WHAT A DIFFERENCE A BOOK CAN MAKE: Pauline Fisk on the Olympic Dream [and the value of occasionally tearing oneself away from the computer]
I’ve told part of this story before, but bear with me because I’ve something new to add, and it’s quite a story anyway. In 2008, the British Arts Council funded me to go out to Belize. I was interested in the concept of gap year volunteering and the difference – if any - it made to young people’s lives. In particular, I wanted to explore it as a modern rite of passage, comparing it to the rites of passage that young Belizeans - say Kekchi-Mayans from the poorer end of Belizean life - might go through in order to achieve adulthood. The result of my research was a novel for young adults, ‘In The Trees’. I learnt a lot in Belize. It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say the six week visit changed me. For twenty years I’d been a desk-bound author, living a largely desk-bound life. Sure enough, for ‘Flying for Frankie’ I’d taken to hot air balloon, and for my Children of Plynlimon novels, I’d explored the three great rivers - Severn, Wye and Rheidol - which flow out of Plynl...