Launch of the First Story St Augustine's Kilburn anthology, The Gods Amongst Us

We recently launched my First Story Group's anthology, The Gods Amongst Us, at St Augustine's, Kilburn, where I've been writer in residence for a year. Carnegie winner Sally Gardner was there to cheer us on, and the afternoon was both moving and special. And involved lots of fizzy pop. Seeing all my students reading out their work to a large audience was wonderful. The launch has made it onto the Kilburn Times website - have a look here.

I've reproduced here the text of my introduction to the anthology. You can buy it, via the school website here, or even via Waterstones, here.

INTRODUCTION
 

Did you know that the gods are amongst us? Some of them are out of sorts: nobody prays to them any more. They sit in their cloudy palaces, filing their nails and twiddling their thumbs. Some, like Bacchus and Diana, are still very much with us: they look at us from out of the frames of paintings, but watch out – they might turn you into a star, or a stag, if you cross them.

Did you know you could meet Revenge in Starbucks? Or that you can write a letter to a comb? That King Arthur is burdened by memories, that death is a device that tells the time, or that not remembering can be more effective than remembering?

Over the past year I have made the journey to St Augustine’s, on a Monday – traditionally a day associated with the blues – but for me (and, I hope, for my students) it became the most exciting day of the week. My First Story group have been keen, intelligent, challenging; they’ve delighted me, surprised me, frustrated me; they’ve made me laugh more than I can remember (I refer, specifically, to an exercise called ‘Ten Ways to Lend Your Wheelbarrow’.) We’ve eaten more sweets than my diet usually allows.

Most of all, we have looked at language and stories, and seen how they can be found everywhere: on a walk, in a picture, in an object. We’ve seen how the most striking images can come from unlikely conjunctions. We’ve marvelled at the strange ways of the ancient gods, and made something new from their tales. And each week, my group produced witty, charming and insightful pieces. This anthology is called ‘The Gods Amongst Us’ for a reason – not only have our best pieces come out of interaction with those ancient myths; but we have also discovered that the divine, the numinous, the powerful, can be found in our everyday lives.

I would like to give my special thanks to Chris Rhodes and James Casey of St Augustine’s, for their sterling support over the year; and to all at First Story for making this stellar anthology happen. Take note of the names of this group: I’ve no doubt we’ll be seeing them again.

So here is a selection of some of their work. We haven’t been able to fit all of it in. Take a look, read, indulge, think (as our final poem urges you to do) – and next time you’re on the bus, be careful – you might be sitting next to a god.

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The "Next Big Thing" Blog Meme

I'm working on a number of projects at the moment, so I thought I would talk about something that, whilst very dear to my heart, has fallen by the wayside, as projects do; perhaps one day it will pick itself up and find itself a home. It's a book called 'Cave', which is set in a boarding school that is besieged by ecologically motivated terrorists who want to use the power of the monstrous spirit at the centre of the school to aid their world-dominating plans. Yay!
 

What is the title of your next book?
Cave.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

There’s something quite numinous about schools, and I always imagined that they would have some kind of inhabiting spirit. I like the idea of a school as an isolated hotspot - sort of like the film If... in which the boys begin to rebel (and start a killing spree, although that doesn't happen in my book.) The school in Cave is based on my old school, Lancing, which sits on top of a hill - I always used to imagine that it would somehow become cut off from the rest of the world. You can definitely feel something different in the air. And I thought - what if there was something underneath the hill, which began trying to contact the boys? What if it wanted something? And what if some other people wanted it? So the book was born...
 

What genre does your book fall under?

It's a book aimed at twelve year olds and up. I'd call it a philosophical fantastical novel.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
I wouldn’t like to go that far...

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
A school lies besieged; a monster awakens.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
It’s lying in my drawer... one day I hope it will be published by an actual publisher.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I don’t really know. About six months, I think, but then you don’t write all the time. I can never answer this question. Writing has to fit in around other things - it's not as if you sit down and write all day every day until it's finished. And then you redraft and edit.

What other books of the same genre would you compare yours with?

It’s not really like anything that I can think of. Catherine Fisher’s excellent recent book, Obsidian Mirror, has a few scenes set in a similar school.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I think the idea of a school as a microcosm of society, under pressure from within and without, seemed to me very attractive. And I wanted to do something that showed that teens under pressure would not necessarily collapse, like they do in Lord of the Flies. I wanted to write something about a boarding school that showed what people at boarding school were actually like, rather than the kind of people you normally get in children’s books who tend to be snobby or uber-rich. 

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

It’s got love scenes, friendships, rabbit-skinning, catapults, guns, a duel, and a ferocious multi-dimensional monster. What more could you want? 

