sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

What Karen Collum Likes About Children’s Poetry

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How exciting! Today I welcome another visitor to my blog, here to help me celebrate the release of Toppling by guest blogging about what she likes about children’s poetry.

Please welcome the lovely Karen Collum. Over to you, Karen.

The Thinking Reader’s Novel

I’ve always been a voracious reader, devouring children’s books of every kind at an alarming rate. Verse novels, however, are a new discovery for me. When I first heard the term ‘verse novel’, I had to ask another author exactly what it meant. I was familiar with rhyming picture books texts, but verse novels? That was something new. And now that I know, I have one thing to say: I’m in love.


The first verse novel I ever read was Jinx by Margaret Wild. Since then, I’ve read Sixth Grade Style Queen – Not! (Sherryl Clark), Do Wrong Ron (Steven Herrick) and Pearl Verses the World (by the lovely Sally Murphy). Each and every one of these books has been a delightful adventure into the world of verse and has inspired me to read in this style more widely and even attempt writing my own.

One of the most appealing aspects of verse novels for me is the brevity of the text. As a picture book author, I place high value on the ‘less is more’ concept. A standard novel has the luxury of taking the reader by the hand and guiding them through the story in many thousands of words. Verse novels however, are limited to a select group of well-chosen words, each of which much serve the dual purpose of enhancing the progress of the story and adding beauty and meaning to the text. The construction of a verse novel may well bear resemblance to that of a picture book, with each and every word fighting for its place in the text. Anything that is not absolutely essential to the text must be abandoned. There is no room for the unnecessary in a verse novel.

This leads me to something else I love about verse novels: readers are active participants in the construction of meaning. In my mind, verse novels are the ‘thinking reader’s novel’. The author gives enough information to make sense of the story, but leaves the reader to join the dots. As a reader, my brain is engaged from start to finish as I look for the subtle clues the authors place to assist me in completing my dot-to-dot. From clever use of headings, to the intentional placement of illustrations, verse novels are beautifully crafted and encourage me to notice the little things and to piece them together in a meaningful way.

Congratulations on the release of Toppling, Sally. I can’t wait to read it and get lost in a verse novel once more.

Thanks, for dropping by Karen, and for your lovely words.
You can visit Karen online at her website.

What Dee White likes about Children’s Poetry

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As part of my celebrations for the release of my verse novel, Toppling, I have invited some of my friends – writers, poets, bloggers, teachers and more – to drop by during March. I will be asking each visitor the same question – what do you like about children’s poetry? – but am expecting some real variety in their answers.

So, without further ado, I’d like to welcome my first visitor for the month. Dee White is a wonderfully talented YA and children’s author. Thank you for dropping by Dee. Over to you:

THERE’S SOMETHING SPECIAL ABOUT VERSE NOVELS

Congratulations, Sally on your beautiful new novel, Toppling. It is such a moving book. I was reading it in the car park at school pick up and totally embarrassed myself by crying – luckily my car windows are tinted.

Thanks so much for inviting me here today – and what a wonderful topic to discuss – verse novels – a particular favourite of mine.

My first introduction to verse novels was through the work of bestselling YA author, Ellen Hopkins. Her novels, Burned, Impact and Crank, just to name a few, hook you right into the story from the first page.

I was lucky to meet Ellen and hear about her books at a Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference. Inspired by her work I moved on to devour the wonderful writing of Australian authors, Sherryl Clark, Lorraine Marwood, Steven Herrick, Catherine Jinks and Margaret Wild.

There’s something about the rawness of verse novels that gets right to the heart of the emotions – it draws the reader straight into the main character’s world.

Verse writers have an amazing talent to tell us so much in so few words. They take the reader on an intimate journey, make you feel that you are there by special invitation – that it’s just you and the main character taking this path.

The power of verse is that it doesn’t have time or space for adverbs and adjectives. The reader has to visualise using his/her own imagination. They come to understand the main character’s world through the way that the main character acts and reacts to what’s happening around them/to them.

