Describe the place where you write.

I write in libraries.  I love them: they’ve got everything I need.  I would be totally lost without libraries.

Heart-breakingly, my favourite library is about to be shut down.  It’s the saddest thing in the world when something you love stops existing.

I wanted to put a nice picture of it here, but this is the only one I’ve got, taken a few years ago.  It’s strange; it looks so ghostly, as if it’s already dissolving away.  Maybe the camera knew what was going to happen?

What times of the day do you work?

There isn’t a set time.  Usually I give myself a goal for the day – say, writing 1,000 words, or editing a couple of chapters – and when it’s done, I’m free.

What distracts you?

Everything.  It’s so much easier to be distracted than it is to concentrate – and that’s why I love libraries, because there are no distractions there!

But my favourite distraction, as I’ve mentioned before, is photography.  I’ve just started using a wooden box camera from the 1930s, and I can’t stop making pictures like this:

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I wish I had some good sailing stories to tell you, but I don’t.  I can tell you a story about the sea, though.

The sea is my favourite place to go when I want to relax.  I don’t mind where in the world it is, or what the weather’s like – there is something about the sea that always makes me happy.

I can spend hours, days, weeks, just standing by the shore, watching the waves come and go, listening to them break upon the land. Read the rest of this entry »

When I finished writing The Outlaw Varjak Paw, I knew very little about my next book.  I was sure of only two things.  First, it would not be a Varjak Paw book; I wanted to do something completely different.  Second, I had an idea for a story about someone who goes on an epic journey to the end of the world.  But I had no idea who this person would be, or what it would feel like to do such a thing.

While writing my books, I’d also been working as a film journalist.  My favourite film of all time is Atanarjuat The Fast Runner.  That incredible image above is a still from it, and believe me, the film is even better than the still!  It was made in 2001 in the Canadian Arctic by Inuit film-makers, based on oral legends thousands of years of old, and it completely blew me away.  I got to know the makers when I interviewed them, and they kindly invited me to visit them the next time they made a film.

So in 2005, just after finishing Outlaw, I went up to the Arctic.  Specifically to a place called Igloolik, on the edge of the frozen sea, in the Baffin Island region of Canada.  That’s where they live, and I stayed with them while they shot their second film, The Journals Of Knud Rasmussen.

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It was 1975.  I was 8 years old, and I lived in the middle of London.  I’d never seen a rabbit in real life; I thought they were silly, to be honest, and I certainly didn’t care about them.  So when my mum gave me a book with a rabbit on the cover, I just laughed.  “I’m not reading that!” I said.  “Trust me,” she replied.  “I’ve read it myself, and it’s brilliant.  Read the first page.  If you don’t like it, you can stop, but try one page and see for yourself…”

So I did.  And from that first page, I was plunged into the world of those rabbits.  And their world was so much darker and scarier than I’d imagined.  Because everything in it was bigger than them, and it was all out to get them.  Just to survive, those rabbits had to be so much braver and stronger than they ever thought they could be…

Sometimes it was terrifying, sometimes it was sad, sometimes it was funny – but at all times, it was completely compelling.  I could not stop reading that book, and as I read it, I remember thinking, “I will never forget this, as long as I live…”  And I haven’t.  Read the rest of this entry »

Presenting a renowned or favourite story in a new format, style or setting always seems to me a very brave thing to do.  Experimenting with a familiar idea  to show a new side of it, or drawing out something from a ‘classic’ story and into something fresh – it’s a delicate and complex business.   Kenneth Oppel’s new book – THIS DARK ENDEAVOUR – is a prequel to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; telling the story of Victor Frankenstein’s life as a teenager.  It is a brooding, alluring thriller and a consuming read.  We’re publishing THIS DARK ENDEAVOUR on October 6th - and I can’t wait for readers to get hold of it.  

In reference to this fascinating new book, I’ve asked our Storybloggers – DFB authors and illustrators all - to share their favourite ‘classic’ with us, and tell us about any story adaptations they find particularly interesting.

So, watch this space…

Photography is my favourite hobby.  I love it because it doesn’t involve words.  When you spend every day writing words, it’s nice to get away from them sometimes!  And pictures can still tell a story.  Photography has helped me see so many strange and interesting things; things I would never have noticed otherwise.

I enjoy prowling around city streets at night with my camera, trying to see things from different points of view.  Sometimes I imagine them from a street cat’s point of view, as if I was Varjak Paw, or one of his friends.  What would the city really look like to them? Read the rest of this entry »

I can’t think of any Archie-like embarrassment I’m prepared to admit to in public, so instead I’ve decided to write about my misunderstanding of what it would be like to be a Real Live Author (EVERY writer who visits schools quickly gets used to being introduced as one of those.)

As I wanted to be an author from the age of eight, I’ve had plenty of time to think about it. Here’s how it looked: I saw myself sitting at a magnificent writerly desk, by an open window (no, let’s call it a casement) – overlooking a luxuriant garden. I’d be writing in fountain pen, of course, in a large and impressive book with lined pages, and I’d do that for hours on end, writing confidently all day long and well into the night, while Someone Else took care of mundane things like shopping and cooking (and gardening, presumably). Occasionally I’d meander down my rose-walk, deep in contemplation, before returning to my book-lined room with its squashy sofas and arty bits of this and that from my travels. There’d be a purring cat or two for company, naturally.

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At DFB, we love stories – and who better to tell them than our award-winning writers and illustrators?  That’s right, our new storyblog is going to be jam-packed full of writing, photos and exclusive artwork posted by over 30 DFB storytellers.  We’re really excited about this new project, where you can follow posts by your very favourite writers and artists, as well as meeting new DFB debutants!

Our group of DFB bloggers will take it in turns to post on a different question or topic, brought to mind by our new DFB titles.  For this first wave of storyblogs, they’re thinking about I DON’T BELIEVE IT ARCHIE!, and the unlikely situations and rib-tickling predicaments that Archie ends up in. You see, due to his incredible luck – and a fair few misunderstandings and bizarre coincidences! – Archie never quite ends up where he plans to..  Our bloggers will be sharing their silliest, funniest and most embarrassing stories with us – so you can expect a new post every couple of days, direct from the DFB authors themselves. So, enough from me - look below for the first post from author Candy Gourlay!

‘I Don’t Believe it Archie!’ is written by Andrew Norriss and illustrated by Hannah Shaw.