I now tag the following excellent writers:

Charles Cumming

Anna Stothard

Signe Johansen

First Story: Holland Park and Woodside

A chipmunk: source of inspiration

A brace of First Story sessions this week. First off, in the autumnal heat I headed to Holland Park, where I had a crowded classroom. We worked on the theme of restriction, the idea being that if you impose limitations on your writing, you often come up with interesting things, so we did a few exercises that brought up a lively poem about a curry house and a supermarket scene from the point of view of a chipmunk on a sweet wrapper.

Later on in the week, and still in the skin-warming sunshine, it was back to North London, to Woodside, where we looked at how memory can be used and transformed to make a story. This again resulted in some vivid pieces – the fear of a first swimming lesson, or going on a rollercoaster ride for the first time. Writing comes as much from the self as it does from external factors: that is one of the ways you become a better writer.

Bertie Wooster revisited: Poetry Recital Prize at Thomas' Battersea

Carol Ann Duffy: First past the (last) post

A stonkingly early start today, as I reprised my Bertie Woosterish role (you may remember last time). I was honoured to be giving away the prize at Thomas' Battersea for their Poetry Recital Competition. I was astonished by the quality of the poems chosen and by the way they were delivered. It really gave me heart to think that children at that age can enjoy, understand and delight in reciting such complex and interesting poems. It brought back memories of my own poetry recital competition - I think I slightly optimistically did Byron's The Isles of Greece (I can still remember the first few lines...)

We had brilliantly sinister renderings of Crow’s Fall by Ted Hughes and Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath; an intelligent declamation of Hughes' The Thought Fox too. There was a galloping recital of an old favourite, Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade, and a joyous rendering of Daffodils by William Wordsworth. Humour was brought with The Naming of Cats by T S Eliot; poignancy with A Little By Lost by William Blake, and humour and poignancy together with William Shakespeare's All the World's a Stage. The winner, though, was current poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy's Last Post, which was delivered with excellent enunciation and a real sense of the tragedy of war.

Many congratulations to all who took part - it was a sterling collection of candidates. 

Squirrels and salmon: Reading at Cranmore Preparatory School

A squirrel: Not a character in my book (yet)

Into the wilds of Surrey (well, as wild as Surrey gets I suppose) to visit Cranmore Preparatory, a relatively new (founded in the 1960s) school near Effingham. The sun was particularly bright today, setting the scene for a bright day. It was a pleasure to meet the staff and pupils, who received me very warmly. I read two passages in their beautiful auditorium - one from The Other Book, in which Edward is chased underground by Mrs Phipps and Lady Anne, and is almost choked to death; and one from the beginning of The Liberators, in which Blackwood is, er, chased underground by a Liberator and a group of Acolytes. Do you sense a theme?

The boys asked some very pertinent questions (particularly about my fascination with squirrels), and I was treated to an excellent lunch of salmon before pottering off home to London. I'm sure school food wasn't like that in my day, back in the nineteenth century, when of course we were all fed on brimstone and treacle. I'd like to say an enormous thank you to the school for having me, and if they would like to offer me a pet squirrel, I wouldn't say no.

They've put me on their website here.

Creative Writing Workshop at Greycoats Hospital

Is she happy or not?

To the pleasant streets of Victoria today, for an intense Creative Writing Workshop at Greycoats Hospital school. The school is a large, ancient and pleasant building very near to Victoria Station. It's a girls' school, and I (having arrived late, and slightly flummoxed) was talking to four groups (one after the other) about the basic structuring of writing a story. It was exhausting, but also exhilarating. I talked about the importance of sources - for me the Titian painting of Ariadne and Bacchus as a major point of inspiration for The Liberators. The girls impressed me with their mythological knowledge of Theseus and the Minotaur, and also of myriad other subjects including Romeo (and Gnomeo) and Juliet. Influences as diverse as Slumdog Millionaire, Cinderella and Pygmalion came up (the latter causing some to burst into a rendition of Eliza Doolittle the pop singer). We also talked about how inspiration can be found in the most mundane things - a dead pigeon, a postbox - and the supreme importance of plot and believable characters, as well as the necessity of figures of speech, and the girls came up with some lovely similes. I hope that they took a lot away from the event - in terms of the need for structure, rigour and hard work in the business of writing - and I would like to extend my thanks to the school for the warm welcome I received, and especially to Melissa Hanbury for inviting me.

Olly the Octopus and Tom the Multi-Coloured Sea Monster at Ravenstone School

Olly the Octopus, relaxing

To Gloucester Road, on a delightfully sunny day, to give a reading to a small group of children at Ravenstone School, ranging from 6 to 10. They listened very attentively to some readings from The Other Book (the scene in which Edward is chased by a monster, and also about half of the first chapter in which Tristram de la Zouche watches his father murder his nurse....) and also the very beginning of The Liberators. Ravens play a very important part in The Other Book, and even (although erroneously) make an appearance on the cover of The Liberators, so it was very appropriate to read from TOB at Ravenstone.

