Interview with Evan Griffith - Award Winning Author, Editor, Teacher & Nature Advocate

MG KidLit ALERT!

Evan Griffith

Author, Editor & Teacher

and Nature Advocate

Hello Readers, Writers, Creatives of all sorts,

This next interview matters to me because Evan Griffith is part of my own writing journey. Evan advised me during my third semester in the Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. He was also a co-teacher for the novel-in-verse intensive semester I took---which feels more than fitting now that his debut middle-grade novel-in-verse, NOT A DOG, is coming in 2027!

Evan is an author, editor, teacher, and mentor whose work returns again and again to something I care deeply about too---our connection to the natural world. He wrote the middle-grade novels Manatee Summer & The Strange Wonders of Roots (a favorite of mine), as well as the picture-book biographies Secrets of the Sea & Wild at Heart. 

His books receive star reviews and many honors, including the Green Earth Book Award and the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. 

And after working with Evan for a semester, I have one more honor to add: 

The Deep Roots Award - for offering steady support, kindness, and encouragement that helped me find my voice & recognize my own strengths. I am forever grateful. 

In this interview, I talk with Evan about what happens when all those parts of a writing life- author, editor, teacher, mentor, nature-lover- begin talking and sharing with one another. We talked about all these things and what it actually means to build a writing life that lasts. This is especially important to me right now as I finish my fourth and final semester at VCFA!

Welcome to Writing Teazurs---Evan!

You've been an editor, an author, a teacher, and a mentor. How has each of those roles changed the way you read another writer's work? And which role is the hardest for you to turn off when you sit down to write your own stories?

I like to think that my work as a writer—one who receives plenty of rejection and many intensive edits!—helps me connect to the vulnerability of sharing work when I’m wearing my editor or advisor hats. I always want to honor the courage of opening work up for feedback.

It’s a special thing

to be trusted

with someone’s work.

It can definitely be tricky to toggle between these various roles—in particular, it’s hard to quiet the inner editor when I’m drafting my own work. I also draw a distinction between editing and advising. When I’m editing a project—say, for a publishing house—my primary duty of care is to the project itself.

When I’m mentoring a writer—like in the Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts—my primary duty of care is to the growth of the writer. It’s more holistic, I think. I certainly want to help mentees shape up specific projects, but I’m more interested in their long-term journey as creatives.

You return again and again to nature throughout your stories. What do you think nature can do in a story that a character cannot?

Nature is a big part of our context! And our main characters’ context, by extension. A character might feel belonging with another character, a friend group, or a family, but there’s a different and perhaps deeper sense of belonging that can come with recognizing our interconnectedness to nature.

I mean… nature is so vast!

It’s the biggest family to belong to.

And on a craft level, the natural world can play just about any role. It can be a setting, of course, but it can also act as a character (or many—think of all the non-human character possibilities) or shape a story’s conflict and plot (it might be the thing at stake, or the thing the character is trying to survive). It can inform a story’s themes, too (I played around with this in my middle-grade novel THE STRANGE WONDERS OF ROOTS).

If I gave you a megaphone and the whole world would listen–what one word or sentence would you yell?

Curiosity!

I’ve become interested in the neuroscience of curiosity in recent years, and I’m trying to cultivate more of it in my own life. I think that intentionally nurturing curiosity can lead to a deeper and more fulfilling relationship with the world around us (and more story ideas!).

You write both prose novels and novels-in-verse. What do you think verse can do that prose cannot? Or maybe can't do in the same way?

Verse gives you more tools to play around with on the page. The placement of text—including spacing, alignment, shape, and white space—can be incredibly evocative and used to amplify feelings and themes.

Verse lends itself to interiority, so it’s a good way to bring readers super close to a character’s mind and heart. I find that verse also allows for stories to slip into vignettes, flashbacks, or internal reflections more naturally than prose, which can open up some fun structural opportunities.

But prose has its strengths, too! Dialogue and longer scenes are two that come to mind. Having now written fully prose novels and a novel entirely in verse, I’d be curious to try a prose/verse hybrid at some point.

After working with so many writers and writing books of your own, what do you believe young readers need from us right now? Not the market, but for the kids themselves?

