Sympathy for the Moon

Six things that must happen to reverse this headlong rush to an illiterate British generation

2011-12-29T07:21:00.000-08:00

Halfway through 2011 came a horrifying National Literacy Trust survey of more than 18,000 children.

It listed the following staggering statistics:

one in four children is unable to read or write properly when they leave London's primary schools
three in ten live in households that do not contain a single book
one in six people in the UK have the literacy level expected of an eleven year old
in 2005, 1 in 10 of the children and young people surveyed said they did not have a book of their own at home; but by 2011 this figure had increased to an incredible 1 child in 3.

Why is this not seen as a national scandal?

I believe it's because we have two cultures in this country. Those of us who are educated and read all know other people like ourselves who encourage their own children to read.

For these statistics to be true, we must be outnumbered by those for whom reading books is virtually an unknown pasttime.

All my life, newspapers have been wringing their hands about the levels of childhood and adult literacy.

Successive education ministers of every political hue have experimented with different teaching methods.

And all this time the problem has been getting worse and worse.

I believe that it's a root problem of our British culture; a culture that is leading to the closing of so many libraries.

Library closures

I learned my love of books from my local library.

But the latest figures on closures are that 415 libraries (323 buildings and 92 mobiles) are currently under threat or closed/have left council control since the beginning of this financial year out of around 4612 in the whole country.

Librarian professional body CILIP forecasts are even worse: it says that 600 libraries are under threat (inc. 20% of English libraries).

This does not include school libraries. Here, as this article from the Guardian reveals:

school libraries are facing drastic funding reductions
many school librarians are being downgraded or even made redundant
School Library Services are closing
some children’s book awards have folded
book gifting schemes have had their funding reduced
some schools have postponed author visits.

Every month brings bad news: in December we learnt that Hertfordshire Schools Library Services, one of England’s largest and most respected Schools Library Services, is set to close in the New Year.

The latest library visitor figures, covering the year to March 2011, showed overall library visitor numbers down 2.3% to 314.5 million and book issues down 2.9% to 300.2 million.

Although this is a reduction, it is less than what you might expect given these closures.

In November, Alan Gibbons called for a moratorium on the closure of libraries.

Tackling illiteracy and library closures was also the subject of Patrick Ness's Carnegie Medal acceptance speech, which he won with Monsters of Men, the third of his Chaos Walking series.

Too often, writers are told by publishers (I was told myself this year) that teenage boys don't read books and so we can't publish your book.

What can we do?

As writers, we must join with Ness and Gibbons. We can no longer be complacent. Our livelihood is at stake.

Yes, we have to keep writing compelling books. But we also have to act.

Here are six things that need to happen:

We must be prepared to occupy libraries faced with closure, just like the occupy movement.
The government must stop closing libraries and encourage more children to read in every way possible; even if it comes to giving away books. This happens in developing countries where the level of literacy is higher than ours, for God's sake!
Publishers must reconsider the pricing of books. Books are expensive compared to other media which children enjoy, much of which is free, like television, the Internet, radio, music and video games. There needs to be a range of cheap books aimed at less literate children to get them reading so they can later migrate to more difficult books for their age group.
The pricing of e-books needs to be much, much cheaper (for the iPad etc.), with all kinds of promotional tools like the vouchers used by iTunes, which would be the modern equivalent of book vouchers.
Reading books must be made more cool. Celebrities rated by children need to come out and encourage children to read.
You should get involved in CILIP's advocacy work on school libraries and schools' library services, if you aren't already.

It's going to take a lot of effort to turn this devastating trend around. But for the sake of the next generation, we have to do it.

Welsh music is refreshed by a wind from the east...

2011-12-19T08:19:00.000-08:00

Several Welsh bands are experimenting with the Eastern European Klezmer tradition and finding intriguing parallels.

Klezmer is a strong part of a musical tradition that originates with the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. It is lively dance music, infectious and laden with emotion - both happy and bittersweet but ultimately lifting the spirit.

Like traditional Welsh music, it has been largely passed on from generation to generation by example rather than written down.

Several Welsh bands are now experimenting with playing Klezmer and, in one notable case, hybridising the style with Welsh music.

