Michael Rosen looks just like his picture. Well, maybe not quite so sad.

It was kind of freaky, actually. I had no idea I knew what the British Children's Laureate looked like until I walked into the lecture hall and thought "oh, hey, that's the guy from Michael Rosen's Sad Book."

Last night I went to one of those things that I would have meant to see in New York but not gotten around to, so it's a good thing I live in London, where I'm inspired to try new things. Back in August I got bored and went to the Freud Museum 'cause it was a nice day, and on my way out I picked up a brochure for the Connecting Conversations Children's Books Series at the Institute of Psychoanalysis. (That picture is from Michael Rosen's website, by the way, not the event--I still don't have a camera.)

The brochure says the series is dedicated to "bringing together psychoanalysis and other fields," which is true enough, but mostly that consisted of the moderator (Hannah Solemani, a psychoanalyst who works with adolescents) asking, "don't you think what you do is really just like what we do, sort of, in a way?" But the answers to that were pretty interesting, as were the audience questions. (Being in a room full of psychologists asking a writer questions is ENTIRELY different from being in a room full of writers asking a writer questions. Not a single person asked him how he found his agent.)

So, from sort of vaguely knowing who he was, Michael Rosen is now my HERO, and I want to be just like him when I grow up. Not only has he written something like 140 books (gulp), but he has his own radio and TV shows! Besides school visits, he performs at places like the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He gets to talk about reading and writing education to people who actually make policy about it. And he has great things to say about writing, and education, and reading.

Now, bear in mind that I do not write shorthand, so these quotes are probably neatened-up versions of what he actually said--I tried to be as precise as possible, but sometimes I'd be writing and he'd be further into the thought, so it's likely that bits from further into the thought made it into the notes I was taking. My favorite parts:

On how writing is like psychoanalysis: "When I write, I have that sensation of being the first reader. Reading [what I've written] creates a triangle between me, the Writer, the written work, and me, the Reader...I am looking at myself from an angle I couldn't see from before."

The emphasis is mine, because I had never thought of that, but it's absolutely true--the writing that means the most to me is always what I produce when I'm trying to find out what I think, not trying to express what I think. My favorite books do the same thing: they tell me something I don't know, or something I do know put differently than I would have thought of it, so I see the truth from a different angle.

He talked a lot about aiming for an authenticity of feeling, which was picked up in the Q&A later. Mr Rosen said he didn't aim for universality, because he didn't know whether that was even possible: can he really write something that's true for everybody, even someone who grew up in an entirely different world from his? This seemed to upset at least one member of the audience, who protested that surely something had to be universal, but he stood fast, which I for one applaud. I'm not sure why a writer should reach for the universal, anyway; I always feel that trying to apply an idea to everyone leads to watered-down ideas.

This was just about my favorite part: near the beginning of the conversation, Ms Solemani asked, "and how do you know if it's any good?" Mr Rosen looked startled at that idea, and answered "I never know whether it's any good...I have a sense of when I've got to something I was trying to get at." He didn't talk about this, but I think this is why critique groups are so important, also: not only can they make the aesthetic judgments a writer may be blind to, but your critique partners tell you whether you're actually saying what you wanted to say.

He said, "I'm trying to find the truth as it feels to me." I think that's what we should ask from ourselves as writers: trust that what feels like truth to us will feel like truth to others, as well.

I was too shy to actually talk to anybody at the receptions before and afterwards. (I have to get over that.) But it was a very enlightening and inspiring evening. I can't wait for the next one!

--Kathryne