Nancy White Carlstrom is the author of the new children's picture book Counting Winter. Her many other books include the Jesse Bear series. She lives in the Seattle area.
Q: What inspired you to write Counting Winter?
A: Counting Winter grew out of my experiences living for 18 years with my family in Fairbanks, Alaska. It all began with one lone fox walking across the snow near our house, merging with a memory of one lone fox running across the fields of my brother’s farm in Pennsylvania, merging with one lone fox on a white expanse of card I sent to a dying friend. It grew and grew, becoming something more over time.
I tell students my writing is like cooking a pot of stew, as I toss in more ingredients and let it simmer on the back burner. This text simmered longer than any other and almost was forgotten in my file drawer of manuscripts.
Q: How did you choose the animals to include in the book?
A: The animals included in the book were all part of our life in the Far North. I had to pick and choose as there was much more wildlife than what is represented here. But some had other books and poems already (Moose in the Garden and Goodbye Geese).
Q: What do you think Claudia McGehee’s illustrations add to the book?
A: Claudia’s scratchboard and watercolor illustrations
are stunning and certainly elevate my words to another level. Getting the
finished book in the mail is still a thrill. I am pleased with the whole
direction Counting Winter took as the end result is much bigger than I
envisioned, and I must add, much better.
Q: The School Library Journal review of the book says, “A visual treat that cheerfully celebrates winter through lyrical facts found in the natural world, while incidentally also being a counting book.” What do you think of that description?
A: As far as the quote from SLJ – “A visual treat that cheerfully celebrates winter through lyrical facts found in the natural world, while incidentally also being a counting book.” I guess you can say this after viewing the finished book, but when working on the text, it was always within the frame of a counting book but never just a counting book.
Most of my poems have meanings beneath the text, and sometimes only I, the author, know what that is or sometimes I, the author, find out what I really meant after the book is finished and the illustrator has helped spell it out in art.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Most of what I’ve been working on lately has to do with my husband’s medical journey of the past 13 months and all the times he came close to death. I have been processing this and the role of caregiver I find myself in through journaling and writing Caring Bridge posts to our many friends scattered around the world. It’s been a good way to communicate as well as to remember the very interesting life we have lived together for 50 years.
Q: I’m thinking of you and your family…
Is there anything else we should know about your writing?
A: I hope readers can catch the awe and wonder I feel when I observe nature. As I write in the author’s note, “Open your wise and wonderful eyes to the natural world around you. Look and see the ways of the wild, their paths and tracks. Listen to the stories and songs of its creatures.”
If this inspires my readers to write their own poems or dream their own dreams then my writing has become a shared joy.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
No comments:
Post a Comment