Cardiff's Klezmer Kollectiv are an eight-piece who play all around the Cardiff area. They employ the traditional instruments of clarinet, accordion, bass and guitar, but also add cello, sax, trombone and cajon (a box containing a snare for percussion) to give a full, romping sound.

Similarly the Llanidloes-based Klezmonauts, while gigging less often, are educating audiences in this infectious dance style.

Machynlleth-based ex-Ember member Rebecca Sullivan is also experimenting with Klezmer at the monthly Ceinws acoustic sessions.

South Wales duo Fiddlebox, however, are unique in trying to meld that tradition with the Welsh one, and in so doing to redefine the boundaries of Welsh traditional music.

Fiddlebox claim to have invented a new musical style, which they call 'Klezreig' - a synthesis of Cymreig and Klezmer that is proving highly popular with audiences everywhere.

The duo are fiddle-player Helen Adam and George Whitfield on accordion. They have just recorded their second important album, On The East Wind, and will be launching it on 30th November at a special concert at Burnett's Hill Chapel, Martletwy, Pembrokeshire, at 7.30pm.

Nowhere is the Klezreig style better exemplified than by a Klezmer version of the traditional song 'Machynlleth' which, by being played in a Klezmer scale, immediately gains emotional poignancy.

This version arose from an improvisation at a party in Machynlleth, between Helen and Tony Corden, the guitarist and organiser of the politics and music festival El Sueno Existe.

I interviewed them at George's house in Narberth, Pembrokeshire, and wanted to know first of all about the story behind the title.

Helen began her answer by referring to one of the album's key tracks, The Girl From The East: "The Girl From The East takes its starting point as an English folk song, The Girl I Left Behind Me. I wrote three variations on it... the first of the variations is written in the Klezmer style".

George has a more poetic attitude to the identity of the Girl From The East. "She's got her eyes on her own country in Eastern Europe, but is dancing in these green hills of Wales!" he smiles. "The Girl From The East is actually Helen!"

Helen Adam is a quarter Lithuanian Jewish, and a quarter German, on her mother's side, a part of her heritage of which she is increasingly aware. So you could say she arrived in Wales on the east wind.

A recent visit to the Jewish Museum in Berlin led her to reconnect to her Jewish heritage.

"My grandmother emigrated to Germany and converted to Buddhism to marry a German Buddhist writer!" she says. "Then she left him and came with my mother to England and became a Catholic. But she ended her life in a convent in North Wales! The Klezmer track Hora Dorothea on our first album called, simply, Fiddlebox, is about her."

If you didn't know Fiddlebox was a duo, at times you'd think there were four of them, especially since they both sing.

This is in many ways also due to George Whitfield's ability to make his custom-made accordion, which is vital to the unique Fiddlebox style, sound like two instruments at once.

George had his accordion specially constructed by a top craftsman, Claudio Beltrami, in Stradella, Italy. It employs a unique bass switching system, designed to his specification, with an electric midi on board (that he doesn't use for the purely acoustic Fiddlebox), three rows of bass buttons that permit more complex bass lines and four sets of hand made reeds.

Together these produce a big sound with chunky chords, that is usually only achieved with larger concert accordions.

The bellows have a short delay time enabling a punchy reverb effect, which George uses eerily to open his song Simply Fly.

Helen and George are both immigrants to Wales, where they met, but they have made it their home.

Helen is fluent in Welsh and has represented Wales at the International Celtic Congress. Fiddlebox are a regular at events at the National Botanic Gardens and the Royal Welsh Show.

So, the Girl from the East "is happy to be here, but remembers her country," says Helen. "She feels an interloper, but that's how I present the Welsh material we play because I don't think I can pretend to be Welsh."

"We are trying to channel Welsh music through the prism of our own identities."

George nods. "We are doing what no one else is doing. I think it's a shame that Welsh culture has a lack of extension outside Wales, unlike Irish culture which extends all over world. One of the reasons for this is that there is a perception that Welsh music is just scales and arpeggios and we are trying to say it's not true."

Helen attributes this to the point at which Welsh music was written down. In fact, its historical development up to date seems to have gone through two phases.

Firstly, before the advent of Methodist religion, Welsh music was highly social, just like Klezmer, and centred around community celebrations, both seasonal and familial. It was jolly and upbeat.

