Northern Highlight - Sue Hardy-Dawson

NORTHERN HIGHLIGHT

SUE HARDY-DAWSON

1.      Why did you become a writer and illustrator?

When I was younger I found writing really difficult. Later when I was 16, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. However, as is often the case, I was always creative and could turn my hand to any practical task. Drawing and painting came naturally to me and allowed me to express myself.

For many years, after leaving school, I didn’t write anything at all, not even a shopping list. However, when I had children, I started writing and illustrating stories and poems for them.

I’ve always loved reading and it seemed a very natural thing to do.

Later on I started working in a school where I learnt to use a computer. It was literally life-changing. Suddenly I could write legibly. I realised then that writing was something I had always wanted to do, it was just too difficult before. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.

I also feel that I have to do this for all the children like me, who hated or feel they hate writing, to show them that there are ways of making writing easier and that what matters most is imagination. Writing and creating is the most wonderful and enriching thing to do and it doesn’t really matter how you get your ideas down.

Artwork and poems by Sue Hardy-Dawson.
Cover design by Louise Miller, published by Troika Books

 2.      Tell us about where you live.

I live right on the edge of Harrogate in North Yorkshire. I feel very blessed because I can easily walk into town but also just as easily down the road to the Nidd gorge. I love nothing better than walking my dogs by the river here and through the woods and fields - it’s really tranquil and beautiful. Also, because dogs have no concept of bad weather, I get to see that countryside in all its shades and moods.

I’ve been here all my life and grew up nearby in the market town of Knaresborough. I had a privileged upbringing in many ways because my back garden led out into endless fields and woods, most of which now have houses on them. I literally spent my life outdoors. I knew the months by what bloomed or grew, and although as a family we didn’t have much in the way of material things we always had just enough and were warm, well-fed and well-loved.

My father, too, was a great lover of and performer of poetry and would always lull us to sleep with one of the many he knew by heart. I believe that was some part of how and why I became a poet.

3.      Where do you work?

There’s a two-part answer to this. Most of the time I’m either writing and illustrating or visiting schools with my odd collection of poetry, strange noises and puppets. I love to do multisensory poetry workshops and great big art activities.

But also I still work as a teaching assistant two days a week, and I love that too because I know how hard school is for some children and I want to make a difference. Also I’ve been really lucky because my school have always been very supportive of my writing, which occasionally causes a bit of disruption (having to go off and do this or that), and of course nothing is nicer or more scary than testing new poems out on children and teachers who know you well. But it’s a really good thing because children especially are painfully honest. 

Cover artwork by Lorna Scobie, cover & book design by Arianna Osti.
Interior illustrations and shape poems by Sue Hardy-Dawson. Published by Otter-Barry Books 

 

4.     What for you is the 'spirit of the North’?

I think there’s a wildness and bleakness here that certainly historically fostered an inner strength, a 'get on, no matter what' attitude. My youth it seems was populated by eccentric characters, some of them terrifying to my young eyes. But certainly also interesting. Memorable ones involved goats being kept in kitchens and coal in baths. A less pleasant experience was discovering a deceased chicken, presumably awaiting its final journey to the oven, hung from a kitchen door handle.

People didn’t lock their doors and by and large knew everything about everyone. If you got up to something you could be sure your parents would find out and consequences metered out. I was the resident repairer of damaged toys, and stain-removal expert. Toys and clothes were precious and rare, so damaging them was utter disaster. I became good at undetectable repairs and thus saved many a child, myself included, from serious strife.

 5.      Has this spirit influenced your work?

Undoubtably, the countryside and wildness is part of my being - it’s responsible for my love of nature. To this day I write many of my poems whilst out walking the dogs. If I’m stuck, I just empty my mind and listen to the sky and earth. They always have something to say.

 I suspect too many of the more comical characters I grew up with spurred some of the poems about the confusion I suffered as a child as to what adults wanted from me. It must have been obvious to them, but it certainly wasn’t to me.

Co-written with Roger Stevens and Liz Brownlee. Shape poem designs by Liz and Sue. 
Cover artwork & illustrations by Lorna Scobie.
Cover design by Andrea Kearney and the Bloomsbury design team. Published by Bloomsbury.

6.      Who for you are the great Northern/Scottish writers or illustrators?

Well, where to start ... I love David Almond. I discovered Skellig whilst working in a secondary school and was just blown away.

So I read everything I could find. I love John Rice, he’s got a beautiful book of poetry called The Dream of Night Fishers. I love anything by Jackie Kay. The late great Gerard Benson, born in London but latterly Bradford’s laureate, and Cathy Benson, still very much with us, also a wonderful illustrator and marvellous poet. If you haven’t before look for To Catch an Elephant or his early autobiography Memoirs of a Jobbing Poet. Dom Conlon is a fine up and coming poet, check out This Rock That Rock. 

Jan Dean has moved south now but I adore her work - Wallpapering the Cat is just wonderful. Matt Goodfellow, also a brilliant performer, writes beautiful poetry. Bright Bursts of Colour is fab but also his first book Carry Me Away, which I illustrated, and for younger ones, Chicken on the Roof. And of course I grew up on a diet of Bronte and Beatrix Potter, and I loved with a passion A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Later I fell in love with Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song.

7.      If you could be transported to anywhere in the North right now, where would it be?

 Well, I love the sea, so really anywhere hereabouts that’s forgotten and a coast. Perhaps Dane's Dyke at Flamborough. It has a nature reserve and a winding country walk going down to the most beautiful white chalk pebble beach. Its origins are ancient and they have found Bronze-age arrowheads there. But it’s quite hard to navigate, so it’s often quiet. The colours of the chalk cliffs and the clear surrounding water on a warm day are quite surreal. I love to go there. 

8.      What would you like to see from children's publishing in the North?

 I would love - when this madness ends - to see some of the big writing events and festivals held hereabouts. Almost everything I have to go to means traveling to London and that is difficult and expensive if you want to share these things with your family, friends and even school.

 9.      What's your favourite children's book set in the North?

 Oh gosh, well has to be The Song of Ella Grey by David Almond and I’m saying no more because if I start I will not be able to say them all, and some of the others may get jealous!

You can find Sue on Twitter: @SueHardyDawson

 

Sue Hardy-Dawson is a poet & illustrator. Her debut collection Where Zebras Go (Otter-Barry Books) was shortlisted for the 2018 CLiPPA. Her second, Apes to Zebras (Bloomsbury) - co-written with poetry ambassadors Roger Stevens and Liz Brownlee - won the NSTB Awards. Sue loves visiting schools and has worked with the Prince's Foundation charity Children & the Arts. As a dyslexic poet, Sue loves encouraging reluctant writers. Her second solo collection, If I Were Other than Myself (Troika Books) came out in February 2020.