Step On Board: Sculpting a Memorial to Harriet Tubman
My Debut Picturebook!
The daughter of a sculptor watches her mother figure out how to represent the life of an American heroine in a work of art.
In 2018, I wrote a version of this picture book about my mother's process of designing and sculpting Boston's first memorial to a woman, Harriet Tubman. I submitted the manuscript to a handful of agents and editors and got a few rejections and some useful feedback for revision. I didn't move forward with the picture book until a nudge in 2020 pushed me to revise it while awaiting feedback from my critique group on the latest version of my novel in progress.
With my new agent, Tina Dubois of ICM, we sold the revised manuscript to Michelle Frey at Knopf and, to my delight, we will be working with Ekua Holmes as the illustrator.
Ekua and my mother, Fern Cunningham-Terry, were colleagues and friends in the Boston arts scene for decades. I am so eager to see how she will bring this story to life on the page.
Publication is scheduled for 2025.
While we await the publication of this exciting work, I invite you to support the Fern Cunningham-Terry Fund at massart.edu/fern.