In the eighteenth century, however, Methodist ministers frowned on such profane practices and the music became more sombre, or overtly religious. There are stories of musicians' harps being stowed away and falling into disuse.

Secondly, there is a feeling amongst some historians of music, such as Phyllis Kinney, author of Welsh Traditional Music, that the scale in which Welsh music was originally played was the Dorian scale, which contains notes similar to those used in seventh and minor chords.

However, when it came to be written down, by collectors such as D. Emlyn Evans and Llewelyn Alaw, there was a tendency to regularise it to fit with accepted musical theory. For example, seven-bar phrases might become eight-bar, and Dorian might become minor. This is how it is now played.

A further change is that originally tunes were closely associated with the lyrics, and thus followed the stresses and cadences of the Welsh language. Often, the original words are now lost, and this has contributed to a further regularisation of the tunes.

Therefore, in the past, it is likely that Welsh music would have had more emotional depth or breadth than it does now, perhaps something like the blues and gospel music.

Fiddlebox's Helen Adam offers her own angle on this: "For me, Welsh music must be robust enough to stand it own against others, and not have too much preciousness about it," she says.

The implication is that we need to keep an open mind about how to present this material. A culture is not static, instead changing in reaction to the times. Just as it has been forced to change in the past, nowadays, as Wales opens up to welcome visitors from abroad, this is bound to influence its culture and its music.

But Fiddlebox's new album is not entirely Klezreig. George Whitfield cites his influences as rock, country, blues and folk, while Helen also is classically trained and practices contemporary composition.

Between them they offer the full emotional range and some very catchy tunes, from George's upbeat Simply Fly to an update of the gruelling traditional English song Pills of White Mercury which is about syphilis in the 18^th century.

George observes, "On the whole album, nothing was recorded that wasn't played live first, and much of it was played live for 6 months beforehand to make sure we had it down".

Fiddlebox were insistent that they wanted no special effects like echo or distortion. It would all sound exactly as it would at a live gig (watch them playing live below).

The album was recorded in an old Welsh chapel by producer David Unlimbo. The chapel also contained nesting swallows, and the mikes picked up their chirruping songs. Listen closely to the album and you can hear them, deliberately left in.

The swallows are gone now, blown on the east wind far away for the winter. Perhaps they are like the Girl from the East, and dream of their homeland. Except Fiddlebox's girl has made Wales her home, and Welsh music is all the more enriched for it.

An e-book, Hybrids update and more...

2011-12-09T07:52:00.001-08:00

Here's a round up of recent news! Besides moving into my own custom built eco-studio, which I designed, and where I can now work surrounded by all my books at the bottom of the garden and be lovely and toasty warm with the superinsulation, triple glazed windows and underfloorheating, I've been a bit busy on other stuff:

• Boulder Media has now started work on visualisations of Hybrids in preparation for the proposed TV series. We're very excited and can't wait to see them!

• I've been commissioned to write an e-book on solar photovoltaics by a new publisher, Sedition. This will be a pilot for a whole series of e-books on sustainability topics. It only has to be finished by the 1st week in January!

• I'm in discussions with Earthscan/Taylor & Francis for a new non-fiction book to be written next year on solar architecture.

• I've written an article on graphic novels, called What Pencils Were Made to Create. It's in the current issue of the New Welsh Review.

• I've finally finished the latest draft of his novel Stormteller (this is a link to a special website I made about it) which, along with my other recently completed novel, We Can Improve On You, is currently being read by the excellent David Fickling books. Fingers crossed!

• I gave a talk on solar PV at last month's Solar Flair '11 conference.

• My new book Solar Technology, The Earthscan Expert Guide to Using Solar Energy for Heating, Cooling and Electricity is doing well, as the seminal introduction to all solar technologies and practices, and solar energy itself. It covers solar space heating, architecture, water heating, solar cooling, solar power stations and photovoltaic electricity. It's full of pictures, and easy to read!

• You can now buy copies of this and my other books direct from me on my website's bookshop page!

• Of course, I am still producing daily news and weekly opinion pieces for the Energy and Environmental Management website.

On discipline...

2011-12-09T07:44:00.001-08:00

These days, writers are supposed to be a brazen brand - masters of mobile and internet wizardry; and magicians of marketing!

It's easy for the time required for the craft of writing to be squeezed, and this has led me to consider the nature of 'discipline'. (And I don't mean perverse sexual practices!)