My current YA novel, Street Racer uses verse to establish a distinct voice between two characters. I have discovered that verse has more versatility than you think – and it gives your story pace, moving the reader along – not allowing them to become bogged down by excess detail.

A good verse novel is like an exquisitely decorated Christmas tree – balanced and striking with no excess baubles – beautifully simple.

Sally, your new novel, Toppling, is a perfect example of this. Right from the first page John’s character hooked me into his story.

The domino theme is so powerful in symbolising the precarious state of John’s world. The language is so simple yet tells us so much.

Works like Toppling are the very reason I love verse novels and poetry. Congratulations, Sally on your beautiful new book and thanks for inviting me to your place to talk about verse.

Dee White has a review of Toppling at her blog http://deescribewriting.wordpress.com/

Thanks so much for your kind words, Dee, and for sharing with us today.

The Verse Novel Form: Guest Blogger Lorraine Marwood Tells How and Why

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I am delighted to welcome children’s author and poet Lorraine Marwood to my blog today. Lorraine’s second verse novel for children, Star Jumps has just been released (you can see my review of it here), so I asked Lorraine to drop in and talk about why she chooses to use the verse novel form This is what she had to say:
Why use this genre as a way of story telling?

Years ago when I finally gave into my life long desire to write, I could only snatch a few morning moments before the cowshed work, before getting the six kids ready for school, or after the evening meal; to write down lines. I trained myself to write quickly- poems- maybe three a day about details that happened, words spoken, emotion expressed through the rural landscape. Poems were attainable, satisfying and I began sending them out into the literary world of journals.

Many were published. But I still wanted to write for children. I began to write poems specifically for children and many of these poems found their way into the journals of School Magazine New South Wales.

After gathering a collection of poems together, Five Islands Press published one volume ( Redback Mansion) and then later a second ( that downhill yelling).

Now, I wanted to evolve a longer piece of writing. I wrote a short prose verse poem about a picnic in a paddock. I loved the intensity of feeling and atmosphere and setting that prose poetry could give. I wanted to write a novel. But how to take the plunge?

Of course I’d read Sharon Creech’s novels and Karen Hesse’s novels and always enjoyed Steven Herrick’s work. How could I find my own voice in the verse novel?

I researched my topic: I researched human accounts of gold finding and the turmoil and untold stories that were humped across the gold fields. Then I found a voice, an entry, an immediate creation of suspense and atmosphere that I wanted. The striking of atmosphere in the first few words of Ratwhiskers and Me’ was the steering of the story trail.

‘Boy, they call me boy.’

Yes! I was on my way to the exploration of theme and plot and voice. I could use what is kinda instinctive in my writing: my poetics.

The verse novel became an atmospheric device in itself. It is very conducive to the playing out of sensory detail, and the propelling of the bare bones of the story. And while it is shorter in words than an ordinary novel, it strips back the verbiage and puts the reader right there emotionally.

Recently two students from Latrobe Uni were researching the editing process and came to ask me a few questions. They highlighted the way I make a narrative of the verse novel rather than individual poems, and for me that was a point to ponder. I make this distinction because I do naturally write so much poetry. I wanted to experiment with form. And my version of the verse novel is one long poem.

Because my writing is always evolving, the subject matter of the verse novel itself dictates the way a book is written.

Star Jumps, my recently released novel allowed a more poetic vista of details like the ghostling breath of the cows on a cold frosty night. I wanted to convey to non- farming children, as much as possible; a real life snapshot of a farm at its most busy period- the calving season. I wanted to show the drought in action and the decisions that are constantly being made in many rural communities.

My words made flesh and blood of Ruby as she took us through her farm life and showed us hope played out. Only the genre of the verse novel allowed me to recreate the emotion of farming without the didactic and sentimental picture so often stereotyped as farming.

Thanks so much for sharing, Lorraine. You can visit Lorraine Marwood online at http://www.lorrainemarwood.com/.

First Review

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The first review for my verse novel, Pearl Verses the World is online, here. Among other things the reviewer describes the story as “a wonderfully told story with heart”.

I’m ecstatic.

