Category: Sighted At Large
Hounslow Library Spring Fair
On 29th March, I dropped in at Hounslow Library to give a talk and reading as part of their Spring Fair.
I was given this comfy, colourful corner in the Children’s Section.
Many thanks to those who stayed to listen, despite all the other attractions at the fair. (I think my large, cuddly goose puppet was a bigger hit than I was.)
A Newbie at Bologna
Bologna is a beautiful city, known for its shady colonnades, rosy stone, leaning medieval towers and delicious food.
Every year, several hundred publishing companies and imprints from all over the world meet for Bologna Children’s Book Fair, to sell and buy book rights, meet each other and discover all the new and exciting things happening in the book world. Tens of thousands of people attend, including rights reps, authors, illustrators, agents, booksellers and journalists.
Last week I attended the Bologna Children’s Book Fair for the very first time. Fortunately I was being looked after by a posse of Bologna veterans – my fellow authors Rhiannon Lassiter, Mary Hoffman and Lucy Coats.
Apparently one wise soul recommended that the best things you could bring to the Bologna Book Fair were “good walking shoes and a strong bladder”. Many people who attend the fair have crazily intense schedules, with half-hour-long appointments back-to-back all day, leaving very little time for food or toilet breaks. The fair isn’t small either, so sometimes people have a five-minute dash through the halls to their next appointment.
Fortunately my schedule wasn’t quite as jam-packed, so I was able to explore the fair. (My attempts to look like a calm and seasoned professional might have been more convincing if Rhiannon and I hadn’t spent five minutes jumping around on an interactive fish pool.)
But going to Bologna is useful, because you get to meet important people in the industry! Such as… er… giant bees…
…and Miffy, here seen with her entourage.
Since it’s the 100th anniversary of the birth of Tove Jansen, author of the Moomin books, The ‘Author Cafe’ contained a lovely little Moominland scene. Moomins and Hattifatteners glowed under animatronic trees, which slowly waved in a non-existent breeze.
The fair also has a large Illustrator Exhibition, filled with beautiful artwork.
Lots of illustrators who aren’t in the exhibition turn up to the fair anyway, in the hope of catching a publisher’s attention. You see them roaming around with their portfolio cases, or queuing patiently by stalls. There’s a long wall where they can put their posters and flyers, and it’s never long before it’s completely covered – talent pinned haphazardly onto talent, some beautiful pictures even falling to the floor.
I learnt a new phrase at Bologna – ‘paper engineering’. This isn’t just wondrous pop-up book art, this covers all ingenious use of paper and card to make 3D sculptures. We came across it everywhere.
I even had a chance to explore Bologna itself, thanks to Evelies Schmidt from Verlag Freies Geistesleben, (the publishing company who have produced a German version of Verdigris Deep, and are currently having A Face Like Glass translated into German as well). Since we both love seeing new places, our ‘meeting’ escaped from the fair, and ran off into the heart of the city in search of adventure.
Things I learnt at Bologna:
1) The children’s book world is vast, and I’ve only seen a tiny corner of it. Although I technically knew this already, it’s a very different matter seeing huge halls filled with stalls from different countries, and large posters for celebrity authors I’ve never heard of because they haven’t been translated into English.
2) My books aren’t really ‘my books’. I work very hard to make them happen, but so do an awful lot of other people. Editors, rights reps, designers, translators, printers and all the people who make sure the books reach the right shops… I’m just lucky enough to be the one whose name is on the cover.
3) Trends in the book world change fast, and move in cycles. What’s more, sometimes publishing companies announce that they’re after one kind of book, then get excited and pounce on something completely different. Moral: as an author, chasing trends can run you ragged. You might as well go ahead and work on the book you’re passionate about, and write it as well as you can.
4) There are a very large number of people all over the world dedicating their lives to the production of joyous things. This makes me very happy.
Kids Lit Quiz National Final 2014
On the 6th December, King’s College School in Wimbledon witness a clash of titans – the National Final of the Kids’ Literary Quiz. The Kids’ Lit Quiz is an international literature competition for children aged 10-13, and each year the team that wins the National Final has the chance to compete in the International Final.
