Mar 26, 2008
Alan Katz
Weston author becomes 'ambassador for poetry'
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by Cathryn J. Prince
Oops! He did it again.
Alan Katz’s newest book, OOPS!, a poetry collection, arrived in stores in honor of National Poetry Month. The book is whimsically illustrated by Edward Koren of The New Yorker magazine.
Katz, who has lived in Weston for 15 years, has penned more than 20 children’s books. But this time Katz has reached a whole new audience. Certainly, librarians, teachers, and parents across the country will find this book a passport to poetry.
“To be an ambassador for poetry is thrilling,” Mr. Katz said on a recent Sunday in Starbucks. “It’s so cool. If kids are going to read poetry while laughing at it that means they are paying attention to it. Then they might pay attention to poetry where they’re not laughing. If this is the way in for them, then that’s great.”
Born in Queens, Mr. Katz and his wife, Rose, moved to Los Angeles in the late 1980s. She was writing for The Journal of Commerce and he was writing for, among other things, the Rosie O’Donnell Show. Then the L.A. riots ripped the city apart and the couple decided to head back East.
Mr. Katz has worked in print and broadcast for a quarter of a century. Aside from the Rosie O’Donnell Show, he wrote for cartoons such as Taz-Mania, Disney’s Raw Toonage and Goof Troops.
Soon, Mr. Katz decided to try his hand at children’s’ books.
“I was writing for the Rosie show and television shows, all kinds of children’s entertainment. It was a natural progression for the books,” Mr. Katz said.
In 2001, Take Me Out of the Bathtub was born. Simon & Schuster published the book and actually asked for a sequel before the first one even landed on the shelves. That sequel, On Top of the Potty (another “silly songbook” for kids), was set for release this month.
The process of publishing still fascinates Mr. Katz, who was used to writing a song in the morning for the Rosie Show and hearing it aired the same day. Currently, he is working on a book slated for a 2012 release.
Yet, no matter what he is working on, his favorite book is the one he hasn’t written yet. “I like to see what I can come up with. I like to see what will engage me,” he said.
Getting to a publisher is difficult, but Mr. Katz decided to take the matter into his own hands. Essentially, he didn’t take no for an answer.
“I broke the rules and showed up in editors’ offices,” Mr. Katz said. Although this unorthodox approach worked for him, he said he wouldn’t necessarily advise other writers to do the same.
Nevertheless, this kind of energy and enthusiasm for his writing means the Westonite is constantly thinking of new ideas. He keeps a notebook by his bed and has “scraps of paper everywhere.”
The book Don’t Say that Word grew from a thought he had upon waking. “It’s a book of inappropriate words where the words never appear on the page,” Mr. Katz said. “It just has the humor of them.”
As for inspiration? Mr. Katz gets it everywhere and anywhere. His house is especially creative. His wife, a serious journalist, also writes poetry.
“Rose is a great poet but we couldn’t have more different writing styles. She’s funnier than I am serious, though,” he said.
Together they are raising four children, Simone, Andrew, Nathan and David.
Writing seems to run in the family. Andrew, a seventh grader at Weston Middle School, saw his first article published in Kidz Magazine last November. It was a piece he had written for his English class.
The lively house fuels his creative juices. There are times when some of his kids’ ideas might end up in a book in one form or another. And each one of the Katz children has been able to attend a signing or promotional event with their dad. That’s important to Mr. Katz since he has to use vacation days from his job at Westport-based Source Marketing to attend promotional events.
To that end, Mr. Katz visits a lot of schools, and, he enjoys every minute of it. He not only keeps a scrapbook of all the pictures and poems children have given him, he answers every e-mail.
“It’s a privilege to speak to kids. I love sitting on the floor with them, listening to them,” Mr. Katz said. “Why go if you’re not going to interact with them? I’ve always loved kids. It comes from being a kid. I flat out haven’t grown up yet.”
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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