A Small YouTube Experiment

Someone took a couple of tiny videos of me answering questions at the recent Bath Festival of Children's Literature.  I thought I'd do a small experimental upload to YouTube.  It seems to have worked.  So here I am talking about how long it takes me to write a book, and giving some tips on how to be a writer to the kids at Kingswood Prep. It never ceases to amaze me that I can sound both quite squeaky and quite posh all at the same time.  Enjoy!  You may throw eggs if you wish. 

Edinburgh International Book Festival: Part 2 - The Author is Wrangled

I'm not used to having a minder. It's rather nice, and luckily Orion has a pretty high class sort of author wrangler in Kate and Nina. Nina was having a well-deserved Bank Holiday off--her first in 7 years which shows an unprecedented devotion to duty--so Kate drew the short straw of wrangling me.  The poor girl had her work cut out because the hideous edbookfest lurgie had struck me down, and by the Tuesday morning my voice sounded a bit like a baby dragon fart--all squeaky and raspy.  Luckily I wasn't breathing fire, so she had that to be thankful for. However, The Show Must Go On, and so, dosed with hideous concoctions and breathing Fisherman's Friend fumes, I was miked up to the hilt and strode into the Scottish Power Studio Theatre in Charlotte Square.  Well, I say strode, but I don't know if one can stride on legs which feel like jellybeans. 

I feel that this is the point at which I should mention Author Nerves. There we are, writing away in our little garrets or (add ivory tower location of choice here). The email pings, and in comes a lovely invitation from a school or library or, in this case, festival.  Warm feeling of being wanted ensues, and one agrees to do it in a burst of love for all humankind (it takes very little to make an author happy--chocolate is one of them, being treated as a real author is another).  Then, just before the event, panic ensues.  At least it does in my case.  Will I forget what I'm saying and babble?  Will the PowerPoint work (this is a new worry)? Will there be a classroom riot because the kids are bored/hate me/are demons in disguise?  If you took my pulse before an event, I would probably be on the endangered health list.  This time, not only did I have a really big (for me) audience of about 200 kids (yes, my event was SOLD OUT!), but I also had the Russian roulette scenario of whether my next word was even going to be comprehensible.  Also, the clock was broken, so I had NO IDEA how long I had left. 

I got through it.  My voice held out. I even made them laugh--at least twice.  They clapped enthusiastically.  And best of all, they kept on asking good questions till we ran out of time (I made a bad error though--note to self: never give the child who has told you a delightfully long and rambling story about his lego Minotaur the chance to DO IT AGAIN. It's very dark in that theatre, and I am easily confused.) 

After that there was time for a much needed throat-soothing cup of tea and a small pause...

before the 'signing of the books' ritual in the signing tent.  All those who hadn't asked their questions came up and did so.  Very chatty they were too.  I had a photo opportunity with the nice kids from Strathyre in the Trossachs who'd come a long way and very nearly not made it.  And then...then I had tea in the yurt with the Bookwitch and her lovely daughter, Helen.  The Bookwitch writes a pretty fabulous blog, so the next day I was flattered to feature in it along with my lucky red coat.  She was even polite about my talk.

As I left Waverly Station on the Train That Was Destined Never to Arrive, I had a thought.  What a bloody marvellous thing the Edinburgh International Book Festival is.  I do hope they invite me again one day.

Part 1 Edinburgh International Book Festival - The Outreach Author is here

Edinburgh International Book Festival: Part 1 - The Outreach Author

I was terribly flattered to be asked, of course.  Which author wouldn't be? I mean the Edinburgh International Book Festival--it's BIG!  They have proper famous people there.  Like Pullman and Rowling and Donaldson (more about her in the next post). So, yes please (I'm polite like that) and yippee! I said.  That was last year. It seemed a long way off then.  Safe, even.  But when it got to last Sunday, and I found myself on a packed and joggly train pulling out of Kings Cross Station (not, sadly from Platform 9 3/4), I started to feel a bit nervous.  The stomach butterflies weren't helped by the family of messy tuna eaters, either.  But I shall cut at once to the authors' yurt--all domed canvas roofs and exotic carpets, where I fitted in right away with my lucky red coat.

The yurt has been much written about, so I shall say no more than that I met (finally) the ineffably Crabbit Nicola Morgan and the wolfy Gillian Philip there, as well as lovely Danuta Kean, who has a razor-sharp wit and a talent for knowing all the good gossip.  Wolfy Gillian was keen to show me that authors have their own exclusive yurty toilets (very deluxe).  She also persuaded me to be photographed with her.

There was much wine, and I shall draw a veil over the rest of the evening and proceed straight to the next morning, which was when I had to do my first event.

