Judi Billcliff
Author of the Granny Series Published by Rainbow Poetry |
About the Author
I’m a poet and author based in Hamilton, where I live with my ever supportive husband Les and our hilarious dog Rosie, who loves visiting schools too. As a drama teacher and performance poet, I’m the original Drama Queen, who enjoys sharing her love of language and rhyme with kids. I visit schools performing my own poetry, inspiring them to write and reach their potential. I am blessed to have been a Duffy Books in Homes role model since 2014. One hundred and ten school assemblies later I’m still loving it. I was also humbled to be asked by Twinkl to use my poetry on their website. Due to the number of downloads they’ve asked for more poems which is great. Published work 2001 Caught In The Net Adult comedy for theatre 2003 Santa’s Last Stand Children’s pantomime for theatre 2013 Granny Does The Boogey 2013 Ready … Set … Jump Poem from this book published in Playcentre publication 2013 Runner up in National Playcentre Children’s Poetry Competition. 2014 Granny Goes To Hip Hop 2015 Granny Goes Bungy Jumping Have You Ever Seen A Sheep Dance? Poetry Rocks teaching resources 2017 Fiasco In The Forest Pantomime for school productions 2018 Granny Does Karate About the Granny Series The Granny Series is a collection of mainly fun, rhyming poetry about situations that our children have to tackle on a daily basis. As well as some quirky problems, like when Granny turns into a zombie, or when she drives out the end wall of the garage. Us grannies are wild critters! How the idea for the books came about. As a drama teacher who was always struggling to find new, fun fresh poems for Kiwi kids, writing my own became the best option for my students. The kids loved performing my poetry, and it wasn’t long before other teachers’ students began using my work also. This meant I had to keep writing to give my own students original pieces. Being a crazy granny myself, it made sense to use that as a foundation for each new book. Yes, I did once drive right out the end wall of the garage … but no I never was turned into a zombie, well not yet anyway. |
The writing process
During one of my fun school visits to Cambridge Primary I told the children I had a lot of new poems and they almost begged me to publish another book. After the first two books I knew I needed to up my game and was blessed to have met Deborah Hinde, illustrator extraordinaire, who took on the job of illustrating my covers, and doing the inside layout. This made life easier for me and improved the quality of my books. Poetry is a niche market, and that has worked to my advantage as I knew there was a gap in the market.
I begin with an idea that may come from within my own head, something I see or hear, or something a child tells me. It’s a bit like when someone sees their hairdresser, and says, “I must come and see you, my hair’s got so long.” Except people see me and say, “Something happened this morning and I thought of you as it’d make a great poem.” Sometimes when I see a photo I have that wow moment, and know I have to write a poem about it.
The most important part of writing a poem is getting the beat and rhythm right, so it scans well. The only way to make sure that beat works is to read your work aloud over and over again. Poor Les gets to hear every poem what must seem like a million times, but hey that’s what you have to do.
I also test every piece of writing on kids, but no children have ever been harmed in the process.
During one of my fun school visits to Cambridge Primary I told the children I had a lot of new poems and they almost begged me to publish another book. After the first two books I knew I needed to up my game and was blessed to have met Deborah Hinde, illustrator extraordinaire, who took on the job of illustrating my covers, and doing the inside layout. This made life easier for me and improved the quality of my books. Poetry is a niche market, and that has worked to my advantage as I knew there was a gap in the market.
I begin with an idea that may come from within my own head, something I see or hear, or something a child tells me. It’s a bit like when someone sees their hairdresser, and says, “I must come and see you, my hair’s got so long.” Except people see me and say, “Something happened this morning and I thought of you as it’d make a great poem.” Sometimes when I see a photo I have that wow moment, and know I have to write a poem about it.
The most important part of writing a poem is getting the beat and rhythm right, so it scans well. The only way to make sure that beat works is to read your work aloud over and over again. Poor Les gets to hear every poem what must seem like a million times, but hey that’s what you have to do.
I also test every piece of writing on kids, but no children have ever been harmed in the process.