Holt, Sharon
IN BRIEF
Sharon Holt has been writing fiction and non-fiction children's books for more than 10 years, for both the trade and educational market. She has had several stories, poems, plays and photo articles published in School Journal. Her collaboration with illustrator Ross Kinnaird, It’s True! You Can Make Your Own Jokes, was a finalist in the non-fiction category of the 2007 New Zealand Post Book Awards and is also on the Storylines 2007 Notable Books list. Two of her picture books published by Learning Media have also been long-listed for the Esther Glen Award.
ProfilePlace of residence: Waikato |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Holt, Sharon (1959 - ) writes fiction, non-fiction, plays and poems for young children. She was born in Auckland and now lives with her husband and two school-aged children in the Waikato.
Holt has been a published writer since 2001. More than 25 of her books and educational readers have been published by various trade and educational publishers in Australia and New Zealand. She has also had several stories, poems, plays and photo articles published in School Journal. Two of her picture books published by Learning Media, Uncle Hone’s Cloak, and Off you Go, Auntie Ma!, were long-listed for the Esther Glen Award. Her stories are about daily family life, and many of her children’s stories have a ‘story behind the story’.
As well as a long list of articles in magazines, Holt’s list of publications includes: No, Skipper! (2002), Skipper’s Happy Tail (2003), How to Draw Yourself (2003), Josh (2003), Josh and the Bad Hair Day (2004), The Birthday Invitation (2004), Off you Go, Auntie Ma! (2004), Uncle Hone’s Cloak (2004), Inside the Maize Maze (2004), Don’t Embarrass Me, Dad! (2006), Fixing Cars (2006), and The Coat (2007). Horace’s Home Helpers (2006) and Work for Play (2006) were two titles in the National Geographic Windows on Literacy Series.
In 2007, her collaboration with illustrator Ross Kinnaird, It’s True! You Can Make Your Own Jokes, was nominated as a finalist in the non-fiction category of the 2007 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young People. This book is also on the Storylines 2007 Notable Books list. In 2008, Allen and Unwin republished the book in a new format, with a new cover and name - The Make your own Joke Book.
More recently, Holt has been writing for Scholastic's popular My Story series for older children. Her 2008 book, My Story: Sabotage! The Diary of Rowan Webb, Auckland, 1985 is about 13-year-old Rowan Webb who gets herself a French penpal and unwittingly become involved in an event that shocks not only the nation - but the whole world. The Rainbow Warrior was the flagship of the Greenpeace movement, when it was sunk by agents of the French Foreign Intelligence (DGSE), while anchored in Auckland harbour, on the 10th of July 1985.
Holt's second book in the My Story series, No Survivors, was published in 2009. It tells the story of a 13-year-old girl in the 1970s, and builds up to the Erebus tragedy.
In 2009 Walker Books published her picture book called Your Mother Didn't Do That! The book, illustrated by 2009 NZ Post Picture Book category winner Brian Lovelock, looks at the differences between how human and animal mothers care for their babies. Your Mother Didn't Do That! was listed as a 2010 Storylines Notable Book.
writers in schools information
Holt is happy to work with schools in three main ways.
1. She is happy to speak to large groups or small groups about her life as an author and the path she has taken to get there.
2. She is happy to speak to children aged 5-7 years about the Skipper books in the Ready to Read series and how the story of Skipper started as a story about a cat called Moose. When she works with children this age Holt often encourages them to develop their own Skipper stories and illustrate them. She is able to bring other Skipper books not published which she turns into big class books which the children can illustrate. She can also read and discuss her new picture book, Your Mother Didn't Do That!
3. Holt enjoys speaking to older children from upper primary to intermediate school levels about her writing for their age group. She has a wealth of information about the research and writing of books in Scholastic's My Story series.She can also talk to children from this age group about her joke writing book and has taken joke writing workshops in schools, based on the book.
KAPAI: Kids' Authors' Pictures and Information
General
Where do you live?
I live with my children and husband in Kihikihi, which is a small community near Te Awamutu in the Waikato. However, I grew up in Auckland and went to school in Glen Innes. We moved from Auckland to the Waikato in 1997 and lived in Leamington, near Cambridge for just over two years before moving to our home in Kihikihi.
What books do you read?
I love reading children’s picture books. When I have time to read adult books I prefer biographies.
Who is your favourite writer?
In New Zealand my favourite writer is Margaret Mahy. In the rest of the world my favourite writer is Kate Di Camillo. My favourite adult author at the moment is Marlena de Blasi.
How do you think up your ideas?
I get most of my ideas from things that happen in real life with my family, my friends, our pets, or my own memories of childhood.
What is the best thing about being a writer?
The best thing about being a writer is seeing an idea that lived in my head finally become a real book.
Primary School Students
What sort of pets do you have?
We have had all sorts of pets over the years, including birds, fish, cats, dogs, goats, lambs, rabbits and guinea pigs. However our only pets at the moment are two cats. One is a big a white and ginger male cat called Moose who we have had since our children were very young. Moose was the inspiration for my Skipper books, published by Learning Media in the Ready to Read series. The editor liked the story but didn't need another story, as Greedy Cat was already very famous. So Moose the cat was changed to Skipper the dog. The rest of the story remained the same. Our newest cat is Dora, named after Dora the Explorer for obvious reasons. We have had Dora since she was four days old. Her mother had just had kittens, Dora and two others. The vet was looking for a foster home so my daughter Sophie decided to care for the cat and kittens in our garage until they were old enough to go to new homes. We kept the tabby kitten, Dora, who was the most adventurous. The two black kittens, Molly and Leo and the mother cat went to the homes of ther children in Sophie's class at school. Dora has lived up to her name and continues to enjoy life to the full. She enjoyes all balls and sports and has brought out the inner kitten in our old cat Moose.
