At-a-Glance
Latest book: New Year at the Pier (coming June 09)
Lives in: Manhattan Beach
Used to be: Governess for Joan Rivers' daughter
Favorite restaurant: El Sombrero
Website: www.aprilwayland.com
I'm a writer, a mother, a speaker, a fiddle player, an organizer, a teacher, a poet, a performer, a storyteller, a traveler, a walker, a meditator, an aqua farmer, a sun farmer, an animal lover, a cloud collector, a procrastinator. All!
I've run a marathon, backpacked through Europe, worked on a kibbutz in Israel, given birth underwater, run a 300-acre walnut farm, been the governess for 10-year-old Melissa Rivers, played both violin and fiddle, founded two folk music clubs and a hiking club, tutored street kids, and have been marketing manager in a Fortune 500 corporation. But the hardest thing I’ve ever done was learn who I am and who I want to be in this world. Writing helped me learn this.
I grew up both in Santa Monica, California, and on our 300-acre family farm in Northern California. So I loved bicycling on city streets and driving tractor between rows of walnut trees; diving under the waves of the Pacific Ocean and drifting on a raft in the Feather River by our farm.
I had a great time at the University of California at Davis, and then I traveled, started a non-profit tutoring agency called Positive Education, and worked in the corporate world…until I rediscovered my love for writing.
I’ve published four picture books and studied with extraordinary teachers, including poet Myra Cohn Livingston, with whom I worked for twelve years. It was Myra who suggested I write a collection of poems in the teen voice.
Writing in the teen voice and telling a story in unrhymed poems set me free. I found myself writing poems about my firsts—first period, first crush, first date, first published poem. That book became Girl Coming in for a Landing—a novel in poems. It has a beautiful cover, gorgeous collage illustrations by Elaine Clayton, a section addressed to aspiring writers, and has won lots of awards.
My forthcoming picture book, New Year at the Pier (June 2009 from Dial), is based on the way my southern California beach town’s Jewish community celebrates the Jewish New Year. It's wonderfully illustrated in watercolors by Stéphane Jorisch.
When I’m not writing, teaching in the UCLA Extension Writing Program or zipping around the world teaching workshops, I can be found walking to the ocean or hiking along Backbone Trail with friends, meditating in my yard, coaxing sugar snap peas to grow, collecting whimsical art with my husband, exploring the world with my college-age son, or playing with the oldest dog in the world, Rosie. I am active in local and national politics. My husband says I am “saving the world one email at a time.” I hope it’s true.
SoCal Book Scene Exclusive (Mini) Interview:
SCBS: What did you do before you “officially” became an author?
AHW: I was in marketing in a Fortune 500 company. Me! I was a round peg in a square hole. Thank goodness for the UCLA Extension Writers' Program. It rescued me, set me on the path to being a professional writer. I have been an instructor in this program for over a decade (!)...paying it forward.
SCBS: How do you spend your weekends?
AHW: Doing political work, playing folk music, taking photos for a local theater company, writing, hiking, brushing the oldest-dog-in-the-world, planting vegetables, taking a machete to my emails...
SCBS: What’s your favorite restaurant in Southern California?
AHW: El Sombrero in Manhattan Beach. It's our family's pet restaurant; the place where we always see friends and neighbors. It's also owned by the employees and the food is authentic, yummy, and filling. (Photo: by Webb Burns)
Coming to your favorite local Southern California independent bookstore June 09:
