Authors Electric

I'm opening this post with a little publicity for a Pipeline Theatre production, currently on tour. It's called "DRIP DRIP DRIP, and it toured the South-West of the UK last year. Now it has its first London booking, at The Pleasance Theatre, Islington, so I'm hoping London-based followers of our blog will come.  My daughter is an active founder member of the very successful Pipeline collective which has already showcased work in the Edinburgh Festival. It specialises in bringing our attention to difficult and often challenging subjects, and "DRIP DRIP DRIP" is no exception, taking a very hard look at racism in our NHS medical system, especially now, when the UK has split from the European Union, and following every performance there's a discussion panel if you feel like taking part. Pipeline routinely gets excellent reviews, so if you can, please go. Oh, and there's a discount on the ticket for anyone working in the NHS. I was given books for Ch...

We live in grim times. Those of us in the UK are faced with a government busy eating itself, unable to manage the competing demands of the negotiations that will sever us from Europe, the consequences of austerity that sees the NHS at breaking point and poverty spiralling out of control, and a blatantly racist discussion about who belongs here and who doesn’t. Our environment is drowning in plastic. Even our weather is non-compliant. (It’s not for me to comment on presidential difficulties in America).  One solution to this madness - distracting the electorate from things that really matter by bombing a country thousands of miles away.  People (by people I mean readers) need fiction more than ever. Fiction that not only addresses the deal and meaningful, but also provides some light relief, entertainment, brain-space away from all the guff that fills the newspapers and leaps at us from the internet. What a responsibility for us writers! How wonderful it is to be ...

Susan Jane Smith           I’m not just an old woman on my soap box – this is about what you can do to make a difference.           On the 8 th May 2012, in England, a gang of 8 British born Pakistani men and an Afghan man were convicted of sexual abuse.  One of the reporters said that the incidence of gang abuse was rare generally, but that within some cultures, now living in the UK , it is acceptable for men to groom a vulnerable girl, have sex with her (meaning rape) and then pass her along to one or more men.  Those men because they have shared the female then consider themselves to be better friends.           This is not about the colour of a person’s skin – it’s old cultural concepts that a man has a right to dominate a female.            Nevertheless, I do think it significant that the men did ...

I've just been re-reading Linda Newbery's post on editors and editing, and I think that, on the whole, I've been very lucky. For my earlier books with Walker, I worked with Wendy Boase, Anne Carter and later, Mara Bergman, and in nearly every case, the process of editing brought added richness to the stories. A really good editor is like a midwife (sorry, guys, but even you can be pregnant with a good story which might have to be eased into the world in the most appropriate way). For one YA book, THE GAME, the introduction of a new character was suggested. I kicked, screamed and objected, finally capitulated, experimented - et voila! Something  amazing happened (thank you, Anne). The next of my out of print YA Walker books to become available as an ebook  will be WOLFSONG. It's set in a big, ancient house in Brittany, a real house which played an important part in my own life - its name, 'Chanteloup', translating satisfyingly into WOLFSONG - the song of th...