What is your favourite colour?
Purple
What is your favourite food?
Chocolate
What is your favourite movie?
I love heaps of movies, especially anything featuring the actors Jim Carrey or Tom Hanks.
What is your favourite game?
I love all board and card games, particularly things like Careers and the Game of Life. I also like to watch games like cricket and soccer.
What is the most fun thing about being an author?
The most fun thing is getting a letter or phone call to say that something I have written has been accepted by a publisher and will be made into a real book.
How do you make books?
I write the words and find someone to publish them – if I’m lucky!
The publisher finds an illustrator and puts the words and pictures together into a wonderful book, which turns up in my letter box about one or two years later!
Where do you go for your holidays?
We usually go to Waihi Beach or Mokau, but we have had a family holiday in the South Island and another one in Fiji, which we won in a competition where you had to dress up all in yellow.
What was the naughtiest thing you ever did at school?
I wasn’t very naughty at school. However, once when I was about eight years old I leaned over my desk to talk to my friend sitting opposite me and the teacher, Mr Adams, smacked my bottom with a wooden ruler.
Secondary School Students
How did you get started?
I always dreamed of being a children’s author – probably since about the age of seven years. I wrote lots of stories and entered competitions, which I often did well in. When I left school at 16 I wanted to just be a writer, which wasn’t very practical. I thought I should be a journalist first to earn some money. However, my father worked at the New Zealand Herald and he didn’t like the idea of his teenage daughter mixing with the journalists he knew – ‘they all smoked and drank too much’ – so he suggested I train as a teacher until I was old enough to make up my mind. I followed his advice but only spent two full-time years working as a teacher (in Napier) as I didn’t get any time to write and wasn’t very happy. I trained as a journalist and worked on many papers and magazines until I was married in 1995. I left work to look after my new baby in 1996 and still thought about being a children’s author, especially when I read stories to my children. When we moved to Kihikihi in 1999 I finally had a little more time to write creatively. I sent my first photo article away to Learning Media in Wellington. It was accepted. My next two stories were also accepted and I’ve never looked back since then.
Who inspired you when you were getting started?
I went to a writers’ course run by an author named Dorothy Butler and she was very encouraging about my ability. I was also inspired by the wonderful successes of New Zealand women such as Margaret Mahy, Joy Cowley and Lynley Dodd. I thought, if they can do it, so can I. My husband has always been very encouraging and has been happy for me to follow my writing dream, even though I could have earned a lot more money if I was working as a journalist or teacher.
What advice would you give an aspiring young writer?
Write, read, write, read, enter writing competitions, follow your dreams and never give up.
Is it difficult to make a living writing in New Zealand?
It’s very difficult and almost impossible for more than a handful of writers. It’s important to have another career which earns money so you can feed yourself while you’re being a writer. Most writers work part-time or full-time in other jobs and do their writing early in the morning or late at night. I am lucky to have a husband who doesn’t mind me working from home as a writer because it makes me so happy. We are on a very small income but we don’t live in the city so it makes it a little easier.
What were you like as a teenager?
Pretty boring! I liked things like reading and studying and didn’t really like the taste of alcohol. I liked dancing though and enjoyed spending time with my friends. I didn’t drive a car or have a mobile phone or a computer! Our high school art teacher was an actor in the theatre and knew lots of theatre people. My friends and I often went with him to plays at Auckland theatres, which felt very grown up.
Additional Ideas and Information
Is there anything else you could tell students about yourself?
1. I learned to fly planes while I was living near an aero club in Napier during my first year as a teacher. I learned to fly before I could drive a car. I don’t fly planes now.
2. I had my tummy button removed by a surgeon because I had an illness which made it infected. He made me a new tummy button but I could have chosen to have no tummy button at all – not even a scar! I wish I’d chosen not to have a tummy button at all as it could have given me an interesting party trick!
3. My second child (a daughter) was born at home 10 days early after a non-existent labour consisting of a strange feeling followed by the urge to push. My husband caught her, saw her umbilical cord and said ‘It’s a boy!’
4. I have been to South America and visited isolated villages as a photo journalist for World Vision. Once I was the first blonde woman the people had ever seen. I was treated like a princess, even though I had a very bad tummy bug and just wanted to throw up the whole time. Toilets hadn’t been invented there yet!
5. My books about Skipper the Border Collie dog were originally written about our cat called Moose. The editors at Learning Media liked the stories for the Ready to Read series but said they already had several cat stories about 'Greedy Cat'. They asked if they could change Moose to a dog. I said that was fine and I only had to change about six words in the story. Moose’s name was then changed to Skipper as some children thought Moose was an odd name for a dog.
6. Sometimes a person says something and I get a whole children’s story in my mind straight away. I have to write it down before I forget it. Those are usually my best stories. One example was when my husband mentioned buying some superglue and my son, who was about five at the time, asked if superglue wore a cape. Straight away I knew I had a story about a superhero who could repair broken things. I wrote it as a play almost immediately and it’s now a School Journal play performed by children all over New Zealand.
7. Once I was with other trainee teachers on a trip to Melbourne. We went to a pancake parlour for lunch. After lunch we searched the place high and low and couldn’t find a single person in the whole building, so we eventually left without paying!
8. I’ve been on several TV game shows and never won anything!
9. When I was a child I went on heaps of car rallies with my dad. He was the driver and I was his navigator. The New Zealand Woman’s Weekly did a big story about me being the youngest car rally navigator they’d ever heard of. It hasn’t really made me any better at map reading though!
10. I wrote my joke book when my son was five because he kept trying to make up terrible jokes and I had to find a way to teach him to make the jokes funny. There weren’t any books around about that so I decided to write one myself!
