Authors Electric

One of the strangest things about being a published, or accepted, or arrived author is the possibility of earning a living. I guess most of us discovered early on in our 'careers' that there is often more money to be got from talking about it than actually doing it, and lots of schools (for instance) would far rather spend a fews tens, or even hundreds, of pounds on getting an author in than they would in buying his or her books. I have actually visited educational establishments (God spare the mark) that happily admitted they didn't have any of my books on the premises, and didn't know if any of their victims had ever read one. I've mentioned before how many of them don't even bother to check my gender. What's the idea, then? Usually the answer is something on the lines of 'encouraging the children to write.' I did go to a school in Sheffield once where an extremely chippy (on the shouldery) young teacher told me that it was an easy way of making a ...

This will be a post in two halves. I'm tutoring an Arvon course next week (last week, by the time you read this): "Writing for Teenagers", at The Hurst, deep in the Clun Valley in Shropshire, with Celia Rees as co-tutor and Gillian Cross as our guest. My blog post will be due just two days after I return home, in a state of exhaustion and excitement if previous courses are anything to go by, so I'm getting some thoughts down now. First, a bit about the Arvon Foundation, for anyone unfamiliar with the organisation. They own four centres: Lumb Bank (once owned by Ted Hughes) near Hebden Bridge; The Hurst (the last home of John Osborne) near Craven Arms; Totleigh Barton in North Devon; and Moniack Mhor near Inverness. Courses run throughout the year, each lasting from Monday until Saturday, with a maximum of sixteen students. The format is generally similar: workshops, discussions, one-to-one tutorials, a guest reader, and group readings; course subjects include screenwr...