MARCH 2008

NEWSLETTER 28

WORK IN PROGRESS

I have finished DIDO and am awaiting editorial comment, but I liked writing it so it is to be hoped that readers will enjoy reading it. It will appear, with luck, this time next year.

I am about to start on a third book to follow THE BALLET CLASS and LITTLE BALLET STAR. I’m not sure what this one will be about, but I do want to write about a little boy joining the class in some way. Watch this space.

THE BALLET CLASS has just appeared with a lovely dvd of the book stuck in the back. The text is read by Emilia Fox and she does a wonderful job. There are plans for a slipcase containing audio and print versions of both stories and as I have long wanted a slipcase I’m thrilled about this.

FACING THE LIGHT has just come out in Serbia and here is the cover.

I am still awaiting Russian and Chinese editions.

The German tv production firm Ziegler are in talks with my agent and want to make a tv film of FACING THE LIGHT, which is called SOMMERLICHT in German. I will announce it properly when it’s official.

NEWS

Another thing I’ve taken on is the…I’m not quite sure what to call it. Chair is wrong, but in any case, I’ve taken over the role that Hazel Townson performed for 21 years for the Lancashire Book of the Year Award as the person who “leads” the team of young people from schools across the county in their search for the very best read from a shortlist of ten. Hazel did this job brilliantly and I am deeply indebted to her for her help and the information she’s passed on. I hope I can do half as well. I went to the first meeting in Preston in early March for the announcement of the shortlist, which is as follows.

FROZEN FIRE by Tim Bowler
THE BATTLE OF THE SPOOKS by Joseph Delaney
BEFORE I DIE by Jenny Downham
RED TEARS by Joanna Kenrick
SKULLDUGGERY PLEASANT by Derek Landy
FEARLESS by Tim Lott
ACROSS THE WIDE WIDE SEA by Michael Morpurgo
KISS OF DEATH by Malcolm Rose
WHAT I WAS by Meg Rosoff
FROM WHERE I STAND by Tabitha Suzuma

The winner is announced in late June. Many thanks to Jake Hope and Jean Wolstenholme for making the judging process and the meetings such fun. All the votes are from the children alone and my job is simply to ask them the kinds of questions which will stimulate discussion in the meeting. Apparently, these judging meetings become very passionate and lively. I’m greatly looking forward to the next one!

There’s a very interesting website which highlights writers from Manchester and its environs. Go and have a look at it…I’ve just been added to the gallery and there are all sorts of other writers on the site about whom you can read.

I’ve been alerted to a very interesting website - Splash Anthology - which highlights work by students of writing for young people on a course run by Bath Spa University. Do visit it and read what is being written right now by those who may become children’s writers in the future. I’ve enjoyed the work of a good few of the students, so pay them a visit.

Viv Clarke, of South Downs College in Waterlooville in Hampshire wrote to me about her class of students from the Skills for Life English course. They formed a reading group at Leigh Park Learning Centre and read my Quick Read, LILY: a ghost story. I had wonderful emails from the students and wrote back to them and I’m so glad that they had a good time reading the book. They all sound as though they’re going to go on to be really enthusiastic readers, so thanks to all of the group and to Viv. I did enjoy being involved with this project.

Ruth and Lucy from Norwich, known as The Wurpy Quade, have written a song about one of the characters from my book APRICOTS AT MIDNIGHT. Go to this MySpace link and click on 'Captain Tramplemousse'.

EVENTS

I spoke to Sherry Ashworth’s class of students at Manchester Metropolitan University at the end of January. They were all working on children’s novels which judging by the bits they read out to me, will be very good indeed. They were a very lively bunch of people and Sherry is obviously a very good teacher as well as being a good writer. After the class we went out for a meal with Paul Magrs (another good writer…Manchester has so many!) and others. A very enjoyable event altogether.

A few weeks ago, I went into Withington Girls’ School, just down the road from my house, to speak to Louise Marley’s Young Linespinners Group. They are children who attend this poetry workshop/class once a week after school and they come from many schools in the area. I was really impressed with their work and their obvious enjoyment of poetry, both reading it and writing it.

I went to Weaverham School at the end of February at the invitation of Barbara Heaton the school librarian. I had a good time there, speaking to the children and here is a picture of me in full flight. Many thanks to Barbara for such a good occasion.

