Tag Archives: Poetry

Katie Munnik – Author Q&A

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Katie Munnik

Katie Munnik

Katie Munnik is a poet and novelist living in Wales. Her poems have been featured by Poetry Wales, the Cardiff Review and Bywords and longlisted for Nine Arches Primer and the CBC Poetry Prize. Her debut novel The Heart Beats in Secret was a USA Today Bestseller, and her most-recent novel, The Aerialists was Waterstones Welsh Book of the Month. Katie is represented by Evan Brown at Transatlantic Agency.

Katie can be found at:
Website: www.katiemunnik.com
Instagram: @KatieMunnik
Twitter: @messy_table
Facebook: facebook.com/katie.munnik/

What kind of reactions have you had to your book?

The Heart Beats in Secret

The Heart Beats in Secret

My readers tell me they enjoy how I describe place, and I’m thrilled about that as landscapes are vital to me in how I approach storytelling. I want to know where my characters are and how the land makes them feel. To hear that readers feel immersed in these places through my writing is wonderfully encouraging. That’s a moment when storytelling works.

I also have readers who respond to my work by offering their own fantastic stories. After reading The Heart Beats in Secret, one woman got in touch to tell me about her mother’s pet – a paralysed pigeon – who used to go on family camping trips. An amazing detail, isn’t it? Story-worthy, to be sure.

What’s the favourite reaction you’ve had to your book?

I was once offered a pair of bloomers at a reading. The real deal, Victoria bloomers with buttons and lace detailing. (I said yes.) Admittedly, the offer was in context and appropriate. I had just read a passage from The Aerialists in which my central character climbs across a rooftop in search of lost undergarments.

How hard was it to get your first (debut) book published?

I wrote my first book during a mentorship through the Humber School for Writers in Toronto. When I was finished and happy with it (or rather, ready to stop editing it for a while), I spent about a year sending it out to agents, getting silence, then getting feedback, trying rewrites and trying again. Then I spotted a post on Twitter about an open submission contest for unagented writers that the Borough Press was running. So, I entered and was delighted to win. The result was a book deal and representation from a topflight agent. It felt a bit like an arranged marriage after a long spell of dating, to be honest, but worked out well as the Borough Press went on to also publish my second novel.

What can you tell us about your next book?

I’ll simply say briefly that it is about early 20th C expat women artists living in Paris. And parrots.

How much (if any) say do you have in your book covers?

The Aerialists

The Aerialists

With my first novel, I officially had a vote, but in actual fact, it was in the hands of my publisher. Which was fine. As a writer, you think you know what your book should look like, but it’s important to remember you are a writer, not a book designer. There are professionals who know about these things.

I did have more influence with my second novel, which was lovely. I wanted to include some of the Victorian newspaper illustrations I found in the archive, and the designer incorporated them beautifully. We had a good back and forth about that cover. One version ended up being quite Monty Python steampunk, which I loved, but it really didn’t fit the literary novel I had written. What we settled on is absolutely perfect for the story. I’m thrilled with it.

Were you a big reader as a child?

I’m honestly not sure I had any other personality. Always had a book under my arm or my pillow. And it could be pretty much anything. Adventure stories, classics, fantasy, sci-fi, poetry, murder mysteries. I spent one summer inseparable from the complete libretti of Gilbert and Sullivan. (I am a middle child…)

Do you have a favourite bookshop?

As a child, it was a small shop called the Bookery in downtown Ottawa. An exclusively for-children shop. I’d timetravel there now, if I could.

For second-hand books, I’d need to say all of Hay-on-Wye. A charming book town on the Welsh border, rabbit-warrened with bookshops. It would be easy to spend a year lost there and utterly happy.

But I’m also a sucker for a huge North American big box bookstore. Last summer, I was particularly impressed with the well-organised poetry section at Chapters Indigo in Toronto’s the Eaton Centre. A hard place to leave emptyhanded. (I didn’t.)