"Discipline" is a frequent topic of questions in interviews, as in that awful one: "It must take a lot of self-discipline to write a novel/be a writer..?".

Well, no, we tend to answer patiently... self-discipline is not an issue. If you really want to be a writer, actually you can't help it. In fact, you go crazy if you DON'T get the time to write.

Like, when unable to write for prolonged periods, I get to feel that I will start scraping the wallpaper off with my fingernails or yelling something deeply regrettable if I can't get back to it very soon.

OK, others might call it a form of mental illness, but, as anyone will know who has read biographies of many top entrepreneurs (like Steve Jobs), scientists or artists, this kind of obsessive-compulsive behaviour goes with the job description in many fields.

This is not to be considered weird!

Now, I'm one of the lucky people who make most of their living from writing. I have to do several different kinds of writing to survive rather than just write fiction (my favourite form), and I feel that I've worked hard to be in this place.

Discipline as craft
Another meaning of the word 'discipline' is craft or skill.

For the past year, my work pattern has changed, involving a new discipline, and this has had an interesting effect on my writing.

Every weekday morning, I have to write an article, as soon as possible and usually within two hours, of about 700-1000 words, and post it on a web site.

This is an enforced discipline, but one that pays off well in terms of developing the discipline of the craft.

Typically, I have no idea before I start what the subject will be, and have to research it as I write it.

This type of journalism, for a specialist, largely business, audience, demands many qualities apart from accuracy and readability.

In particular, there is an instinct for what people want to read that no one else is providing, which can only come from knowing the field intimately.

There is also the kind of fluency that comes from being able to trust oneself that the process of writing at speed will result in something that isn't completely unintelligible and is of great interest to my readers.

This is a very different process from writing a novel, partly because it operates on a totally different timescale. It is topical, and so consumed, like a meal, within hours of preparation, after which it is likely to be forgotten; although one hopes that it will have greater influence, just as a top chef's creation may be talked about for long after it has disappeared.

The self-editing process is therefore different. When writing a novel, one can leave a draft for a few weeks so that, when re-reading it, one may see it afresh and notice errors and omissions that were obscured by the afterglow of creation.

Since adopting this new work pattern, and because I cannot expect my editor to spot my errors, I have developed new techniques to force myself to both edit as I write and to see my work freshly as if I had left it for weeks, even though it was only minutes. These techniques have fed into the novel-writing process.

I continually edit as I write, checking that I've said what I meant to say. I write in a text editor, not a word processor, so I can concentrate on the words alone, not be distracted by how they look.

I re-read and correct it, then copy and paste it into OpenOffice. I do the same there. Then I copy and paste that into TextEdit (I use a Mac) and repeat the process. Both of these have spell-checks that notice different words (OpenOffice doesn't check American spellings).

Each time I paste it into different software, it looks different, and my eye is forced to notice different things.

So I'll have read and re-read, continually correcting, this blog copy several times this way before posting it. Even so, I won't be surprised if someone spots a mistake!

There we have it: two types of discipline. One, that is about finding the time to write; the other, that is about the development of the craft.

This blog post has no title

2011-10-17T13:08:00.001-07:00

I have just changed the title of the novel I'm currently working on.

Again.

I just can't decide on the right title. I almost feel like letting the publisher decide.

Just think how important the title of a book is. A good one will not only be memorable but make potential new readers actively seek out the book.

It will resonate in your head like a tuning fork. Stick in the mind like stubborn egg stains. Have an emotional punch like Mohammed Ali.

A good title even becomes an icon or a touchstone in its own right.

Catch-22. 1984. Brave New World.

It can also signify the genre.

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen could not be anything but fantasy.

The Unquiet has to be a thriller.

It can be eponymous, like Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary; or signify the theme, like Crime and Punishment or Pride and Prejudice.

Or it can be quirky, like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, or The Knife of Never Letting Go.

And just silly and quirky, like Puckoon, or The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.

At the same time as thinking about this I'm reading an autobiographical monograph by Haruki Murashami called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

People, he says, often ask him if, while running, he is thinking about the novel he is currently writing.

"No," is his answer. Actually, he is thinking about nothing. Or, as he puts it, The Void.