For World Book Day, I went down to South Hampstead Girls’ School where a feast was waiting for me at lunchtime, courtesy of Elen Curran, the librarian who invited me and Tania, Laura, Trisha, Rebecca, Marianna and others. I spoke mainly about Troy and Ithaka and signed books too and would like particularly to thank Tania for her delicious home-made muffins which were spectacular. After lunch, I walked down to the Junior department of the school and chatted to the girls there. I enjoyed my time in the school very much, and thanks to everyone.

On March 12th, I spoke at Lancaster Girls’ Grammar School and had quite an eventful journey there, thanks to the March 12th high winds and rain etc. I did get there on time, though and was really delighted to meet Nadia Waller-Sargent, whom I last saw as a young girl. She is the exactly the same age as our elder daughter and her father was a colleague of my husband’s at Manchester University. By coincidence her children are exactly the same age as our grandchildren and she’s had them in exactly the same order: girl of five and boy of three. I like coincidences like this. Many thanks to Kathy Edge and everyone else at the school. The girls were very friendly and enthusiastic and also bought lots of books!

On March 20th, I went to Kidsgrove Library to be “interviewed” by Guy Pringle of newbooks magazine. The event was to have been a joint affair with Salley Vickers on the platform as well, but health reasons led to her cancelling and I was the only writer on offer. It was a very jolly evening indeed. There was a full house; Craig Pickering, the librarian, had organized everything beautifully and Andrew Cant of Simply Books came to sell my books and also drove me home after the event. Many, many thanks to him, to Craig, Guy and the friendly and lively audience. I hope I can get to meet Salley Vickers another time. I’m a real fan and was looking forward to speaking to her.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

On Saturday April 12th I’m appearing at the St Hilda’s College Media Conference which is about children’s books and publishing. I’ll be spending the night before at my old college which will be very nostalgic but the day promises to be marvellous with all kinds of speakers attending: David Fickling, Ann Jungman, and Elizabeth Hawkins are going to be there, too.

BOOKS

This section of my website just gets longer and longer, but I hope no one minds this.

Once again, friends of mine have been busy writing very good books. I make no excuses for flagging them up here because I really enjoyed them

ZENITH by Julie Bertagna (Macmillan) is the sequeal to the novel EXODUS which won the Lancashire Book of the Year Award (see above) in 2003. She writes very convincingly about a time when the waters have risen and much what we know as Scotland is under water. It’s a dystopia, to be sure, but there are enough characters that you engage with, in particular Mara and Tuck, and the language is both poetic and down to earth at the same time. It’s a book that draws readers right into it and which will be greatly enjoyed by all who loved EXODUS.

MARCH OF THE OWLMEN by Sally Prue (OUP) is also a sequel. In this case, to her novel THE TRUTH SAYER. This author’s trademark is a lively sense of humour which lifts fantasy into the realms of the truly readable for me, a well-known non-reader of fantasy. Humour and characters who although they have magic powers of various kinds are still recognisably human. This is one to try on boys who are reluctant to open a book.

Another one which will win many fans among boys is the first in the GRIM GRUESOME series by Rosalind Kerven. It’s called THE CURSED SWORD and is published by Talking Stone books, which Rosalind set up herself. She is the publisher, distributor, writer and the volume is very well-produced as well as being a corking yarn which is both fast and exciting.

Susan Hill needs no introduction. She’s written a new children’s book which I have reviewed for the Guardian and that piece will appear when the book is published in April. I’m not going to repeat myself here except to say, do seek it out if you want good, old-fashioned well-written fantasy adventure of a highly original kind. The book is called THE BATTLE FOR GULLYWITH and it’s published by Bloomsbury.

Also very original and also from Bloomsbury is NEWES FROM THE DEAD by Mary Hooper. She’s worked on the true story of Anne Green, who was hanged without being killed. I am not going to say more than this, except that there aren’t many books which are partly narrated in the first person from within a coffin by the not-quite-corpse! It’s fascinating about all sorts of things and not least the history of the study of anatomy from the dissection of dead bodies cut down from the scaffold. Highly recommended.

THE PRINCE AND THE ROOSTER by Ann Jungman (Frances Lincoln) is a small anthology of Jewish tales for children of about eight or so. These are good and possibly unfamiliar stories and they’re well and plainly written. This is one for both the school library and the home bookshelf.

I’ve read other books for children/teenagers over this period but as some of them are shortlisted for the Lancashire Book Award, I won’t mention them here yet.

