All change! News about this blog

There are changes afoot! I’m delighted to say that I’ve just started a PhD in Creative Writing: Young Adult Fiction, at Leeds Trinity University. I know, I’m as surprised as you are! I never thought I’d do a PhD. But last March, a friend nudged me, saying ‘Look, there’s a studentship in your field…’ and when I read the description, I got that wonderful tingly feeling of recognition that meant I should pay attention.

Already, the process of applying, being interviewed, drafting and re-drafting my proposal, has meant a deepening of my focus. I’m thinking about what I write, why I write it, and how I write it, in a way that is new for me.

The PhD will mean writing a full-length YA novel, and also a critical and reflective shorter thesis about the process of writing it. The theory of creative writing that I’m reading feels very fresh and new. It’s an emerging academic discipline, and that brings controversy and challenges but also huge opportunities. I can’t wait to dive in.

It feels to me that UK YA has never been richer, broader or more exciting. As part of my research, and as a way of contributing to the debate around UK YA, I’m going to publish interviews with UK YA authors on this blog. I’d like to alternate between influential and emerging voices.

The interviews are being set up right now and will follow shortly, around one per month to begin with. To whet your appetite, the first one is with a writer you’ll all know. He’s been called the Godfather of UKYA…

More soon, thanks for reading!

Ten Books to Read This Summer…

Three dear friends have asked me for summer reading recommendations, so I thought rather than repeating myself, I could just direct you here. Sue, Helen, Sian, here you go – a mixture of YA and literary fiction - in the order they appear on my shelf or Kindle:

We Were Liars by E Lockhart

I can’t recommend this highly enough. It’s one of those rare books – like Follow Me Down by Tanya Byrne – that I immediately re-read on finishing.

The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh

A sultry holiday read that is subtle and complex as well as sexy. Helen Walsh captures brilliantly the nuanced and changing dynamics of family tension as lines are crossed forever.

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, this memorable novel isn’t like anything else I can think of. It’s compassionate and wise and funny about the big stuff (death, depression) and the small stuff (chocolate, pets).

Wake Up Happy Every Day by Stephen May

A hugely enjoyable novel – pack it now or grab it at the airport. A funny, moving and thought-provoking examination of family, love and what really makes us happy.

Never Ending by Martyn Bedford

This brilliantly structured YA novel examines grief and guilt, following the death of a teenage boy on a family holiday. The tension builds, but the recollection of the crucial event is held back right until the devastating climax.

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

A rich, sprawling historical novel that never quite lived up to its first promise for me, but is still well worth a read.

Virginia Woolf in Manhattan by Maggie Gee

The title and premise alone are enough to convince me! And in the hands of such a brilliant novelist, this combination makes for one of my favourite books of the year.

Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor

The final part of the young adult fantasy trilogy with its unforgettable cast of characters: human, angel and chimera. A deeply satisfying conclusion.

Blue by Lisa Glass

Another perfect summer read: a young adult romance with a surfer-girl heroine, her heart-throb with a past, and a breathless double-peak climax, all combined with lots of satisfying surfing detail.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

The perfect antidote to Twilight: vampires made all fresh and new in post-apocalyptic USA, with a complex, resourceful damaged heroine who isn’t afraid to act.

YALC 2014

It was always going to be hard to condense into one blog post my experience of YALC - the UK’s first young adult literature convention that took place last weekend. So to help me, I’ve chosen three watchwords that summed it up for me: Laughter + Kindness + Passion.

Laughter

The YALC fun began even before I arrived, sharing a train carriage with stormtroopers and several spidermen. And the upside of the hour-long queue to get in was the chance to enjoy the cosplay catwalk as everyone sauntered slowly closer to the doors…

It was clear that no one here was going to take themselves too seriously: confirmed by Malorie Blackman’s opening address - which began in Klingon. You can read about why Malorie set up YALC here.

But the real belly-laughs came during the ‘I’m Too Sexy for This Book’ panel, hosted by freshly crowned ‘Queen of Teen’ James Dawson. Cat Clarke, Beth Reekles and Non Pratt answered some serious questions about enduring taboos in teen fiction, censorship by ‘gatekeepers’ and their desire to be ‘sex-positive’ but realistically informative. However, between their astonishing frankness and some cracking inadvertent double-entendres, this panel won the prize for highest share of audience laughter.

