Anna Woltz: 'I think normal people are boring'

On Wednesday 21 June, the Zilveren Griffels, Zilveren Penselen en Paletten and Vlag en Wimpels will be awarded - the prelude to the presentation of Het Gouden Penseel and Het Gulden Palet in September and the Gouden Griffel in October. Interview with last year's Golden Griffel winner Anna Woltz on writing, growing up and the Griffels, of course.

By Tijmen Brester

Cocky

When she was six, Anna Woltz did not like the idea of having to read all kinds of silly little books in grade 3. She went on strike and didn't read a letter all year. She also told her teacher: I'm not doing it. Until in the summer holidays it started to itch and she pulled out a book: The children of Bolderburen By Astrid Lindgren. After that, she devoured children's books - only the fun ones, of course. But why should other people decide what happens in such a book? She thought at the age of 12, I want to decide that myself! 'And so I started writing myself,' she says, laughing. So it's not surprising that the protagonists in her books are as headstrong and rebellious as Anna Woltz herself.

Outsiders

In your books, you write about children who are different from the rest. Sometimes there is something wrong with them. For instance, there's a boy with epilepsy or a girl with a fear of infection. What do you want to convey with that to your readership?

'A book needs a story. Otherwise, the reader won't read on. There must be something going on, because a main character with whom nothing is going on is dead boring in a story. Everyone is a bit strange, a bit odd, a bit different, and that's not a bad thing. I find people who are different in some way much more interesting than completely normal people. I actually find normal a bit boring.'

Why do you prefer to write for children rather than adults?

'I like children a lot more than adults. Adults in general have already learnt to be more normal. And so that's more boring. My main characters are often a bit on the edge of being very grown-up on the one hand and getting a better understanding of how the world works, but on the other hand sometimes still thinking: yes, why is that?'

No superparents

The children have problems, but the children's parents often do too. This has a big impact on the children.

'That's right. Very often my main characters find out that their parents are also just people. And not some kind of super-parents who do everything right, but people who can also make mistakes. That infuriates them at first. But by the end they think: yes, actually logical. Of course my parents are also just ordinary people.'

Where do you get your ideas to write a book?

'I am always watching to see if I can use something for a book. How you sit here as a family with me at the kitchen table, that could just happen in a book one day. Sometimes there is a kind of click and I suddenly have a real idea, a whole outline for a story. As a writer, you have to build up a kind of gigantic stock of details in your head: the way someone walks or talks, or puts their hair behind their ear, talks just a little too loudly in the supermarket. Those little things that make you see something immediately. So that inspiration is there every day'.

Playing restaurant

Still, we might just have never read a book by Anna Woltz. After all, she didn't necessarily want to become a writer in the past; her dream was to start her own restaurant. But the latter proved more difficult than she had thought, so Anna decided with her first book Everything cooks over to start writing about her dream. This way, she could apply all her love for cooking and her cooking experiences in a book.

So basically your first choice back in the day was not to become a writer, but to work in your own restaurant?

'I cooked for my family every day from the age of 12. Not because I had to, but because I just liked cooking a lot more than my mother did. We used to have a hanging boar, so I had thought of restaurant Het gouden zwijn, with a whole menu, days of cooking and a nicely set table. Then my family would come and eat at my restaurant. It was half play, but I also thought: who knows I might actually do this later.'

In the family

You decided to become a writer. Was writing in your family?

'Writing was very normal in my family. My parents are both journalists, so there was a lot of talk about books and newspapers. My father was really a reporter, so he wrote about the world. But my mother reviewed a lot of books as well and wrote columns. My parents both worked for the NRC.'

You're no stranger to writing, so it's not surprising really that for your book you are Plaster won the Golden Grail.

'I have been writing for quite some time, but I never thought I would win the Gouden Griffel at the age of thirty-four. The Gouden Griffel is surely the most wonderful children's book prize you can win. I can really also remember from when I was at primary school, that every year during the Children's Book Week you get to hear who has won the Golden Griffel.

Just to have it here myself is quite special. I didn't have the Silver Stylus yet either and I thought: well, if I keep writing long enough, I'll get it one day, my books deserve it. But the Gouden Griffel... A prize like that is always a bit of a coincidence. It also depends on the competition, who else has written a book that year.

Research

Plaster is about how things work in hospitals. Alaska is about a boy who has epilepsy. One hundred hours of night About hurricanes. Do you have to do a lot of research for such topics?

'I knew extremely little about epilepsy, hurricanes and hospitals, but the thing I love about writing books is that you get to do totally new research for each book. When you go out to research as a writer, you get to ask all the questions you want. Everyone understands that you are asking everyone questions in one go. For example, for Alaska. The main character has epilepsy and he has an assistance dog. I went to an assistance dog school to see how those assistance dogs are trained.

I talked to lots of different people with epilepsy. I couldn't find a 13-year-old boy with epilepsy and a service dog in the Netherlands. However, I did meet a 60-year-old woman with epilepsy and a service dog. And I talked to a girl in secondary school. She did not have an assistance dog, but so she could tell me what it was like to have epilepsy as a high school student. I also talked to a girl of 13 without epilepsy but with a service dog, because she is in a wheelchair. On the contrary, she could tell me what it is like to have an assistance dog of her own as a child living with her parents. So all these different stories were kind of like puzzle pieces, which made me end up Alaska could write. Without all those stories, I could never have done that.'

Stupid

And how was that at Plaster and One hundred hours of night? 

'For Plaster I spent a night at the hospital with my sister, who is a trainee surgeon. She told me many of her experiences and stories there, which I could use for Plaster.

And One hundred hours of night didn't start by doing research; that arose by chance. I lived in New York for three months when I experienced Hurricane Sandy there. So that's where I really gained my own experiences. It was dumb luck that I experienced that terrible hurricane. But then, of course, I was able to write a book about it.'

In the dark

Were you in the part where the power was out?

'Yes. I spent four days in the dark. I was there by myself. My main characters are lucky to have each other. Then sometimes it's cosy, a bit of an adventure. For me, it was really quite lonely and weird to experience that all alone in New York.'

Why had you moved to New York for three months in the first place?

'I thought: I'm going to have an adventure myself. I set that in motion by booking a plane ticket and renting a flat to live in New York. What I didn't know was that I would therefore experience the biggest adventure of my life there, and immediately find inspiration for a new book.'

New adventure

A new children's novel is not forthcoming for the time being, Anna says, putting her hand on her stomach - as she has her hands full with an even more exciting adventure in the near future: having a baby. Still, she is working on a small book, she says.

So what kind of book is that?

'It's a booklet for a new series by my publisher Querido for beginning readers. So exactly the kind of book I hated so much in group three and went on a reading strike for! Those booklets were written according to the "safe learning to read" reading method. To my mother I said: I don't want to learn to read safely! I want to learn dangerous reading or exciting reading! The motto of this new series from Querido is "learning to read happily". I like that. Exactly what I was so opposed to as a six-year-old they are now trying to do differently.'

Anna Woltz's work is published by Querido.