Thursday 16 June 2011

Congrats to A.G.Taylor

I wrote a long while back about having made it to a very nice shortlist with my children's book 'The Chess Piece Magician'. I was one of five on the shortlist for The Heart of Hawick Children's Book Award. What this meant was that the organisation bought 70 copies of my book and distributed them to schools in Hawick. The children in Hawick then read the books on the shortlist and whole classes were inspired to do projects related to the books. All of that explains why I announced my shortlisting a long way back and am only now bringing the news.

Late in May of this year an event was held to announce the winner, to showcase the books and to display the children's amazing work. This year's winner is A.G.Taylor for his book 'Meteorite' and it's a cracker... so congrats to the writer.

For me, well, a shortlisting for an award was such a genuine thrill and having so many children reading the book and talking about it and doing work inspired by it... I have to pinch myself sometimes.

So, thanks to everyone in Hawick for this great award and for promoting books and reading in such a positive way.

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Exeter Writers!

Congratulations to Joanna Campbell for her win at Exeter Writers in their annual competition. My 'The Precious Things of Imogen's Library' came in second. Some other good writers on the shortlist, too. Well done to them all.

My 'Imogen' came out of a 50 word flash I did in response to one of Sarah Salway's photoprompts from way back, a picture of bark laid on a banister rail... weird how the imagination works, because my spiteful love-wronged Imogen came out of that photograph... So, thanks must go to Sarah, too, for without her picture there would be no Imogen.

You can see the top three stories on Exeter Writers' website.


Friday 3 June 2011

People in Glass Houses!


There’s been an interesting discussion in several places on the blogosphere recently to do with something Carlo Gebler wrote about writing. The article is on www.contemporarywriters.com, I think. It bemoans the life of the jobbing writer in a way that has got some people thinking and disagreeing and wanting Gebler to just stop moaning and go do something else. Surely we all have the right to moan about what we do sometimes. But that’s not the really interesting bit.
Gebler says in the article: I read primarily to steal. This attitude applies not just to books but to everything. In every situation ... there is another part of my personality that is scrutinizing my experiences and thinking two terrible things: What’s in this for me? And: Can I use this? Can I put it in a story? Can I put it in an article?”
This has caused some writers to tie themselves into crazy knots that reveal a want of logic in their thinking. One writer thought it a ‘ghastly admission’ that Gebler reads to steal; this same writer has borrowed from her own reading, admits to this, says such borrowings in her work are ‘legion’, so where’s the logic in her ‘ghastly’? ‘I was a bit sad to see a writer of his standing saying he ‘steals’ from others,’ says the same writer! Then she goes on to try and define ‘steal’ as inspiration to save Gebler. But that doesn’t hold water, so she then tries to say she was just shocked that Gebler was asserting that he reads in order to steal… seeming by this to be allowing that it is ok to ‘steal’ in some sense…. maybe that kind of stealing is what she calls ‘borrowing’! I borrow but everyone else steals!
Then on the matter of using other people’s lives to write one’s own fiction, this same writer says ‘I'm sure every writer finds inspiration in the work of other writers, and if not in noticing the lives of those around us, then where else?’
But then the same writer goes on to say this: ‘As for 'using' the experiences of vulnerable people who are suffering because of their vulnerabilities, and making a profit out of it for oneself, not them - is that OK? I'll leave that as a question. If one does it with their permission, and the results help them in some way - is that OK?’
The want of logic is, I think obvious, and the knotted hypocrisy, too.