Authors Electric

As well as being a large New World monkey, a werewolf in full cry, or an unpleasant letter in a red envelope sent to someone at Hogwarts, the other definition of howler is a stupid mistake or ludicrous blunder.  Some of them find their way into general parlance, particularly when used by a person of note, and Covfefe appears to have achieved this rather dubious status with the greatest of ease. Like most writers, I have other forms of income and, like most writers, a lot of it consists of teaching. In the old days, before everyone thought they could write because their computers made everything look professional, howlers were limited to hard copy, whether it was a manuscript or a sign in a shop window. I fondly remember such delights as the notice in my local butcher’s, during a salmonella outbreak one Christmas: AVOID SALMONELLA BY OUR TURKEYS. It took me a moment to realise that it was the letter U that was missing. Both spelling mistakes and punctuation can radically ...

            This is part of a paper I gave at the Harry Potter Conference in 2005. It’s a bit more technical than the things I usually post, but what the hell. I think children’s writers have a duty not to disseminate false or misleading information, and an obligation to present the world as something to be cherished, explored, and enjoyed. A fantasy world is always a metaphor for the real world, as we have nothing else to plunder for subject matter. A big change in authorial responsibility occurred during the second half of the last century in a close relative of fantasy, science fiction. We stopped wondering what effect the aliens would have on us , and started to worry about what effect we would  have on them . We began to observe ourselves a little more objectively, and we didn’t like what we saw. Neither do children, on the whole – they worry about what we’re doing to the planet; they have ideals and integrity, and they want to do what’s...