Alan Barillaro: The Publishing Process Is All About Collaboration
In this interview, author Alan Barillaro discusses writing for anxious readers with his new picture book, Today We’ll Be Eaten.
Alan Barillaro is the Academy Award–winning writer and director of the animated short film Piper and has been supervising animator on many other popular theatrical releases, including The Incredibles, WALL-E, and Brave. He has been honored with an ASIFA-Hollywood Award and an ICFF Award for Outstanding Career, and is the author of the illustrated middle-grade novels Where the Water Takes Us and Bunns Rabbit. Originally from Niagara Falls, Ontario, he now lives in California with his three children. Learn more at AlanBarillaro.com and follow him on Instagram.
In this interview, Alan discusses writing for anxious readers with his new picture book, Today We’ll Be Eaten, his advice for other writers, and more.
Name: Alan Barillaro
Literary agent: Janine Kamouh
Book title: Today We’ll Be Eaten
Publisher: Rocky Pond Books
Release date: June 30, 2026
Genre/category: Picture Book
Previous titles: Where the Water Takes Us, Bunns Rabbit
Elevator pitch: Caught in a storm, Ladybug and Dragonfly crash into a stream. They float upside down, helplessly being pulled along by the current certain that today they will be eaten.
What prompted you to write this book?
I’ve always wanted to publish a picture book. This being my first book in that space, I wanted to contribute a story that was gentle and reassuring. A reprieve for both young readers and adults when anxiety might be a little high. Maybe then when you close the book, whatever you were worried about doesn’t seem so big anymore.
But it starts as just a feeling and chasing that feeling is always enough to get me invested into the journey of writing something new.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
The initial story idea came to me maybe a decade before, which is very common for my process. I have these little scenes, but I’m not necessarily sure what I’ll do with them, I jot the idea down to look at later. Finally, when I gained enough confidence to attempt my picture book and focused on shaping the story, the whole process came together in about a year. But that’s just how this book came together. Each book is different, of course. Sometimes it takes me years before I share an idea with publishers. In the case of this book, the core idea didn’t change throughout the process. However, finding the right word in a particular sentence or making a small but important adjustment to the artwork, especially for a picture book, can have a huge impact in the story. That’s where my editor and art director also deserve a great amount of credit. In my experience, that last 10 percent of the work on a book or animated film makes all the difference.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
The publishing process is all about collaboration. My editor Lauri Hornik and my art director Lily Malcom are the best of the best, and I was constantly learning from them throughout the process. It takes years to hone that level of sensibility and taste, so a small suggestion from them was really valuable and always lifted the book. I was learning from the experts on this book. It reminds me of being back at Pixar. A director might have a vision for the story, but the director of photography will then take it to another level, knowing exactly how the experience will feel in the theater. Right down to understanding how many lumens (brightness of the projector light) the average theater is projecting the film, so it offers the best experience possible. Publishing has all the same parallels and collaborations, and I really believe you feel that hard work and expertise when it’s there in the finished book.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
Being a writer is like being an archeologist: You’re constantly excavating the potential story, while trying to keep completely open to what you might find along the way. The big surprise for this book was I had to completely change my workflow to solve the story. When I’m writing a middle-grade novel, my workflow is to write the manuscript in the morning and then illustrate in the afternoon. That just didn’t work for this project. So much of a picture book is about artwork. So, I landed on sitting in front of a sketchbook drawing and writing parts of the manuscript in the margins or underneath the image. I found it much easier to unlock the story. It’s not the perfect manuscript I’m looking for, but those few key words or a phrase that really become the essence of the book. Once I have those important tent poles words or phrases, it’s much easier to jump into the full manuscript.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
This is a story for the anxious bug in all of us … or at least the anxious bug in me. The greatest compliment would be that this book is something a reader could go to when they need to take a breath and reset. It’san intentionally quiet book, and I hope the notion of slowing down for a moment as we all float down the stream of life (if you will) is worthy of their time.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
The advice that helped me the most was simply to commit to finishing a draft no matter how bad you think it’s going. Just get to that last sentence and don’t quit on it until you do. That was something I learned while at Pixar. It’s so much harder to fix a problematic story if it’s left half-written or you keep shifting the point of the story midstream.
