Steven Herrick - The Simple Gift. Inserting authorial intent into your Year 9 essay, how to do it, and the information you will need to complete such a task.

1. Steven Herrick - Inserting
Authorial Intent into your Essay
The Simple Gift

2. Steven Herrick – The basics
• Steven Herrick (born in Brisbane, 1958) is an Australian poet and
author. Herrick has published twenty-two books for adults, young
adults and children. He is widely regarded as a pioneer of verse-
novels for children and young adults.
• Herrick was born the youngest of seven children. His first published
poem, written at age eighteen, was called Love is like a gobstopper.[1]
He left school in year 10.[2]He studied poetry at university, and gained
his B.A. from the University of Queensland in 1982.[3]

3. Steven Herrick – Take notes in your book, we will
need to write as if we know him personally.
• The following are answers to questions he was asked in regards to
English students completing the HSC (Their version of the VCE).
• Why do we add sentences like this?
• To show that we have read the novel not only as a true story, but as a
creation of an artist who made certain choices.
• You can either do this from what you have gathered from reading the
book, or by reading over some biographical information about the
author to add detail to these sentences.

4. Steven Herrick – Education (His account)
• . I went to Coopers Plains State School, where I was good at English
and soccer, and where I got punched in the eye by a girl one year
older than me - I ran home! From the age of eight to fifteen I was
obsessed with soccer - I spent every spare moment kicking a ball
against the house, or trying to knock the branches off trees from
twenty metres with a well-aimed right foot drive. At Acacia Ridge
High School I decided to concentrate on a life of soccer instead of
education, so I failed Year 10. The principal suggested I not return for
Year 11, so I didn't.

5. Jobs after dropping out of Secondary School
• I worked instead - fruit picker, storeman, clerk. And I played soccer on
the weekend - still dreaming of football glory. After three years of
hard work and no chance of making the FA Cup Final at Wembley

6. Further study
• I decided to go back to school as an adult. This time I passed all my
subjects and went to university. At uni I studied poetry and how to
get drunk very quickly. I excelled at both subjects, but chose poetry as
a career. I now live in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains with my wife
Cathie and our two children Jack and Joe.

7. Awards
• love, ghosts & nose hair
- shortlisted Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award 1997
- shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Award 1997
A place like this
- shortlisted Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year 1999
- shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Award 1999
- Commended Victorian Premier's Literary Award 1998
the spangled drongo
- WINNER - New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 2000
my life, my love, my lasagne
- Shortlisted KOALA/YABBA Book of the Year Awards 2000.
the simple gift
- shortlisted Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year 2001
- shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Award 2001
- highly commended Children's Literature Peace Prize
Tom Jones saves the world
- shortlisted Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year 2003
- highly commended Children's Literature Peace Prize
do-wrong ron
- Honour Book, Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year 2004
- Shortlisted Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year 2004.
by the river
- Winner NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2005.
- Honour Book Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year 2005.
- Winner Australian Speech Pathologists Book of the Year 2005.

8. Why did you write "the simple gift"?
• I wanted to explore the relationship between a young man and an old
man. As adults, we seem to believe that the idea of being an influence
works only one way - we adults can influence young people for the
better. In the book, I wanted to show it working the other way - that
is, young Billy really being the positive influence, in fact, the catalyst,
for Old Bill rejoining the world.
I know my two teenage sons are a wonderful positive influence on my
own life. It seems to me that the world of young people is becoming
increasingly marginalized by mainstream media. As adults, we need to
accept, encourage, and indeed, embrace the world of young people.
Let’s see the relationship as a priceless two-way street.

9. How did you start writing this book - did you
have a definite plot outline, characters, etc?
• No, not really. I've written all my verse-novels for YA in the same way.
Firstly, I start with a location. In this case, I remembered staying in a
disused railway carriage in Ballarat, Victoria when I was a young person
hitching around the country. It was probably the best place I slept - warm
and comfortable (and free!). I had a very relaxed teenage life. My parents
had no great expectations for me, and they put no pressure whatsoever on
me. I spent time travelling around the country, working as a fruit picker, or
in a cannery (like Billy and Old Bill), and I slept and stayed where I could. I
felt incredibly lucky.
Once I had this location, it was a relatively simple thing to put my character
Billy in the carriage, and see what happened. This is important in my
writing… I very rarely have a strong plot outline. I like to create location,
then character, and see what happens.

10. What is the theme of "the simple gift"
• At the time of writing this book, I was listening to a wonderful folk CD
by Bruce Springsteen titled the ghost of Tom Joad. On this CD, there
are a few songs about middle-aged men who are searching for
something to give their life meaning. The word redemption kept
rolling around my head when listening to the songs, and writing this
book. That word certainly came into play in how I created the
character of Old Bill.
The other thing I kept thinking about while writing was the whole
notion of gifts - what is valuable in our life? How do we measure what
is valuable? The notion of the spiritual versus the material is
something that informs a lot of my writing.
You can work it out from there, okay?

11. What characteristics do your heroes share?
• One reviewer called Billy an atypical hero, which I thought was interesting.
That got me thinking about what is heroic, and how it relates to some of
the characters in my other books. I reckon Billy from "gift", Tom from Tom
Jones saves the world, Ron and Isabelle from Do-wrong Ron, and Jack and
Annabel from A place like this all share a similar trait - within the story
they do something of great value, that is a little thing - give friendship and
hope to an old hobo; bring a father and grandfather together (in Tom
Jones); help an old lady became part of the community (in Ron); encourage
a pregnant girl to decide on her future (in A place like this). These simple
little things are what I think of as heroic. They are done by ordinary people,
in a quiet unobtrusive way, and to commit these acts it requires
compassion and love and respect. And they are far more heroic and
necessary than any world-record sporting achievement. And they cannot
be measured in dollars and cents.

12. How to craft sentences around this example:
• Steven Herrick chose to write ___________, because he wants to show that
____________ is ________.
• Steven Herrick displays the character of __________ in such a way because of his
history of ___________.
• Steven Herrick shows Billy as changing a lot because he wants to communicate
that ______________.
• Steven Herrick displays Caitlin as prejudiced because he wants the reader to
understand _____________.
• Steven Herrick writes about responsibility because he wants his younger readers
to understand _____________.
• For example:
• Steven Herrick shows Old Bill, as a story of redemption because he wants to show
that friendship can change peoples lives for the better, because of his experience
with good friends.
• Steven Herrick discusses young love, without shying away from the subject to
suggest that love is not reserved for adults or the elderly.