Describe the place where you write/draw

I’m incredibly spoiled because I have a room above our garage that I use as an office and I tend to go there to when I’m at home. The view is lovely, and makes me have to pinch myself, but in the winter it is ridiculously cold.

What is your most treasured possession?

I think probably at the moment it is the felt bear puppet that my son Joe made. It is without doubt the best felt bear puppet in the history of that honourable craft (no maternal bias there whatsoever).

What times of the day do you work?

If I’ve got a ‘writing day’ I work 9 to 5, or 8 to 6 if I’ve set myself a hard task. Then in the evenings I try and do admin.

What distracts you?

Oh god, everything these days. I was really good at concentrating until about two years ago and now I’ve finally succumbed to the 21^st century disease of distraction. Currently I’m trying the Pomodoro technique, which is basically where you set a timer to 30 minutes and keep working until it beeps. One of my friends has this thing that switches his internet off. If you’ve got any other suggestions please do bung them my way.

What is your favourite smell? Read the rest of this entry »

Well, Tilda, you’ve forced me to write about a book I wrote for Another Publisher. Sorry. But sailing it is.

In a previous post, I wrote about doing my research after writing the book; I did the same thing, though while the novel was still in draft form, for THE SANDFATHER (to be reissued this year by A.N.Other, with a striking new cover). The story is set in a fictitious seaside resort called Ryton-on-Sea, which bears an uncanny resemblance to Littlehampton, on the Sussex coast. Hal, my main character, is in all sorts of trouble, having been excluded from school and sent to stay with a great-aunt he hardly knows (by a plot contrivance I won’t go into here). I wanted him to have the chance to try something new and do it well, and that something is sailing.

Well, I’d never so much as set foot on a sailing yacht in my life, and didn’t know a bowsprit from a half-hitch. And I knew that it would be very easy indeed to get things wrong. So I decided it was time for some hands-on experience, and found a company called Firstaway that offered sailing courses for all levels of incompetence.

February wouldn’t have been my ideal time of year, but I had a deadline to meet, so I set off for Southampton into bitingly cold winds and sub-zero temperatures. I’d packed my Goretex walking clothes, which were quickly dismissed as inadequate: instead I was kitted out in a sort of padded boiler suit, which made me feel like Michelin Man. There were five of us on the thirty-foot yacht, and I turned out to be the only novice. Still, it suited my fictional purpose perfectly, because Hal in the story was never going to be an expert: he was having his first experience, just as I was.

We set off towards Portsmouth Harbour and I followed instructions about pulling in fenders, slackening sheets (I bet I’m getting it all wrong – this was a few years ago now … ) and did some tacking and jibing. All very exciting. Even more excitingly, once we headed out into the Solent, I was allowed to take the helm, while the yacht heeled over at 45 degrees and other people saw to the jibing and the tacking. I managed to steer into Cowes Marina without mishap.

We slept on the yacht, mooring at Hamble on the second night, and going up the Beaulieu river to Buckler’s Hard. Here I lost points for becoming so interested in the birdlife sheltering along the shores that I asked someone else to steer, while I gazed out with binoculars. This was definitely disapproved of by my otherwise tolerant instructors. Read the rest of this entry »

 Anything new by Aidan Chambers is always a treat, so I was delighted to be sent a new collection of short stories, and honoured to find myself quoted on the back cover: “Chambers is a searching, provocative, fiercely intelligent writer.”  I think that comes from a review of what remains my favourite of his novels, THE TOLL BRIDGE.

I found it fascinating to see several of Aidan Chambers’ preoccupations appearing here in shorter form: frustration for the questioning son of well-meaning but dim-witted parents, sexual ambivalence, the search for meaning in life, and toska, described by Nabokov, the almost pleasurable pain of yearning for something unidentifiable.

Some of the stories are of conventional length, while others are “flash fictions”, snatches of conversation, sometimes represented as play-script.  For me, the most satisfying story is “A Handful of Wheat”, a moving account by the teenage Chambers of his grandfather’s death, showing a prodigious early talent, and also, surely, the influence of D H Lawrence – I’ve often heard Chambers mention “Sons and Lovers” as one of his formative books.

