I'm excited to announce that I have a new book coming out on October 6, 2020. It's a poetry anthology to be published by DK books. A World Full of Poems. I am so honored to be part of this project-- seeking out poems, gathering permissions, and creating related activities for young readers. Although I didn't have final say on all the poems, I still think we gathered a wonderful, diverse family of more than 100 poets from the US and the UK on a variety of relevant topics and themes. More info to come!
Sunday, September 06, 2020
Thursday, September 03, 2020
Guest Post: Carol Coven Grannick's REENI’S TURN
This week, I'm welcoming Carol Coven Grannick who is celebrating the release of her new novel in verse, Reeni's Turn. Here she shares her rationale for telling this story through verse and even shares her process and a sample poem. ENJOY!
Carol Coven Grannick’s debut novel in verse, REENI’S TURN, is available through Indiebound and other links at her website, https://carolcovengrannick.com. Reservations here for the online launch on 9/13 and on the home page! Carol’s short fiction and poetry have appeared and are forthcoming in Cricket, Ladybug, Babybug, Highlights, and Hello. She is a columnist for the SCBWI-IL Prairie Wind, Cynthia Leitich Smith’s award-winning Cynsations,and the GROG Blog, as well as a frequent guest blogger. Her poetry for adults has appeared in numerous online and print journals. Carol has received a Ragdale Foundation Writer’s Residency and an Illinois Arts Council Grant for past work on REENI’S TURN.
WHY DID YOU WRITE THIS IN VERSE?
by Carol Coven Grannick
Rhythms score my life, and always have. Music makes me dance or sing (my son would say that the smallest associations can get me singing a Broadway show tune). Reciting poetry moves my heart, spirit, facial expressions, and more. Long ago the percussive sound and rhythm of horses’ hooves trotting or cantering would propel me into a matching song. The swaying of a willow near water, slow opening dance of a lily, shapes of tree limbs, and resilient prairie grass are all poetry and music to me.
My lifelong love of poetry accompanied me from childhood, scribbling meaningful rhymes and reading Edna St. Vincent Millay and Robert Frost. I still have the old, marked up poetry anthology used for Poetry Reading competitions Illinois State Speech Contests.
In graduate school my thesis explored parallels of becoming a poet and becoming a social worker. Much of my writing, including my debut novel, REENI’S TURN, merges love of poetry and lyrical rhythms with my passion for the issue it addresses. Reeni’s story follows a tween dancer who struggles with lifelong fears and anxiety, body acceptance, and finding her own strong voice. The story’s context unfolds the diet culture’s negative impact on younger children.
It was only natural that I would write REENI’S TURN in verse.
But I didn’t. Not at first, anyway.
When the third draft sang and danced in my brain, I did the best I could to transfer it to the page. It was far from finished, and a well-published colleague told me the uncommon topic could make it difficult to publish. Occasionally, during years of revising, submitting, and putting away the manuscript for awhile, an editor or agent would ask me if I’d like to revise it in prose because “verse novels are a hard sell”. A turning point in my own journey occurred during a critique, when favorite author and mentor asked why I hadn’t written REENI’S TURN in verse.
The manuscript received some awards, went through multiple requested revisions that added content, but then hit some big bumps in the acquisitions road. My story came home to rest for again, but I couldn’t let it go. It was too important to me.
I revised REENI’S TURN repeatedly, carefully, until it became the story I wanted—an easy to read, emotionally intense, simply-plotted story of a complex experience.
After the fact, it is easy to explain why REENI’S TURN is better told, read, and received in verse. It is intensely emotional. Reeni’s fears and strengths, despair and joy, beg for lyrical language and form. With snapshots of time, space, and emotion, and white space for respite, the reader can follow Reeni’s initially-misdirected journey from shy, fearful girl to self-accepting, self-reflective, and strong, clear-voiced Reeni.
The structure of the novel in verse alternates intensity and safety for the reader, and for the character, whose all-consuming experience of body discomfort and dieting, longings and fears, self-disparagement and self-acceptance, occur within a safety net of loving parents, a wise best friend, and the still, small voice that guides her.
These are all good reasons why the book works in verse.