Kindness

I’d been vaguely concerned about attending a weekend-long event where I only knew one person and might recognise a few faces from Twitter. However, everyone I met or spoke to was exceptionally kind and generous.

From Liz Kessler and Abie Longstaff, who invited me to join their coffee break and generously shared their experience with me; to the organisers giving out tickets and explaining workshop sign-ups; to the workshop leaders giving clear and practical advice; and the writers, editors and readers I chatted to in the coffee bar and the panel seats – there’s something really rather wonderful about the UKYA community en masse.

There was also a warm, honest and generous spirit behind the ‘How to Get Published’ panel chaired by Ben Horslen, in conversation with two of his Puffin authors, Sally Green and Phil Earle. The authors offered insights from their very different journeys to publication, sharing a wealth of advice in a humble and inspiring way.

I couldn’t help telling the smiley woman on the Hot Key publisher’s stand how much I’d enjoyed reading E Lockhart’s We Were Liars just the day before. In return she gave me a WWL poster and a stamp for my hand with the line from the book: ‘Be a little kinder than you have to’.

Well, it seemed everyone at YALC had already taken that advice…

 Passion

Amidst the deafening buzz in the vast halls of Earls Court, in workshops, panels, signings and chat, something was very clear to me: UKYA provokes passion.

YALC was knee-deep in hugely passionate writers, readers, bloggers, parents, librarians and teachers, all united by their commitment to the young adult literature this country is producing right now.

I listened spellbound to the sold-out ‘The End of the World as We Know It’ panel, where Sarah Crossan, Patrick Ness and Malorie Blackman spoke eloquently and memorably about the current generation of dystopian YA novels.

Discussing our current obsession with the genre, Sarah Crossan said ‘We all have the fear that we won’t be able to handle the worst when it comes along… Dystopias give us a nugget of gold: the hope that we will survive.’

Questioned about the recent furore over UKYA covering very dark subject matter, Patrick Ness responded, ‘Teenagers write very dark stories themselves. Writers need to address darkness, or we abandon teenagers to face the darkness alone.’

Malorie Blackman expanded, ‘YA is not a genre: it’s many genres. It’s legitimate to have books that end on a happy note as well as those that don’t.’

And for me, YALC ended on a high with the ‘Sisters Are Doing it for Themselves’ panel, chaired by Sarra Manning, with Tanya Byrne, Holly Smale, Isobel Harrop and Julie Mayhew.

I loved their discussion about resisting pressure to make heroines either ‘likeable’ or conventionally strong in the style of Katniss Everdeen. Flawed heroines feel more real and more convincing, and we love them for their imperfections!

Aftermath:

I’ve come back to my writing desk in the attic all fired up to finish the drafts of both novels I’m working on. And my ‘To be Read’ pile just got a whole lot bigger. The difference is that I don’t feel I’m alone in my work: I’m part of a UKYA community and it’s a fabulous place to be! 

Didn't get her name, but this fabulous cosplay archer let me take her photo - thanks!

All quotes are my own paraphrase – apologies if I’ve noted anyone incorrectly!

Productivity lessons from my hen

Two of my hens went broody recently. After weeks of trying to coax them out of it – since we don’t have a cockerel and they are deluding themselves that anything is going to hatch without one – I’ve given in to their maternal instinct.

I spoke to the very helpful Emma at the Rainbow Egg Company and bought a selection of fertile eggs.

Now my white hen, Candyfloss, is a deep broody trance. She knows what she’s doing, having raised two broods of chicks successfully last summer.

She flattens herself across the eggs and appears to be in an altered state of consciousness. Zen hen. But if anyone goes near – human or chicken – she’s fiercely defensive. She’ll peck and squawk till the daft intruder realises they should back off, right now. Once a day, she hops off to eat, stretch, drink and poo. For fifteen minutes, she crams in all these activities, then she’s back on the eggs. That hen multi-tasks like a pro, getting done in one short break what might usually take her hours.

