Author Chat & Giveaway: THE POET AND THE BEES (Amy Novesky)~ US ONLY!

We are excited to share an author chat and a giveaway for THE POET AND THE BEES (Amy Novesky)!

Meet the Author: Amy Novesky

Amy Novesky writes stories about creative and courageous women and is the author of Girl on a Motorcycle; Cloth Lullaby; and Me, Frida. She lives outside of San Francisco with her family. You can visit her online at AmyNovesky.com or on Instagram @AmyNovesky.

Website * Instagram

Meet the Illustrator: Jessica Love

Jessica Love is the author and illustrator of the Stonewall Book Award winner Julián Is a Mermaid and Julián at the Wedding and has illustrated many other books for children. She lives in the Hudson Valley with family.

Website * Instagram

About the Book: THE POET AND THE BEES

A mesmerizing picture book about the iconic poet Sylvia Plath and her final writings

Love, bees don’t live long.
But honey lives forever. Words, too.

Sylvia Plath is remembered for her stirring poetry and the tragic legacy her work left behind. But it is lesser known that she was a beekeeper and completed her last book of poems while tending to her bees and harvesting honey.

Author and beekeeper Amy Novesky shines a new light on the life and work of Plath through the lens of her last seasons with her beloved bees—and how during their short and busy lives, they filled her with inspiration and hope—while the evocative paintings by Stonewall Book Award winner Jessica Love reveal the tenderness and wonder of one of America’s most iconic poets.

Purchase * Goodreads

Author Chat

YABC: What gave you the inspiration to write this book?

I keep bees, and when I learned that poet Sylvia Plath kept bees, too, and wrote poems about them, I was inspired to write this book.

YABC: What scene in the book are you most proud of, and why?

There’s a spread in the book that shows Sylvia bold and brave in full beekeeping suit, surrounded by her bees, on the left-hand page. And Sylvia bare skinned and humbled in the tub, swollen with bee stings, on the right-hand page with the lines: “She is just a poet who keeps bees. She is covered in stings. She feels all she feels, which is a lot.” I love the contrast of these two Sylvias, the bold and the bare, and how she, and we, are not one or the other but both at all times. “It could all go wrong” and sometimes it does, but we must bravely stand in the middle of the swarm and realize that not only can we bear it, we can find the beauty in it all.

YABC: Thinking way back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a writer from then to now?

Writing is so much more than typing words on a page. It’s about all the time not writing. Being present. Paying attention. Loving the world.

YABC: What do you like most about the cover of the book?

I love the cover of this book. The simplicity and beauty of it. I fought for it. I love the bees buzzing out of the open book in Sylvia’s hands. Illustrator Jessica Love is brilliant at capturing the humanity in her characters. Her Sylvia is just so lovely and relatable on the cover and throughout.

YABC: What are your favorite themes or tropes?

Women artists, flowers, fashion, travel. Most of my books have at least one, if not all, of these themes.

YABC: Do you have a playlist you listened to when you were writing?

The hum, buzz, and swarm of my own bees provided the playlist for writing this book. But Phoebe Bridgers was on repeat, as well.

YABC: Do you have an unusual office supply that helps you in your writing routine?

Not unusual, but I am never without a black Moleskine sketchbook and felt tip pen.

YABC: If you could collaborate with any other writer in history, who would it be?

Joan of Arc. Not a writer, but a warrior. I recently started teaching middle school Language Arts, and I embarked on this new career and the school year with a novel in verse about Joan. I’ve read nearly every book written about her, and while, amazingly, you can read a transcript from the 1400s of her actual testimony in her heresy trial, I would love to ghost write her autobiography.

YABC: What would you say is your superpower?

I recently told my 7th grade Language Arts students that I could out quiet them—out quiet their unquiet, that is. I can sit quietly until they are quiet, which can be quite a long time. I try not to say “be quiet” as that, unfortunately, has come to mean something punitive instead of powerful; it’s the less impolite way of saying, shut up! which, believe me, tempts me at times. But, to me, to be quiet is a superpower. I want to reclaim those words and their meaning.

YABC: What new release book are you looking forward to in 2025?

HOW TO LOVE THE WHOLE WORLD, a picture book about artist Agnes Martin, written by Henry Martin and illustrated by Shelley Hampe, published by Cameron Kids/Abrams. In my other life I am a children’s book editor, and this was one of my favorite books to acquire and edit. If Henry hadn’t written this book, I might have. Similar to THE POET AND THE BEES, it’s about how to love the world and how loving the world is feeling it all, the joy and the grief.

YABC: What’s up next for you?

I have a picture book called TO WANDER coming soon from Viking Children’s Books, who published my GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE book. Both books feature themes of travel. I wrote the story during the pandemic when, of course, none of us were able to travel. The book is about travel of all kinds, mostly and especially, in one’s imagination, where we each are free to travel wherever and whenever we like.

Title: THE POET AND THE BEES

Author: Amy Novesky

Illustrator: Jessica Love

Release Date: 2/11/25

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers

ISBN-10: 0593526392

ISBN-13: 9780593526392

Genre: Hardcover Picture Book

Age Range: 4-8

*GIVEAWAY DETAILS*

Three (3) winners will receive a copy of THE POET AND THE BEES (Amy Novesky) ~US Only!

*Click the Rafflecopter link below to enter the giveaway*

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Author Chat & Giveaway: THE POET AND THE BEES (Amy Novesky)~ US ONLY!

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