Lynne Reid Banks
Lynne Reid Banks is a British author of books for children and adults. She has written forty-five books, including the best-selling children's novel The Indian in the Cupboard, which has sold over 10 million copies and has been successfully adapted to film. She very kindly contributed a poem to Together Behind Four Walls |
Q Do you have any favourite poems, or stories from all the poems you have written?
A: Oh, Mrs de Wilting is my favourite. She’s so infinitely adaptable, and such a dreadful woman.
Q Do you remember the first poem/story you ever wrote or one of the first?
A. It was some sentimental bit of rubbish about a meadow-lark that was printed in our school mag.
Q Do you ever think of poems before going to sleep or just after waking up?
A. No. Songs, not poems.
Q Do you hand write poems or go directly on to your computer?
A. I don’t hand-write anything any more because I can’t see what I’m writing.
Q Do you ever give up on poems you have started?
A. Sure. If I can’t find a good rhyme.
Q Do you do any other creative activities?
A. Other than writing? Not unless you count gardening.
Q Do you poems ever have strong messages?
A. Always! Even if it’s only ‘Happy Birthday.’ I often write birthday pomes. (A pome is doggerel which I mainly stick to.)
Q How would you describe the tone of your poems?
A. Humorous, hopefuly, but occasionally tender. Occasionally vulgar. I’ve written some very rude limericks.
If you had to write a poem about yourself, how would it start?
A. There was an old lady called Lynne,
Who really belonged in the bin.
But she somehow keeps going
With no sign of slowing,
Which, believe me, owes nothing to gin.