Month: March 2013
School visits in Hammersmith and Hoddesdon
On Tuesday 19th April, I visited Latymer Preparatory School, which already had a number of impressive projects on display.
The discussion at the end of my talk covered the unnatural pallour of people living underground, alternative forms of technology (kitepunk!), etc. Finally I signed a stack of books supplied by the Lion and Unicorn Bookshop.
A week later, on Tuesday 22nd March, I ventured into snowbound Hertfordshire for two events organised by Books@Hoddesdon.
The first took place at The John Warner School in Hoddesdon, where I talked to two hundred members of Year 7.
A Memorable Question:
Q. Does being an author change the way you read books, and has it made you analyse them more?
A. My degree was in English, so I already tended to be a bit analytical as a reader. But yes, I am now more likely to sympathise with what an author is trying to do. I’m also much more likely to read a really good part and think, drat, I wish I’d written that…
There seemed to be a lot of keen readers, including a young contest winner who had read 60 books since September, excluding all the books she had read at home…
After lunch I visted the impressive campus of Haileybury School to talk to groups from Year 7 of the Lower School.
A Memorable Question:
Q: Do you ever brag to your friends about the books you’re writing?
A: I didn’t used to like talking about them at all. When people asked me sign books I used to hide under tables. But now a certain sort of ‘bragging about my books’ is part of my job. It’s called ‘self-promotion’.
I then signed a small mountain of books – some dedicated to ‘Brancombeast’ and ‘Manstrangler’…
UKLA shortlist and tBKMAG ‘Top 40’
The shortlists for the UK Literary Association Book Awards have now been announced… and A Face Like Glass is on the shortlist for the 7-11 age category!
The full shortlist for the category is:
The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Call me Drog by Sue Cowing
The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan
To Be a Cat by Matt Haig
A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge
The Flask by Nicky Singer
You can find all the shortlists here.
In other news, tBKMAG have just brought out the 40th issue of their excellent magazine for keen readers aged 8-12.
To celebrate, for this issue tBKMAG have chosen their favourite featured book from each issue, and put them all together to make a ‘Top 40’ list of books.
Twilight Robbery, which appeared in issue 32, has made the Top 40!
Greenwich Schools Book Quiz
On 14th March I travelled to the Shooter’s Hill Post 16 Campus, where the final of the Greenwich Schools Book Quiz was being run by an elite team of sixth formers. (It was also great to meet Caroline Fielding and the other school librarians responsible for coming up with the questions.)
Unlike the competing teams, I only had to answer questions about my own books.
The other author present was Ellie Daines, who talked about her debut, Lolly Luck. (Her next book, a tale of amnesia and family disruption, also sounds fascinating.)
Ellie and I were given the task of declaring the winners and runners-up, and presenting gold, silver and bronze medals, all of which made me feel like an Olympic dignitary. Congratulations to ‘St. Ursula’s Hardinge’ team for taking the gold, and to all the other teams for doing so well in a close-fought contest!
World Book Week
World Book Week an inspirational celebration of reading. It’s also an excuse for me to escape from my computer, and bounce from school to school like a book-obsessed pinball, waving my arms and enthusing about writing. I’m trying to pretend that this still counts as ‘work’.
Pop-Up Festival Booklinks Programme
On Monday 4th March, I took part in the Booklinks Programme, with visits to Our Lady’s Convent High School and Clapton Girls’ Academy.
I’d barely arrived at Our Lady’s Convent High School when my eye fell on some fantastic posters that Year 8 had created, advertising an imaginary movie of A Face Like Glass. (One of them had Eddie Murphy and Jim Carrey in the ‘cast list’ – good choices for a tale of facial contortion.)
Photo taken by Jane McLoughlin
Clapton Girls’ Academy Year 8 had also prepared for my visit, working together to create a list of really original, well-considered questions. It was a bit like being interviewed, but with a different interviewer for every question.
Q. Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?
