Citizens of Nowhere

This book will remain a favourite of mine for a long time, I think. Its sub-title is "stories of the global citizen".  Sound familiar? Yes, that's right, our dear Prime Minister claimed that people who declared themselves to be "global citizens" were in fact "citizens of nowhere".  Sorry, Madam May, I can't help but be a global citizen and perhaps ironically it was my Grammar School education and then my time at a Russell Group university that encouraged me to think that way. So what the heck is going on here? You educate me to be one way and then tell me that way is not valid? 

You see, I have too much of other cultures rubbed off on me to belong just to one. You'll find more about this in the introduction to the book. 

Madam May implies that the global citizen has no loyalty to a community. I argue that the global citizen is in fact loyal to a bigger community. That of the world or even the universe.  

I'm happy to have been one of two editors on this collection. I'm also pleased to have a story in the book. ' The Wedding Next Door' is inspired by some things I noticed  when I was a teenager. It isn't a true story but it is a true reflection of how life was in the 1960s in the West Midlands. 

We approached some writers we knew who we thought might feel the same way as we did. Some stories just made their way to us. Thus we have stories from Ea Anderson, Jenifer Burkinshaw, Sarah Dobbs, Vanessa Gebbie, Alan Gibbons, Vanessa Harbour, Debz Hobbs-Wyatt, Matevž Hönn, Gill James (that’s me), Karen Kendrick and Jenny Palmer.  

There's a great deal of interpretation of what the global citizen is and they all beat May's idea.

I'm happy to give you one at my own expense to throw at your MP. Just contact me if you'd like that. 

Not that we're being political. We're just doing what writers have always done: showing our readers what the world looks like to us. We see it as full of global citizens.       

Writers and Time

I tried to write 1,000 words a day. I mainly managed it – at the time when I was a full-time teacher and had young children. A few years in I decided to do an MA in Writing for Children.  By then my little children were teenagers, with all that that brings along, and I was Head of Modern Languages at a quite difficult comprehensive. The writing was a little more demanding because it had two masters: the academy and the industry. Nevertheless, I managed to write a lot: MA assignments, competition entries, and some projects of my own. This happened after 10 p.m. on week days, at weekends and during the school holidays.  

I eventually got published and decided to give up the day job, though still did supply teaching and one-to-one tuition. One book deal led me to upping my daily quota to 2,000 words. I now have over 50 works in print and could class myself as a full-time writer. I have a job as a lecturer in creative writing because of my writing. I still aim at 2,000 words or two hours writing a day. I’ve actually found that even with all the time in the world, I can rarely do more than this. After the first two hours, the energy flags. Because of the other things a writer has to do – and most of what I do for the university can be described as just that – there sometimes isn’t time to do the actual writing.

Many writers recognise this. Jacqueline Wilson now often writes on the train, Alan Gibbons in hotel rooms and Philip Pullman misses his earlier routine of writing for a couple of hours after a busy day teaching.

I know many writers, in fact, who have given up the day job and are now writing less than they did before. It’s almost as if they needed the other routines of their lives to make this one stick. Maybe there is also an element of now having less to write about as they have less contact with the outside world.

So, getting published isn’t the golden ticket to a life where you stay cocooned in your writer’s room, sending the works electronically and watching money being transferred into your bank account. It often means you’ve got to get out there, get behind your book and help sell it, and that can sometimes put a squeeze on your writing time. We have to learn even more self-discipline now. We must be able to write in any circumstance and to drop into writing mode without difficulty after a busy time doing other things. We may no longer have the luxury of a room of our own and of an uncluttered mind that we had before we were published.

                            

