Author of cult humour for kids and this year’s Pulitzer poetry prize winner
View(s):Andy Stanton
Andy Stanton wrote the first book in his hilarious and much-loved Mr Gum series over the course of a single night, Christmas Eve, as a present to read to his young cousins on Christmas Day.
The eponymous Mr Gum is a repulsive old man, very much in the tradition of Roald Dahl, who is kept from seeing his evil plans come to fruition by the real heroine of the story, a sweet nine-year-old girl called Polly (whose real name, as Stanton informs us, is Jammy Grammy LammyF’HuppaF’Huppa Berlin Stereo EoEoLebbC’YeppNermonica Le Straypek De Grespin De Crespin De Spespin De Vespin De Whoop De Loop De Brunkle Merry Christmas Lenoir).
Today, described as ‘cult humour for kids,’ the Mr. Gum books have been published in over 34 countries worldwide and have won numerous awards, including the inaugural Roald Dahl Funny Prize, the Red House Children’s Book Award, and not one, but two, Blue Peter Book Awards.
In 2016 ‘You’re A Bad Man, Mr Gum!’ reaches its 10th anniversary and will be published as an Egmont Modern Classic.
Gregory Pardlo
Gregory Pardlo’s collection ‘Digest’ won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry but while acknowledging that it’s“really cool that the Pulitzer Prize this year went to this black dude,”the author says he and others of his race can still feel invisible in an industry overwhelmingly dominated by white men.
The 46-year-old told the New York Times that “Digest,” his second volume of poetry, was rejected by all of the major publishers when he first sent it out in 2010. (The collection plays with form, including fake sociological essays and reviews of imaginary books but also includes poems that unpack every day concerns such as the challenges of fatherhood.)
His personal history is filled with odd, interesting choices that have made this road to success a long and diverting one.
They have included a stint in the Marine Corps and a job in a restaurant in Copenhagen where he learned to speak Danish.
He published his first book of poems, “Totem,” in 2007.
Digest was also shortlisted for the 2015 NAACP Image Award and is a current finalist for the Wright Legacy Award. His first collection Totem received the APR/Honickman Prize in 2007.
Pardlo’s poems appear in The Nation, Ploughshares, Tin House, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. He lives with his family in Brooklyn.
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