Pearl will be released on May 1 – watch this space for a month of celebrations including a blog tour, guest bloggers, a verse-off and more. In the meantime, Pearl can be ordered online at Fishpond

March Update

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It’s the last day of March, and so time for another of my monthly updates.

Lots has happened in my writing life in March, with things moving along on three of my forthcoming books. I feel more and more like a ‘real’ author every day.

At the start of the month I was featured in Susan Stephenson’s column at Muselings, an ezine for writers. Susan is an Australian based reviewer of books and passionate advocate for reading to and with children. I really appreciate her taking the time to interview me.

My picture book with Koala Books, which was previously known as Constantine and Aristotle, has now been retitled The Head Hog, after discussions with the publisher. I am quite delighted by this new title as it was, in fact, the earliest title I gave the manuscript before settling on Constantine and Aristotle. It now seems my earlier instinct was a good one. As well as being retitled, I spent some time this month on the editing. A good tidy up of the manuscript was needed, ready for the final illustrations. It’s amazing how a manuscript which you feel you’ve already got perfect, can be made so much more perfect after an editor or two cast their eyes over it and point things out to you. I’m really happy with the edited text and can’t wait to see the illustrations, which are being produced by Ben Wood.

My other forthcoming picture book, Snowy’s Christmas, is also progressing. This month the illustrator, David Murphy, finished the final colour illustrations, which I have now seen (and love). I also got my first look at the cover which has a nice teally kind of background and, of course, the delightful Snowy. I also worked on, and finalised the blurb for this one,which will be released by Random House in November.

And, of course, Pearl Verses the World. the release date for my verse novel-baby is only a month away and I am getting really excited about this one. The rest of my author copies arrived mid month. Although I’d already had one copy for a while, it felt exciting all over again to open the parcel and see my name on that beautiful cover. Walker Books have truly done an outstanding job of putting it all together.
With the release date getting closer, I have spent a lot of time planning promotional activities. I am planning a blog tour for the first ten days of the book’s life, and will be visiting the blogs of ten fellow Aussie bloggers who have kindly agreed to host me. Although I’ve done a blog tour before, and hosted plenty, I’ve never been on one that lasted ten days, so that’s both exciting and a little daunting. I have also decided to invite other authors and poets to visit this blog during my month long celebration, and share some advice and exercises about writing poetry for children. I have had some great names sign up for this, so am really looking forward to having them here. I’ve also got some interviews lined up, and have contributed to teaching notes for Pearl, so there’s lots happening.

Aside from my three forthcoming books, I have been chipping away at a new project for upper primary aged readers, and also started researching for a nonfiction project for adults. For the latter, I am keen to talk to as many country-dwelling Aussies as possible. So, if you are an Australian living in the country, or who has previously lived int he country, and are willing to talk tome about via email about your experiences, drop me a line at my special email address for this project – ruralaussies AT gmail.com (remove the spaces and use the ‘at’ symbol).

I’ve also been writing and editing children’s poetry. inspired by the poetry workshops I attended at Apropos last month, I have started revisiting some of my older poems and tidying them up, and have also written several new poems. I am trying to shape them into a collection – culling some, fine tuning others and seeing where the gaps are. Very challenging but I’m having lots of fun. I love playing with poetry.

What else? Partly to promote Pearl (but also for the love of it), I started a new blog which focuses just on the verse novel, called Versing. It’s still in its infancy, but I’m hoping to create a useful resource both for lovers of the form, and for those who perhaps don’t know much about verse novels. My most recent posts is a list of verse novels for children and young adults.
I also started blogging on an occasional basis for a website called Ourpatch, discussing living and writing in rural Australia. You can see my blog posts here.

Aussiereviews continues to keep me busy, with sixteen new reviews added in March. As always, there’s a real range,from children’s picture books to adult nonfiction. A favourite this month was A Beginner’s Guide to Living. I was fascinated by how the author managed to make her prose just so poetic – and then discovered, when I read her bio, that she is in fact a poet. The influence of her poetic craft on her prose is really apparent.
So, that was my March. The year is marching on, and for once I’m glad of it – as each day brings the release of Pearl one day closer.
See you next month.

sallymurphy.com.au