Observations from the Observatory

Northern Children’s Book Festival

In mid-November I headed north for two days, to take part in the Northern Children’s Book Festival.

The Thursday was spent at Castleview Enterprise Academy. You can tell the building has been built recently, because it’s got that clean, shiny, new-building look, like unscuffed shoes. The main foyer has a zigzag path marked into the carpet, a bit like the Yellow Brick Road, which makes you want to follow it even though you don’t have to.

I talked to three different groups of students. (Some even sat through it twice, without yawning.) Lots of good questions.

On Friday morning, I visited St Joseph’s Highfield. After my talk I ran a workshop, in which the group of thirty-one students rose to the task of creating a setting with huge enthusiasm and inventiveness. Soon we had a volcanic island featuring a legendary firebird, a cave of zombies, pirates, Swedish-speaking hunters whose chief rode a Tyrannosaurus Rex, sacred bananas, miniature people living in treehouses, monkey-infested jungle, a giant parrot, a beach where the Statue of Liberty had washed up, and much more.

On this island, the volcano is the least of your problems

My last stop was at Heworth Grange, where I was placed on a very grand auditorium stage. While two hundred students filed into their seats, a loudspeaker played ‘Rolling in the Deep’ on high volume (which made me a feel a bit like a rockstar gearing up for a gig).

Fortunately I didn’t sing, so there were no riots. (Actually the audience treated me very well, and had lots of good questions.)

Waffling in Watlington

Before my visit to Watlington Primary, Year 6 were apparently told to find out as much as they could about me. (Two enterprising young detectives decided that the best person to ask about me was me, and sent me some questions through the contact form on my website.)

When I arrived at the school, I found that the rest of Year 6 had dug up an impressive amount of information on me as well. I got excited and took photos. (It reminded me of those big boards you sometimes see in cop shows, upon which the detectives pin information about their chief suspect. Suddenly I felt a bit like a master criminal on the run.)

If only I’d had time to stop and read them all…

In the school library I talked to Year 6 about the writing process and A Face Like Glass.

They responded with some very interesting questions, including quite a few I’d never been asked before.

Q: When you’re travelling, do people run up to you and ask for your autograph, or do you have a bodyguard?
A: No, it’s not like being a film actor. Even people who read my books don’t necessarily know what I look like.
Q: Why do you create such vivid characters?
A: Because I believe that real people are vivid. Sometimes even people you’ve known for years can do surprising and wonderful things if you put them in a different situation.
Q: Are there any of your characters that scare you?
A: Yes – for example, Goshawk in Fly by Night.
Q: Where is the place you most enjoy being?
A: I am happiest when I am on the way to somewhere else. I love travelling, hiking, being on the move.
Q: Can you put me in one of your books?
A: I’m afraid not! If I did, then I’d have to include everybody else who asked, and then the books would get really, really crowded…

After a brief flurry of signings (mostly of people’s hands), I headed down the road to Icknield Community College, where I met the Book Club. They listened to my blathering incredibly patiently, despite the fact that I was standing between them and lunch.

“One of my toy bats is this big…”

Again, there were many thoughtful and unusual questions.

Q: Are there any worlds you’ve created which you would want to live in?
A: Goodness, no. All the worlds I create are ‘broken’ in some way, full of injustice and peril. It’s much easier to write adventures in that sort of world.
Q: Is there one of your characters that is your favourite to write?
A: My favourite character is probably Mosca, but there are others who almost write themselves. I find it very easy to write Eponymous Clent’s speech – in fact it’s difficult getting him to shut up.
Q: Can you give me any tips on co-authoring?
A: Writing with another author is very hard, so it’s important to plan ahead, and make sure you have the same ideas about the destiny of the story and characters.

Many thanks to both schools for making me feel welcome, to Deborah for driving me around so patiently and to FCBG for arranging everything.

ReCon

On Wednesday 12th September, I travelled to Waterstone’s Southampton Above Bar to attend ReCon, a convention celebrating manga, anime, science fiction, fantasy, horror and all things speculative.

To my shame I was ten minutes late, having been outwitted by the trains. (I only discovered I was on a slow train when it was far too late.) The queue of beautifully costumed attendees were very nice about an apologetic, behatted person sidling past them into the shop.

The ReCon queue – photos by Rune Vanderplank

I was fortunate enough to share a panel with Alex Scarrow (author of the TimeRiders series), Andy Robb (author of Geekhood: Close Encounters of the Girl Kind) and Karrie Fransman (comic book writer/artist, and creator of The House that Groaned).

