I read fiction and poetry as a child, read and read and read, seldom did not have a book in my hand. I would hide with my book or my aunt’s art books and miss meals – what is food?
I read Rudyard Kipling, Lewis Carroll, Louisa May Alcott, Edgar Allan Poe, Grimm’s Fairytales, Hans Christian Andersen, the Bible, Blinky Bill, Kahil Gibran, Robert Louis Stevenson, Legends and Myths of every nation… Anne of Green Gables, A.A. Milne, May Gibbs, Norman Lindsay, John Bunyan, Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, Invitation to a Beheading, Lands and Peoples series, and many, many more. When nothing else was available, the dictionary, and not your pocket version, the one that had the origins of words, the phonics the applications.
Would you say your childhood reading has had a distinct influence on how you write fiction now, and why?
The writers I read knew their craft, they loved story and knew how to use words. I could see what was happening in the story in my head. Sometimes I would relive the story by mentally projecting it onto a wall nearby. I’ve been described as highly original and as strongly visual in my writing. I think, as a very young child, the illustrations in stories like Peter Pan and Wendy, Through the looking Glass, Alice in Wonderland and Hunting of the Snark contributed significantly to my enjoyment of the stories and I appreciated even then the way the illustrator worked to complement and fill out the author’s words.
The poetry I read like Lewis Carroll, for its sheer imagination and whimsy, innumerable great English ballads like Barbara Allen, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, the Inchcape Rock, and “Glencoe” by Douglas Alexander Stewart had a huge impact. Here was storytelling at its most dramatic and most spare. Some images never leave you.
What did you do before you became a published children's author, and how did you come to write your first children's book and get it published?
I have written as far back as I can remember. My first real foray in to writing was play writing. I would write, direct and act in the plays along with siblings and neighbourhood friends. We had a lot of fun making costumes and doing makeup. They were fairly Shakespearean, or Sherlock Holmes inspired. I also remember a teacher in grade 5 telling us to write a really gory story – lots of murder and mayhem. I had a lot of fun with that. [He never gave us any comment back though on what he thought of our efforts – for shame Mr. Roberts!] By late primary I was writing poetry and that has continued on.
My first children’s story was written at a time when I was almost 100% sleep deprived – my youngest children, twins, never slept together and only ever slept in short spurts. I found it better not to sleep – I felt worse if I slept and woke after only 10 minutes. To occupy my night hours, I started writing children’s stories. The very first story I wrote, “Bushed”, renamed “All in the Woods” has just been published in the UK and has been nominated for the OPSP Media Award.
The first book I had published, “Gelati Supreme” was snail-mailed away to the publisher and I received a letter of acceptance. The story was contracted under a different name to a large US education publisher, ETA Cuisenaire, in 2004. Since then I have published a variety of children’s and educational books. I have also written two YA novels, two collections of humorous verse illustrated by Mattias Adolfsson and a collection of stories for older children illustrated by Shahab Shamshirsaz, which are yet to be published,
How would you describe your style of children's fiction or your approach to writing children's fiction?
A story that needs to be told bubbles up and writes itself. This also applies to children’s poetry, especially narrative poetry. I was sitting in a bus when the phrase “Drooling dragons dribbled by” popped in to my mind. I wrote it down and my series of humorous dragon poems. As with my literary poetry, it is essentially a right brain approach. That said, my style varies – I have written emotive stories [“Mending Lucille”, picture book], humorous chapter books [“The Cool Shop” and “Gelati Supreme”/”Ice Cream Supreme”[USA]] and the family tale nominated for the OPSO Media Award, “All in the Woods”, which has just come out in the UK. Then there are all the mainly humorous narrative poems I contributed as one of 50 poets in my 6 volume education series, “Poetry Action for Classroom and Stage”. “Fox Shadows”, which comes out as a picture book with Windy Hollow Books in September 2012, is a narrative verse story in a legend style.
I believe authors need to explore different avenues in writing. Opportunities abound as never before with the advent of new digital publishing. I recommend the www.utales.com site to any children’s writers or illustrators wanting to collaborate in digital format! I have three collaborations up there now with new illustrators who are seeking to break in to children’s book illustration. The site launches in late October internationally.
Who is another author whose children's fiction you admire and why?
There are a lot of children’s authors I admire. May Gibbs was extraordinary the way she created a virtual mythology for the Australian bush and her illustrations were so stunning and acutely observed and imagined that they ‘live’ in memory – I can’t go into the bush without ‘seeing’ her wonderful creations – Banksia Men, the Possum, Little Ragged Blossom, Cuddle Pot and Snuggle Pie! The Pegmen stories were wonderful too in the way they depicted the Australian bush for children.
