MG KidLit Poet ALERT!
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.
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.
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)?
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
“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.
angazur @ gmail . com
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