Now, here is an interesting place. I love The Void so much I have a room permanently reserved there.

The problem is, I often lose my way when trying to reach it.

The Void is variously also known as The Still Point of the Turning World (T.S. Eliot), The Supreme Point Where All Contradictions are Resolved (André Breton and the Surrealist Manifesto), and The Uncarved Block (Chinese Taoist Art training).

In a world drowning in a surfeit of words, to which we are all, writers par excellence, fatally addicted, the Void is reached by taking a Journey to the East - which is East of Eden - by jumping off Brighton Rock, following the Songlines along the Road to Wigan Pier, through the Heart of Darkness, crossing the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, at the end (where else?) of The Road Less Travelled.

Not enough people go there.

It's quiet: in The Void you can't even hear yourself think.

Here, you can try without trying, be without wanting, start without stopping.

All opposites are reconciled like identical poles of a magnet brought together as if they were north and south.

And here, as Pierre Reverdy said, is the place where the most successful poetic images are generated.

"The image is a pure creation of the spirit. It cannot emerge from a comparison, but from the coming together of two distant realities. The more the relations between those two realities are distant and right, the stronger the image will be - the more it will have emotive force and poetic reality."

Is not this also what we require from a successful book title?

So what, you're hopefully wondering, is the title I have settled on (at least until a better one comes along)?

In truth, it's not one I thought of myself. I have my fiancée, Helen, to thank.

She, being a musician and composer, knows the Void well, since music is another conveyance that transports to it the sympathetic mind.

The rejected titles were: The Drowning. The Essence. The Ending.

The new one: Stormteller.

Would you pick up a book with such a title?

How I write my novels

2011-08-12T09:48:00.001-07:00

I'm going to share with you very quickly how I write my novels.

I did a workshop on some of this in my local writers' group and people really appreciated it so perhaps others may find it useful.

[Yes, I said novels. Okay, I know I've only had one and a half novels published, but I have written a few more, plus several unproduced screenplays and published and unpublished comics or graphic novels, and have two novels in manuscript form ready for publication. So I live in hope that at least one more will be published one day...!]

So here goes.

The idea

Firstly I come up with the ideas, which may or may not include ideas for characters at the same time. The ideas have to be gobsmackingly mindblowing, and usually there are too many ideas, because you can't have too many ideas. Or is it that you can have too many ideas?

The idea usually involves a beginning. The problem is this means you need an end - a resolution in some form of the problem set at the beginning.

And if I don't have an end then I don't know where I'm going - rather like setting out on a journey without a destination in mind. I can have a nice time wandering around, but I might never get anywhere interesting.

The summary

Then I formulate the plot in four sentences. The first sentence summarises the setup (the problem which the protagonist must solve), the last sentence the resolution, and the middle two - well, I think you can guess.

For example, here's a stab at King Lear in 4 sentences: an abdicating king separates his kingdom between two hypocritical sisters, leaving a third, who loves him the most, unrewarded. Having retired, he and his retinue seek in turn the hospitality of the two sisters but they are not so pleased to see him. Their greed and unpleasantness is reflected in civil war in the country at large and the king falls into despair and madness. He finally realises that it was the third daughter who loves him the most, but by then it's too late and everyone dies.

As you can see, this synopsis leaves out rather a lot; it's more like a sketch.

One thing it leaves out is subplots; actually it's helpful to come up with the same kind of four sentence summary for each subplot.

Next, I draw a line and put the main plot points on the line. I then think of more plot points and add them to the line as well. I add as many plot points as I can fit onto the line!

Maybe I will draw another line that is longer.

The scene cards

Then, I dig out a pile of blank index cards. Each of these is going to contain a scene or plot point.

Using the line as a reference, I write all the points out, one on each scene card. This is the really fun bit.

Notice how both generating the line and the scene cards can be done non-linearly. This is great, because that's exactly how the creative mind works. It darts all over the place like a busy bee.

I'm looking at my cards and thinking: right, if this is going to happen in this scene, then this needs to happen in a scene much earlier, and I need to add another scene in between this scene and that scene.

Maybe I need to switch these scenes around.

And so on.

I spread all of the cards on the table - or maybe the floor if I don't have a table big enough. Now I can see the layout of the entire plot like a bird of prey scanning the landscape below!

Amazing!