I think a lot of what kids need from us right now is what kids have always needed from us—honesty in storytelling; authentic representations of what it’s like to be a kid or a teen; stories that spark curiosity and reveal the bigness and wonder of the world; and, even in the darkest stories, a dash of hope (but only if it’s genuine).

I think the experience of reading a story crafted by a human, and feeling that human-to-human connection that transcends time and space through the magic of books, is only going to become more important as we head into an increasingly uncertain future. But I also have to remember that I’m not a kid anymore, so I’m making my best guesses here! Part of the value of school visits is connecting with young readers and hearing what books they’re loving and why.

When you choose to write a new story, what makes you think, "This is worth spending several years of my life on?"

It’s a well-worded question, because any book truly is a multi-year endeavor! I start a lot of projects that I end up setting aside. The ones I see through are usually the ones that maintain my interest over a period of several months. If, as I explore an idea through early scene writing or research, it feels like the idea is blossoming and I’m stepping into a fuller world that I’m eager to explore, that’s a good sign.

I also suspect that the projects that really hook us are the ones that connect somehow to themes that run through our own lives—questions we grapple with, fears we face, dreams we carry. There has to be some personal resonance for me to see something through, even with nonfiction projects.

What are you hoping for in the next stage of your career? What type of writer do you see yourself becoming? What part of the industry will you try next?

Above all, I hope for sustainability and endurance on this journey. I want to keep making and sharing books for a long time, whether I have the good luck to continue doing that through traditional publishing, or whether I end up exploring other outlets. I’d like to explore genre more fully.

As a lover of fantasies and mysteries, it’d be lovely to work in those areas. I also have some growing curiosity about trying my hand at adult fiction sometime. And—as a fan of collaborative storytelling games—I’d love to pursue more collaboration in my writing life. It’d be fun to participate in an anthology, for one thing.

What have you learned about building a writing career that you wish you would've known when you were starting out?

My expectation early on was that an author career would be a steady ramp-up of momentum—that, publication by publication, I’d be moving ever closer to full-time writing and financial survival based on that full-time writing. I placed an enormous amount of pressure on myself as a result… which left me feeling rough when I hit periods where I couldn’t place projects at publishers, or when a book that was published didn’t get much traction. I think the reality is that, for most of us, this path has some serious ebbs and flows, and there are necessarily going to be long periods where things seem to be slowing down.

And a lot of that is outside our control, right? I mean, the industry has its own ebbs and flows! So, I’ve had to figure out how to be adaptive and responsive to these shifts, and to detach my personal sense of success from industry validation. Honestly, I’m still working on this, and learning to have grace with myself along the way.

Do you have any announcements, conferences, or book signings where my readers can meet and support you?

Yes! On December 1, I’ll be teaching an online class through Whale Rock Workshops on how to create and raise a story’s internal stakes. Then I’ll be at the VCFA WCYA residency in January, where I look forward to celebrating an incredible graduating class.

If any of your readers

would like to know more

about our VCFA program,

I’m happy to chat with them.

And in 2027, I have two new books coming out.

First, my middle-grade verse novel NOT A DOG, about a boy dealing with intense anxiety who begs his parents for an emotional support dog… only to be given a skittish kitten instead.

Second, a nonfiction picture book titled SWAMP: THE WONDROUS WORLD OF WETLANDS. This one is being beautifully illustrated by Kenda Binney. It’s a celebration of wetlands through the eyes of a baby alligator.(This is a public service announcement that baby alligators are adorable.)

Anything else you want to share?

My gratitude for the thoughtful questions! Thank you.

If you would like to know more about Evan or reach out to him to discuss VCFA-- click the links below.

Evan's Author Website

Evan on Instagram

This was amazing, Evan! And I have to agree---baby alligators ARE adorable...But I actually held one once, and it made the cutest little sound that scared me half to death!! Cute with sharp teeth.

Note to readers---Evan has four new books heading into the world!! Two in 2027 and two in 2028. I can't wait to see how he keeps growing in themes, genres, and format. Check his website below. Sign up for his newsletter to stay in the know.

And thank you, Evan, for sharing your curiosity, wisdom, and nature-loving spirit with all of us. You will always be an ancient tree to me! I'm so grateful that our writing paths crossed.

Readers, keep watching for Evan's upcoming books, and meanwhile get outside, climb a tree, listen to the wind, go barefoot on moss, and remember---we are all part of this big, wondrous, wild world.

