One to Read:

Cindy Callaghan

by Melissa Fales

Award-winning author and producer Cindy Callaghan has written 11 middle grade novels, including her debut work, Just Add Magic and its sequel, Just Add Magic 2: Potion Problems, which were developed into a popular television series. Her latest offering, My Big, Heart-Shaped Fail, is due out in September. Callaghan enjoyed creative writing in high school and snuck pockets of time to write here and there over the years since, but her busy family and demanding job were always her priority. “When my third child was born 19 years ago, I needed a creative outlet and I took a writing class,” says Callaghan. “And it was like a whole piece of me that had taken a long nap while I took care of the rest of my life woke up and wanted to come out and play.” 

As a child, Callaghan struggled with reading in school. “At an early age I wasn’t good at it, and I was put into the Turtle reading group,” she says. “Not joking; that’s what it was called. I might’ve been a slow reader, but I wasn’t dumb. I knew what the label meant, and I resented it. That gave me a certain attitude about reading and probably school in general.” For someone who didn’t like to read, Callaghan spent a lot of time at the library. “I often had a big book from the library in my backpack,” she says. “I didn’t read it, but I loved the idea of loving to read it.” 

Reading was a challenge for young Callaghan, but she was an avid writer in school. “I don’t remember any specific moment of encouragement,” she recalls. “I’d always hoped for, ‘You’ll be a writer someday,’ but I never got it. I persisted because when you’re a writer, you can’t not write, but also maybe to prove myself.” Callaghan credits one high school teacher, Miss Peters, with teaching her a key tenet of being a writer. “She tasked us to write, and as memory serves me, that’s how we were graded; on whether or not we wrote,” she says. “Not on the quality
or the quantity. She just wanted our No. 2 pencils moving.
And any writer will appreciate that lesson as one of the most important. It’s Writer’s Lesson Number One: Butt in chair, No. 2 pencil moving.” 

Callaghan initially considered pursuing a career as a screenwriter and moved to California to study there, but plans changed. “I returned east and graduated from the University of Delaware with an English degree, concentration in film, and French minor,” she says. “And I had no idea what I was going to do with it.” Eventually, she earned an MBA and taught undergraduate economics classes before taking a job at a pharmaceutical company.

According to Callaghan, everything changed one day in 2005. “My oldest daughter and her two friends were attempting to bake in my kitchen,” she says. “They had so much fun, I thought it would be great if these girls had some kind of cooking club. And that thought, Maybe these girls would enjoy a cooking club was like a match scratched against a rough surface … it sparked. Like most writers, I suspect, once there’s a spark, the mind goes and goes and goes, and where it ends, nobody knows. Cooking Club? No, I can do better than that. A Secret Cooking Club! Yeah, that’s it. Anything secret is better.”

Callaghan says she had the first draft of Kelly Quinn’s Secret Cooking Club written within a few weeks and spent the next year rewriting it before shopping it around to various agents. “One responded,” says Callaghan. “The first thing she asked me to do with my masterpiece? Rewrite it! I rewrote it to her specifications, and she signed me as a client and sold the book to Simon & Schuster.” Retitled as Just Add Magic, the 2010 book was a huge hit. But Callaghan thought it had even more potential. “I always envisioned it as more than a book,” she says. “I could see the TV scenes in my head.” Today, the Emmy-nominated, Amazon Original series Just Add Magic is in its fifth season.

This ability to create content suitable for multimedia platforms sets Callaghan apart from other authors. “I believe I approach my writing career differently than most as I view it through a multi-platform lens,” she says. “That is, I simultaneously develop a project for the big or small screen, audio, and novel at the same time. The executions are different, but the heart of the stories remain and reach young readers through multiple media.” Her 2020 novel, Saltwater Secrets, has been purchased by a major studio and she’s currently working on some other screen projects.

Callaghan not only has a unique approach to writing, but she’s also developed her own style of writing. “Pickiness, my 50-Page Rule (if she’s not totally into a book by the first 50 pages, she stops reading it) and subjectivity have all influenced my style, which has evolved over the course of my career,” she says. “That style is fun, funny, and fast. It’s ‘snackable.’ ‘Snackability’ is to middle grade books what ‘binge-ability’ is to streaming shows. It’s a style that fits the lifestyle and consumption patterns of today’s tweens. Scenes are quick. Sentences, paragraphs, and chapters are short and easy to read. Each chapter ends with a hook to the next.” 

According to Callaghan, My Big Heart-Shaped Fail epitomizes this style. “It’s a fun, funny, fast-paced tween comedy of errors that chronicles one cringe-worthy day in Abby Gray’s life,” she says. “With this book I created a likable and relatable character who does some unlikable things (she lies to her friends and keeps secrets from them) for a good reason (she fears she’s losing them).” Callaghan says she sometimes feels guilty for putting Abby in such a stressful situation. “I made everything go wrong,” she says. “Everything. The dread comes at Abby rapid-fire over the course of one day. The story is time-stamped, in the style of the TV show 24—the tension increases, and the stakes rise every hour. The clock is ticking for Abby to straighten out everything she’s messed up.”

Callaghan’s also behind the popular Lost In… book series. Her first was Lost in London, published in 2013. “It’s a great premise,” says Callaghan. “Local girl takes a school trip to London and initially it’s a bust. Then she and her new friends get involved in action-packed adventure and things turn around … I liked the recipe: American girl, foreign city, mystery/adventure, colorful cast.” Other books, Lost in Ireland, Lost in Paris, and Lost in Rome followed. 

Callaghan is currently working on a new tween novel, “top secret,” she teases, as well as a picture book and her screen projects. She’s also preparing for the school visits, bookstore signings, and other publicity events around My Big Heart-Shaped Fail’s release this fall. “The book is supported by a colorful cast of characters, both kids and adults,” she says. “I trimmed all the unnecessary fat, so every detail is significant to the conclusion. The best compliment I’ve gotten so far from an early reader was that she read it in one sitting. I thought, “Yes! That’s what I want to do.”

For more information about Cindy Callaghan and her books, visit cindycallaghan.com.