Greek Myth in Children's Fiction: Part 8

The plasticity and power of myth is taken to imaginative and brilliant levels in Alan Gibbons' Shadow of the Minotaur, in which a young boy starts playing a computer game. He takes on the characters first of Theseus battling the minotaur, and then Perseus fighting the Gorgon. The only problem is - he's not in a computer game, but in a different layer of reality. Gripping and clever. (And also I have a fondness for the minotaur, as the myth provided the basis for my own The Double Axe.)

News roundup: The Double Axe to be published by Alma Books

It's been a while since my last post: I neglected to mention that I reviewed Peter Carey's fizzing new novel, Amnesia, for The Times Literary Supplement. Last week, I spent a high-octane hour in the company of Robert Muchamore for the Daunt Books festival. Now there's a man who writes a lot of books.

More excitingly, I'm thrilled to announce that my retelling of the Minotaur story, THE DOUBLE AXE, will be published in Spring 2016 by Alma Books.

Also in 2016, the final part of The Darkening Path trilogy will come out, published by Troika.  Until then, the second part, THE KING'S SHADOW, is due to be with us very soon. It's like waiting for a baby.

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.