Colby Sharp and I had a problem. As the leaves turned and the temperatures dropped, we began to experience symptoms of The Yarn withdrawal.

We had a good time working on the first season of our show, and didn’t want to wait until next summer to begin work on the second.

We decided to try something new.

Beginning today, and for the next two Mondays, we are debuting a new series called The Unraveller, where author or illustrator does a deep dive into the creation of one of their books. Colby and I love Song Exploder, and we thought a similar format could work for children’s lit.

The first episode of The Unraveller is up: Anne Ursu takes us behind the scenes of her book The Real Boy.

To celebrate, we’re giving away a signed copy of The Real Boy. Click here to enter.

Subscribe to The Yarn on iTunes or Stitcher to get every episode:

Or you can listen to Anne Ursu: The Real Boy Unravelled below via SoundCloud (Note the festive holiday edition of our logo):

Also: we started a newsletter! Colby and I will share what we’re reading and listening to, and bonus content from episodes of The Yarn. Click here to sign up for The Yarn newsletter.

And if you’re interested, you can listen to Season 1 of The Yarn: