Amsterdam to London by Keren David

Heron in the Vondelpark, Amsterdam

It's a very odd thing, reading a book set in a place you know well.  It can suck you into a book and make everything seem even more real and true -  or it can gently remind you that you're reading fiction.
Take John Green's latest novel, The Fault in Our Stars. I enjoyed the beginning, where we are introduced to teens Hazel (who has terminal cancer)and Augustus (who has had a leg amputated after suffering bone cancer), but I thought their conversations were just a little too pretentious to  ring true. Then they went to Amsterdam. At first  I had  little quibbles ('the taxi driver wouldn't have driven through the city centre, if he's going from the airport to the Overtoom') but soon forgot them, as I was sucked in, more and more to the idea of these two in this place I knew so well. I could see them on the canals and in the streets. My imagination and memories filled in the gaps that John Green had left. Eventually there was a description of a particular corner of the  Vondel Park  that  made my heart lurch.

Here it is: 'Before us, hundreds of people passed, jogging and biking and Rollerblading. Amsterdam was a city designed for movement and activity, a city that would rather not travel by car, and so inevitably I felt excluded from it. But God it was beautiful, the creek carving a path around the huge tree, a heron stading still at the water's edge, searching for breakfast amid the millions of elm petals floating in the water.

 I read that, I recognised the  deep-down truth of it, I fell in love with the book, and I forgot my doubts about Hazel and Augustus. They were as real to me as the herons and the skaters in the park that I'd seen so often and knew so well.
 In contrast, the depiction of London in  Jennifer E Smith's The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight kept on jolting me, because I knew more than the author. I kept on wanting to tell her things. For example, British weddings tend not to feature loads of adult bridesmaids all dressed the same, and they don't go down the aisle before the bride. Clinking a glass at a British wedding means a speech, not a kiss. Middle-class families with lots of children don't tend to live in Paddington - just three examples, but I could go on and on. 'Everything in this city seems old, but charmingly so, like something out of a movie.' is not a meaningful description  to a Londoner.
I concluded that  Jennifer E Smith's research had mostly been conducted by watching Richard Curtis films, and to be fair, none of the above would put off most readers of this soft-centred romance. But they put me off, and meant that I didn't take the love story or the main character's angst over her father's remarriage all that seriously.
When you don't know a setting, the details don't matter. But when you do - they matter more than you realise.

Undiscovered Voices 2012!

Last night was the launch party for this year’s Undiscovered Voices anthology, organized by the SCBWI and Working Partners. I caught up with winners old and new for dinner, chat, and sneaky autographs (something the new UVs are going to have to get used to!)  before the "SCBWI-DO"(!) kicked off at beautiful St. Chad's Place.

Class of 2010! Jane McLoughlin (At Yellow Lake) and Anne M. Leone (Adele)

And what a turn-out! Ninety-six industry professionals came along, along with eighteen winners, two years’ worth of alumni and a partridge in a pear tree, all crowded into the beautiful restaurant where there was bubbly, laughter, and congratulations for all as outside the snow began to fall.

It was so lovely to be able to go along and enjoy the evening, celebrating the success of the new Undiscovered Voices, and indeed the competition itself, which has propelled thirteen of the previous twenty-four winners into becoming published authors – including five members of The Edge!

All these authors started as Undiscovered Voices!

2010 winner and Edge author Dave Cousins signs
copies of his new book "15 Days Without A Head"

Lovely Natascha Biebow welcomes everyone

Chris Snowdon (Working Partners)

It’s no overstatement to say I owe my career to Undiscovered Voices, and I remember so well standing in their shoes, feeling so excited and thrilled but also equally so nervous and terrified of introducing myself to all the scary and important editors and agents, so it was especially lovely to enjoy the party this year without any of the pressure and nerves – chatting to editors and agents I’ve gotten to know over the past four years, and helping to “match-make” the new UVs with the (really quite lovely) editors and agents.

Lovely Catherine Coe, judge of UV2008, who gave me my first contract!
With Ben Horslan (Egmont Books)

Malorie Blackman,
Co-founder of UV, author of Dark Parties and Edge author Sara Grant (busy lady!)
And the lovely Nick Sharratt

This year’s competition is unique in that for the first time ever, it was open to illustrators too – and the six winning pictures are such an asset to the anthology, each so bold, so beautiful and so varied! It also meant that the incredibly talented and ever-so-lovely Nick Sharratt (who wrote a foreword to this year’s anthology) was at the party (I nearly had a fangirl meltdown when I met him – v.embarrassing!) and regaled us with stories of his journey to publication – and how difficult it is to draw shopping trolleys!

Also providing a foreword in the anthology and inspiring and encouraging all the writers in the room was the wonderfully talented and vivacious Malorie Blackman. Here she is, describing the moment she received her first acceptance letter after two years on the slushpile!

This was a feeling I remember so well – from first being told I’d been chosen for inclusion in the anthology back in 2007, to receiving my first publication contract!

A feeling these Now-Discovered Voices will remember and enjoy for many years to come.

The winners! Authors: Veronica Cossanteli (Dragons Do, Dodos Don't), Jo Wyton (Magpie),
Jane Hardstaff (The Executioner's Child), Rosie Best (Skulk), David Hofmeyr (Kalahari),
Sandra Greaves (Gabbleratchet), Zoe Crookes (Kalahari), Sharon Jones (Dead Jealous),
Maureen Lynas (To Destiny or Death!), Richard Masson (Boonie)
Illustrators: Nicola Patten (Viking Makes a Discovery), Shana Nieberg-Suschitzky (Isolya),
Amber Hsu (And so Chirogo brought forth the stolen voice...), Julia Groves (Birdsong),
Rachel Quarry (By the Light of The Moon), Heather Kilgour (Talking with Birds)

Sandra Greaves (Gabbleratchet) wins best hat of the night!

Winners! David "The Hoff" Hofmeyr (Kalahari)
with Maureen Lynas (To Destiny or Death!)

Jane McLoughlin (UV10, At Yellow Lake), Lisa Joy Smith (UV10, Slugs in the Toilet) and me!

Candy Gourlay (UV08, Tall Story!) - caught with camera!

Sarwat Chadda (UV08, Devil's Kiss) with UV12 Judge Jo Anne Cocadiz
with  Jo Wyton (UV12, Magpie) and  Abbie Todd (UV10, Blinding Darkness) behind

UV12 Winners Jo Wyton (Magpie) with Rosie Best (Skulk)

Judge & Literary scout Dagmar Gleditzsch
with co-founder, the lovely Sara O'Connor

For more information about the wonderful Undiscovered Voices, visit http://undiscoveredvoices.com/index.php

Special thanks to Candy Gourlay for letting me use some of her photos xx

National Libraries Day 2012 – Why are libraries so important?

Saturday 4^th February is National Libraries Day in the UK. A day to show support and solidarity for our public library service – a day to visit your local library and take out some books. It doesn’t matter if you’re no longer a member or have lost your card. Go down and rejoin – it’s free! Take the family and friends and see what your local library has to offer, you could well be pleasantly surprised.

There are over two hundred events being held at libraries across the country. Click here to find out what's happening near you.

In the last twelve months my local library opening hours have been reduced. It's a trend affecting branches across the country. In addition many libraries have been closed and many more are under threat. So what? You might say. In the current times of austerity, everyone is feeling the pinch. Funding is being taken from the police service, hospitals and schools. Why are libraries so important?

Is a fair question. Voices for the Library provide some answers here.

But I thought I’d ask my fellow authors at the Edge, what libraries mean to them:

"We went to the library every week when I was a child. I had access to books that I never would have found in the shops, or been able to afford. I read my favourite books again and again – discovered new authors, read everything they'd written. The library made me who I am today." – Keren David

"Apart from school, my town library was the only place we were allowed to go out of the house to when we were growing up. For my sisters and I, the library became a place of endless entertainment … Every week we maxxed out our library cards in search of new voices and stories of different lands, different times. It was also place of refuge and sanctuary through our own difficult times.  Quite simply, the library opened up the whole world to us." – Savita Kalhan

"I'm from a small town where there were no book stores - and no Amazon - when I was growing up. I have fond memories of my school and community libraries. I would check out the same books over and over - The Secret Garden and The Boxcar Children. I loved being surrounded by stories where laughter, adventure, romance and tears were only a page turn away. It made my small town seem not so small." – Sara Grant

"My family were voracious readers when I was growing up but my parents couldn't afford to buy books. We walked to the local library as a regular weekly outing. I remember us passing books round as we entered our teens, such as The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, renewing it on a weekly basis as there were five of us. My mother … was a great fan of Emil Zola and there were dozens of those to get through, every single copy borrowed from our little local library. I continued the tradition with my own children. The library should be at the heart of every community." – Miriam Halahmy

"I have many happy memories of time spent in the library with my kids when they were all preschoolers.  I had the three of them at home and it was always a joy to visit the library and sit in the kids' section, full of toys, beautiful illustrations on the walls and, most importantly, boxes of wonderful books.  We'd all scrunch up on the bean bags and read story after story. Magical worlds opened up in that welcoming space and helped instill in them a love of books." – Paula Rawsthorne

"Libraries for me are an essential part of the way I raise my children and spend my time. I’m in my local library at least once a week. They have a children’s Rhymetime on Friday mornings, and it’s free – how many other children’s indoor social activities in this day and age are actually free? It’s a great place to go when it rains, where I can sit and read to my son, books that he doesn’t have at home. I can get out enough books to keep me reading (which otherwise would be beyond our financial means) and not just old books either – I can order in new books and get them pretty fast at the cost of just £1. And because it’s free I read things I otherwise wouldn’t.

        I can meet friends there, I can use the computer and I see many old age pensioners (with no computer of their own at home) using the facility for free (my uncle has just been told if he wants to collect his pension he has to have an email address – how else is he to get one?).
        The children see the library as a magical place and they love to browse the books. They can get out a DVD, or a game for their wii without it costing all their pocket money." – Bryony Pearce

And here's a final thought from me:

For the want of a library, a book was lost.
For the want of a book, a reader was lost.
For the want of a reader, a story was lost.
For the want of a story, empathy was lost.
For the want of empathy, understanding was lost.
For the want of understanding, an idea was lost.
For the want of an idea, a future was lost.
For the want of a future, everything was lost.

And all for the want of a library.

For further information, please visit the following:

Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals
Voices for the Library
Alan Gibbons' Campaign for the Book
The Bookseller Fight for Libraries Facebook page
The Reading Agency

You can tweet your support using the #NLD12 hashtag.

See you down the library! 

Cheers, Dave.

Edgy Fiction - not all contemporary realism by Bryony Pearce

Edgy fiction – the term immediately leads the reader to think about books such as Melvin Burgess Junk, or Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English.   

Contemporary Realism is a natural breeding ground for edgy fiction because contemporary realism, especially in YA is so often issue driven and boundary pushing.

Think a bit harder about edgy fiction and a reader might bring up some older works, Judy Blume’s Forever (which us thirty year olds all remember passing around the classroom) or JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye.  The Color Purple by Alice Walker is a personal favourite. 

Again, they could all be described as ‘contemporary realism’.  They were contemporary when they were written and certainly push boundaries, even now.  The opening of The Color Purple still gives me shivers ‘You better not never tell nobody but God.  It’d kill your mammy.  Dear God, I am fourteen years old. I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me.’  
 

Go back further. Go back to the very first novel ever written, generally accepted to be Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), that was, by definition, edgy being the first of its kind and Defoe is often credited with being the first writer of ‘realistic fiction’.

But can other genres of fiction be ‘edgy’?

I’d say yes.  I’d consider a lot of science fiction ‘edgy’ – not only does it push the boundaries of imagination, but the earliest science fiction was often written as a form of political commentary during a time when, particularly in America, hints of communist sympathies in ‘contemporary realism’ would have had the author dragged away.  I was a big fan of science fiction as a teenager and I still vividly remember dozens of stories that ended with the end of all things: edgy, gripping stuff that has now been consigned to history.

But what about fantasy, that can’t be edgy … can it?

Have you read Kathleen Duey’s Skin Hunger and Sacred Scars?  Gillian Philip’s Bloodstone?  These books are as issue driven as any other on the list. 

Maybe that is the key – if a book is issue driven, if it stays with you, if it’s fresh and new then there’s no boundary to what can be described as edgy, from the very first novel ever written, to the most recent, authors use edgy fiction to raise questions, to make people think, to teach lessons. 

Take a look at our list of our favourite edgy fiction titles … suggest some of your own. We’re always willing to add to our reading lists!

Taking a Stand, by guest blogger Caroline Green

The main character in my YA novel Dark Ride, Bel, is a feisty lass. She isn’t afraid to speak out against things she believes to be wrong or unfair, and she’s appalled when she comes across casual racism in the small town she has moved to with her mum, the fictional seaside resort of Slumpton. Bel also discovers that people trafficking has been taking place there on a big scale and is prepared to take on dangerous local criminals to get to the truth.

I’ve been asked many times whether Bel is like me. I have to admit that she is much, much braver than I have ever been. But this has got me thinking about the way I used to react to injustice as a young adult and how I am now, all these years later.

I used to be someone who could argue for hours over topics I believed passionately in. I would take on people who I thought had misguided or unpleasant views, whether they were taxi drivers, random strangers in a pub, or even family members.

It’s just possible that I was a tiny bit of a pain in the neck at times because of this. (Hmm...)

Anyway,  these days I would be much more likely to let a comment I disagreed with pass to keep the peace . And that’s not a good thing.

One of the things I love about young people is that emotions burn brightly and with real passion when you’re this age. These emotions can turn into actions that literally change the world. For example, the average age of the people who protested in the countries involved in the Arab Spring, when various dictatorships were overthrown in the Middle East ,was between 18-32. 

When I was at university I had a postcard on my wall that featured words by Martin Niemöller, prominent German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor.

"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

These words made a tremendous impression on me at the time. Reading them again now they help remind me that even small acts of rebellion against injustice can have meaning and worth.

I don’t tend to roll up my sleeves and get verbally scrapping so much these days. But I wonder if I let my characters do it for me?

Links: 

Dark Ride  

Caroline Green's website

Caroline Green is a journalist and writer of fiction for young adults. Her first novel, Dark Ride, was published in May 2011 and her next book, Cracks, will be out in May 2012.

 

 

Different But Similar - Savita Kalhan

Different But Similar

Sara’s post last week, The Same But Different, really made me think. I’ve written guest posts for bloggers where I’ve been asked for my top ten favourite films, but I’ve never actively linked them with what I write in terms of themes or the heart beat at their core. Yes, my stories are all different, but does the same heart beat at the core of each of them? Very possibly is the answer. Sara, brought to my attention Julia Cameron’s Vein of Gold in which one of her writing exercises explores the idea of mining themes in your favourite films for your writing. When I look at some of my favourite films, films I’ve watched more than a couple of times and would watch again, I don’t have to dig too deep to see that I might already be doing that.

Amongst my favourite films are these: 

 

Aliens

The Godfather

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The Night of the Hunter

The three words I wrote in my comment on Sara’s post last week were: loyalty, betrayal and survival. Thinking about them now, I would also add hope. These are all central themes which figure pretty high in my list of films. They are also at the core of my writing. Publishers and readers like to brand writers, fit them into niches and genres, and shelve their work under particular headings. I’m often asked, “What kind of stuff do you write?” I usually respond with, “Contemporary teen/YA fiction, dark and edgy.” I guess that’s my brand. It doesn’t mean that I might not write, or am not allowed to write, a romance, a fantasy, or a comedy. It just means that if I do, it’s likely to delve into some of the themes that are at the core of my writing.

At its core, the central themes of my novel, The Long Weekend, are loyalty and survival and hope, and as for my current works in progress, yes, they share the same central themes, the same heart beat. That’s my brand.

What are your favourite films or the films which share a heart beat with your writing?

The Same But Different

Sara Grant, author of Dark Parties, asks: what beats at the heart of your stories?

*We interrupt this blog for a brief announcement...yesterday was a significant milestone here on the EDGE. Three EDGY writers celebrated the publication of their first books – Fifteen Days Without a Head by Dave Cousins, Fairy Tale Twists, a series for 5+, by Katie Dale and Dark Parties by Sara Grant...now back to our regularly scheduled blog.*

I’d like to think each story I write is its own unique work of fiction – different genres, plots, characters, settings, points of view etc... But if I dig deep enough, I typically find that the same heart beats at the core of each story.

Julia Cameron calls this an author’s Vein of Gold. She believes every artist has a thematic area where their work shines. As part of a bigger exercise, she asks writers to list their five favourite movies and mine them for theme. What do they have in common? She suggests that this is the type of story that writer should be writing.

In film criticism there is a similar concept known as the auteur theory. The idea that the director’s makes a creative watermark on each of his/her films. His/her personal vision shines through to create a ‘family resemblance’ in each of his/her films. Think of films by Hitchcock, Tim Burton, and Martin Scorsese.

I’m currently promoting my debut novel Dark Parties, revising my second book and starting a third novel. Even though these are all stand-alone novels, the heart of these stories is the same: a belief that one person can change the world.

What’s at the heart of your stories?