New book coming out April

Welcome to the Next Big Thing Trail Blog

I’m following on from Janeen Brian who posted on her blog

http://janeenjottings.blogspot.com.au

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?

Guinea Pig town and other poems about animals

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   27^th of February Claire Saxby will be in the next instalment of this blog tour.

Click over to :   http://letshavewords.blogspot.com.au