A Conversation with A. F. Harrold
February 19th, 2015 by jules
“I think poetry and writing for children have something in common, which I think of as ‘get on with it.’
Children’s stories that are full of waffle and verbiage are boring. We want the story to kick off as quickly as we can and to tell us only what we need and to roll downhill like a snowball until the end.
And poetry is similar: It’s all about cutting and cutting until all you have left are the handful of words that do the job.”
Over at Kirkus today, I talk to British author and poet A. F. Harrold, pictured here, about his children’s novel, The Imaginary, illustrated by Emily Gravett and originally released in the UK last year. It will come to American bookshelves in early March.
That link is here.
Next week, I’ll have some art from the book, as well as some of Emily’s early sketches.
Until tomorrow …
Photo of A. F. taken by Naomi Woddis and used by his permission.
I’d never heard of A. F. Harrold, nor Emily Gravett, but your Kirkus article got me interested 🙂 Thank you!