I’m deeply inspired by her focus. She knows what she needs to do. She knows it requires huge effort. She defends her nest with all she’s got. Everything else is secondary. When she needs to shift focus, she works with impressive efficiency – with an internal timer that tells her exactly when to stop.

As a writer, I can learn from this. I need to set a target and focus on it, not shifting till it’s done.

My other broody hen, little grey Madam Pomfrey (yeah, you guessed it, my kids name the hens) is more like me. I guessed this might be the case, so I only gave her two eggs to sit on.

Each time someone approaches her nestbox, she hops off her eggs to say hi. Normally I love her sociable, curious personality, but not this week. ‘Duh! Lady, your eggs are going cold – get back on there!’ She’s a flittertigibbet and those eggs are not going to hatch.

I only have so much writing time each week, but right now, I’m not using it efficiently. My worst distractions are the sociable ones - Twitter, seeing friends – and the necessary ones – housework, dog-walking. If I really tried, I could work like a broody hen and cram these into brief, productive sessions.

In three weeks, all being well, Candyfloss will be raising her next brood of chicks. So, dear friends, you don’t mind if I copy her and go all fierce and anti-social for a while do you? I’ll see you when I’ve nursed this book idea into life…

Woodland Stories in Hardcastle Crags this spring

Woodland Stories

When I asked if I could bring my ‘making stories’ workshops to Hardcastle Crags National Trust this spring, I was delighted to find the staff there as enthusiastic as I was.

I’ve been visiting Hardcastle Crags since I was small. I’ve got hazy memories of golden summer days exploring those beautiful woods. So when I moved back to Hebden Bridge, it was one of the first places I took my girls, and now they love it too.

I visited a few times to plan the event and worked closely with the team at Hardcastle Crags. Grant Lowe, Interim Learning and Access Officer, suggested that we use Ladyroyd Field, a beautiful meadow just above Gibson Mill.

It had a circle of wooden benches in a grassy clearing. Rock-studded hillsides rose around it. There were silver birch trees and Scots pine, and the grass further down was dotted with ‘wild art’ from other activity days.

On Thursday 24th April, the weather was kind to outdoor story-making. We set up camp and waited for children to arrive.

There was a wide age-range across the two workshops. I was really pleased to see some children that I’d worked with on World Book Day at a local school coming back for another session!

I began by reading my book Cara and the Wizard. I picked it because some of the illustrations bore an uncanny resemblance to Ladyroyd Field! The storytelling helped bring the group together and focus attention.

Next I presented the two ‘treasure trails’ I had laid, made up of story fragments. I’d written two short stories set in Hardcastle Crags, featuring some of the animals and birds found here – I’d cut them into five pieces and laminated them, with a little ribbon attached to make them easier to find!

I divided the group into two and sent the youngest ones to find a very simple story hidden in an accessible little area near to the benches. The older children got to clamber around the rocks higher up the hillside and retrieve the longer story. When they returned, victorious, we pieced the stories together and the children put them in the right order.

Next we made a ‘magic box’ of ideas: the children called out ideas for story elements including animal characters, woodland settings, possible obstacles and solutions, and happy ending ideas. I wrote these ideas on a big piece of paper and invited the children to use these or other ideas they preferred.

I gave out simple six-page blank booklets (A4 paper folded twice and snipped to free the pages) and invited everyone to create their own books, using the idea of the five-part story, as we’d seen in the story fragments.

As ever, I was so impressed by the quality of work produced. Without exception, every child imagined a woodland story. Some drew beautiful cover art; others imagined memorable characters; some wrote superb dialogue; some wrote an entire story from beginning to end; others were keen to finish at home.

We finished by admiring each person’s work. There was a real sense of pride in what the children had managed to create in such a short space of time.

I’d like to thank Grant Lowe, Susi Leach and the volunteers at Hardcastle Crags. Special thanks also go to Sarah from Sarah Mason Photography for joining us, taking these beautiful photographs and letting me reproduce them here. See www.sarahmasonphotography.co.uk for more details of her work, and click here to read Sarah's blog about the day.