Writer Spotlight: Helen Frost

 

Alaska, Scotland, novels in verse, close-up with nature, poetry, and drama: Author and poet Helen Frost

Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI-MI. In this piece, meet Helen Frost, who has lived in interesting places, but has not lived in Michigan. However, she is an honorary Michigander because of her frequent trips and many writer friends in this state. (Like we need an excuse to find out more about this spectacular poet and writer.)

Helen picking apples

We could start with your books, but much of your life as a teacher has just as many stories to tell. Like how you spent 3 years as the sole teacher of a place called Telida with a population of 25 somewhere remote, I’d guess, in Alaska. Care to tell part of that story?

First day in Telida

Yes, that was an important part of my life. Telida was a small village in interior Alaska, accessible by small plane, boat, snowmobile or dog-team, but not by road. The school district was about the size of Ohio, and had eight schools, each with anywhere from the five students I had my first year in Telida to about 100 in McGrath, where the district offices were located. 

This was in the early 80’s, when communication was limited to a once-a-week mail plane, and available technology was a radio meeting on Friday afternoons, where the eight principal teachers called in for information from the district office. 

Birthday in Telida

I had an Apple IIE computer, and got a modem before we had a telephone, so I was ready for email when it became possible. No world-wide web, though I was part of a project to figure out how to use it in rural teaching situations. I remember learning, and teaching, how to cut and paste text—a miracle!

I was the only teacher, and came to love the community. I met my husband, a linguist working with Athabaskan languages at the Alaska Native Language Center in Fairbanks, when I was in Telida, and after three years, I moved to Fairbanks to be with him.

Oh, and you taught in Scotland at the Kilquhanity House School, which I guess would be private and maybe posh? You like to travel, but how did you get to Scotland, and why?

Helen and sister Barbie, circa 1954

This question makes me laugh! Private, yes, but posh—not at all. “Killy,” as it was known, was a progressive boarding school that had roots in A.S. Neill’s Summerhill. 

It was in an old manor house in rural Scotland that included a farm, and the students all had “useful work” required of them each morning before classes began—working in the garden, “mucking out” the animals’ stalls, sweeping the dorms, cutting up onions in the kitchen, etc. 

Once a week we had a council meeting where each of us, students, teachers, houseparents, headmaster, had a vote and decisions were made by the whole school. One of the older students would chair the meeting, and anyone could bring up a problem for discussion and solution. It was idealistic by design. I was a teacher of the youngest students (8-10 year-olds) and a housemother for young teens (12-14 or so). I worked there for 2 1/2 years in the late 70’s.

You taught on the East Coast, too. What was the turning point, when you gave writing the top priority? Or did you realize you could teach more than a classroom at a time with your books?

Helen high school candid

It was a gradual transition, not a specific turning point, with all the complications that any life has, involving money, family, vocation, etc.

You write novels in verse, all the rage now with poet/authors like K. A. Holt, Jason Reynolds or Kwame Alexander. But you were doing it before them. Were you a pioneer in the genre?

I think of Karen Hesse as the main pioneer, though there were others, and maybe I was among them. When Out of the Dust won the Newbery in 1998, more people started taking this mixed genre form seriously.

What is the difference between writing in verse versus writing poetry?

That’s a hard one. I like to say I write novels-in-poems, but I’m fine with novels-in-verse as a descriptor of my books. I do love to see how serious poets handle the challenges posed in writing novels for young readers. 

I’ve always loved traditional poetic forms, and that has been part of my work for children as well as for adults, but it’s not the only criteria for identifying poetry, by any means. If you read a lot of poetry, you come to recognize it when you see it.

Talk about your first published novel. What inspired you to tell an older-kid story in verse? How hard a sell was it?

In Frances Foster's office

I’d been working as part of an interdisciplinary team of artists (a dancer, a drummer, a visual artist, and a poet—me!), meeting “at-risk youth” in various social service agencies, and devoting a lot of time to typing up their poems and creating books that allowed them to see their poems in print.  

It was heavy emotional work, and my personal response to their stories began to take shape in poetry of my own, which eventually became a book, Keesha’s House. It wasn’t easy to sell it, and I didn’t have an agent at the time, but eventually it found a home with Frances Foster at FSG—the biggest blessing of my writing life.

Please recall for us the fateful day when you met Rick Lieder at a book signing at the Book Beat. You and Sarah Miller and Kathe Koja were signing books, and Kathe is married to Rick. And she says…?

Yes, Kathe was also working with Frances, and I’d admired her work and Rick’s covers for her books before we met. It was Kathe’s idea that Rick and I might be good collaborators, and she is still one of our biggest fans! I’ll always love Book Beat for bringing us together.

One thing I remember about that is Kathe’s observation that “Sarah is reading from a book with a main character named Helen (Miss Spitfire, about Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller), and Helen is reading from a book with a main character named Sarah (The Braid).”

You two worked a long several years without an offer. What kept you pursuing this vision of Rick’s macro photography and your poetry comingling into a book?

We both loved what we were doing, and seemed to share a stubborn streak that kept us working long after many people might have given up.

But then you got an agent and editor and a published book. And it got lots of attention, because it was unlike any non-fiction picture book out there. Was it fun getting some adulation?