Outreach is a fantastic scheme, taking Festival authors out to local schools (which might otherwise miss out). As an official EIBF author, you get given the chance to opt in or out.  I opted in (always up for anything that helps to get books to kids).  Which is how I found myself speeding along country roads in a taxi.  My destination was Kirkliston Library, and the P5 class of Kirkliston Primary.  Author nerves were at their most tightly wound...would the PowerPoint work? (It did, thanks to the fab Colm Linnane, Reading Champion of the Edinburgh City Library & Information Service.)  These kids were brighter than shiny buttons--and they were well prepared for a foray into the ancient world (not always the case).  There wasn't much wriggling, and the questions were focused and intelligent.  They'd even emailed me beforehand (though there was a slight mix-up in the spelling of the word book, involving a misplaced 'b', which made me wonder for a second whether I'd been spammed!).

I think they liked it--anyway, they certainly all wanted to be put in my next book, with one boy volunteering to be the monster (his peers seemed to agree that he'd be perfect for the part).  One down, one to go...but then the dreaded lurgie stepped in and bit me....come back tomorrow to find out whether I survived!

Part 2: Edinburgh International Book Festival - The Author is Wrangled is here

Visiting for World Book Day

This is one of the busiest weeks of the year for authors in schools. All over the UK today children will be being enthused by those 'at the sharp end' and (hopefully) inspired by the sheer power and energy of writing. I have been in a school all week--but not in the UK. Haut-Lac International Bilingual School is in Vevey, Switzerland, on the edge of Lac Leman. Its school dining room has, without doubt, one of the most beautiful views in the world, overlooking Alps currently covered in pristine white snow, and a lake whose waters look like oiled silk in the misty sunshine. The school has 44 nationalities, and a smilier, better behaved lot of children would be hard to find. The Marronniers (infants) was a riot of wonderful pictures of Elmer the Elephant in the snow, avalanche danger, chestnut trees, and cutouts of mittens. In one corner was the 'vet'--open once a week to tend to injured teddies. Language was no barrier--row row row your boat with screaming and waving of arms and shivering and scary bits is pretty universal, and I was delighted to be told that Jack and the Beanstalk translates as Jacques et l'haricot magique. It was therefore a two-way learning process. Myths and legends went down well in the primary with fun Q and A sessions (in spite of a lingering determination by one child to find out the intimate detail of why I have such an untidy desk). My appalling map-drawing skills seemed not to put them off, and they were fascinated to see the name of their school written in the Celtic Ogham alphabet. Two final sessions with the 11-13's were--no other word--fantastic, because of the children's huge enthusiasm. It was wonderful to find them prepared, interested and articulate. I shall look forward to reading the top entries in the creative writing competition I set them--I have a feeling that I shall be inspired and delighted.

On most of my days as a writer, I sit alone in a room with my characters, wrestling and wrenching a book into shape. But it is the days when I meet my audience which reminds me why I do this job. If my visit, my stories, my talking about what it is to be a writer, has lit just one candle in the mind of a child--helped them towards a love of literature and all the treasures contained within--then it will all have been worthwhile.

V Thoughts from Abroad--Part 1

Last week was Venice (of which more in a later blog). This week it's Vevey in Switzerland (I am working my way down the world's towns beginning with V, it appears) for my first 'abroad' author visit to an International school. I am told that school visits can sometimes be a nightmare of inefficiency and indifference (although in my case I have always been lucky enough to visit wonderful schools), but this one has started well. I am in a pretty hotel, overlooking Lake Leman and the Alps--or I would be if the fog was not curling in great grey drifts across the water. The church bells are tolling the hour in that slow, indefinably Swiss way which is somehow foreign to an ear more accustomed to English peals. Tomorrow I sing and read rhymes to the tinies, and then talk about myths to the older ones. Lunch is provided, as is a dinner 'dans les montagnes'--a case of autre pays, autre moeurs, perhaps. This is one of the parts I like best about being an author--the chance to meet my audience, and talk about the things I love most--books and writing. It will be hard work--think of it as being on stage for 4 hours and performing--but somehow this particular visit doesn't feel like work, but (rather guiltily) more akin to a mini holiday. Yes, I am 'losing' three days which could have been spent writing. But I think what I will gain in inspiration is well worth it. The children I meet are always full of ideas and questions, and meeting them reminds me of why I do this job. Maybe one day, in the far off future, some famous literary prizewinner will be asked how they got into writing. Perhaps they will say, "Well, there was this author who came to my school and inspired me...." Just maybe....

PS: The blog-hijacking dinmont now has his own blog here. Thank goodness. He will now no longer be writing rude things on mine. I'm quite sure he will keep dishing the dirt on my authorly activities in his own inimitable way, though. I hear he has a surprise for me on my return to England. I can't wait. Not.