It seems important to me to write something you'd
want to read more than once, and something that
you'd not dread reading in five, ten, fifteen or more
years down the road.
Hal
Halvard Johnson
================
The Perfection of Mozart's Third Eye (downloadable and free) is @
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27039868/Halvard-Johnson-THE-PERFECTION-OF-MOZART-S-THIRD-EYE-Other-Sonnets
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On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 6:36 PM, Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Good luck, Bob. I think the secret of writing for readers (something
> that I confess I've never thought about for poetry) is to write
> something that you want to read yourself. If it works, it gathers its
> own energy. I've "proved" this theory to my own satisfaction at least
> twice.
>
> Could the thing about being "too advanced" be an American thing? I'm
> thinking of books like Fungus the Bogeyman, say, one of the best
> children's books ever, and of things I've heard about US publishers
> who will tend to censor their editions of children's books for being
> (for example) too rude, even though children _are_ rude and the books
> have done very well here.
>
> xA
>
> On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 12:53 AM, Bob Grumman <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> > Thanks for the answer, Alison. It's the way most writers break in, I
> > suspect.. I've only gotten "big pay-offs" for writing twice, both times
> due
> > to happening to know the right person. The first time a close visual
> poet
> > friend of mine was close to another poet who had an in with the editor of
> > the Gale Contemporary Writers Autobiography Series, and me and four or
> five
> > other fvisual poetry friends of the visual poet got essays into the
> series
> > for which we were paid a thousand dollars (or something close to that).
> I
> > got $500 for an introduction to visual poetry for some kind of newsletter
> > for teachers because, again, a poet friend of mine mentioned me to the
> > editor of the newsletter. Absolutely nothing came of either. My only
> other
> > two pay-offs of more than a hundred dollars were due to a poet friend who
> > knew a gallery owner and was able to talk that person into having a show
> of
> > visual poetry that included mine and a lot of other people's work, and I
> > sold a work at each show for $600, getting half that at one, and the full
> > amount at the other.
> >
> > I self-published 500 copies of my children's book, and have sole most of
> the
> > copies over the years through word of mouth. All the commercial places
> I've
> > tried it at seemed to find it too "advanced" for children, and too silly
> for
> > adults. But teacher friends who had it in their elementary school
> classes
> > told me the kids fought over who would get to read it next, and most
> adults
> > who have read it seem not to have thought it too advanced (although they
> > were all friends of mine or relatives, so may have wanted to be nice to
> me).
> > I'm now gearing up to try again to get a commercial publisher to take
> it.
> > I made it in black & white before I had a computer. With a computer, I
> can
> > add color, and I have ideas for lengthening it. Just got to get the
> energy
> > to do it.
> >
> > --Bob
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>
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