When you turn up for a public appearance, there’s always a risk that you’ll end up facing a ‘dead’ crowd – an audience that sits in morgue-like silence, blank faces staring back at you like potatoes. Thankfully, the gathering at ReCon was the exact opposite of this – one of the most ‘alive’ crowds I’ve ever met. Everybody was gleeful, enthusiastic, generous and accepting.

They were also fantastically dressed. I was lucky enough to be one of the judges for the cosplay competition, and was awestruck by the amount of care, skill, time and love that had gone into the anime and manga character costumes.

The Awesome Weapon Brigade (photo taken by Andy Robb)

One nice lady even let me brandish her steam pistol. It had different settings, controlling the light fluctuations, and apparently she has more of them.

Here I am with the gun set to ‘disintegrate’ so that I don’t have to hide the bodies
(Photo taken by Andy Robb)

Given the high standard, picking winners was incredibly hard. (There were home-made Pikachu costumes, elaborately painted weaponry intricately sawn from balsa wood, a Van Helsing with spinning Tojo blades, steampunk goggles, gravity-defying hairstyles and enough top hats to warm anybody’s heart.) I was also distracted by the joy of spotting characters from animes I’d seen.

Rune Vanderplank’s photos of the contestants can be found here.

When I wasn’t trying out Pocky and other interesting Japanese snacks, I was admiring the fine offerings for the art competition, including an atmospheric painting of Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. Karrie Fransman also encouraged those of an artistic or storytelling bent to add to a communal graphic novel project, each person drawing or writing a panel to continue the story. I would love to know how the plot turned out in the end…

Many thanks to Waterstone’s Southampton Above Bar, my fellow panellists and everybody who attended for making ReCon so much fun.

Verified Sightings of the Frances

7th June, Blackwell’s bookshop, Oxford

Blackwell’s always fills me with joy. I love the way the back of the ordinary shop suddenly plummets down into the huge, unsuspected, underground Norrington Room – a bit like Moria, but with more books.

In a cosy corner of the children’s section, I gave a talk, reading and signing of my latest book, A Face Like Glass. This seemed to go down well, and at the end the audience asked lots of good questions about the difference between children’s and adult fiction, advice to young writers, Alice in Wonderland references in my book, etc. Better still, somebody gave me a box of lemon cakes. Just in case anybody was wondering, offerings of cake will always be highly acceptable.

19th June, St Nicolas School, Abingdon

Due to the aftermath of ‘flu and a hacking chest cough, I had trouble struggling out of bed that morning. I’m so glad I did. I wouldn’t have missed my St Nicolas visit for the world.

I talked to years 5 and 6 about the process of writing A Face Like Glass, read an extract and then answered questions. The pupils had researched me thoroughly, so their questions were top-notch and I had to think hard about some of the answers. Afterwards, I set an exercise designed to help each student design their own character.

Photo taken by Mark Thornton from Mostly Books

From my point of view, the best part was hearing about the varied and wonderful characters that everybody created – killer robots, ghosts, a sky-dweller who lost his powers when he was underground, an angel with anger-management issues, a girl whose parents had been replaced by goblins, slaves, a were-hare seeking her family, a dragon adopted by snakes, a shape-shifting platypus and far too many others to mention.

Afterwards I found myself in the sunlit playground, signing copies of my books, pieces of paper, exercise books, lunch boxes and anything else that didn’t move away fast enough.

Many thanks to Mostly Books for arranging my visit to St Nicolas, which was tremendous amounts of fun. (Mark from Mostly Books has his own write-up of the day here.) Kudos and thanks to John Hulse and his fellow teachers for the impressive levels of effort, organisation and enthusiasm they put into the event.

21st June, Huddersfield Reading Partners Event

The wonderful Sally Oliphant and myself manned the Macmillan Stall at the Children’s Reading Partner’s Roadshow, for an enjoyable couple of hours ‘speed-dating’ librarians.

For those who don’t know how the ‘speed-dating’ works, it’s a bit like the Mad Hatter’s tea party, but with less singing about bats or pushing people into teapots. There are lots of stalls arranged round the room (think of them as the tea party chairs) and lots of librarians who are arranged into small groups (the tea party guests). Each group of librarians starts at a particular stall, listening to stallholders talk about their books, and asking questions. After ten minutes a whistle blows, each group of librarians moves along to the next stall, and the whole thing begins again.

It’s all rather fun, and an ingenious way to make sure that everyone meets everyone else, and gets to ask all the questions they want. Of course it does also mean that the people on the stalls give the same talk over and over again. By the time I’d made the same five-minute speech ten times, I was a little crazy and my mouth was on auto-pilot. Apologies to anybody who was on the receiving end of my gibbering at that stage…

Sally Oliphant and myself during one of the few moments when I was not babbling like a loon.