Write~on,

Angie

And if you would like to be interviewed... reach out.

angazur @ gmail

Keep creating!!

This is a photo of a bonsai tree at the Asheville arboretum.

Interview with Laura Shovan -- Award Winning Poet & Teacher

 

MG KidLit Poet ALERT!

Laura Shovan

Poet & Teacher

Hello Readers, Writers, & Creatives...

Today I am so excited to share the words of one of my favorite poets and teachers — Laura Shovan.

I was lucky enough to meet Laura in her Building Scenes in Verse workshop during my second semester at VCFA. I fell in love with how she teaches—offering guidance through experimentation. She gave us room to play, struggle, and try something strange. Then, during her workshop, I received some scary news---my husband had been bitten by a tick with Lyme disease. Laura took time to sit with me, listen, and offer comfort. Later, after I was home, she emailed to check on us.

Her kindness has stayed with me

and is one of her defining characteristics.

Laura brings that same type of listening, comfort, and compassion to her writing. She is an award-winning poet, middle-grade novelist, educator, and VCFA faculty member. She co-taught the first-ever novel-in-verse intensive, which I attended, at VCFA, and that experience taught me so much about poetry, voice, white space, structure, and metaphor. I am forever grateful for my time with her.

Laura is the author of The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, Takedown, and A Place at the Table with Saadia Faruqi, as well as a poetry collection, Welcome to Monsterville. Her poetry and other work have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies.

In this interview, we talk about form, play, belonging, difficult emotional truths, plot in verse novels, and the creative spaces writers need in order to grow.

Please welcome Laura Shovan to Writing Teazurs.

Hello, Laura, and thank you for being with us today. You write in prose, verse, and poetry. How do you know what story idea wants to be written in verse, prose, or a poem?

 

That is a huge question, probably because it has to do with my process, which is always developing.

If I have an idea,

a question,

or an unusual fact

catches my attention,

I usually turn

to poetry.

My poem “Rattlesnake Bites Man in Walmart Garden Center” came from a news article. When a character or situation is percolating, I ask myself if there’s potential to explore it in a short story or a novel. Whether that novel is in prose or in verse depends on the narrative (or the narrator’s) voice. I have to admit, though, that my novel-in-progress has made the rounds of verse, vignettes, traditional prose, and back to verse. So, the TLDR (too long; didn't read) is I don’t always know what an idea wants to be, but I keep trying.

 

I fell in love with your book, The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, which centers on a community rather than a single heroine or hero. What about an ensemble cast got you excited to write this book? What did it teach you about writing middle-grade?

 

I’m so glad you loved The Last Fifth Grade, Angie. The book began as a 30-poem collection inspired by the 1915 verse novel Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters. In the style of Spoon River, my goal was to have one poem spoken by each student in a fifth-grade class. The reader would piece together threads and story arcs in the space between the poems, giving them a picture of Ms. Hill’s class as a community. Edgar Lee Masters does this so brilliantly. That’s what got me excited and what got me started. Over several years and with advice from some expert readers, the book changed from a collection of voices into a novel. The hardest part was retrofitting a plot onto characters I had already created.

 

The Last Fifth Grade taught me that middle grade readers are open-minded. There are so many voices, poetic forms, and little story arcs in the novel.

I’m grateful that kids resonate

with the book’s playfulness.

 

Being both a poet and a novelist, I am curious: has either of them changed the way you write in both spaces? In other words, has poetry influenced your prose or vice versa in any way?

 

I was, and still am, a poet first. That’s the sandbox where I feel most comfortable with creative play, where I can experiment without expecting that I’ll end up with a publishable piece of writing. When I’m writing prose, I’m still a poet. That influence is always there. In a novel, though, everything we do is in service of the story, including the language we use. If my narrator is a twelve-year-old poet, like Lev in Takedown, staying true to his voice and his experience is more important than writing a great poem.

 

 

If I gave you a megaphone and the whole world would listen, what one sentence/thought would you shout?

 

Trust librarians,

educators—

and kids themselves—

to curate the books

that will get children and teens

excited about reading,

and encourage them

to be lifelong readers.

 

 

When you write a difficult scene, how do you know that you've found the right balance between honesty and hope?

