A different sort of book event
Many book events start at about 6.30 in the evening and go
on until 8.00. Last night I was on one that started at 6.00 and went on until 10.00.
And it all went very well.
It was hosted by James Ward, one of the writers in the Evergreen
anthology. It was held in the Abel Heywood, a delightful establishment
in an historic building in the heart of Manchester’s Northern Quarter. We had one of those deals where we got the
event space free as people were buying drinks and food. I spoke to the barman
and he confirmed that this had worked well for them.
Fifty-three people attended, the majority of them being under
the age of thirty. They were generous in buying books. This was so very pleasing
as a lot of them were students who juggle study and part-time jobs in order to
survive.
We had six people read, myself included, and James of course. My goodness, there are some very good young writers
out there.
As we finished I heard whispers that they would like to do this
again. I hope they will. I managed to talk
to them about the Bridge House imprints and I’m hoping to see some submissions from
them soon.
Current
writing
I’m now getting very absorbed in
my new Peace Chid book. The story is
really taking off though it will be some time before I’m finished.
You can read a review of an excellent play I saw at Salford’s
Lowry theatre. https://talkingaboutmygeneration.co.uk/review-the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-at-the-lowry/
I can really recommend this play. It is on tour, so you may
be able to find a performance near you.
If you are interested in my YA
SF, the The Tower, part of the Peace Child series, there is a new way
you can buy this at https://ko-fi.com/s/707f5554ac
I’m also making sets of cards for people to
use: Perfect Plotting and How to Pray. The latter is not nearly as
religious as you might think – though it can be if you wish it to. The unit
cost at the moment is high but if
they work I can get that cost down by producing multiple copies.
On My Blog
I have featured
several other authors on my blog this month. Dawn
Bush and Sharon
Zajdman tell us about their writing
lives. Evergreen
authors Chris
Simpson and Jan
Moran Neil tell us how they came to write their story for the collection.
I address that question
dreaded by all writers: Where
do you get your ideas from?
The Young Person’s Library
I’ve added just one book this month:
Cats
by Emily Gravett The illustrations of cats in this book are delightful.
This picture book will help the pre-school child with their counting and
colours. There is a lot of fun in the pictures. If the youngster is ready to learn
to read they will find some help from this book.
Current reading recommendation
This is
an account of Carol Drinkwater’s journey to find out more about the olive tree,
including its history.
I have to
admire Drinkwater. Not only is she still in touch with her acting career, she
is a prolific writer and an olive farmer as well. And she makes many journeys alone
as a woman, including visiting Algeria, which is very difficult to negotiate.
This account
gives you pause for thought. The olive tree can make deserts fertile but because
of the way it is farmed, in order to produce the plumpest olives, it can drain
water resources in areas where water tends to be scarce anyway. Drinkwater
hates using pesticides but there is little else to do against a fly that can
get in and destroy a whole crop. One solution is the introduction of another fly
that preys on the first one but that isn’t interested in the crop. Fine, but that means introducing a new being
into the ecological environment and may cause an imbalance.
The text
is engaging and reads more like a novel than a documentary. My inner critic
that never shuts up spotted the odd awkward phrase here and there and bizarrely
opening speech marks are absent in random places. You are forewarned so you can
ignore that irritation. The text remains enjoyable.
Feisty Carol Drinkwater
brings us an honest, fascinating and critical account in The Olive Tree.
Giveaway
Note: these are usually mobi-files to be downloaded to a Kindle. Occasionally there are PDFs. This month I’m offering a Kindle file and a
PDF of Girl in a Smart Uniform. Mobi-files have stopped working on some Kindle
devices, so we’re gradually changing over to the newer type of file. This is one
of the new files.
"Girl in a Smart Uniform" is the third
book in the Schellberg Cycle, a collection of novels inspired by a bundle of
photocopied letters that arrived at a small cottage in Wales in 1979. The
letters give us first-hand insights into what life was like growing up in
Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.
It is the most fictional of the stories to date, though some characters,
familiar to those who have read the first two books, appear again here. Clara
Lehrs, Karl Schubert and Dr Kühn really existed. We have a few, a very few,
verifiable facts about them. The rest we have had to find out by repeating some
of their experiences and by using the careful writer's imagination.
Gisela adores her brother Bear, her gorgeous BDM uniform, and her little half-brother
Jens. She does her best to be a good German citizen, and is keen to help
restore Germany to its former glory. She becomes a competent and respected BDM
leader. But life begins to turn sour. Her oldest brother Kurt can be violent,
she soon realises that she is different from other girls, she feels
uncomfortable around her mother’s new lover, and there is something not quite
right about Jens. It becomes more and more difficult to be the perfect German
young woman.
We know that BDM girls set fire to the house in Schellberg Street but got the
children out first. This story seeks to explain what motivated the girls to do
that, and what happened to them afterwards.
