As I did a few months ago—and in keeping with the theme of my new picture book, We Match!—I recently set out to see how quickly a chat with another author of books for young readers could turn up three things that we have in common. Only this month, I’ve had those conversations with two authors: Antwan Eady (see my separate post) and Martha Brockenbrough.

Like before, I’m pairing this round of How Do WE Match? with a book giveaway to subscribers to my monthly Bartography Express newsletter (folks can sign up here). For my September 2025 drawing, I’m giving away four copies of both Martha’s new nonfiction picture book A Gift of Dust: How Saharan Plumes Feed the Planet (Knopf Books for Young Readers), illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal, and Antwan’s newest book.

If you’d like to be one of the winners, by the end of this month either say so in the comments below or contact me directly, and you’ll be in the running. (Subscribers with U.S. mailing addresses only.)

Now, Martha and I have known each other for a while, so in our conversation via text message (which has been lightly edited for clarity) we weren’t getting acquainted with each other from scratch. For instance, I knew that Martha had taught alongside my wife (and My Favorite Author in the Whole Wide World), Jennifer Ziegler, in a creative writing MFA program.

And since I’d learned from Jenny that Martha has just cofounded a new MFA program at the University of San Francisco (Publishers Weekly recently reported on it), the story of Martha’s own education seemed like a good place for us to start playing How Do WE Match?

Chris Barton: Thanks for being game, Martha—I’m looking forward to learning what we have in common that we didn’t already know about.

My first question for you: When you finished high school, what did you think you were going to become? What were you most interested in learning about?

Martha Brockenbrough: Hi, Chris! 

I didn’t know what I thought I would become—but I knew I wanted to be a writer and teacher. I had a plan to go to college and major in Classics so that I could read the Odyssey in Greek. Not terribly practical, I know. But I wanted to do something I loved.

I do know this gave me horrible underlying anxiety… I knew it wasn’t practical and that a person had to have “something to fall back on.” So, while I did major in Classics and learn Greek and all that, I also had something to fall back on, and that was newspaper writing. I knew there were actual jobs in that, so I also worked for the college paper and became editor. I spent much more time preparing to fall back than I did preparing to leap forward.

Chris: Well, there’s one thing already: the college newspaper! The University of Texas at Austin was the only school I applied to, and that was entirely because I wanted to work for The Daily Texan. I wrote news, editorials, features, and entertainment coverage and served as managing editor but opted to go off on a magazine internship the semester when I would have run in the election for editor in chief.

Martha: Oh, fancy. I got rejected for every internship I applied to, even after I was the editor in chief. True story—there’s one internship I really should have gotten, so I persuaded my best friend to drive with me four hours to the town of Paradise, California. I met the editor at the desk and told him he should have hired me. He changed his mind and did. When my friend and I checked into our motel, the phone was ringing. It was my mother—who knew nothing about my little adventure or begging for an internship. But people at the university had been trying to reach me, so they tried her, and she asked my brother and learned where I was. She called every motel in town. I’d been invited to have lunch with Mikhail Gorbachev. The timing was incredibly lucky. We got in the car and drove back, and I attended that luncheon.

As I reflect on it, this experience was the universe preparing me for the rejections and intermittent glories of publishing.

Chris: That’s for sure. And what a story! I’m so glad you got the internship and the luncheon. The trick for me in landing an internship was sending out more than 30 letters, back in the pre-Internet days when I had to look up all those snail mail addresses in a physical directory.

Martha: I remember doing that. And I sent 28. Clearly, I needed to cross the 30 mark.

Chris: More than two dozen, though, and back when that took some real legwork — our determination to get an internship counts as the second way that we match!

Martha: Determination is usually a helpful quality.

My dogs are determined to stay by me as I work. In case I get up for snacks.

Chris: Are you saying that you have canine companionship as we’re chatting?

Martha: I am. I just took that for you.

Chris:

Martha: Hi, Ernie!

Chris: Ernie says hello right back, and is presumably curious about your dogs’ names.

Martha: Millie and Bonnie. The blonde legs are Millie’s. Bonnie is a ginger.

Chris: Well, please let Millie and Bonnie know that thanks to them and Ernie, you and I have found our third thing in common. And thank you for chatting with me, Martha!

Martha: Thank you, Chris! We also have Jenny in common—she is the GOAT.

***

Remember, those of you with U.S. mailing addresses: If you’d like to win a copy of Martha’s new nonfiction picture book, A Gift of Dust, just say so before October 1, 2025, in the comments below or by contacting me directly, and you’ll be a contender. And if you’re not yet a Bartography Express subscriber, I’ll add you to my mailing list so that you’ll be eligible to win!