Writing career Jacqueline Woodson

1 writing career

1.1 inspirations
1.2 style
1.3 teaching
1.4 honors

writing career

after college, woodson went work kirchoff/wohlberg, children s packaging company. helped write california standardized reading tests , caught attention of liza pulitzer-voges, children s book agent @ same company. although partnership did not work out, did first manuscript out of drawer. enrolled in bunny gable s children s book writing class @ new school, bebe willoughby, editor @ delacorte, heard reading last summer maizon , requested manuscript. delacorte bought manuscript, willoughby left company before editing , wendy lamb took on , saw woodson s first 6 books published.

inspirations

woodson s youth split between south carolina , brooklyn. in interview jennifer m. brown remembered: south lush , slow-moving , community. city thriving , fast-moving , electric. brooklyn more diverse: on block grew up, there german people, people dominican republic, people puerto rico, african-americans south, caribbean-americans, asians.

when asked name literary influences in interview journalist hazel rochman, woodson responded: 2 major writers me james baldwin , virginia hamilton. blew me away find out virginia hamilton sister me. later, nikki giovanni had similar effect on me. feel learned how write baldwin. onto future stuff, writing race , gender long before people comfortable dialogues. cross class lines on place, , each of characters remarkably believable. still pull him down shelf when feel stuck. other influences included toni morrison s bluest eye , sula, , work of rosa guy high-school english teacher, mr. miller. louise meriwether named.

style

as author, woodson s known detailed physical landscapes writes each of books. places boundaries everywhere—social, economic, physical, sexual, racial—then has characters break through both physical , psychological boundaries create strong , emotional story. known optimism. has said dislikes books not offer hope. has offered novel sounder example of bleak , hopeless novel. on other hand, enjoyed tree grows in brooklyn. though family exceptionally poor, characters experienced moments of hope , sheer beauty . uses philosophy in own writing, saying, if love people create, can see hope there.

as writer consciously writes younger audience. there authors write adolescence or youth s point of view, work intended adult audiences. woodson writes childhood , adolescence audience of youth in mind. in interview on national public radio (npr) said, m writing adolescents adolescents. , think main difference when re writing particular age group, younger age group, re — writing can t implicit. re more in moment. don t have adult experience back. re in moment of being adolescent...and immediacy , urgency on page, because s feels adolescent. important, big, traumatic. , of has in place them.

teaching

jacqueline woodson has, in turn, influenced many other writers, including na, credits being first writing teacher. teaches teens @ national book foundation s summer writing camp co-edits annual anthology of combined work.

honors

as of june 2015, woodson named young people s poet laureate poetry foundation.