Today children’s poet Sarah Ziman joins Ian Eagleton in The Reading Realm for a bookish chat!
Before we settle down in The Reading Realm for a chat, what’s your drink and snack of choice?
For a daytime meeting, decaf vanilla chai (my younger caffeinated self would be horrified!) and a big bowl of cherries, but if the sun is over the yardarm (I know nothing about boats or when exactly this might be) then a cold glass of white wine and some chilli rice crackers please.
Tell us about your book in three sentences and then three words!
My newest collection, ‘Bison Rule, OK!’, is a collection of poems for age 7 to 107, but I guess we’ll say it’s most suitable for key stage 2. It’s full of rhyme, riddles, wordplay and looking at things from a slightly wonky point of view, and there are poems about everything from Little Red Riding Hood’s real thoughts about ‘the wolf incident’, to which type of chipmunk is the most delicious (mint-choc-chipmunk ice cream wins in my house). There are even what you might consider ‘proper’ poems in there too.
Hmm, three words…I’m going to go for ‘creative’, ‘relatable’ and ‘humorous’ (I hope!)
If one of your characters could come to dinner, who would you invite and what would you cook them? What do you think you’d talk about?
Well, it’s got to be the bison, hasn’t it? We’d talk about why bison are far better than unicorns and llamas (not to mention those cute little axolotls that seem to be muscling their way into children’s affections since I wrote the poem). We’re both keen on veggie food, so I’d probably do courgette, carrot and peanut-butter burgers (they’re a lot nicer than they sound, honest!) and a big cake with ‘swirly bison icing’. We’d probably steer clear of mentioning that unfortunate incident in an American National Park recently!
What’s the funniest word you know that always makes you laugh?
If people find out you’re from Wales they usually ask if you can say the longest place name, and I can, but there’s a song that goes with it, so I usually start laughing because I’m trying to say it properly rather than sing it to the tune. (You can find the tune to help you say it on YouTube.) It’s a village on Ynys Môn (aka Anglesey) called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch and the train station sign is a bit of tourist attraction!
What’s the silliest or strangest thing you’ve ever researched for a story?
My Google searches for poetry writing are usually things like ‘How many syllables are there in medicine?’ or ‘Words that sound like the opposite of what they actually mean’ along with questions like ‘How do Americans pronounce ‘buoy’?’ or ‘What do Australians call sweets?’ It’s only when I’m trying to sell poems to other English-speaking countries that I realise quite how British all my writing is! (Aussies call sweets ‘lollies’ by the way, which is quite surprising. Now I need to google what they call lollies…)
Do your characters ever surprise you?
Well, my poems often do. Though I sometimes know a ‘punchline’ to the funny ones and can work towards it, usually I’m just writing with no idea where it’s going to end up. If I were a novelist, I’d definitely be a ‘pantser’ rather than a plotter, which is tragically on brand.
If your writing desk could speak, what would it say about you?
Annoyingly, given that I’m the writer in my household, I’m the only one without a desk! My sofa, which acts as my workspace, would probably say ‘Stop dropping crumbs on me!’, or quite possibly ‘For heaven’s sake, go to bed!’. I have a tendency to need to write once the house is quiet and no one’s around so I stay up quite late.
Did you like reading when you were a child? If so, what?
Yes, I LOVED it. I read all the time and would get loads out of the library each week. My parents laugh at me about the time I walked into a lamp post because I had my head in a book as I went down the street. I also remember being taken to ‘Charlotte’s Web’, (a children’s bookshop in Mumbles that sadly doesn’t exist anymore) to choose my own with birthday book tokens. They sold good stickers as well, and I always liked to put one in the front page of the books I owned, as well as my name.
As for what I read, everything I could get my hands on, including the back of the cereal box. I was a huge fan of Allan Ahlberg, especially the Happy Families books (I wrote my own version when I was about 5) and then Please Mrs Butler, loved all The Borrowers series, animal stories like the aforementioned Charlotte’s Web and then Watership Down, pony stories for my horse-girl era (these were mainly my mum’s books from her childhood in the 50s, so they were very jolly hockey-sticks), the James Herriot books for my ‘wanting to be vet’ era, ‘Choose-your-own-Adventure’ books (though I ALWAYS cheated)…Oh, and I listened to an AMAZING audio cassette version of The Hobbit over and over again until the last tape wore out. I can still quote huge chunks of it!
What’s your favourite book that isn’t yours?
That I didn’t write, or that I’ve acquired from someone else? I couldn’t possibly pick one book (or even 2 or 3) but I did used to obsessively read my parents’ big hardback Readers Digest book called Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain, scaring myself silly with stories of screaming skulls, headless horsemen, Black Shuck, other exciting/terrifying apparitions. I swiped it when I moved out, so I can always check on how haunted somewhere is before I visit!
What book do you wish you could read for the first time again?
The Secret History. Or maybe Gone Girl? I’ve read them both since and they still hold up but there’s nothing like the first time read. Children’s/YA book-wise, maybe The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton? But I’d have to be the same age again too and in the same era, or it wouldn’t have the same effect. Stay gold, Ponyboy. Sob!
What’s the funniest/oddest thing a child has said to you?
Are you a boy or a girl? (I confirmed the latter!) Also, ‘I don’t have your book, but you can sign this Roald Dahl one. He won’t mind because he’s dead’!
If you weren’t an author, what would you be?
Ooh, maybe a private detective? I was quite taken with the idea ever since reading Enid Blyton’s ‘Five Find-Outers’ series as a child. I probably just fancy wearing wigs and sneaking about though, as I’d have to get better at recognising people and following maps and directions, and my aphantasia means I’m not very good at either! Realistically, still something arty. I was OK at drawing but haven’t done it for a long time. A florist maybe? Or working in a bookshop would be bliss!
What BAD advice would you give to someone who wants to be a writer?
Don’t read. Why read when you could be writing? Definitely send off your very first draft to agents and competitions – there’s no time like the present! You don’t need to research the kind of things being published these days – publishers say they want new and original, don’t they? Why not see if Chat GPT or Claude can help you out? After all, using AI is the logical next step after quill > biro > typewriter > laptop. It could even make you some not-at-all-creepy illustrations to go with your book! Definitely don’t hang out with other children’s authors or support their projects – they’ll only copy your ideas or take up shelf space that should be yours.
SPEED ROUND:
Cake or biscuits? Cake
Dinosaurs or unicorns? Dinosaurs! (Though bison really, obviously)
Pirates or astronauts? Pirates
Museums or theme parks? Museums
Cats or dogs? CATS!!
Summer or winter? Autumn and spring!
Aliens or robots? Star Wars has both!
THANK YOU Sarah for joining us in The Reading Realm today!
