Meet Maxine Rose Schur

We recently connected with Maxine Rose Schur and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Maxine Rose, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

As a young woman I had little confidence and was somewhat shy. But this is what I did have: a small voice inside me that somehow said “You can do this too.” That small voice led me to study acting at college, receive a B.A. in Theatre Arts and become a soap opera and stage actress in New Zealand. I lived in New Zealand in my early twenties and while I was working in film and theatre that small voice spoke to me when I read children’s books. Again it said, “You can do this too.” Of course I had to work at honing my craft. I knew nothing about what made good writing. I knew only that I had stories to tell and was eager to tell them. Passionate. I took writing workshops and little by little I not only got my stories for children published but became a children’s book reviewer. It wasn’t easy though. My confidence and self esteem took several blows and after having published more than 20 books, though I still smart at the pang of rejection, my confidence and self-esteem are just fine.I’ve received hundreds of rejections but my secret to success is I never give up. Never. If I believe in my story, I’ll send the manuscript out hundreds of times. Believe me, it works. Getting published is a numbers game so I try (though I admit it’s hard) to not take rejection personally. Some of my books took decades to get published and then won awards. So my confidence comes, in great part, from the belief that my work is valuable and the faith that eventually someone else will value it as well.

So I would say my confidence and self-esteem comes from an intrinisic sense that what I am writing matters. Of course my confidence and self-esteem is given joyous boosts from the feedback I get from editors, reviewers and readers. When I read their kind, appreciative words, all the AI words I had read on rejection slips becomes irrelevant. My confidence is strengthened by the kind words of those who read and enjoy my work.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I wear 3 writing hats. I’m a writer of travel essays, a children’s book author, and a writing instructor. These days I’m focusing on completing my second book of travel essays with the fun title: “How I Came to Fear French Doors.” This collection of essays will take readers around the world to join me on experiences a diverse as mourning with a family on Day of the Dead in Mexico to living with the former headhunters in Borneo to entering the secret world of Junkanoo in The Bahamas.
My first anthology of my travel essays, Places in Time, was named Best Travel Book of the Year by the National Association of Travel Journalists and the Society of American Travel Writers so I’m bringing this new book into the world with confidence and joy.

I had two books come out in 2024. My YA novel, Star Brother took me years and years to write! But it garnered excellent reviews. My newest picture book, A Tale of Bread and Thread was also published and a funny fact about this book is that I wrote it nearly 50 years ago! It wasn’t very good in its first version but believe me, I’ve revised it over and over again and at last, it became the story I wanted to tell— how each one of us has a hidden talent we need to discover!

I always have a queue of books in my head that I want to write so often I feel the pressure of wondering will I have the years left to write them all? My next book, Always Desire Beauty” will be for adults and focus on how all of us need and are nurtured by appreciating beauty each and every day. I will also be working on 2 new middle grade novels and one I would envision as a graphic novel so I’ll need to collaborate with an illustrator and I think that’ll be fun.

So, wearing these hats of different genres—what connects them? I think it’s my curiosity about the world and my love of understanding people. My travels have of coursed informed my travel writing but they’ve also informed and enriched my books for young people. Taking note of the world is what I love doing and my observation and thought on my travels has sparked my love of the world and its people. I hope that readers sense this love too.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The three qualites I think are most important for the journey of a writer in any genre are to:

1. Be curious: If you’re going to be a writer, you need to have boundless curiosity about people and place. This curiosity means always going deeper than the superficial view and asking lots of questions on your journey through life. Every subject is interesting, often really interesting… if you go deep. You can develop this curiosity by always aksing yourself, “What can I learn here? and “What more would I like to know?” Being curious makes the world come more alive for you— more wondrous.

2. Work hard. When I teach writing, I see that some people have taken my class because they think that writing a book for children is easy. No! It’s hard work. Writing requires learning the genre you want to write in and mastering your craft through trial and error. All writing is re-writing and re-writing and yet more re-writing. So rolling up your sleeves, being humble and working hard is the ticket.

3. Find a mentor. Whatever you aspire to do, identify someone who’s successful at it to be your mentor. This is important for whatever field you’re in. As humans, we learn best from others. So with Beginner’s Mind, make yourself an apprentice to someone with greater experience and listen well.

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

Both my parents were instrumental in providing the enrichment that led me to become a writer. From an early age I was taken by my mother to opera and ballet by my father to plays and into nature. Every weekend was a little adventure for me so that early on I came to appreciate the arts. Moreover, my father, who had grown up during the Depression, had no money for travel until he was 60 but he was an avid armchair traveler! He introduced me to the world through books, particularly those of Richard Halliburton who was so popular in the mid-twentieth century. From my dad, I learned the world was wonderfully fascinating and instilled in me a great desire to see the world. This desire led to me traveling around the world for 18 months inluding long months on what is now called “The Hippie Trail.” Whether it was hitchhiking around the Caribbean islands, living in a small fishing village in Turkey or attending a banned play in Afghanistan, I was up for any and all adventure— thanks to my father.

From my parents, I gained a sense of the size of the world and how great travel as well as art, whether painting, music, dance or theatre, could be a forever source of inspiration, comfort and joy.

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Image Credits

For my professional photo in orange dress, the photographer is Russ Fischella.

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