In 2012, readers can look forward to “This is not Forgiveness”, by the always-reliable Celia Rees, another deservedly acclaimed writer for young adults. Read the rest of this entry »

There were  lovely reviews of 3 very different DFB titles in the papers this weekend - with Magic Beans and This Dark Endeavour featured in The Times’ best children’s books of 2011!  See more here.

‘One of the best value books for 6 plus is Magic Beans an entrancing collection of classic fairytales retold by leading storytellers such as Philip Pullman, Adele Geras and Malorie Blackman. Elegant line drawings by Ian Beck, Debi Gliori, Peter Bailey and others add to the magic.’

‘It’s a beautifully balanced novel with the darkness of the central crime never forgotten or over-sweetened by the love story….. readers wanting to discover if the relationship overcomes all the odds are sure to find themselves provoked, moved and rewarded in equal measure.’  Click here to read the full Guardian review of You Against Me by Jenny Downham. 

‘Kenneth Oppel’s This Dark Endeavour a captivating Gothic novel for 13 plus about the future Dr Frankenstein and his competitive love for his twin brother. Books this good are for life, not just Christmas.’

 It may seem odd to do your research after you’ve finished the book. In this case, it was five years after the novel was published. But everything is useful to a writer, and I’m sure that somehow or other I’ll make use of the stone-carving I did this summer.

It’s not that I did no research at all for SET IN STONE. I talked to stone-carvers, handled stone, studied the work of Eric Gill, learned about Jurassic limestone. But this summer several things fell into place and I found myself chip-chip-chipping away.

Shortly after SET IN STONE was published, I met a local stonecarver, Bernard Johnson, who was exhibiting during Artweeks in Oxford. I loved his work, and could see at once that he was influenced by Eric Gill. I’d decided that if DFB gave me a commission to write LOB, I would find a stone-carver to make me a Green Man for my garden, and was hoping to find someone suitable; as soon as I saw Bernard’s work, the search was over. He made me a calm and wise Green Man, in Portland stone, which is now in my garden.

Read the rest of this entry »

I could not possibly disagree with either Linda or Melanie.

Well, yes I could. On one little little point. Linda’s title for her post “Thieving Magpies” was no doubt intended to be provocative. I am duly provoked :)

‘Theft’ implies property. The thing that is stolen belongs to someone else. But to whom does a work like Jane Eyre belong? Or The Turn of the Screw or The Silver Chair? Of course the law may allow heirs and corporations to own rights over past works. But that seems a bit like allowing the descendant of some Victorian collector to own treasures that his ancestor looted from the tombs of the Pharoahs.

The big, old, much-loved stories belong to everyone. They get retold and retold, in many forms. Not a year goes by without another Jane Austen TV serialisation or film re-make. Now, it would be a brave writer who actually tried to re-write Pride and Predjudice, but shift it to another century, put it in different clothes, call it Bridget Jones’ Diary and it works. Who’s the poorer? Read the rest of this entry »

I first read Jane Eyre at the age of eleven, and my main memories of that first reading are of the harshness and horror of Jane’s treatment at Lowood school,  the death of her friend Helen, and, later, of Jane creeping around the dark corridors of Thornfield Hall. Much of the rest passed me by. I was too young, just as I was too young to appreciate Pride and Prejudice at school a year later; I toiled dutifully through that. When I returned to it, years later, I was amazed to find all the wit and humour that simply hadn’t struck me at the age of twelve. At that age, too, I read The Diary of Anne Frank with only the vaguest idea of why the family had to go into hiding.

Early reading has a particular power, though, and it intrigues me that stories read years ago make their impact in my own writing, in ways I sometimes don’t realise until afterwards. The Secret Garden has made itself felt in Nevermore, for instance, and Lob (the title taken from a poem of the same name by Edward Thomas) owes something to Bambi  - I mean the deeply tragic novel by Felix Salten, not the Disney film – though I don’t suppose anyone else would notice.