 

I often have to write the scene in its most challenging iteration first, then come back and revise to fit the audience and the overall tone of the novel.

This happened with A Place at the Table. I wrote a scene that reflected my childhood experience of my mother’s depression. I needed to write my memories through my character’s lens and get it down on paper. I reassured Saadia Faruqi, my co-author, that once I’d done that, I would be able to redraft the scene so that it fit our story.

 

 

Much of your writing centers on belonging. Why do you think that theme keeps coming up in your work?

 

That’s true! This theme reflects my bicultural identity. My mother is from a small, Anglican mining town in England, and my father is Jewish, born in the Bronx, NY. Like a lot of first-generation Americans, I had to find a middle ground between my mom’s proper, “children should be seen and not heard” family on one side of the Atlantic and my father’s boisterous, opinionated family on the other. As a kid, I often felt I didn’t fully belong to the U.K. or the U.S.

 

You spend a lot of time and energy helping other writers grow (being a recipient of this, I thank you so much). But how do you protect your own creative space?

 

This is so difficult for me! My mentors were women poets and educators who prioritized making space for and encouraging others. In order to avoid burnout and refill my creative well, I take classes, host and participate in a daily poetry project every February, and—when I’m desperate—do my best to clear my schedule of teaching and editing work.

 

I'm learning how to write verse novels, and so I'm curious: What do you wish you would've known about writing in verse before you began?

 

When I began, I wasn’t setting out to write a verse novel. Once that became my goal, I wish I’d known more about plot structure. I’m still figuring out how to balance my characters’ inner lives and voices with what’s happening on the external layer of their stories. Lately, my favorite resource for plot structure is Screenwriting: The Sequence Method by Paul Joseph Gulino. I like the way that this structure breaks plot into eight sections, each with a story arc that relates to the larger story.

 

What books have you read recently that writers of middle-grade should put on their TBR (to be read)?

 

I loved Casey Lyall’s graphic novels Band of Bigs and League of Littles. Verse novelists can learn a lot from studying graphic novels, because both forms use gutters or gaps between chunks of information.

 

For my readers, where will you be this year or next so they can meet and support you?

 

Thanks for asking! I would love to meet your readers.

 

September 26, 2026, 1-3 pm
Lit & Art Reading Series

Bromo Seltzer Tower, Baltimore, MD

Featured Author

 

March 4-7, 2027

Association of Writing Programs (AWP) Conference

Chicago, IL

“Poetry & Play in the Age of AI: Why Novels in Verse Are Vital for Young Readers”
Panelists: Kauakanilehua Adams, Christine Derr, Evan Griffith, Brianna Jett, Laura Shovan

 

If you’re local to central Maryland, you can also come out to Wilde Readings—a literary reading and open mic series that I co-host. Our events are on the second Tuesday of the month, September through June, at Queen Takes Book, an indie bookstore in Columbia, MD.

 

Laura's photo quote: Writing the most difficult version of a scene first feels like jumping through fire. 

Thank you, Laura!

So true that sometimes, as writers, we get burned, but not too badly when we have such great mentors like you to apply salve. Wink!

Thank you for talking with us about poetry, verse novels, belonging, and the wonderful work of figuring out what a story wants to become.

I feel like I can breathe a little easier now, knowing a manuscript can move from verse to vignettes to prose and back again---and that's OKAY! I can let the structure find me. I can play. And I can stay curious.

Laura is a generous teacher, making room for questions and experimentation while helping writers find their own way to their voice.

And she always accepts some help from her furry friends --- in memory of Sam, one who placed poems in the best order. 

Readers — you can learn more about Laura's books and where she'll be next by clicking the links below. And when you are ready, I highly recommend studying with her. 

Laura Shovan's Author Site: laurashovan.com

Award-Winning Author many times over, including: CYBILS Award for Poetry, Nerdy Book Club Award, NCTE Notable Verse Novel, Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year, Arnold Adoff Poetry Award for New Voices Honor Book, Sydney Taylor Book Award Notable, Amelia Bloomer/Rise List, Bank Street Book of the Year, nominated twice for Pushcart Prize... check out her website to see more.

Instagram: LauraShovan

______________________

And as always, if you would like to be featured on 

Writing Teazurs with Angie Azur—please reach out.

angazur @ gmail . com