I love the early classic writers like Rudyard Kipling and Robert Louise Stevenson and the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen – they did not talk down to children. I love Lewis Carroll for his free flights of imagination in all he wrote! As an adult, I still read some children’s & teen novels like The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, works by Ian Beck and Philip Reeve [Mortal Engines quartet – why isn’t it a movie?].
How would you summarise one of your children's books in one paragraph?
“Mending Lucille”, which won the Crichton Award, is the journey of one small girl and her father, from loss and grief to healing, told in the first person by the child. Lucille, the little girl’s doll of the title, is torn. The doll’s mending parallel’s the child’s mending.
How would you describe the appeal of this book to readers?
I wrote this story partially as a parallel to my own growing up with a mother who suffered regular bouts of deep depression resulting from a childhood of terrible abuse and trauma. Emotionally and psychologically, I was the mother, the carer of my own mother. The loss of a mother I could lean on, who would be there for me, informed the story of Lucille’s little owner whose mother was ’torn’ from her. Writing was a coping mechanism for me in my early years, a survival tool. I feel it is harder to write about loss, grief, trauma if your life has been devoid of these things. Experiencing ‘life’ lends the ring of ‘truth’ to a work of writing. Reporters in a war zone tell a different story to those reporting from the safety of a studio a thousand miles away, even though the facts are the same.
In the story, it is deliberately unclear whether the mother has died, gone missing, been institutionalised or has just walked out of her daughter’s life. For the child, the result is the same – no mother. The story has resonated with children and adults alike. It is used as a tool in training counsellors working with families and children who have suffered grief and trauma of loss [http://www.radionz.co.nz/search/results?mode=results&q=Mending+Lucille] and is a recommended book by the Australian Centre for Grief Education.
How would you summarise a chapter or section from this book in one paragraph?
The passage –
“When I was lonely, I hugged Lucille very tight.
Once we stopped at a place where a girl said Lucille was a dirty old doll. Daddy said maybe it was time I threw her out and got a nice new doll. I wouldn’t let Lucille go. I cried.”
This passage encapsulates what the doll, Lucille, means to the little girl. It is the only remaining link she has with her mother and her mother’s caring for her. It represents an attempt by the child to hang on to ‘normality’, the security of home with Mum and Dad.
How would you describe the contribution this chapter or section makes to the book?
This passage emphasises the vulnerability of the child, her clinging to the symbol of her former ‘family’ life with both her parents. It is the transition passage linking the time of loss with the arrival of another caring mother figure into the child’s life. It also highlights the child’s increased vulnerability to the bullying of peer group members at this emotionally disjointed time [i.e., the girl who bullies her over the worn doll]. Her withdrawal to the company of her doll is, in a sense, a retreat to the safety of what for her is symbolic of her other’s arms. She hugs the doll to her the way her mother, who mended the doll, used to hug her.
How would you describe the integration of writing and illustrations in one of your illustrated children's books?
“Mending Lucille” is a layered text, which the inimitable Sarah Davis took full advantage of in creating the universe of the story. I had the privilege of finding my own illustrator with this book and the book won the CBCA Crichton Award. An illustrator sees the story’s universe in their head – climbs into it and explores. If the story tells of a kitchen, the illustrator will look out the window at the view, go into the next room, go upstairs to explore the attic and down to the cellar. They familiarise themselves with the world in which the story takes place and recreate it for readers. In the way that no two descriptions of an accident are the same, so the illustrator’s view of the story will not be identical to the author’s but it will complement it perfectly. The illustrator may even add an illustrative subtext to augment the main story. A successful collaboration in a picture book or other illustrated work is a marriage of true minds. Read the story of the book’s creation from author standpoint - http://jrpoulter.wordpress.com/making-a-picture-book and from the illustrator’s standpoint - http://www.sarahdavisillustration.com/mendinglucille_process.
If none of your children's books have been illustrated, how would you describe the integration of writing and illustrations in one of your favourite illustrated children's books by another author?
I think writers ,who are also artists, can have an advantage - Dr Seuss’s quirky verse stories and quintessentially quackersish illustrations are an excellent example. However, if a writer collaborates with an illustrator, it is an amazing journey and has the advantage of two lots of insight into the world of the story.
To what extent would you say fiction written primarily for child readers is different from fiction written primarily for teen readers?
I have written two YA novels, which are unpublished at this point. I think the difference between child and teen fiction has to do with getting in the mindset of a child or of a teenager and then standing back and observing the story world from the hero/heroine/protagonist’s viewpoint. If you can do tis successfully, it is half the battle won. Necessarily, subject matter will differ according to the maturity or immaturity of the target readership.
Writing for both age categories is challenging and rewarding and, above all, exciting!
Author website: http://www.jenniferrpoulter.weebly.com/
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