Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life. I'm Rhett Miller.

That's when it got wheels off and shot it up and we ain't good stuff. Oh, I like you, like it

night. That's when they got wheels off. Dan Santat is an author and illustrator.

He's also a hilarious dude.

I've been lucky enough to be his friend since we collaborated on my book No More

Poems, which he did the illustrations for, fantastically.

The way in which we entered into our collaboration offers a lesson in itself.

I heard him on a podcast, specifically the first draft podcast hosted by the great Sarah

Eni.

Previous guest of Wheels Off Ben Acker had been on that podcast and told me it was

awesome and I should listen to it and I did.

And there was this guy, Dan Santat, who was a children's book author and illustrator.

I listened to him talk. I was fascinated by his

personality, his quirkiness, his drive, his love, clear love of what he does. So I went to my editor,

Megan Tinkley, at Little Brown, and I said, I heard this illustrator that I think would be

perfect, because at the time we were trying to figure out whom we would hire to illustrate no

more poems.

And she said, well, that would be great, but Dan Santat is pretty much the biggest illustrator

in the business.

I just, I don't know if we're going to be

able to land Dan Santat. And I said, well, we can ask, right? And it turned out that he is a big

music fan. He, I guess, is a fan of my books. He, of course, like a lot of people, is a big

...