This was a second time I had attended the National Final, and once again it was a lot of fun. Every team is given an author as a sort of mascot. It’s very relaxing for the author, because the team does all the hard work, whereas the author basically sits on the sidelines making supportive ‘woo!’ noises and occasionally eating cake.
I was lucky enough to be handed to the team from Finham Park School, who were fun and interesting, and had a tiny cow as a mascot. As it turned out they were also brilliant, and carried off the second prize after a nailbitingly close battle.
Many congratulations to all the teams who competed, and to City of London School for Girls who will be going on to the International Final!
ArmadaCon 2013
Last weekend, the appropriately named Future Inn opened its doors to the 25th ArmadaCon. This is Plymouth’s annual science fiction/fantasy/cult TV/anime convention. As I discovered, it’s also a den of colossal good humour, terrible jokes and swashbuckling geekery. And the attendees have all the best toys.
Aside from giving a couple of guest panels, I helped judge the ‘Masquerade’, where contestants were assessed on their costume, performance and flair. The overall winners were a duo who performed the whole of What’s Opera, Doc.
However there were many fine costumes that weren’t even entered into the Masquerade.
On Saturday morning I discovered that I had a stunt double.
On Sunday the lovely Anna came back with a costume based on my fifth book, A Face Like Glass. She even let me keep the goose and apron!
My fellow guest author David Wake spent the Sunday dressing as every Doctor Who ever invented, one at a time, including little known variants that had never reached TV.
Other high points over the weekend:
- The Turkey Readings. Dreadful books are read out, whilst the audience bids loose change to get the reader to stop, or continue in funny voices. Dire crimes against fiction are greatly improved when read in the voices of Winston Churchill, Jessica Rabbit, Gollum, Dr Evil or Dr Watt from Carry on Screaming.
- A stop-motion ‘silent film’ episode of Doctor Who, starring all the Doctors and featuring an entirely knitted cast. (Woollen daleks are unfeasibly cute.)
- The auction, where strange and wondrous things were sold to raise over £1300 for the RNIB’s Talking Books.
- Champagne and chocolate Tardises.
- Readings. Selkie tales, steampunk narrow escapes, and group readings/performances of scenes from The Derring Do Club and the Empire of the Dead and David Wake’s other works. (The latter included the confrontation of an evil Father Christmas, the perils of a particularly smart phone and an amusing case of steampunk hankypanky.)
- Tea duels
As a wonderful finale, on Sunday afternoon Mitch Benn arrived. He treated us to some of his clever, very funny and diabolically catchy songs, and was in some danger of being forced at sonic-screwdriver-point to sing all night. (I was privately delighted that he included my favourite, the “Bouncy Druid” song, but the miniature rock opera based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar is also required listening.)
Many thanks to everyone I met at ArmadaCon for a fantastic weekend!
World Fantasy Convention 2013
Shortly after the St Jude storm had batted the British Isles around like a bored cat with a paper boat, I travelled down to Brighton for the World Fantasy Convention. Nobody had told the local winds that the storm was over, so whenever I ventured out I kept both hands clamped protectively over my hat.
Once again I had the joy of meeting a lot of people I only knew through Twitter, email and the mailing list of the Scattered Authors’ Society. (I grew quite accustomed to the words ‘I recognised you from your hat!’)
I was also introduced to Shadwell, one of the small felt pigeons acting as ‘ambassadors’ for Loncon 3 next year.
The first evening of the convention was Halloween, so there were many splendid costumes on display.
There were also magnificent displays of steampunk regalia, and three gentlemen with four-foot-wide hats made out of modelling balloons and flashing lights.
On the Friday I appeared in a panel with a stellar collection of authors – Garth Nix, Holly Black, Sarah Rees Brennan, Chris Priestley and Chris Wooding. This was the brief.
The Next Generation” Not in Front of the Children: How Far Should You Go in Young Adult Fiction? (Oxford)
Our chair, Sarah Rees Brennan, gave a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek performance as the Voice of Moral Outrage, declared us all ‘sinners’ and corrupting influences from the very start, and introduced us by ominous nicknames. I’m very happy with my new title, “The Grande Dame of Darkness”…
I have long held the view that young readers are tougher and smarter than many adults realise, and are generally the best judges of whether they are ready to read certain kinds of material. It became clear that most of the panel was broadly in agreement, but it was still a fun and interesting discussion. Chris Priestley gave an eloquent defence of books that purely entertain, rather than making heavy-handed attempts to educate or ‘improve’. Holly Black discussed the perpetual nervousness with which the adult world regards teenagers. Garth Nix stated that YA should not be considered subset of children’s fiction, but of adult fiction (hence the name). By age sixteen Chris Wooding had been not only reading horror novels but writing them.
