A touch of The Other? by Sandra Horn
A most delightful primary school near Gloucester will be performing Tattybogle the Musical for their Easter show, so they invited me to spend a day with the year 1 and 2 children, reading stories and answering questions. Year 1 had prepared written questions – very impressive for such small people! Year 2’s were spontaneous. My favourite was ‘What’s your daddy’s name?’ One smart little girl also worked out how old I was by asking how long ago I’d written Tattybogle and how old I was then. My absolutely top part of the day was a Year 1 written question: when did you becom the Other? It set me thinking about how much of ‘the other’ we are as authors. Are we a breed apart? A series of sub-species, rather, since there are several distinct types of writer? Or, can anyone and everyone write stories? The short answer is, I suppose, yes, anyone can, but whether or not they should, and then put them out for public consumption, is another matter entirely. I’ve been thinking a ...