Ate Grypstra's Blog

... that is to say: still not as well as I would like to. But I'm hanging in there. Du dricker min katts mjölk (?!). Et cetera.

Gotta love Duolingo, though. I even sent in an official request to start a Frisian-English incubator. Just so you know.

But enough linguistic gibberish. Let's talk about ... books!

I've been promoting one specific book these last two weeks; visiting two grammar schools, two comprehensive schools and one teacher training college to give guest lectures about our local folkhero Great Pier. Although it was a bit tough on the vocal cords at times, it was really rewarding to engage with readers in this way.

... in the Netherlands. From 29 January till 4 February.

I read two poetry anthologies ('Zelf' by Pieter Boskma and 'De steen vreest mij' by Ellen Deckwitz), so I can safely say I did my fair share to keep the Dutch poetic spirit alive, or can’t I?

To my further defense, I downloaded a couple of other titles (by i.a. Gerrit Kouwenaar and Anna Enquist) via the 'Bibliotheek'app, so I can read them on my iPad.

But the bad news for all you tireless Dutch poets out there is that I am also very much immersed in Neil Gaiman's fantastic novel 'American Gods' at the moment.

And furthermore ... I am fanatically trying to teach myself Swedish with the rather addictive Duolingo app.

But hey, there's always Dutch Poetry Week 2016!

The first edition of my book about the Frisian folk hero Grutte Pier (Pierius Magnus / Pier the Great) sold about 700 copies. It has been my best-selling title so far (although I must confess I had hoped to sell at least a thousand copies).

A Dutch organisation for reading promotion (which is also responsible for promoting books in the Frisian language) chose 'Grutte Pier: Krús fan de Hollanner' for their 2015 project. Their aim was to reach at least 500 secondary school pupils.

After some serious PR activities, we managed to interest 8 teachers of Frisian and the book is currently read by almost 1900 pupils. Obviously, this called for a second printing.

You can imagine I am one happy author and I am looking forward to visiting some of the schools in order to have some interaction with my new readership.

Here are some cool pics of the official launch of the reading project:

http://fu.edufrysk.nl/kick-off-lesbef...

And here are some of the new readers:

http://fu.edufrysk.nl/les-no-projekt-...

So. Here here you are. A Frisian author on the best book site around. And they want you to fill in an author's profile. And they ask you to answer some general questions about the process of writing. Which is all okay, of course. But one immediately comes across some language issues. Should one write about Frisian books in English? What would be the use? And please refrain from shouting that it might be a good idea to translate the works into English (referring to the age-old link between Frisian and English and blablabla). Because no one would read them. Or would they? Penny for your thoughts!