Any books that you’re looking forward to in the next 12 months?

I’ve been saving Anne Michaels’ Held until I hit my next deadline. I can hear it waiting for me.

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NOT NaNoWriMo!

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NOT NaNoWriMo!

NOT NaNoWriMo!

For years I’ve always found the thought of NaNoWriMo quite intimidating and was put off by the sheer amount of words that have to be produced in a month, but then I’ve put off the idea of writing in general as I am so nervous of committing to writing anything over and above a blog post here and there, a couple of hundred words on something that is external to me.

I’ve quite happily put book reviews, film reviews, thoughts on art history, and lots of other subjects out into the world as these have been flow of consciousness types of writing, no planning and only a few paragraphs long, but I’ve never committed to putting down my own ideas in the form of stories, poetry, or other forms of writing which require more thought and polishing.

This is my last year before I’m 60 and I put a shout out on social media on what should I do in this year and so many people said ‘Write a Book!” so I’ve decided to participate in NaNoWriMo in 2024, but on own terms, I’m going to use the month to commit to the idea of writing as a practice.

I’ve accumulated loads of books and links over the years. I will be using these and the NaNoWriMo community to help me embed writing as a habit in November 2023 so that it is easier to continue this once the month is over.

So I’m going to try and write, or explore something to do with writing, every day.

This may be actual writing itself, or it could be watching a Youtube video, or other media and thinking about it, jotting down some notes and reflecting on what I’ve been told and learned.

Or it may be responding to a writing prompt from somewhere, reading about writing in one of the many books I have on the subject, jotting down ideas, writing a poem or a drabble, expanding a character profile, working on world building for an RPG setting, anything, but it will be to do with the craft of writing and whatever it produces will eventually go onto this blog in diary form.

In anticipation of starting this journey I treated myself to a Paper Republic XL Traveller’s Journal so will see lots of that in various photographs I put up on the blog.

I’m really looking forward to this journey as it feels I’ve been building up to it for years.

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The Sealey Challenge

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The Sealey Challenge

The Sealey Challenge

In August I usually take part in the Women in Translation Month, reading as many books as I can that are by women and translated from their language into English. I’ve always enjoyed this but this year felt I needed a change though I will still read some books like this for the month.

This year I’ve been discovering a love of poetry which I always felt I was denied as a working class boy growing up in the 70s, of course we were forced to read Burns (I’m Scottish) and some other classics but only in the context of tearing them to pieces for school rather than for pleasure.

Whilst expanding my poetry follows on Twitter I came across The Sealey Challenge, another month long challenge but this time the challenge is to read a poetry book a day throughout August.

I’d already collected a reasonable amount of poetry to read but I’m off to York or Durham this coming week to get myself several more to make sure I’ve more than enough to get me through the month.

Once I’ve read a book I’ll put a small review on here and tweet about it with the hashtag #thesealeychallenge to join in with the community side of the challenge, though I’m not going to go for the whole read a book a day part of the challenge but I will read poetry every day and engage with the poems and the community.

Really looking forward to this and have a couple of books about the craft and history of poetry to see me through the month as well.

I’ll add a list of the books to this post that I’ve dipped into as I dip in, with thoughts on the poem that I’ve read from that book. This may eventually be a really long post.

Day 01: Dog Woman by Helen Quah published by Out-Spoken Press. The beach was the perfect place to read a poetry book, all were strong poems but my personal favourite was [When I Marry A White Man] III,

I’m left with the image
of a dog in pain

Day 02: Milk Snake by Toby Buckley published by The Emma Press. Another strong collection of poems, full of emotion and gripping imagery. Visits brought back a lot of memories:

Her last words were a panicked whisper:
the foreign nurses were stealing her
sheep — canned tangerines — her slippers —
some of her socks — her possessions leaking
…

Day 03: Tidal Pools and Other Small Infinities by Kristen Costello published by Central Avenue Publishing on the 3rd October 2023. The poetic meanderings following the traces of a romance and love through the up and downs and ins and outs from independence to independence.