A. Yes. It doesn’t stop me writing, it just means that for a while nothing I write or re-write works.
Q. If you had to sum up A Face Like Glass in three words, what would they be?
A. Innocence. Betrayal. Revolution.
Q. Do you see yourself in any of your characters?
A. Yes. All of them. Even the homicidal goose in Fly by Night.
Royal Ballet School
On Wednesday 6th March I walked through beautiful Richmond Park to the White Lodge, previously a Royal hunting lodge and now the Lower School of the Royal Ballet School.
English teacher Charlotte Taylor kindly gave me a guided tour of the building (including a ballet museum, Pavlova’s furniture, vaulted corridors that used to be the servants’ tunnels and a rather splendid room where Nelson once planned the Battle of Trafalgar).
The students proved to be welcoming, enthusiastic and full of ingenious queries that forced me to think on my feet.
Q. If you had written your first book differently, do you think that would have affected the way you wrote all your other books?
A. Yes. My first book taught me that I could get away with weird.
Q. Can you give us tips for world-building?
A. Try to understand how your world works, who’s in charge of what, and how the people there get boring things like food, water, clothes and money. Imagine living there for a month.
Q. Have you ever changed your mind halfway through a book, and abandoned your plan?
A. I’ve never completely abandoned the plan, though I’ve sometimes changed my mind about major aspects of the book while writing it. It was still really useful to have the plan, though.
At the end of my presentation, I was even given a big bunch of flowers and a bag of goodies. Excuse me while I drink more tea from my new Royal Ballet School mug…
Chandlings Manor School
On World Book Day itself I visited Chandlings Manor School for a double session, talking to Years 5 and 6 in turn. My taxi was late, but fortunately Mark Thornton of Mostly Books valiantly held the fort for five minutes until I arrived. During that time, the students apparently decided that he was my bodyguard.
Chandlings is full of interesting gothic touches, including a blazing open hearth in the front hall and a sort of minstrels’ gallery in the library. Apparently there’s even an unsolved historic mystery linked to the building. (Given all these resemblances to a school from a book, I secretly hope that the pupils spend all their free time roasting chestnuts, investigating ghosts and solving mysteries.)
Favourite moment: Being asked if I’d ever been so frustrated that I just wanted to give up being a writer… and realising that, no, I never had. Not even when my books were driving me mad.
Interview with BBC Radio Oxford
My last World Book Day engagement was an interview by Jo Anthony of BBC Radio Oxford. Thanks to Jo’s skilful questions, I forgot to be terrified of the microphone, and babbled happily about A Face Like Glass, hats, my fascination with expressions and the path to publication.
Ah. I suppose I should probably stop enthusing about books now, and go back to writing them…
Library Hopping in Oxford
To celebrate the release of A Face Like Glass in paperback, I spent Friday 1st March visiting libraries in Oxford, ably abetted by Sally Oliphant from Macmillan.
First I dropped in on Oxford’s Central Library, where I talked to Year 6 of St. Ebbe’s Primary in the Living Room. They listened very patiently despite all having to sit on the floor at my feet.
After a very tasty fried breakfast at the Art Cafe, we headed to Cowley, where I met with classes from St Christopher’s C of E Primary in the friendly, cheerful Children’s section of Cowley Library.
Thanks to Oxfordshire Libraries for inviting me, Sally Oliphant for being an organisational whirlwind, and the students of St Ebbes and St Christopher’s for coming up with so many cunning questions.
Most thought-provoking question: “Will you ever set a story in the future, or will you keep writing books set in the past?”
Answer: I’m a lot more comfortable with a historical setting than a futuristic one. But who knows? Perhaps one day. I do like trying new things.
Favourite comment of the day: “I don’t think you could write a fluffy bunny story.”
Answer: It’s a fair cop. Even if I started a book with pink bunnies going on a picnic, twists, turns and mysteries would creep into the story in spite of my best efforts. And then there’d be a murder…
