Introducing Joshua Seigal, children’s poet!
Joshua Seigal is an award-winning poet, performer and educator. He has worked in hundreds of schools, nurseries, libraries, theatres and festivals around the country, and his poems have been published in numerous anthologies. Joshua writes for adults as well as children, regularly standing up at comedy, spoken word and variety nights. Michael Rosen described Joshua’s poems in I Don’t Like Poetry as magic!
Name three things on your Christmas list this year! Hmm, interesting. I don’t really have Christmas lists. I was brought up Jewish so we didn’t really do Christmas. Nowadays I decide what to get people on the spur of the moment. Usually it’s edible (or drinkable).
Christmas is a time of family traditions – what are your best (or worst!) family traditions? The annual family argument is quite traditional, isn’t it? Another good one involves dressing my dog up as Santa. He is a Lhasa Apso and is very fluffy, so he has a beard just like Santa.
(I don’t think you can beat a dog Santa lookalike!)
What is your favourite story to read at Christmas? Talking Turkeys by Benjamin Zephaniah.
If you could have Christmas dinner with anyone (alive today or person from history) who would it be? Donald Trump. Just joking! It would have to be my family. But not Uncle Nigel. Uncle Nigel is not invited.
(Poor Uncle Nigel!!)
You write amazing poetry for children! If you were to write a festive Christmas poem for children what would it be about? Thank you very much! I wrote one recently about a kid who falls in love with the fairy on top of the Christmas tree. It might also be fun to write one about the ten worst things to find in a Christmas stocking.
I Don’t Like Poetry is described as helping even the most reluctant poem reader enjoy it more. Did you enjoy poetry as a child and how did you get into writing poems? I liked it a bit, I would say. I enjoyed writing rhyming poems as a child, and as a teenager I wrote some awful, self-indulgent, pseudo-intellectual stuff. But I was never very into reading poetry. I started to read more poems in order to become a better writer. I also found writing poetry, and engaging in intricate word play, was a good way of keeping the black dog of depression at bay.
Reader’s question from Adam aged 10, Great Walstead School: you write lots of funny and silly poems. Where do you get your ideas from and do you laugh while you’re writing them? Great question. I get ideas from lots of places, but the most important ingredients are within me: my five senses, and my imagination. I do sometimes laugh when I write them; when that happens I know it is going to be a good poem!
Turkey or goose? Neither. A nut roast for me.
Real or fake tree? Real.
Mince pies or Christmas pudding? I hate both! Bah, humbug!
Stockings – end of the bed or over the fireplace? On my legs.
Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve? Christmas Eve.
Thank you for taking the time to participate! Have a very Happy Christmas!
For more information about Joshua Seigal, visit www.joshuaseigal.co.uk and follow him on Twitter @joshuaseigal
ok I gravitate to again and again. Instead I like to pick a new holiday-themed book to read at Christmas. I met Rachel Cohn and David Levithan at this year’s Cheltenham Literary Festival so I have my signed copy of The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily all ready to read at the holidays!
Today we’re featuring the wonderful Patricia Forde, who lives in Galway, in the west of Ireland. She has published three Picture Books, lots of Easy Readers, and in May 2015 she published her first novel The Wordsmith with Little Island. Patricia has written plays and television dramas for children and teenagers as well as writing on both English and Irish language soap operas. She was a primary school teacher and the artistic director of Galway Arts Festival. She lives with her husband, two teenagers,and a dog called Ben. In her spare time, she collects vintage children’s books and reads them late at night.
mily. I always imagine that we will be like a scene from the Waltons – all peace and harmony. It always ends in civil war. Usually, because I am the only one who wants classy ornaments…and a little more dignity. Everyone else wants tinsel.
What is your favourite story to read at Christmas? ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas (which may or may not have been written by Clement Clarke Moore) is a tradition in our house. It calms people down after the Christmas Tree row. (See 3). The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S Lewis – because of the snow. I intend to add Katherine Rundell’s Wolfwilder this year because of the wolves and well… the snow.
Your novel The Wordsmith is set in a dystopian world. What would a dystopian Christmas look like to you? It would look very frugal. There would be beetroot, of course and apples. Also carrots. I’m thinking beetroot crumble with an apple and carrot salsa. Dystopian worlds suffer a lot from bad weather, so there would be snow, which might brighten the thing.
old edition of The Iliad on sale at my favourite shop, Henry Sotherans, but I’m very
thebookactivist 