Charles Ghigna
| Charles Ghigna | |
|---|---|
| Born | Charles Ghigna August 25, 1946 Bayside, New York, USA |
| Pen name | Father Goose® |
| Occupation | Poet, children's author |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Poetry, children's literature |
| Spouse | Debra Ghigna |
| Website | |
| www |
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Charles Ghigna (born August 25, 1946) is an American poet and author of more than 100 books for children and adults from Random House, Disney, Hyperion, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, Time Inc., Abrams, Charlesbridge, Capstone, Boyds Mills Press, Orca and other publishers, and more than 5,000 poems, many of which appear in textbooks and anthologies, and in hundreds of newspapers and magazines from The New Yorker and Harper's to Cricket and Highlights. He has spoken at schools, colleges, conferences, libraries, and literary events throughout the United States and overseas, and has read his poems at the Library of Congress, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the American Library in Paris, the American School in Paris, and the International Schools of South America. He sometimes uses his trademark nickname Father Goose®.
He served as poet-in-residence and chair of creative writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts (1974-1993), and as a nationally syndicated poetry feature writer for Tribune Media Services (1993-1998).
The themes of his books and poetry reflect a celebration of childhood, as well as a reverence for nature and animals. His other subjects and themes include humor, holidays, riddles, seasons, school, sports, and the power of a positive attitude.
Ghigna was born August 25, 1946 in Bayside, Queens. His parents Charles and Patricia relocated to Fort Myers, Florida when he was five. He attended Fort Myers Senior High School, where his talent for writing first got attention. While in the third grade, an essay about a talking freckle on a boy’s face got Ghigna a great deal of attention. Although he enjoyed writing, after some of this classmates began teasing him about writing he stopped and took up baseball. He developed a love for the game which he continued to play through high school, and even tried out with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
While in his teens, Ghigna began to write again secretly in journals, a practice he continued. His love of writing developed early and became more apparent as he grew older. Upon entering college, writing, especially writing poetry, became a major focus for him. In college his passion for poetry continued to grow. It was through his reading of the poems of poet Robert Frost while in high school, that this love for poetry was ignited. Until then he saw poetry as something one had to memorize, recite in front of the entire class and then have your teacher explain its meaning. Ghigna's perspective of writing poetry changed after his English teacher explained the maxim "Show, don't tell." "
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