One of the teachers made a list of useful verbs after I read (which I was very pleased to see) for the children to think about; later one of the girls asked where I got them from. I answered, 'The verb shop, of course, just near Gloucester Road.'

In the last ten minutes we wrote a Philip's Patented Ten-Minute Story, which went like this:

One day, Olly the Octopus was minding his own business, as octopuses do, on the bottom of the sea bed, when he saw in the distance an enormous multicoloured sea monster rushing towards him. 'Help!' thought Olly, who was very frightened. He was so frightened that he squirted out some red ink at the monster. Squirt squirt squirt!


The sea monster ran away, and Olly was happy. But then he heard a strange noise. What was it? It was the sound of sobbing. Olly went to investigate. Hiding behind a rock was the sea monster. Now Olly was still very frightened but he plucked up enough courage to ask, 'What's the matter?'


'You squirted ink in my face!' said the monster. 'And my name's Tom the multi-coloured sea monster, and I only wanted to be friends.'

So Olly the Octopus apologised. They made friends, and ate invisible ice-cream, and went off to float on the top of the sea, splashing and sploshing like seals.

There  you go. Not bad for ten minutes, if I say so myself...

Readings at Ludgrove

Ludgrovian Books

Appropriately enough, for the week after the Royal Wedding, I headed to Ludgrove this morning, where Princes William and Harry were both pupils, to give a couple of readings and talks to the older boys, of both The Liberators and The Other Book. Ludgrove's half-timbered cosiness contains a room in which the name of every boy who ever attended is recorded, which adds a fine sense of continuity and heritage. (At my prep they only wrote up the Head Boy's name, which I always thought rather unfair).  Stuck up against Prince William's was a picture of the Prince and Kate Middleton before their wedding - the school had been celebrating over the weekend.




The readings took place in the lecture hall. I read a scene from The Other Book in which our young hero Edward Pollock is chased by a spirit made out of the stones and mud of the Manor itself; and the first chapter of The Liberators. The questions were acute and perceptive and I very much enjoyed answering them and signing the books.

On a tour of the school I was struck down almost immediately by memories of my own prep, Dorset House: the particular, shall we say, odour of the boot room; the dormitories with their low beds and single teddy bears; the cricket and the art and the general atmosphere of kindness and industry. So a huge thank you to the librarian, staff and boys of Ludgrove, and I wish them all the best for the end of this academic year.

You can see pictures of the talk on the Ludgrove website HERE.

The Leatherhead Advertiser

World Book Week: Final Day: Pilgrims' School, Winchester

Into the cloistral charms of Winchester for my final talk at Pilgrims' Winchester, a beautiful school set right near to the Cathedral. One of its halls has an ancient timbered ceiling - you can well believe that Chaucerian monks, friars, merchants and other salty characters quaffed, prayed and quarrelled beneath those heavy, cobwebbed beams.

The entrance hall to the school has many sporting mementos - footballs and bats signed by sporting heroes; outside boys played in the cool sunlight.

The boys listened to two readings from The Liberators - my stalwart choice is the opening chapter, with its cliffhanger, deathly chase scenes and severed limbs; I also read to them the riot scene in Oxford Circus, when Strawbones Luther-Ross causes mayhem in the middle of the road. The questions were acute and perceptive - even the ones about squirrels. One boy asked me if I'd ever dreamed myself into one of my books - that really caught my imagination. I'm going to try tonight... it would be wonderful, would it not?

I left Pilgrims feeling extraordinarily happy - and also with wistful memories of my old school, Dorset House, which was the inspiration for my first novel, The Other Book.

Farewell to World Book Week then... until next year.

World Book Week: St Teresa's, Reading

The last time I was due to give a reading at St Teresas, the world got in the way - most of the county was snowed in, and I stayed in London. As I said to the girls, I lacked a shovel, so I could hardly burrow my way in... So I was mightily pleased to make it down there today, when it couldn't have been more different: in the most brilliant rays of sunshine, for a belated talk and reading.

St Teresas sits on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere - it's a little bit like going back in time. The staff and pupils gave me an excellent welcome, and we had a very good discussion about The Liberators. I was pleased to see so many girls wanting to be writers or journalists - keep at it, is my advice. Thanks so much to all involved.

World Book Week: Thomas' Clapham, Reading of The Liberators

It's WORLD BOOK WEEK. Huzzah! A week to celebrate books can only be a Good Thing (although I don't especially agree with the million book give away - but that's another question.)