But, really, I wrote REENI’S TURN in verse because the language danced in my brain, the music begged for words to be attached. Reeni hears music and must dance, and her story kept calling for verse.
And much like Reeni’s response to the discovery of the “still, small voice”, I had to listen.
WHY DID YOU WRITE THIS IN VERSE?
by Carol Coven Grannick
Rhythms score my life, and always have. Music makes me dance or sing (my son would say that the smallest associations can get me singing a Broadway show tune). Reciting poetry moves my heart, spirit, facial expressions, and more. Long ago the percussive sound and rhythm of horses’ hooves trotting or cantering would propel me into a matching song. The swaying of a willow near water, slow opening dance of a lily, shapes of tree limbs, and resilient prairie grass are all poetry and music to me.
My lifelong love of poetry accompanied me from childhood, scribbling meaningful rhymes and reading Edna St. Vincent Millay and Robert Frost. I still have the old, marked up poetry anthology used for Poetry Reading competitions Illinois State Speech Contests.
In graduate school my thesis explored parallels of becoming a poet and becoming a social worker. Much of my writing, including my debut novel, REENI’S TURN, merges love of poetry and lyrical rhythms with my passion for the issue it addresses. Reeni’s story follows a tween dancer who struggles with lifelong fears and anxiety, body acceptance, and finding her own strong voice. The story’s context unfolds the diet culture’s negative impact on younger children.
It was only natural that I would write REENI’S TURN in verse.
But I didn’t. Not at first, anyway.
When the third draft sang and danced in my brain, I did the best I could to transfer it to the page. It was far from finished, and a well-published colleague told me the uncommon topic could make it difficult to publish. Occasionally, during years of revising, submitting, and putting away the manuscript for awhile, an editor or agent would ask me if I’d like to revise it in prose because “verse novels are a hard sell”. A turning point in my own journey occurred during a critique, when favorite author and mentor asked why I hadn’t written REENI’S TURN in verse.
The manuscript received some awards, went through multiple requested revisions that added content, but then hit some big bumps in the acquisitions road. My story came home to rest for again, but I couldn’t let it go. It was too important to me.
I revised REENI’S TURN repeatedly, carefully, until it became the story I wanted—an easy to read, emotionally intense, simply-plotted story of a complex experience.
After the fact, it is easy to explain why REENI’S TURN is better told, read, and received in verse. It is intensely emotional. Reeni’s fears and strengths, despair and joy, beg for lyrical language and form. With snapshots of time, space, and emotion, and white space for respite, the reader can follow Reeni’s initially-misdirected journey from shy, fearful girl to self-accepting, self-reflective, and strong, clear-voiced Reeni.
The structure of the novel in verse alternates intensity and safety for the reader, and for the character, whose all-consuming experience of body discomfort and dieting, longings and fears, self-disparagement and self-acceptance, occur within a safety net of loving parents, a wise best friend, and the still, small voice that guides her.
These are all good reasons why the book works in verse.
But, really, I wrote REENI’S TURN in verse because the language danced in my brain, the music begged for words to be attached. Reeni hears music and must dance, and her story kept calling for verse.
And much like Reeni’s response to the discovery of the “still, small voice”, I had to listen.
The Still, Small Voice
Last fall on Yom Kippur,
first time in adult services,
I held the heavy prayer book instead of stapled pages,
let my mind wander
the way it does when I’m dancing,
swaying from a long time standing,
swaying to familiar melodies of prayers.
Then these words:
The great shofar is sounded,
a still, small voice is heard.
My body stilled,
the words shivered into my heart
and through my body—brain, heart, arms and legs,
the way music does,
deep inside where it sings out,
Dance!
But instead of that,
these words whispered to me,
Listen!
©Carol Coven Grannick 2020
Now join the rest of the Poetry Friday crew over at Carol's place, BeyondLiteracyLink.
Thursday, August 20, 2020
SPI-KU by Leslie Bulion: Cover Reveal
Leslie Bulion is a writer with a definite fascination with science—and people. She has authored articles for print and internet magazines, and edited books for teachers. Her writing for young readers includes both novels for the middle grades like Fatuma’s New Cloth, Uncharted Waters, The Trouble with Rules, and The Universe of Fair. And she has several amazing science-themed collections of poetry including Hey There, Stinkbug, At the Sea Floor Café: Odd Ocean Critter Poems, Random Body Parts: Gross Anatomy Riddles in Verse, Leaf Litter Critters, Superlative Birds, and her newest collection—Amphibian Acrobats.