My voice
is so different from yours – I never should have let
you use my tongue to speak for all those years.

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A Poetry Handbook

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Mary Oliver. Mariner Books. (130p) ISBN: 9780156724005
A Poetry Handbook

A Poetry Handbook

This book was bought as part of the idea of me developing as a writer, and I’ve been buying books to do that for several years now and not reading them.

I’ve always felt daunted by the idea of being a writer, but always wanted to try.

This was doubly so with poetry as the only poetry deemed suitable for a working-class Scot of a certain age was Burns, and I just found it a bit twee and inaccessible.

I’d been told that this was a good book to read to start that journey back into poetry.

Let’s just state I thoroughly enjoyed this, it was written with such enthusiasm it fair pulled me through.

Each chapter talks about a different aspect of making a poem and explains some of the words and phrases I never really could get my head around, such as iambic and feet, in such a way that I felt confident in my understanding of them.

Whilst explaining these words and phrases there are exemplar poems that show the meaning so well with no ambiguity and this has made it so easy for me to remember what these are, though no doubt I’ll be revisiting this book as I go on.

This is a great book for those such as myself trying to find a way into the world of poetry and unsure of where to start.

I also feel that it would be a great book for those more experienced as it is a quick refresher full of enthusiasm and support if you ever feel the need for it.

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Outlandish

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Jo Clement. Bloodaxe Books. (80p) ISBN: 9781780376141
Outlandish

Outlandish

I saw this when it came into the shop and loved the photograph on the cover by Tim Walker, took a while before I bought a copy though as I had a little diet from buying.

Once I got it though I roared through my first read, stunned by the poetry and it’s very intimate look at the life and history of travelling communities.

The poem that initially hit me was “Inheritance” but in my case there were rubies in the ring, took me right back to my granddad and memories of the wake.

I read the collection for a second time as I was travelling through the North East on a sunny day, Darlington to Newcastle to Whitley Bay to Tynemouth, a lot of it read on trains and on the beach. It fit with the sense of place and people that Jo Clement was talking about and really got under my skin.

But the third reading is always the best, a quiet house, the rhythm, pace, and language become familiar, then it is time to read aloud, to sing the passion, sorrows, fears, and memory to the world and it was then that the real depth of Jo’s words could sit in my soul.

This was especially so with “Playing Cards” which became for me the words I kept going back to, wanting to find more in them, and really fearing for the future as we see more and more repression and criminalisation of behaviour that is deemed “not appropriate”.

A brave and memorable collection that really needs wider recognition, it need to be given to those who make decisions and look no further than labels and a history of the unknown and prejudice, to not fear the ousider.

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Ana Sampson – Author Q&A

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Ana Sampson

Ana Sampson

Ana has been editing poetry anthologies since 2009, when I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud and Other Poems you Half-Remember from School was the third bestselling poetry title that year. More recently she has edited two volumes of poetry by women, She is Fierce and She Will Soar, a collection of poetry about motherhood, Night Feeds and Morning Songs, and Wonder: The Natural History Museum Poetry Book.

She has contributed articles to books including Writers’ Market UK and The Book Lover’s Companion and to newspapers and magazines, and talked about poetry and publishing at literary festivals, bookshop events, at libraries, in schools and online. Ana has also appeared on television and radio talking about books, poetry and teenage diaries. She lives in Surrey with her husband, two daughters, two demanding cats, and far too many books.

Ana can be found at:
Website: www.anasampson.co.uk
Twitter: @AnaBooks
Instagram: @anabooks
Newsletter: www.anasampson.co.uk/newsletter-signup

How long do your books take to put together?