A drizzly, dour start to the week, but a splendidly warm welcome from the pupils and staff of Thomas' Clapham. I almost didn't make it on time, as I relied on my GPS phone working - which of course it didn't, in the wilds of Clapham (chiz chiz); luckily I'd absent-mindedly looked at a map at breakfast and was able to use my knowledge of the stars to find the school, which is a large Victorian-gothic, gingerbread coloured mansion.

I chatted to the older years briefly, and read them the first chapter of The Liberators. There were some good questions from the floor ('is Rio Ferdinand your favourite footballer?' [to put this in context, he attended {accidentally} my launch party last year]).

All in all it was a fun beginning to what promises to be an extremely dervishing kind of week. I've got two more school talks, and an event with the fantastic Mr Philip Reeve in Richmond on Thursday. Long live The Liberators!

Talk: Christ Church Cathedral School, Oxford

Walking through the streets of Oxford on a grey day is rather melancholy; I revisited a couple of old haunts (including the marvellous Georgina's café, which I am pleased to see hasn't changed a bit). As I was walking down Cornmarket, I was stopped by an undergraduate who wanted to sign me up a to a jobs website. He was very convincing. 'Do you have a job?' he asked. I stuttered an answer. Queuing in Lloyds Bank as I took my pen out of my pocket the lid snapped: an ill omen, I thought.

So all in all I was mightily pleased by the warm welcome I received at Christ Church Cathedral School, where I gave a short talk and a reading of The Liberators. Their questions were rather good; they also asked if The Liberators is ever made into a film (are you listening Spielberg / the makers of Harry Potter? If you are, have a look at Keren David's post too...) that I should ensure none of the details are lost. And they asked the most important question of all: do I surf or skateboard? To which the answer, unfortunately, is no; but there's still time... Thank you very much indeed to all who were involved, it was a pleasure.

The picture, by the way, is of the house Dorothy Sayers was born in - just round the corner from the school. No wonder she wrote such brilliantly murky books...

When I Was Ivo: Keren David on The Liberators

Keren David, author of two heart-stopping, gimlety thrillers, When I Was Joe and Almost True, which follow the adventures of a teenager called Ty who becomes involved in a stabbing, has written about The Liberators. I am glad that she likes Strawbones - my own favourite. I think that Ivo and Ty would get on very well together. We should arrange a meeting. Here's what she said:

'On the surface, it's a fast-moving, exciting adventure, with well-drawn characters that you care about - and intriguing sinister baddies,whose seductive charm is irresistible. It would make a wonderful film - the riot on Oxford Street, and the final scenes in the National Gallery make great use of London as a setting.
But it goes so much deeper. I was extremely impressed by the way you conveyed Dionysian ecstasy in a way that a young audience would understand - particularly the sexual undertones, which were suitably subtle but definitely there - and the conflict between Dionysian and Apollonian philiosophies. So often nowadays we see mythology raided for storylines, but stripped of its essential meaning.
I also loved the way that Ivo, Felix and Miranda were unapologetically posh and privileged - learning Greek, going to boarding school and living with servants. I wrote a post on Norm Geras's blog recently about the importance of boarding school books for those of us who did not go to a school where Greek and Latin were taught. I learned a great deal from reading books about boarding school children - not only about poetry and the classics, but about how the upper classes lived - extremely useful information in later life!
I only have tiny criticisms - much as I loved the image of Charles and Camilla at the party, I did wonder about the security arrangements. And at the beginning I was a little bewildered by all the characters and had to go back and check who was who a few times. But once I'd got everyone straight in my head, and particularly when Strawbones appeared, I was completely hooked.

Now I must get hold of The Other Book (great title).

Kx'

Thomas', Kensington: Talk about The Liberators

Last week, in the driving rain, I headed to the wilds of Kensington, to a charming school called Thomas'. I was greeted warmly and had the pleasure of seeing a class studying The Liberators. I then gave a short talk to about seventy children (of about nine and ten years old) about being a writer, and read from the middle of The Liberators. The questions afterwards were peerless. One asked me what the general themes of the book were. It is extremely rewarding to engage with readers on a level like that. So thank you Thomas' for a marvellous morning - and for a delicious lunch, too.

Letters

Here is a link to a piece I wrote for The Daily Telegraph about letter writing.

Click HERE

And long live the art of writing letters.

Life in the Country

Here is a short interview in Country Life of April 21st. They have my college down as Balliol: it was Oriel. I feel honoured by the mistake, though.

Skippy Dies

Read my review of the marvellous Skippy Dies by Paul Murray, a brilliantly witty and poignant tale set in an Irish public school:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7404852/Skippy-Dies-by-Paul-Murray-review.html