Our Libraries are Under Threat

Throughout the UK and I suspect throughout many other countries libraries are threatened with closure. This feels to me as bad as burning books. Where would I be now if it hadn’t have been for some excellent libraries? I’ve recently worked out that if and when I retire – I’ll be 59 in a couple of week’s time, so this is a serious consideration- I’ll not be able to keep on buying books at the rate I do now. I was relying on the free bus pass and the library in town as a way of getting round this.
When I was a child I couldn’t afford books either. I remember very clearly the Easter holidays of the second year at junior school. This was the year I discovered the Famous Five. I was at the library every day changing my books. Of course, I soon got though all of the Famous Five books and went on to what my teachers no doubt labelled “better things”. Having access to so many books at that age is probably what allows me to be a writer today – and also a lover of reading.
Later, as I started reading fluently in French and German I was glad to be able to borrow books in those languages because then the cost of importing them was prohibitive.
University meant owning books, so I neglected the public library for a few years, though I made great use of a university library. Then, a few years on, came the children and weekly visits to the library became a part of our family routine. I loved going to the library with the kids and helping them to choose the books I would later read out to them.
The children grew up. I started studying first for an MA and then a Ph D. This brought me in touch with university libraries again but the municipal ones were also important: I was studying writing for children. Indeed now that I’m teaching at university level I recommend that students on two of my modules join the town library: if they want to write children’s; literature or need to write an essay about it they will never afford to buy as many books as they need to read in order to understand. Our university library stocks a few titles but it cannot afford to stock as many as they need to read. Besides, going to the children’s section of the library gives the students some contact with children.
As we gradually take on e-book technology, no doubt the role of the library will change a little. But it will remain a great force in keeping books alive. It will stock older editions of books and different libraries may distribute different types of e-literature. The physical buildings still need to be there with their shelves, reading and studying spaces. Even the most financially stable of us need them occasionally. For instance, I use Bolton’s library whilst my car is being serviced. This library provides decent study space, though, for me, the rows upon rows of interesting books and the interesting people are a distraction. Other people who visit are mums with young children, college students, retired people, and mature people, possibly out of work, who are clearly studying to better their prospects. The computers with internet access are popular and thank goodness this facility is there: we all have our IT crises.
Some libraries are thriving: they have cafés attached and arrange all sorts of events. Sometimes, however, this can be to the detriment of one of the library’s traditional roles: that of providing a quiet space for reading. That is where I think my university library has it right. There are there types of zone: one geared for group work where open chatting is acceptable, another where some noise is tolerated and a third where absolute silence must be observed.
The library may have to change in order to survive. We must not lose sight, however, of its primary role. Note that Alan Gibbons’ activity is called “The Campaign for the Book”, not “The Campaign for the Library.” It’s just that one of the greatest threats to books as we know them is, of course, the closure of libraries.
Thank goodness, then, for the legal deposit libraries and their hoards of books. At my university, we have a constant battle to stop the library throwing out books – including some first editions. We have to sign to say we want them preserved. Surely a function of any library is to have that out of print book that only a few will want. I often go back to a really old source and find that what is suggested is surprisingly up to date and what I had thought were new ideas are in fact very old. We have to change our thinking here. The librarians constantly say there is no room so they must get rid of the books. Some books are priceless. We should see the problem from the other angle and create more space instead of getting rid of books.
So, why do we need libraries?
• To preserve books.
• To provide access to books that are difficult to find elsewhere.
• To offer books to people who cannot afford to buy them.
• To provide a public space for study.
• To provide a public access to the web.
• To support literature in other ways (and without the commercial restraints under which festivals and bookshops have to work).
Get involved. Support your local library and join Alan’s campaign.

Alan Gibbons at Salford University - Vital Signs

It was such good fun having Alan with us at the University of Salford yesterday. It all started well with me meeting him at the Salford Museum, and Art Gallery. I’d been a little worried, so I’d looked out for him trying to park. I know a trick or two …. And I’d been prepared to show him the way. However, there was no sign of him in the queue for the car park so I made my way over to the museum. He was there already. Had been for all of two minutes. And I needn’t have worried about the car park. He’d sweet-talked one of our security guards and parked on the inner-campus. Would you believe it?
Alan knows Salford – he lived there for a while. He also knows white working class so he’s really at home here. He’s quite local, having been born in Warrington, brought up in Crewe and now living in Liverpool. Naturally, we had the hotpot for lunch – with the red cabbage of course.
He’s an experienced speaker, but nevertheless seemed anxious to get to the venue early so we set off for our Chapman Gallery. My turn to be nervous now. Would there be a respectable audience? I’d invited everybody I could think of. At a similar reading last week we ran out of chairs. The gallery really is a gallery and for both talks we were surrounded by these intriguing if rather macabre puppets, part of the current exhibition. They did add to the atmosphere, somehow.
Time to start – there were just twelve there – but a respectable audience nevertheless.
Alan talked for about twenty-five minutes and read a couple of passages from two of his books. He told us all about getting the Blue Peter Award for Shadow of the Mintaur. He also told us how he came to write. Another teacher making up stories for his class. A really interesting talk.
Then it was question time. I had some questions prepared but didn’t need them. The students asked enough.
All of them trooped over to our other campus and were joined by half a dozen more. They were in our rather smart Mary Seacole building. It always seems miles away because you have to actually cross the railway tracks but it really only takes a few minutes to walk between the two. I had to go off in another direction and deliver a lecture but I did rejoin them for the end of the workshop. The discussion was still lively and the students had pages of notes in front of them.
After another half hour or so we were trooping back across the railway line – and still talking about stories and writing for children and young adults.
A successful visit, I think.

The Sands of Time Conference

This was an extremely interesting conference, held at the University of Hertfordshire. Most of the delegates were there as academics – or as one delegate put it aca-bloody-demics - interested in reading children’s and Young Adult Literature, with some interest in how it is used politically, and to do with culture and identity. I was there as a writer who is also an academic how has studied the Young Adult Novel in depth and has noticed that many Young Adult novels are to do with identity.

There were other writers there – Alan Gibbons, Berlie Doherty, Beverley Naidoo, Anne Cassidy and Elizabeth Laird. Also, many of the academics have also written books, but I guess their concern is not so much with sales and royalties as we writers are, but with the esteem which the books bring. I guess, though, that amounts to the same thing, in a way. It was good to mix again with other writers. Of course I’m not as well-known as they are, but we share experiences. And they did gawp when I mentioned that Waterstones are selling me three for two.

Alan’s talk at the end really gave food for thought. Though the publishers are hard-headed business people and embedded in capitalism, they rely on subversive texts to feed their sales. A bit like Aunty, really. Yet Aunty – aka the BBC is delightfully independent, but should tow a government line even though it does not have to obey the advertisers. Interestingly, it can speak reasonably freely.

On a personal level, I’m beginning to see how important it is that I stick with my writing and that I really do get it as good as I possibly can. It was really good brushing shoulders with those five and I did mange to speak for a long time over dinner with Alan and Berlie.