For adults, Claire Dudman’s 98 REASONS FOR BEING (Penguin) is a dense and extraordinary story set in Frankfurt in 1852. The real doctor Heinrich Hoffman, known to us from his ‘Tales’, is trying to cure a young girl called Hannah who comes from the city’s Jewish ghetto and who for a long time hasn’t spoken, eaten or slept. Issues of madness, religion, the position and treatment of women and above all the workings of a very unusual institution make this an unmissable book for anyone who likes intelligent and poetically-written historical novels with a real core of truth. It is out of print now but sure to be available on second-hand book sites.

RISE AND SHINE by Anna Quindlen (Arrow Books) turned out to be as good as I expected. She’s a writer I love and I don’t know why she’s not had the attention she deserves in this country. This novel is very good indeed. A radio presenter says a forbidden word on air and her whole career is gone in an instant. What happens then, especially in the relationship with her sister, makes this truly unputdownable. It’s a much more serious novel than it might appear and would make a good reading group book, too, as there’s much to discuss along the way. Do try it.

I belong to an internet book group on the blog of my good friend Cornflower and to see the books which we’ve read since last time, do visit her blog.They have all been wonderful and I’m looking forward to the next.

At this link, you’ll find a piece I wrote about two collections of short stories. One of them I’ve mentioned in my previous newsletter but the other is new and also a treat for short story lovers. Click on the link to see what these collections are called!

One of the treats of January was the Coen brothers movie NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, which is just as good as everyone says it is. I immediately read the book (Picador) which is even better. Marvellous, marvellous stuff but not for the squeamish.

I have also read a novel by the Irish writer John McGahern. AMONGST WOMEN (Faber) is terrific and I’m going to read the wonderfully-named THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN next. Amongst Women is about a family with a dominating father and it takes you into the very heart of the house. You feel you know every one of the characters intimately. Both McGahern and Cormac McCarthy have a quality of weight and heft and a kind of significance that you don’t find in many writers.

Ongoing treat of treats are the books in the DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME sequence by Anthony Powell. (Arrow books) I tried the first one (A QUESTION OF UPBRINGING) twice before in my life and couldn’t get on with it, but I am so glad I tried a third time. I am now a complete Powell addict and I’m having to ration them so as not to finish the sequence too quickly. I’ve just read THE KINDLY ONES. I thought CASANOVA’S CHINESE RESTAURANT was my favourite but this is just as good, and possibly even better. With the next book, we embark with Nick Jenkins on the Second World War. I am ordering the next couple of volumes very soon. Can’t wait.

I enjoyed a novel called THE SENATOR’S WIFE by Sue Miller (Bloomsbury) It deals with the relationship between two women. The eponymous heroine is much older than her next-door neighbour but their lives become entwined in a very interesting and gripping way.

In proof from Picador is a book from the USA called MORALITY TALE by Sylvia Brownrigg. I don’t know that it’s a deep and significant novel but it is very well and engagingly written and much better than many novels with ‘what do you do about a staleish marriage?’ as its subject. It’s coming out in July.

CHILD 44 by Tom Rob Smith (Simon and Schuster) is a serial killer story set in the USSR in 1953, the year of Stalin’s death. The plot is involved and exciting but the real fascination of this book is the picture it paints of life in the Soviet Union at that time. It’s a horrifying story and that even without the actual appalling crimes. Not for the fainthearted, this one. You need a strong stomach to get past the first two paragraphs, but it’s a really impressive debut.

A second novel called COMPANY OF LIARS by Karen Maitland (Michael Joseph) was another historical treat. This time the ghastly past is the 13th century and the Black Death is raging in the countryside. Trying to outrun the disease is a motley crew of travellers. They are men and women from many backgrounds as well as a strange otherworldly child who reads the runes. Death is ever-present (though on the plus side, so is love and warmth) and the world these people inhabit is dirty and cold and miserable for the most part. The story-telling harks back to traditions of folk and fairy tales. The narrator, a strange scarred person, unfolds a narrative full of wonder and surprises. I loved this book and look forward to Maitland’s next.

Very much in the 21st century is the latest Lee Child novel BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE (Bantam) which is, as I write, number one in the bestseller charts. I realize that Child will not be everyone’s cup of tea but he’s truly the tops for this kind of book and like his other novels, the latest is a ‘read even while frying onions’ type of book. I don’t know any writer who does this sort of action thriller so brilliantly. Not my kind of reading-matter, generally speaking, but I make an exception for the wonderful Child and his hero, Jack Reacher. Super stuff.

More in the next newsletter in mid-June, just after the publication of A HIDDEN LIFE in paperback. Have a good time in the spring sunshine.

Adèle Geras

And do write to me at: adele @ adelegeras.com