Authors Electric

My illustrator and colleague, the amazingly talented Jan Ormerod, died recently. We'd been out of touch for some time, not deliberately, but in the way that these things happen, so, sadly, I learnt of her demise via FACEBOOK - not my favourite means of communication. Jan illustrated just one of my children's books  - 'THE MAGIC SKATEBOARD', and I was enchanted by her work. The story is about a black kid - Danny - who, in trying to perfect his skateboarding skills, encounters a very old lady who can perform so much better than him that she can skateboard up the sides of nearby houses and across the roofs. Danny's now magic skateboard will take him on an amazing journey up Nelson's Column in London and then across  night and day skies to a beach in Australia, and finally into Buckingham Palace because Danny really needs a pee. Jan did wonderful (I think) scraperboard, black and white illustrations for the text, and also silhouettes of a boy skateboarding. The c...

Amazon 0689836368  Recently I've been asked to narrate one of the story-apps I'm doing with Flying Books. The last time I used a mic was at the launch of FOR MARITSA WITH LOVE  amazon.co.uk/dp/0689836368 and on that occasion I nearly wrecked it, so I regard the things with great caution. I don't have a mic on my computer, so we bought a tiny clip-on one. It was strange to be doing a reading without a visible audience. Now, don't misunderstand - I have always read aloud - for me, it's an essential part of working - but it's a private thing, and I hate having anyone around while I'm doing it. Reading finished work to an audience is something else. It's a special kind of sharing, and audience feedback is an essential part of it. A formal reading with a mic, pausing briefly for each page turn, has been a curious experience, and I still haven't got it right - I was told it had too much echo, so I may have to give up and hand over to one of their pro...

It's a biliously grey November day, rain falling softly all morning (tolerable) and then working itself up to an undramatically dreary all-afternoon downpour - yellowish-grey sky with no hope on the horizon. It was during weather like this that I began work, many years ago, on TO SUMMON A SPIRIT - wading past soggy leaves drained of their Autumn colours, and watching the kids from the nearby secondary school waiting, in a damp and morose huddle, outside the newsagent's shop to buy their after-school treats ( only one customer at a time please... ) As in Pauline Fisk's recent fascinating blog on AuthorsElectric about her Young Adult novel 'TELLING THE SEA', weather and the landscape are great incubators of stories. Pauline's comments on re-publishing her previously published and well-reviewed novel were interesting, too, because we writers never really let go of our work - we're always polishing and improving, even after we're 'out there', which...