1. What inspired you to write this
book?
Two things: For four years, I taught children and
adults with reading problems, at a private learning clinic. I wrote 30 animal
poems for my students, to enhance decoding skills and to stimulate the imagination
and a love of reading. Each animal has special experiences and challenges, and
a gentle lesson to impart -- in rhymed, metered lines with repeating words and
variations of sounds, which a beginning reader can begin to anticipate, as
reading becomes easier and more fluid, a little like learning a nursery rhyme.
Mandana Talieh, an artist and my partner, had already
developed two illustrated characters for
video, Wise Dog and his younger friend, Jimmi, two
Zen-like canines on a journey for needed
wisdom and understanding. Mandana and I combined her
dogs and four of my poems, so that
Mandana’s dogs meet a Lizard, Turtle, Hen, and Gopher
with important messages even Wise Dog can’t provide for Jimmi.
2. What exactly is it about —
and who is it written for?
“What the Lizard Said” tells the story of Wise Dog and
Jimmi, who begin a pilgrimage for needed insight and knowledge, after the
younger dog is nearly hit in traffic. Wise Dog leads Jimmi from one animal to
another – each has endured adversity and preserved a sense of dignity and
purpose in a hostile world, and has an important lesson for Jimmi.
The book is for children and adults to read together
and discuss, as the beginning of an ongoing dialogue.
3. What do you hope readers will get
out of reading your book?
I hope readers feel a sense of wonder, of hope, of
affection -- that they like the messages and the sounds and whimsicality of the
poems, and become immersed in the vivid, colorful and energetic art work, which
I find movie-like.
4. How did you decide on your
book's title and cover design?
The cover was chosen from one of the book’s interior
illustrations, which captures Wise Dog and Jimmi and some of the animals they
meet on their journey.
5. What advice or words of wisdom do you
have for fellow writers – other than run!?
If you’re meant to express yourself in words, at your
deepest heart, nothing can stop you, not even yourself, even if at times you
might dearly want to.
6. What trends in the book world do you
see -- and where do you think the book publishing industry is heading?
I really don’t know. I do think the present general
media atmosphere is in dire need of a little spirit and equilibrium and I hope
our book in some small way might add to that.
7. Were there experiences in your
personal life or career that came in handy when writing this book?
I grew up on a farm among animals of all kinds, wild
and domestic, and had many different pets. And poetry made an impression on me
as a small child. I remember being ill and my mother reading aloud Robet Louis
Stevenson’s “The Land of Counterpane,” about a sick child in bed. And Aesop,
Babar, and lost lines of some poem, about a mother bluebird telling her
too-eager child,
“Wait a little longer, Until your little wings are
stronger, Then, then you can fly away.” Those things stick with you.
8. How would you describe your writing
style? Which writers or books is your writing similar to?
The poetry in “What the Lizard Said” is influenced by
18 th and 19 th century English poets, especially those who wrote in couplets.
In free moments at the learning clinic I’d pour over a Norton Anthology,
Dryden, Pope, Keats, and Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear etc. There’s something in
the repeating rhyme that enchants the ear and lodges in memory: Read sky at
morning/ Sailor take warning . . .
9. What challenges did you overcome in the
writing of this book?
Our main problem was time – we we’re both immersed in
demanding, pressing lives. “What the Lizard Said” is only the first in a series
of five or six projected books. And we have a book-length prose fairy tale,
“Julia and the Sea Bear” which only needs a couple of illustration for
completion. We hope to have much more time to devote to our books and different
projects in the coming year.
10. If people can buy or read one book
this week or month, why should it be yours?
“What the Lizard Said” offers gentle hope in a
difficult time. It expresses sympathy and
understanding for all living things, a non-sectarian
lesson that can’t hurt right now.
Nels Hanson Biography: I grew up on a
small family farm in the San Joaquin Valley of California and have worked as a farmer,
teacher, and writer/editor. I graduated in Literature/Creative Writing (Honors)
from UC Santa Cruz, and from the MFA program in fiction writing at U of
Montana. My fiction received the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan
Award, four Pushcart Nominations, and my poetry Sharkpack Review’s Prospero
Prize. I have over 500 publications in print and online literary magazines and
anthologies and my books can be found on Amazon. For more info, please see: https://whatthelizardsaid.com/
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