Going back to school: my time at the Saffron Walden County High Reading Awards

Last week, I got the chance to go back to my old high school in Saffron Walden and give a talk about the importance of reading.

It was all part of a fantastic night put on by the school and the library staff to celebrate the success of Year 7's best readers – a select group of students who have accomplished goals set by their teachers throughout the year.

There was a red carpet, there were videos the students had created based on books they've enjoyed, there were art projects lined up against the walls and all manner of creations all born from an enjoyment of books. You could genuinely feel the excitement in the air as the Year 7s and their parents filtered into the auditorium.

I sat at the front, smiling and waving and feeling quite strange as almost 300 people found their seats. I hadn't set foot in the building in eight years, and everything was so different, but still so much was the same. So many new facilities. A whole new look. And yet the moment I set foot in C corridor, I saw one of my old teachers.  

I must admit, after I agreed to talk at the event, I did feel a bit nervous. I mean, the list of previous speakers includes local maestro Marcus Sedgwick, an author I greatly admire. How could I fill those enormous shoes? My book isn't even out yet. It's still just a Word document on the computer.

But then I realised I didn't have to try and fill Marcus's shoes. I just had to talk about the magic of books, because to me it's a very real thing.

Not so long ago, I was just like my audience. Well, they are no doubt better students than I was. After all, I never received an award for reading when I was in Year 7. But I did go to their school, and before that I went to Great Chesterford Primary, just down the road – a school that quite a few in the crowd had recently moved on from.

So I told them about that. And I told them that I never really liked reading, that I wasn't much of a reader at all until Harry Potter came along and opened my eyes. I told them how the right book can change your life in impossible ways. I told them to keep reading, because the books they are reading now are the books that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

 

Then I handed out their certificates, celebrating their very great success, and signed for those who wanted theirs signing, before everyone rushed back to watch England play in the World Cup.

They say that children are reading less, and everyone always asks why. But standing there, seeing excitement and the wonder and the passion, I don't think that's the right question to ask.

We shouldn't be asking Why are children reading less? – What we should be asking is How do we get them to read more? 

And the answer is to write good books. Because good books will always find their audience. 

BlogHop: Three Things I Don't Write (and Three Things I Do)

The general idea of this blog chain is that you find out a bit more about me and my writing, and get the chance to follow the links back and forward to other writers so you can discover new stuff. Sound good? Excellent!

I got tagged by science fiction guru Keith Brooke, whose latest book, alt.human, was shortlisted for the Philip K Dick Award. Keith also writes a cracking short story, and pens YA fiction under the name Nick Gifford.

The other writers tagged alongside me are Kim Lakin-Smith and Stephen Palmer, so be sure to check out their blogs too!

So to kick things off, here are three things I don’t write:

• Stories I would have avoided as a kid

When I was younger, if you gave me a choice between reading a book and playing on the PlayStation, I would have chosen the latter every time. I associated books with school and work, and I didn’t want to be doing work at home. It didn’t help that a lot of books felt like work when I tried to read them. It took a truly remarkable story to show me how enjoyable books could be. But even now, I’m an overly picky reader—and I can totally understand why a lot of boys aren’t reading. Too many books are slow or boring or formulaic. Too many don’t have enough “cool factor.” Books have to compete with video games and movies, and video games and movies are awesome. Whenever I think up stories, I ask myself if this is something I would have wanted to read as a kid. And if it is? I know I’m on to something. If it isn’t, I can’t get excited about it.

• Traditional fantasy

Don’t get me wrong, I would LOVE to write a big, epic fantasy. I’m obsessed with Game of Thrones, and I’m a huge fan of Tolkien. But stereotypical tropes like elves and dwarves and big dark lords feel stale. Fantasy worlds that have mountains and lakes and magical forests all within spitting distance of each other have become a bit boring. I can’t see myself writing about elves anytime soon. Although, who knows? I thoroughly enjoyed Philip Reeve’s Goblins book, which took familiar fantasy concepts and twisted them in a humorous way. The great thing about writing is that you never really know what you’re going to write. Stories and characters can run off in all sorts of directions, and ideas can pop into your head out of thin air.

• Vampires

Vampires have been done to death (or should that be undeath?) and it’s hard to see how to make them fresh again. I think someone needs to come along and make them properly scary, but it may be a while before that happens. Perhaps they’ll be sparkly forevermore...


And now for three things I do write...

• Magical realism

The stories I enjoy most are those set in the real world, or a world very much like our own, only one that has some strange twist about it. In Harry Potter there are wizards living among us. In The Graveyard Book, an ordinary baby gets raised by ghosts in a graveyard. In Skellig, a normal family encounters a strange angelic being. I enjoy reading these hints of magic, so it’s no wonder I enjoy writing them too. My debut novel, Stonebird, is set in the real world with real characters and real problems—but there’s also a mysterious gargoyle that comes alive and flies through the night.

• Stories with heart

I think the greatest thing any story can do is linger in your mind long after you’ve finished the final world. How do they achieve this? With heart. I will always try and write stories with heart. I think it’s a bit much to say, oh yes, if there’s one thing my stories have, it’s heart. It’s enough to make you run off feeling faintly sick. But it is something to aim for: to try and find the story within the story, and bring it out as much as possible. To ensure there is meaning there, something to engage with and remember and, hopefully, cherish.