Editing my first anthology I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud and Other Poems You Half-Remember from School took a few months – I was working full time so had to fit my poem hunting into evenings and weekends. I also researched and wrote biographies of the poets – I wanted to include the most interesting and quirky facts about their lives – which was time-consuming but fascinating. I loved learning that Edward Lear built his new house in an exact replica lay-out of his old house so as not to confuse his tailless cat, Foss, and that G K Chesterton was so forgetful that his longsuffering wife had to redirect him via telegram when he took the train to the wrong town. Other books have fitted around my day job in various ways so it’s quite varied timewise.

Do you have a writing playlist? If so do you want to share it?

Just the soft snoring of my cats.

What’s the favourite reaction you’ve had to your book?

A teacher told me that she had bought copies of She is Fierce as leaving gifts for all her students as they went on to college and I was so moved. It was during covid, and they had really had a difficult final year, and she thought the poems would prove inspiring talismans for them. It was everything I ever dreamed for one of my collections and such an honour.

What can you tell us about your next book?

Not too much yet but it will be a collaboration with someone I HUGELY admire!

Do you take notice of online reviews?

Yes, if they’re kindly! It means a lot to me when people find a poem they love in one of my books but I tried not to worry about the person who gave my book one star on Amazon because it arrived late for a birthday…

Would you ever consider writing outside your current genre?

I’d love to fill a book with my own writing one day although I don’t think I have the imagination for fiction…

What did you do before (or still do) you became a writer?

I’ve worked in publishing as a publicist for over twenty years. I’ve been lucky enough to work on a very broad range of books – from literary fiction and serious history books to celebrity autobiographies, business books, humour, cook books, general non-fiction, children’s titles and even adult colouring books. It’s a very busy but a very interesting job that I love.

Which genres do you read yourself?

Apart from poetry I have a particular soft spot for historical fiction.

What will always distract you?

Sadly, picking up my phone to read something much less lovely than poetry. Since I mostly work at home, laundry too.

How much (if any) say do you have in your book covers?

It has varied from publisher to publisher but luckily I have always been very lucky in my cover designers!

Were you a big reader as a child?

Yes, I was never happier than when I had my nose in a book and I imagine it was pretty difficult for my parents to get me to do anything else!

What were your favourite childhood books?

I devoured the books in our local library where I discovered some of my favourites including Susan Cooper, Alan Garner and Ursula le Guin. I read and re-read The Chronicles of Narnia and my all-time favourite book was The Magicians of Caprona by Diana Wynne Jones. I read it to my children quite recently and was relieved I still loved it every bit as much.

Do you have a favourite bookshop? If so, which?

It’s hard to choose a favourite but I have to mention both The Haslemere Bookshop, a gorgeous shop who have been so supportive of my books and always have excellent recommendations, and Word on the Street in Ashtead, my newish wonderful local bookshop.

How many books are in your own physical TBR pile?

It’s far too many and it would take me half the day to count them all!

What is your current or latest read?

I am reading the manuscript for Tom Rachman’s The Imposters, published next year, which I’ll be working on the publicity campaign for. He is an incredible writer although I haven’t quite forgiven him for making me miss my train stop because I was so engrossed in his last novel (the Costa-shortlisted The Italian Teacher).

Any books that you’re looking forward to in the next 12 months?

Katherine Rundell is a marvel – I read Rooftoppers to the kids and fell absolutely in love with it, and her biography of John Donne was tremendous. She has just announced a children’s fantasy trilogy called Impossible Creatures and the first book will be published next September. Cannot wait. I’m also looking forward to Kate Atkinson’s Shrines of Gaiety which I’m hoping I’ll find under the Christmas tree (because I have too much reading for work to do before Christmas!)

and finally, what inspired you to publish in the genre you do?

I just think poets are magicians. They take my breath away all the time. It’s absolutely incredible to share a poem with readers knowing that it will mean something unique to them, in the same way that songs have different associations for us all, coloured by our own memories, needs and obsessions. What an amazing privilege it is to do this, I’m incredibly grateful.

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