More Than Enough: A Passover Story
by April Halprin Wayland
April Halprin Wayland wrote several picture books, the most dear to her being her books on the Jewish holidays: “New Year at the Pier” and “More Than Enough: A Passover story”. For more information about the process of writing “More Than Enough,” see https://www.teachingauthors.com/search?q=march+2016 . ”More Than Enough” just came out in paperback and audio with April recording the author’s notes herself
April wrote over 100 poems for anthologies for kids and one novel in stand-alone poems, “Girl coming in for a landing.”,
She started writing when she was just a small child, with picture books and then moved into poetry.
Tortoises are the more unique pets that April raises. Sheldon is 18-yaers-old, he goes in and out of her house at will. She calls him her her cow dinosaur. She also has two young tortoises that she’s had since they hatched from eggs. They take a lot of care, being fed tofu and tortoise pellets and tend to wander around her yard. Their wish is to hibernate in the fall and winter like Sheldon, but she has to wake them up every day for the first two years, keeping them warm on a heating pad and in warm water pools. In addition, she has both baby and adult pond turtles.
April started meditating outside 20 years ago, and has meditated ever since doing both guided and silent meditation. She also has a habit of writing a poem a day which started years ago and she exchanges poems with a friend.
It’s getting easier to publish poetry, according to April. Kids especially feel a sense of accomplishment in getting through a book quickly with a lot of white to give it meditative space.
UCLA has been April’s home for teaching children’s books and poetry. She loves being able to create a loving and kind place to teach how to critique.
April developed a form of poetry, IOW I(N One Word) for when she can’t think of topic. She thinks of a word, goes to a website (webmaker.info) and finds all of the words you can make out of that particular word. Then she chooses some and writes a poem out of it.
See conversation between April and Elisabeth Paige at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1012396
To find April you can go to: Poetryfoundation April Halprin Wayland
Teachingauthors.com
Facebook: Aprilhalprinwayland
Instagram aprilwayland
photo by Sonya Sones