GLOW

GLOEI (GLOW)

year:

2020

genre:

non-fiction, poetry, 480 p.

publisher:

Querido
illustrator:
Floor de Goede 

age:

14+ and adults

awards:

Rainbowbook of the year 2021

Nomination for the Çavaria Media Award 2020

Honour List IBBY 2022

Silver Slate 2021

Silver Pencil 2021 (for the illustrations)

 

For this big book I interviewed twenty one young people (between 15 and 23 years old). They talked frankly about all the things that glow in their lives: love, anger ambition. Being extremely diverse, they all have one thing in common: their sexuality or their gender differs from the majority. To every interview I wrote a poem, and Floor de Goede drew a portrait of each interviewee. At the end of the book there's a chapter that reveils what happened after the interviews. The beautiful book design is by Roald Triebels.

This book also marks the start of a whole new series with novels with queer main characters: Querido's imprint Querido Glow.

THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST (with Jelmer Soes and Dave Boomkens)

HET EUROVISIE SONGFESTIVAL (THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST, together with Jelmer Soes and Dave Boomkens)
year:
2020 
genre:

non-fiction, 240 p.

publisher:

Querido
illustrator:
several (photographs)

age:

9+ and adults

2020 marks the year that I got to be one of the founders of  www.eurostory.nl, an online magazine that combines literature, stories and the Eurovision Song Contest. Apart from that, the Netherlands won the contest in 2019, with Duncan Laurence, which means the festival will be held in Rotterdam - my home town (although now the festival got postponed by a year because of covid-19).

From these facts a question rose: to write an encyclopedia-like book about the Eurovision Song Contest. I wrote this together with my Eurostory-colleagues Jelmer Soes and Dave Boomkens: a quite voluminous book in which all years, all songs and all stories found their place.
For every edition (the festival celebrates 65 years!) there's a piece about the winner, about the Dutch contestant, about the 'funniest lyrical line' that was sung that year, there's a list with all names and points, and there are extra stories that were worth being told. Besides that there are many beautiful pictures, some of them were never printed before. And there's a preface by our Eurovision commentator Cornald Maas!

The book is suited for both adults and children, and was beautifully designed by Roald Triebels.

THE SWEETNESS OF BULLYING

HET LEKKERE VAN PESTEN (THE SWEETNESS OF BULLYING)
year:

2011

genre:

non-fiction, 144 p.

publisher:

Athenaeum, Amsterdam

age:

(young) adults

I started writing this non-fiction book about bullying as a book for young adults, but gradually it became a book for adults, and so publishing house Athenaeum was so kind to issue it. For the book I met male model Julian van Dalen. He has a huge career in international fashion-modelling, but was bullied in school for as long as he can remember. The first part of the book is a collection of his memories. In the second part he was so generous to let me speak to all of those who had something to do with these episodes: his brother, his teachers, his friends and... the bullies themselves. Their interviews give a deeper insight on how these problems could come about and how they were dealt with. The book closes with an essay that Julian and I wrote together.