Leslie now has a new book of nature-themed poems coming out next spring and I'm excited to share a short interview with her and reveal the cover of that new book, Spi-ku: A Clutter of Short Verse on Eight Legs, illustrated by Robert Meganck, and to be published by Peachtree on March 1, 2021. And here's the fun new cover!
Here's the book blurb:
Meet spiders that spit silk, roll like wheels, scuba dive, hide under trap doors, strum tunes, and so much more. Watch as they find mates, find prey…or find mates that become prey!
Award-winning poet Leslie Bulion and illustrator Robert Meganck team up again for this clutter (a collective noun for spiders) of Haiku and other short poems and humorously accurate illustrations that celebrate the amazing attributes of Araneae.
The book is also packed with helpful sidebars, call-outs, and backmatter, including a glossary of science terms, notes about the poetic forms, a list of common and scientific names, a spider-hunting adventure how-to, resources for further study, and a relative-size chart. A feast for science and animal fans and a bonanza for teachers and students interested in cross-curricular studies!
Leslie was kind enough to answer a few questions about the book too:
Me: Spiders! Where did the interest in spiders come from? How did you decide on this topic for your next book? How did you decide which spiders to highlight? And what a fun and clever book title!
Leslie: A few years ago while having a SUPERLATIVE BIRD hands-on adventure at Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology, Dr. Linda Rayor invited me to visit her arachnology laboratory. Who’d say no to that?? There I met all kinds of fascinating arachnids including amblypygids (whip spiders who aren’t true spiders), tarantulas, and social Australian huntsman spiders that live in family groups—which I learned was not typical spider behavior. I left that lab with two gifts: Dr. Rayor’s infectious arachnid enthusiasm and my first cool spider science story. Once I began reading about the myriad ways our nearly fifty thousand different species perform activities of spider daily living—weaving webs, hunting, mating, caring for young…or not, etc.—I knew I’d want to highlight more than one example for each activity. So, lots of short poems, right? That’s when the title “Spi-ku” popped into my rhyme brain!
Me: How did you decide on which short poem form to use for describing which spider?
Leslie: At first I thought I’d write an entire book of haiku, but my subjects have their own ideas! Some have the stillness of a haiku. Some insist on rhyme. Some start singing. All develop and grow from words and ideas I’ve collected in my researchnotes. It wouldn’t be the first time I had to modify an organizing idea for a science poetry collection!
Me: The illustrations for this book are marvelous and full of detail and energy. Did you consult with the artist (Robert Meganck) to ensure scientific accuracy? Did you provide scientific drawings orsources? What images did you use as you were composing your poems?
Leslie: Robert is so amazing, isn’t he? Spi-ku is our fourth book together, and we work as true collaborators. We share information and ideas back and forth. We’re both always editing, tweaking, and in Robert’s case, always adding to the fun. And wow, we get into such weeds when making these books. For Spi-ku, the “weeds” were spider eyes: how to choose which of the six or eight eyes in each species’ arrangement would be the best candidates for signature Meganck googlies. Serious science!
Me: Which spider in this book is now your favorite and why? Or if you were one of these spiders, which one would you be and why?
Leslie: "Favorites" questions are always impossible for me, Sylvia. I do love the jumpers, though…so at least I’ve narrowed it down to six thousand species or so. If I were one of the spiders in Spi-ku? Let me say right off that while I do love smoothies, I’m not sure I’d ever want to make mine by stabbing, envenomating, and liquidating my living animal foodstuffs! If I can substitute photographic prey capture, I am a SCUBA diver, so the diving bell spider life just might be the spidey life for me!
And just for fun: Here's Leslie spider hunting!
Thank you, Leslie and Peachtree, for this "sneak peek" into this new book. I'm looking at spiders with even more fascination and respect, thanks to you!
Now, head on over to Pleasures on the Page where Ramona is hosting our Poetry Friday gathering!
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