On Sunday I took part in a joint reading with other children’s/YA authors from the Scattered Authors’ Society – a ‘taster menu’ of extracts offering a mix of comic, haunting, exciting and chilling. My fellow readers were Emma Barnes, Cecilia Busby, Teresa Flavin, Amy Butler Greenfield, Katherine Langrish, Katherine Roberts, Linda Strachan and Lucy Coats.
Over the weekend I had the chance to listen to a number of fascinating panels, covering subjects such as world-building, YA as a genre, historical fantasy and the influence of real landscapes and places upon fantasy writing.
In the upstairs art gallery, like everyone else I was hypnotised by Tessa Farmer‘s otherworldly aerial battle made almost entirely out of dead things, suspended from the ceiling by threads. Sheep skulls were dreadnaughts, and tiny ant-like fairies rode dead bees, beetles and sea-horses into combat. I also took a shine to Autun Purser’s Fantastic Travel Destinations, advertising trips to the likes of Yuggoth, Midwich and the end of the Earth with cheery 1940s style posters.
Now I have convention withdrawal symptoms… and I have to find somewhere to store all my loot.
Happy Halloween!
Usually on a Halloween evening I would be lurking in full costume, waiting to dole out sweets to trick-or-treaters. (I usually end up eating quite a lot of them myself. The sweets, not the trick-or-treaters.) This year, however, I am instead heading to Brighton for the World Fantasy Convention!
On the Friday, from 4pm until 5pm, I will be appearing on a panel with a stellar collection of YA authors – Garth Nix, Sarah Reese Brenna, Chris Priestley, Holly Black and Chris Wooding. The title is “Not in Front of the Children: How far should you go in YA Fiction?” and the panel will be discussing how far sex, drugs, violence, etc. have a place in Young Adult fiction.
On the Sunday between 11am and 12am I will be joining a group of seven other writers of children’s fantasy: Emma Barnes, C J Busby, Teresa Flavin, Amy Greenfield, Katherine Langrish, Katherine Roberts and Linda Strachan. We will each be giving a short five minute reading from one of our books.
Meanwhile, my good friend Rhiannon Lassiter is holding her own online Halloween party. It’s a blog party celebrating the release of Little Witches Bewitched, a collection of short stories about two young people who remain admirably good-natured and level-headed when somebody transforms them into witches in a fit of pique. (Just for Halloween, you can buy the book at a reduced price.)
Have a wonderful Halloween, everybody, and hope to see some of you at the World Fantasy Convention!
Edinburgh International Book Festival 2013
I love Edinburgh. Whoever designed it apparently decided that you would be able to to see all the dramatic buildings much better if you crumpled the landscape like this.
It’s a beautifully precipitous city, with lots of drops, leaps and skylines standing on tiptoe.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival celebrated its 30th year by featuring unprecedented amounts of me. (Translation: it was the first time I’d been invited.)
As authors we got our own private yurt. (I don’t have pictures of it, since nobody was allowed to take photos inside. As shy, retiring little animals, we had to be allowed a shady, comfortable retreat where we could graze in peace without being startled by photography.)
On Saturday 17th I was lucky enough to appear on panel with the brilliant China Miéville (author of Railsea, Un Lun Dun and The City and the City). The event was expertly chaired by Charlie Fletcher (author of the Stoneheart trilogy). We discussed the joys of the subterreanean, ampersands, divination through theft, railway tracks as symbols of infinite possibility, YA fantasy as rebellion against over-protection, skewing a reader’s sense of the normal and the role of romance in fantasy.
Later that afternoon, I took part in the Imprisoned Writers Series, organised by Amnesty International and Scottish Pen. This daily event gives attending authors the chance to show solidarity with persecuted, imprisoned or censored writers around the world, by reading out their work or a piece about their lives.