With Set in Stone, the influences are more obvious. Its debt to The Woman in White is apparent from the opening scene, in which Samuel meets a distraught Marianne by moonlight. The country house, the two daughters, the art tutor – a direct borrowing. Another Wilkie Collins novel gave me a structural idea, too – the less well-known No Name, the intriguing and very cleverly plotted story of two sisters who find themselves penniless when their father’s Will reveals that he wasn’t married to their mother, as they had supposed. In No Name, Collins uses the device of carrying the plot forward with whole chapters, at intervals, made up of letters. I used this same technique in Set in Stone, though with only one letter each time, and enjoyed the freedom and succinctness of using different voices to drop new hints or ingredients into the plot: Charlotte, the governess, is unexpectedly called away; a friend of Samuel’s invites him to Brighton, recalling his gregarious student days; Mr Farrow issues a veiled threat to his former employee.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re pleased to share another author blog with you – this time from Linda Newbery, all about an event she took part in last week..

Being shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal has had long-lasting effects. Although I haven’t been on the shortlist since 2004, Lob was longlisted this time, and I was invited to Cardiff for a special Shadowing Day organised by Karyn Chapman, librarian at the Bishop of Llandaff High School. She’s been organising these celebration days for six years now, and the occasion has steadily grown in scale and ambition. This year, it took place at the Gate Theatre, a former church which is now a theatre with gallery space and café, and involved fourteen schools from South East Wales, over two days.

The participants from the various schools were put into mixed groups on Tuesday morning, each to represent one of the shortlisted books in a short dramatisation on Wednesday. Quite a tall order, especially as those taking part had been chosen for reading keenness rather than for acting ability. There were about twelve in each group, ranging in age from year 7 to year 10, each with a teacher or librarian to help them develop their presentation.

My job was to take part in the judging panel, and of course we were assessing the presentations rather than the books. First, I’d read five of the six titles – the one I missed was the book that turned out to be the Carnegie winner, Monsters of Men, by Patrick Ness. From the five I read, I thought it was a very strong shortlist, any of which could deservedly have won.

The groups clearly had great fun devising their presentations. There were two performances – one in the afternoon, for an audience made up from the various schools, and another in the evening, for parents and teachers. As judges, we were told that we could make two different choices, if we wished – and certainly all the groups had refined their acts by the evening. But, in the end, we chose the same one both times – the presentation of Out of Shadows, by Jason Wallace. This group focused well on key events in the Zimbabwean boarding school, including nasty bullying episodes. Everyone played their part well, including the boy who took the role of Weekend, the telephone operator – a small part which he made characterful and endearing.  The female presenter held it all together with presence and style, and was awarded a trophy for best participant overall.

Also memorable were the market scenes from Meg Rosoff’s The Bride’s Farewell, and the creepiness of the chosen episodes from Marcus Segwick’s White Crow.  This book was also voted as the shadowers’ choice for Carnegie winner. Monsters of Men ran the winner close, in my opinion, and Prisoner of the Inquisition was also very dramatic. The group presenting The Death-Defying Pepper Roux , by Geraldine McCaughrean, had great fun with the mixed-up love notes in the department store.

It was a lovely day, well-supported by Camelot Books and Literature Wales as well as by the schools. It’s great to see how the shadowing scheme continues to grow, and particularly good, I think, to bring readers together in a special setting such as the Gate Theatre. I’m sure those children and teenagers will always remember taking part. I only wish such a thing had been going on when I was at school – I’d have loved it!

The Carnegie shadowing scheme is sometimes criticised because the children’s vote, although recorded on the website, doesn’t contribute towards the judges’ decision – the Carnegie and Greenaway Medals are awarded by panels of librarians from the various regions of the UK. So far, CILIP has resisted urgings to include the children’s vote in some way, and I think that’s right. There are numerous awards now which are voted for by children, and the Carnegie must keep its special status as the most prestigious prize for a children’s writer by respecting the judgements of specialists.

I’d like to thank Karyn Chapman and her fellow organisers for inviting me to take part in such a memorable and enjoyable event. Congratulations to Patrick Ness for winning – and at least I can now sit next to a Carnegie winner on the bookshelves!

Linda Newbery

That’s right, The Green Man – also known as Lob – has been spotted! Many believe that The Green Man is a character from English myth and legend, but we here at DFB know otherwise.. And now we have evidence! Lob was caught on camera on World Book Day, see for yourselves -

Have you got any World Book Day stories to share or photos to show us? Please do send them in.

Biggest thanks to Lob for joining in World Book Day and making this year such a special one.