Her thinking cap comes with ears

Susan Amerikaner Mickey Mouse has been very good to her, says Camarillo writer Susan Amerikaner.

“He changed my life,” said the award-winning children’s author.

Amerikaner has written nearly 200 books for Disney since 1979. She has penned scripts for “Madeline,” “Disney’s Bite Size,” “Adventures in Wonderland” and “Kid Genius,” among others. Her printed work has included “Gifted and Talented,” “My Silly Books,” “It’s O.K. to Say No to Drugs!” and health-related children’s books for doctors’ offices through a contract Disney has with a medical group.

Amerikaner now writes for Disney Publishing Worldwide on “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse,” “Handy Manny” and “Little Einsteins.” Her work corresponds with “Playhouse Disney” television programming geared toward young children.

Her Disney Channel creations garnered her an Emmy nomination and a Writers Guild of America award for best children’s script.

Amerikaner is completing several Disney books for babies, to be published next year, that she describes as “really adorable.”

She’s also working on several children’s books of her own for ages preschool through 6 and writes an online blog at thecatalogdiva.blogspot.com, which she describes as being in her voice, not Mickey’s or Goofy’s.

“I look at it as exercising my writing muscles,” said Amerikaner, a Camarillo resident since 2003. “Looking at that blank page is terrifying. Unless I have an assignment it’s really hard for me. It doesn’t get less rewarding, but it doesn’t get easier (either).”

Amerikaner’s Disney assignments always contain a request for a certain character or topic, or there is a novelty, such as a liftthe-flap or touch-and-feel theme. Amerikaner typically writes a book in three weeks.

“It has to have a good story, a beginning, middle and an end. You can’t have too many characters on the page. The smaller the book, the smaller the pages, which makes it difficult to get a story in that size,” Amerikaner said.

“When I first started writing for Mickey Mouse Clubhouse I watched the show for hours. I have to have the characters’ voices in my head,” Amerikaner said.

It takes at least one year for the books she writes to be published. She’s written about 50 books in the past two years.

“It’s the work I was born to do. It uses all of my skills,” Amerikaner said.

Born in New York, Amerikaner grew up in Baltimore, Md. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Maryland, a master’s in teaching from George Washington University, then taught elementary school for seven years.

“Still being single and finding that wasn’t the greatest place to meet a guy, I decided to try something new,” Amerikaner said. “My first love was really writing.”

She took a pay cut to become a copywriter for a Baltimore advertising agency. After two years she was ready for a change. Her experience in education and advertising led her to educational media. She researched related companies and discovered one at Disney.

As a child, Amerikaner had loved everything Disney and decided that’s where she wanted to work. She wrote the company a letter and still has their response.

“The letter said, ‘We don’t have anything right now, but if you happen to be in the area stop by,’” Amerikaner said. “I picked a date on the calendar, called and said, ‘I’m going to be there.’”

Amerikaner flew to California for a week and had two interviews at Disney Studios.

“They said, ‘We really like you, we like your experience, but everyone has to meet Jim, the head of the Walt Disney Media Company. We can’t hire you unless you meet Jim,’” Amerikaner said. “I thought they were just blowing me off. I cried all the way home on the plane.”

Upon returning home, as she walked into her apartment her phone rang. It was Jim from Disney. He happened to be in Washington, D.C., and wanted to meet her. She remembers the call from Disney shortly after the meeting.

“They said, ‘We have one more question for you. How much furniture do you have?’ Amerikaner said. “I said, ‘It will fit under the seat of the airplane.’”

Amerikaner became editor of Disney’s line of Schoolhouse products for the classroom, including Ditto Books and bulletin board kits. She worked on various projects until she married and had twin boys. She stopped working full-time and freelanced for Disney.

Her first Disney freelance assignment was writing teacher guides on each pavilion at Epcot in Orlando when it first opened. Amerikaner used the $7,000 she earned to purchase her first computer and printer. Her husband, Erik Amerikaner, a computer teacher at Oak Park High School, became her tech support.

“Everything I do has a little bit of education,” Amerikaner said. “You can take me out of the classroom, but you can’t take the classroom out of me.”

Amerikaner says she enjoys the challenge of putting words to work.

“I love when you sit down and face that blank page and start to write, and it’s very difficult, and all of a sudden a sentence or two comes out, and you go, ‘Oh, that’s good.’ It comes out from nowhere,” Amerikaner said. “It’s surprising, and I like surprising myself sometimes.”

She often visits preschools to serve as a volunteer reader.

“In writing, you have to remember your audience, and that’s why it’s important for me to go to the preschool and be 6 years old and refresh and reinspire myself and remember how great kids are and what they really laugh at,” Amerikaner said.