The evening was spent at the Macmillan Children’s Books Edinburgh Festival Summer Party. Fireworks from the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo were just visible through the window, and I lost track of time while comparing volcano reminiscences with Rebecca Cobb.
Over the weekend, I even had time to see a Fringe comedy show with the lovely people from Macmillan, and catch some of the street performers…
A wonderful weekend, though I’m still sorry that I missed these beautiful and mysterious book-birds.
Cirencester Children’s Literary Festival
On Tuesday 13th August I turned up at Cirencester Library to take part in the brand new Cirencester Children’s Literary Festival. The audience were very tolerant of my charming new huskiness, and my not so charming new cough.
I also may have spent some time cackling insanely, to judge by this photo.
Books for the signing were ably supplied by staff from Octavia’s Bookshop, which is working alongside Cirencester Library to organise the festival. (Octavia’s Bookshop is The Bookseller Best Independent Children’s Bookseller 2013.)
Amongst the interesting questions at the event:
Q: Do you control your characters, or do they take control sometimes?
A: We’re in… negotiation?
Q: When you write, do you visualise each scene as part of a film?
A: Not exactly, no. A lot happens inside my main characters’ heads, and it’s hard to translate that to film. But some of the tricks I use are inspired by films I love, such as Hitchcock thrillers and film noir.
The Cirencester Children’s Literary Festival will be continuing for the rest of the week. All proceeds go to the Bingham Library Trust, to support its work in the community.
UKLA Award Ceremony and Party
On 5th July I headed to Liverpool for the UKLA Book Award Ceremony, since A Face Like Glass was one of the shortlisted books for the 7-11 category.
I didn’t win the award, but all the authors on the shortlists were presented with certificates and had a fuss made of us. The prize for my category went to the excellent The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan. (The Weight of Water is a verse novel, which makes it particularly unusual. It’s good to see the prize going to such an adventurous and interesting book!)
After a lovely dinner spent gossipping with some of the judges (who were all exceptionally good fun) I headed to the bar for the poetry readings. There were some excellent offerings from the talented Claire Kirwan of the Dead Good Poets Society (great name), but lots of other people also stepped up to read poems, including a show-stopping demonstration of ‘baby rap’ by Rebecca Patterson.
I can neither confirm nor deny rumours of a late night slumber party involving giggling and false moustaches.
English Graduate Conference Keynote Speech
Once upon a time, *coughcough* years ago, I studied English Literature and Language at Oxford University, coming away with a BA and a Master of Studies. It never really crossed my mind that I would find myself back in the lecture theatres of the English Faculty again.
It certainly didn’t occur to me that, the next time I visited Lecture Room 2, I would be standing at the podium rather than sitting in the audience.
On Friday 31st, I had the great honour of giving the keynote speech at the Oxford University’s English Graduate Conference. The theme of the conference was ‘Object’ – not exactly a narrow topic.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that the ‘objects’ I chose to discuss were my own books.
Books are contrary objects – peculiar, manipulative, aggressive, untameable, dangerous and wonderful. In the Fractured Realm, the setting for my books Fly by Night and Twilight Robbery, most people are terrified of the printed word. There’s a fear that books will indelibly imprint dangerous, maddening notions onto the waiting page of the reader’s brain. In Fly by Night, the people of the city of Mandelion are being terrorised by a monster – not a creature of claw and sinew, but a thing of iron and ink. It’s a rogue printing press, and fear of its presence is tearing the city apart.
People are used to the idea that books change readers, for better or worse. I went on to talk, however, about the way in which books can also change the very person that is creating them. I am no longer precisely the individual who wrote Fly by Night all those years ago. The very process of writing the book, the watershed of getting published, my life since as a professional author and the bizarre process of creating a ‘public author profile’ have all changed me. In a way, I have been reshaped and rewritten by my own book.
Fortunately, I don’t mind. I can’t wait to see how my future books rewrite me…
Many thanks to Erin Johnson for inviting me to give the speech, Alex Paddock for organising the conference, and all the other attendees for making me feel so welcome! It was also lovely to meet the conference’s panelists, Stephen Walter (artist and ‘psychogeographer’), Nick Cross (Digital Product Manager at OUP and Undiscovered Voices winner) and Dr Paul Nash (Oxford University”s chief Printing Tutor and winner of the 2013 CILIP Walford Award).