Well, of course that was fun. Thank you for your generous wording of this question! That book, Step Gently Out, is still in print and still popular among small children and their parents and teachers. I’m getting a similar feeling as we share our latest book,

The Mighty Pollinators, and have high hopes that it will have a similarly long run.

Since then, the two of you have collaborated on many more books, many with soothing-sounding names. How does your combined creative process work?

It is a truly collaborative process from beginning to end. We talk on the phone or occasionally in person, bouncing ideas for new work back and forth until we land on something we are each enthusiastic about. Then we work to put together a proposal, and show it to our agent, Ginger Knowlton, who shares it with Sarah Ketchersid, our Candlewick editor. 

After a proposal results in a contract, Rick and I work hard to refine it, and then it goes back to Sarah who works with Candlewick’s book-design team through the whole process from manuscript to publication. It is wonderful to share each new book with children, some for the first time, others who know our earlier books and are happy to discover a new one.

You’ve been no slouch with the MG and YA novels-in-verse, with more than a handful of titles. How do you tell a story a poem at a time?

Exactly like that—a poem at a time!

I love having a full tool-box of what are sometimes considered fiction-writing tools (narrative structure, characters’ voices, setting, etc.) with poetry tools (sharp imagery, cadence, musicality, etc.); the challenges and rewards of working with both at the same time help me get my stories told. 

Why Darkness Seems So Light is a play that you wrote. Have you seen it performed? How did you come to write a play? Are there more ideas for future plays?

That was another collaboration. I was approached by Harvey Cocks, the legendary Youth Theatre director, with an idea he’d learned about from a group in Flint, Michigan who had addressed an epidemic of youth violence by producing a play. 

I was tasked with inviting high school students to share their experiences concerning violence. I went into six very different schools, five times each, and, with the support of wonderful teachers, created a safe atmosphere where  10th graders could write their stories. 

Young friends reading The Mighty Pollinators

It was extremely difficult and sobering to receive those 240 stories. I selected 40 of them and edited an anthology, which was published by Pecan Grove Press. Harvey and I then worked together to shape the stories into a play. 

A few years later, after Keesha’s House was published, I wrote a play, with Harvey’s help, based on that book, which has been produced a number of times, but never published. Harvey is no longer living, and at this point, I don’t think I will write another play without him.

Your first collection of poetry, Skin of a Fish, Bones of a Bird, published in 1993. Selling a collection of poetry must have been an uphill battle. How did that first book of poems happen?

I worked very hard on poetry for about twenty years, writing and sending poems to magazines, anthologies, etc., taking in stride the inevitable rejections, rejoicing in the acceptances and occasional awards, then gathering enough poems for a book and sending that out, mostly to competitions, until, just as I was about to give up on it, it found a perfect and wonderful editor, Martha Christina, who selected and published it as the second book in the Ampersand Women Poets Series.

You wrote a book on writing, When I Whisper, Nobody Listens. Was it the teacher or the writer in you that made this book happen?

Definitely both.

(Helen sent a number of photos and images  that required more explanation. Here they are:)

Valdez, Alaska 2013

 What a post-cardy winter scene. What's going on in Valdez, Alaska 2013?

That was the Alaska Library Association meeting where I was a speaker, and it snowed 18” overnight.

 

Cast of "Crossing Stones", Germany

What was “Crossing Stones”? With a cast of actors in Germany?

Crossing Stones was my novel, set in 1917, during World War I. It was quite remarkable to see a cast of German students portray the American young people who had participated (as well as questioned our role) in the war.

Helen and Chad in Germany

Chad is your husband. Are you both in Germany for “Crossing Stones”?

Yes, I went over a few days before he did, to give some writing workshops. 

After seeing the play, we had a great time hiking in the Black Forest and meeting new friends.

Parade for William Allen White award 2014

What is the William Allen White award, and there was a parade?

It was an award for Hidden, voted on by thousands of Kansas school children, with a celebration of the winners at Emporia University in Emporia, Kansas, and yes, it included a parade that made us (two winners) fell like huge celebrities.

Printz committee and authors, 2004

You won (at least) one Printz honor. Here’s a photo from 2004 showing committee and authors. Tell us more.

I won a Printz honor for House in 2004. That year, AKA was in Orlando, and it was wonderful to meet the other authors and the committee.

SALT with a sticker

SALT with sticker?

The Children’s History Book Prize was awarded to Salt by the New York Historical Society in 2014.

 

Helen and Francis

Helen and Frances ?

That one was taken at Miami University when Peter Sis was receiving the Arbuthnot Award. Frances Foster was also his editor, and Oxford, Ohio is closer to me than NYC, so I drove down to celebrate Peter and have some time with Frances. It was a special time because I was working with Frances on Salt at the time, and she was able to meet some of the Myaamia (Miami) scholars who had helped with my research and were eagerly awaiting the book’s publication.

What’s next for Helen Frost?

Everything is in the “too early to talk about” stage at the moment.

Please share any social media platforms:

website with occasional updates on the “what’s new” page:

www.helenfrost.net

Instagram: helenfrost510

Facebook two pages:

Personal profile: helenfrost.10

Candlewick books:

search for: Beautiful Picture Books- Rick Lieder and Helen Frost