Researching for writing. People sometimes ask about where ideas and inspiration come from. I know this exasperates some writers but I don’t mind. I often say that poems can be prompted by objects, by places, by ruminations, but also sometimes by other poems or stories themselves. A story can sometimes generate a kind of power for an individual. It holds the attention, haunts the mind, hangs around and calls thought back to it. As a poet I sometimes take this as a cue to spin something of my own about it. 

This spinning can take two forms at least. One form is to allow the original piece to work like a trigger, to spark off something of one’s own, so the original piece is a kind of springboard or launch-pad. The other form is to re-tell. I only re-tell if I’m particularly motivated to do so. There has to be quite a strong impetus or impulse to prompt this. Why bother otherwise? There may be several good available versions of the tale. So why add to the pile unless you can bring something special to it by a new treatment? 

At present John Lawrence has just completed his final artwork for my verse retelling of the Wayland legend. Wayland was the Norse or Northern European blacksmith and metalworker to the gods. He shoed horses, made armour and weaponry and also created wonderful jewellery and treasures of all kinds. I hope you’ll read all about it when our book is published (Wayland or The Heart Song of Wayland Smith, pub. dfb forthcoming…). The book consists of a full verse retelling of the legend, ballad style, a curious blend of traditional and contemporary. It has a coda which is a single lyric poem, which reads more fully and feelingly to those who know the story. 

Originally I showed the lyric poem The Heart Song of Wayland Smith to David (Fickling) as one of many poems in a putative collection. David liked the poem very much and was equally (& characteristically :) interested in the synoptic note that recounted some main facts from the legend, to assist a reading of the poem (I think I’m known now for unashamedly sprinkling my poetry collections with little notes to inform the reader of facts pertinent to particular poems). I’d already written many narrative verse retellings for my books with David (The Tale of Tales, The Storyteller’s Secrets, The Seal Hunter, ‘The Selkie Bride’, ‘The Woodcutter’s Daughter’) and he asked if I might be interested in using that mode to retell this story which he thought a tale of great power. My fire was lit. This was definitely a project to get me going.  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.’

I had just done three busy days at the Edinburgh Festival last year (carefully working, yes, around my dodgy back). It was my last morning and I was having a lovely leisurely breakfast in the bay window of the posh (for me) hotel I’d been put in. A pleasant youngish middle-aged woman came and sat, like me, alone, at the table adjacent to mine. She was dressed very casually in a downbeat way, short hair, jeans, trainers, shirt and obviously, like me, intended to have the full English (Scottish?) breakfast.

We got chatting and rapped on about all kinds of things: our children, books (of course), what we’d read as children and in our teens, schools, education (we’d both been teachers), marriage, life (big one, that…) and it became apparent as she anecdotalised that, like me, she was a writer. Time was getting on and while I had plenty she obviously had business to attend to. She looked at her watch and said, “Gosh, I’d better be going or I’ll be late.”

We quickly swapped names and neither of us had come across the other’s work. But I’m used to that. The number of times I’ve had to say to writers, “Of course I know your name as well as the titles of some of your books. But I’m afraid I’ve never actually read you. I hope you don’t mind that.” But in this case I had to say, “Well, there are so many of us.” It was clear by then that she was an adult (ie. not children’s) novelist and, although I read adult novels I don’t ‘follow form’. I just read very selectively when individual books really appeal to me and keep me held. But I clocked her name to check out later. Read the rest of this entry »