• Horror

I didn’t realise that I write horror, but I do—even when I don’t know I’m doing it. Horror is a very personal thing, as people’s fears are unique. One person might be terrified of clowns, whereas another might quake at the thought of disease or zombies or insects. I don’t write the kind of horror you get in jump-laden movies, but I do dig deep inside and write about things that frighten me, because to do otherwise wouldn’t be fair to the reader. Stonebird is about many things, but at its core is the theme of dementia, and that is a very horrific thing indeed. If you think about it, most stories have an element of horror in them, and mine are no different.



Passing it on...

So now it’s time to tag some other writers and send you in their direction. I’ve chosen three very talented chaps, whose words (and indeed art) I’m sure you’ll love. Be sure to check back in a few days' time to see what three things Simon P. Clark, Dustin Hansen, and Cory Cone write about – and three they don’t...

Sun, sea monkeys, and songs

On Saturday, I went to see Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre at Cambridge Literary Festival. It was a perfect day for it: the sun winked in a clear blue sky, and the Cam sparkled as punters carved their way through the water, snapping pictures of all the old college buildings.

Cambridge is a city of two halves. It is one part magical and old and charming, and one part new. You could easily spend an afternoon on St Andrew's Street, which is dominated by the usual high street chains. But walk further in, past the market square, and you'll discover cobbled back alleys and towering turrets, spires and gateways and buildings that date back to the time of the Tudors.

On sunny days like this, there aren't many prettier sights than walking through the old part of Cambridge. Happily, that is precisely where this event was taking place, on Trinity Street, close to two of the most perfect shops imaginable: Heffers, for books, and an old-fashioned sweet shop where everything is poured from jars behind the counter and weighed out for you.

I was directed to an archway that I hadn't really noticed before. It's hard to imagine there's much more to a street than what you can see on the surface. But so much of Cambridge University is hidden out of sight. Secreted away next to a colourful shopfront, it felt like walking through the back entrance of a castle. And through it was another world...

Up some steps and over some rooftops and there was the lecture building. Inside, Philip and Sarah were on stage, dressed like sailors, busily drawing caricatures of each other as the crowd filed in.

The event was based on Oliver and the Seawigs, a quirky little book the two made together after meeting at Edinburgh Book Festival three years ago. If you haven't read it, I'd recommend checking it out – it's a great adventure with a spring in its step. Reeve is a naturally funny writer, and Sarah McIntyre's illustrations are brilliant.

On stage, Philip Reeve bounces around like the Doctor, and Sarah has great presence too. The stars of Oliver are the Rambling Isles, giants who like to collect things and arrange them like decorative wigs on top of their heads. At one point during the event, Sarah was frantically drawing a wig of UFOs and tigers and solar panels and tornadoes throwing up tanks as the audience shouted out more and more ideas.

There were readings. The kids in the audience (and some grown ups too) had the chance to draw their own sea monkeys, and there was even a song, as Philip and Sarah whipped out a pair of ukeleles and led the crowd out of the hall and into the streets, towards the bookshop for a signing.

This is my monkey.

I'm not entirely sure why its eyes look like deflated balloons. Everyone else's were much better.

This was the second Cambridge Lit Fest event I've been to, as I went to see David Almond last year. Both have been well run and both captured the magic of storytelling in different ways. There are still plenty of events on, so check out the lineup and make sure you go along to something if you're in the area. I don't think you'll be disappointed!

I have a book deal!

I'm so excited to be able to say that my debut novel, Stonebird, will be published by Quercus early next year! 

The words I wrote in lunch breaks at work, and evenings at home, and every time I got a train or a bus, are going to be turned into a real life actual book. And a hardback, no less! 

I still have to pinch myself every time I think about it. It's been a bit of a whirlwind process. The idea came to me in the middle of last year, in the faintly magical way that they tend to pop into your head, and after discussing it with my superagent Gemma Cooper I started to plot Liam's adventures.

I didn't have to think too much, to be honest, because quite a lot of the story is based on real life events. My grandma suffered from quite severe dementia, and after watching her struggling with it, I quickly realised that I wanted to write about memories, and the power of storytelling.

In reality, Stonebird pretty much wrote itself. There were moments where I'd sit down at the computer and blink, opening my eyes to find pages and pages of story had appeared. 

I don't think I could have found a better home for the book than Quercus. Sarah Lambert invited me and Gemma out to London to meet the team, and after inwardly geeking out about the fact I was in Sherlock Holmes territory (and munching on chocolate chip cookies in the board room) I left feeling certain that everyone truly loved the book and had amazing plans for what to do with it.

I'm sure the months before release are going to whizz by. In the meantime, here's a bit more about the book:

When ten-year-old Liam’s family moves house to be closer to his dementia-plagued grandma, he’s thrown into an unfamiliar place, filled with unfriendly faces—and a whole lot of crying.

Liam feels as though he should cry too, but he can’t, because he doesn’t remember what his grandma was like before she became ill. He only knows the witch-like old woman who snaps and snarls and eats her birthday cards.

Then he discovers an old stone gargoyle in the rundown church, and his life changes in impossible ways. The gargoyle is alive! It moves unseen in the night, acting out Liam’s stories. And stories are dangerous things.

Seeking revenge against the bullies at his new school, Liam tells a story about the gargoyle attacking them. When one of them ends up in hospital, a regretful Liam vows never to go near the gargoyle again.

But his grandma’s illness is getting worse, his mum is turning to drink to ease the pain, and his sister is skipping school. What if the gargoyle is the only thing that can save his family? 

Now, if you'll excuse me...