lit and an adult lit group—and their friendship, knowledge, and camaraderie are priceless. So many friends and colleagues can be seen cheering from the sidelines of my writing success; I wouldn’t be where I am without them. Finally, one of my favorite parts of being an author is meeting readers via school visits and book clubs. Books create important bonds—and I’m thrilled to be a part of that dynamic.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://carolinebrooksdubois.com
- Instagram: @carolinebdubois
- Facebook: @carolinebdubois
