Welcome to the Next Big Thing Trail Blog
I’m
following on from Janeen Brian who posted on her blog
last
Wednesday- take a peek to see what great books are coming out this year from
Janeen.
What is the working title of
your next book?
Where did the idea come from
for the book?
A joint idea from my publisher and
myself.
Sarah Foster is very keen on poetry and
a book about animal poetry flows on from my other two collections with Walker
books- ‘Note on the door and other poems about family’, A Ute picnic and other Australian poems.
What genre does your book
fall under?
Children’s poetry, a very lonely genre,
but an exciting genre.
What actors would you choose
to play the parts of your characters in a movie rendition?
Obviously there would be a flamingo, a
whale, a hippo, a snake, etc…
What is the one sentence
synopsis of your book?
All
that is unique, characteristic and playful about animals, both domestic, wild
and Australian come together to celebrate poetry for children.
Will your book be
self-published or represented by an agency?
My book will be published by Walker
books Australia. I don’t have an agent.
How long did it take you to
write the first draft of the manuscript?
Over a year of writing new poems,
researching, finding the right tone for the animal and arriving at a title poem
to centre the collection around. Some
poems were even written in the UK- for example ‘Flamingos’ was written after
visiting a restaurant with roof top gardens in London. ‘Narwhal’ was written after visiting Blair
Castle in Scotland.
‘Working Sheep dog’ gained its
inspiration from Country Clare Ireland and of course my own Australian
landscape and farming background.
Many more poems were written than
actually made it into the collection.
Then came revisions, changes, editing.
Over 80 poems are in this collection, including two longer prose poems.
What other books would you
compare this story to within your genre?
That’s a hard question to answer as very
few poetry collections are published in Australia. I think it compares to my two previous
collections with Walker around a central them of Family and Australia.
Who or what inspired you to
write this book?
I love poetry, its brevity yet rich
vision. Sarah Foster and the landscape
and world around me inspired this collection - much to celebrate and enjoy. And the shape of a collection comes together
over time and is a challenge to incorporate variety, mystery, drama and
emotion.
What else might pique a
reader’s interest?
I think the variety in format and style,
even to some rhyming poetry. a reader
can dip and savour throughout the book.
For example:
The poems are categorized under the town
theme such as:
Wild Thing Lane, Precious Pet Parade,
Seascape Drive, Creepy Crawly Crescent – to name a few.
The poems themselves are often little
moments in time, in observation, presented in sensory detail and lend
themselves to a pattern for writing by the reader.
My aim is to allow the reader to look at
the world from a new perspective and marvel and enjoy.
Next
Wednesday 27th of February Claire
Saxby will be in the next instalment of this blog tour.
Click
over to : http://letshavewords.blogspot.com.au
