Report from 10th January 2023 by Sarah Noon
Val is passionate about children’s poetry and the effect it has on children’s thinking and their acquisition of language. She has been published in several children’s poetry collections and magazines.
Her poetry journey began after lockdown, when she was asked by her grandchild to write a poem for a teacher who was leaving. However, she also credits her dad for giving her a love of reading and writing, through bedtime stories and visits to her local library. She wrote stories about “… gypsies and about girls with horses – a couple of teen romances…” and she tells us that these are written in school books “covered in wallpaper” along with her first poem.
Val goes on to describe how she “churned out two children’s novels” when “authors tore their hair out with rewrites and worked their way through gallons of Tippex.” One, she says, in 1982, was a story about a boy who wanted to save a wood from being destroyed to build a new road. She remembers how she got a response from a publisher telling her that “…that could never happen.” Her other novel consisted of “…a good helping of Tolkien” and so she was told that it had been done before. These rejections, she explains, were worth keeping because “…back then, they really took the time to explain why they were rejecting you.”
Val and her family moved to the UAE and then to Saudi Arabia, and she tells us that she didn’t have much time to write at this point. But she began writing again a few years later “…this time, in earnest.” During this period, Val wrote books and stories, self-publishing them through a company that she had set called Ginger Cat Books.” She tells us that she had an editor, a sales manager and an accountant. They were members of the Independent Publishers Guild and “… it was really good fun,” she says. Val points out that it was expensive but that she “…really enjoyed the ride.” During this time, she attended many book fairs and the books she published “…did moderately well.”
Val goes onto to read a poem she wrote about the success of her novel and how, like many others, it had a limited shelf life. It reminds us that books do not stay in bookstores (virtual or actual) forever.
Val explains that as time passed and grandchildren came along, they encouraged her to write for children. At this point, she says “Poems fired out of me.” She tells us that although some of them “…ended up in the bin…” many of them “…made the grade.” These poems have been published in anthologies, magazines and “…even a mention in the Yorkshire Times,” (she’s not quite sure why, she admits). Despite “resisting” Twitter for some time, Val joined the Twitter community and discovered many other children’s poets.
However, despite this, Val explains that it is a tough market to break. She tells us about visiting a bookshop in St. Ives, where she discovered there was no children’s poetry section as “…there was no call for that sort of thing.” Val also shares that this is not the only time she’s come up against this. She describes it as a “…waste of a wonderful and valuable resource.” On a more positive note, however, Val’s local bookshop, she says, is “… very keen on every form of children’s writing.”
Passionate about her subject, Val reiterates that poetry can “…form a vital part of learning – opens up the world of language to children.” Her visits to schools demonstrate this and she tells us how children love to join in “…particularly the more recent and modern poetry.” Modern children poets, she says, are her role models.
Although not a teacher, Val has worked with children and been around them enough to understand that they like poetry which relates to them and makes them laugh. She also recognises that children do not always want to read; that they would rather do other things like football, TV, Xbox etc. so “…I wrote poems about these things to try and engage them in their own pastimes.”
Speaking not just for herself, but for other children’s poets Val explains that “…we are just doing everything we can to engage schools, parents, everybody that we can, in children’s poetry. “
Val ends her talk by telling us about her book. Taking just over a year, she explains that her anthology, when she first sent it to her editor was “…nowhere near ready.” She therefore felt that she had to get herself “known” as a children’s poet and so she sent work off to magazines and competitions. The end book, she says, was very different to how it started. She also collaborated with a local illustrator. She shares that her plan for this year is to visit schools and bookshops describing it as “…an exciting time.”
Finally, she reads us her poem “A Classroom of Stars” – the poem that is also the title of her anthology.
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