I can switch the cards around, add more points as I think of them to each card.

To start with, the cards might just contain a quick summary of what happens at that point. Just scribbled notes. But if I think of a scintillating line of dialogue or a beautifully poetic descriptive phrase, I will add that to the relevant card rather than just hope I will remember it later.

Next, I will assign colours to characters, and colour appropriately every card in which a given character appears.

Usually, characters live only in particular plot strands. For example, minor characters usually hang out for the most part just in their little own sub-plot, suddenly popping up in the main plotline - most likely to knock it off kilter.

Now I can take out all of the cards that have a particular colour on, and check this particular character's journey through my narrative to make sure that it makes sense.

I can do the same with subplots.

Alongside all this, I will create character sheets, detailing as much as I can possibly know about each character, usually by interviewing them in my head pretending to be either a cop, private dick, journalist or maybe they are on Desert Island Disc and Jenny Murray is asking the questions!

To this, I will also add what
each character thinks of each other character. That way I know, should they meet each other in the narrative, what their attitude will be to each other.

If there is a particularly important McGuffin, that might have its own colour as well, and this is recorded on the relevant cards just so that I don't lose track of it and always know where it is. Even if my characters don't, I need to!

The first draft

Playing with the scene cards might take some time and only when I am completely happy that everything is down there and there are no plot holes, loose strands, or undeveloped characters will I embark on the first draft.

The fact that the plot and character development are already now sorted out, means that in writing the draft, I can concentrate purely on style - which words to use to best describe what I want to say, and come up with scintillating lines of dialogue.

At this rate, I can write one or two thousand words a day, either dictating or typing. (Sometimes I dictate, as I am doing now, using a voice recognition program which is much faster than typing although the style is usually more conversational.)

On a good day, if I have more than a couple of hours free to write, I can write 5000 words. This means that a 50,000 word young adult novel can be written in a month.

But that's only the first draft. I mustn't get too excited! Actually, I probably think this draft is the best thing I've ever written. But of course it isn't. The novel of which I have just sent the opening pages and summary to David Fickling, has been through 11 drafts. That process has taken three years.

A novel is not to be undertaken lightly - at least by me.

Editing

The editing process is the one which I find the most difficult. Seeing your work as others might see it is usually only possible after you have put aside for a while.

I try to fool myself that I haven't seen it before. I do the basic editing on-screen. Printing it out makes it look different and I notice a different set of things to correct.

The same thing happens when reading it aloud - an essential step - new mistakes become obvious.

I give it to as many people as I can who I think will provide constructive feedback. Sometimes this produces conflicting advice and I am plagued by indecision.

Different drafts must be given to different people so that they are reading it afresh.

Even printing it out in a different typeface in a different format can force my brain to look at it in a different way.

But there really is no substitute for putting it aside for some months and then coming back to see it, as if for the first time.

That's when I notice the really huge howlers and wonder how I could possibly have missed them the first time around.

It goes without saying that I will use a spell check, but this is a poor substitute for proper proofreading.

And it should be properly proofread after the very final draft before sending it away, and assuming that anybody could possibly have any interest in these words which I regard as vital but which in the huge ocean of words that are out there, comprise but an insignificant drop.

This is why I am never precious about my work and always open to any kind of constructive criticism and observation.

It all goes into the mix, it is all useful.

But ultimately, it is on my judgment that the strength of the finished piece finally rests.

The end - but in real life there are no endings - except the big one!

Did I say finished? That's a joke. I don't regard anything as ever finished. It is only the existence of the deadline enforced by the publisher that makes it so.

Why is it that musicians may keep on reinterpreting and changing a song or piece of music that they have written forever, and an artist may keep painting variations of the same image, but that even in subsequent editions, a writer is never allowed to change anything but the slightest semi-colon once it is in print?

[By the way, I'm happy to run workshops on this topic if anyone would find it helpful.)

Lets celebrate a new library extension!

2011-06-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

Here's some bright news in all the doom and gloom!

We've heard a lot about library closures - both in schools and in the community.

Earlier this month the outgoing Children's Laureate Anthony Browne warned society "will pay the price in the long term" for closing school and public libraries.

In a letter to his successor, Browne urged them to campaign against their closure. Browne said: "Do everything you can to support libraries – God knows, they need every bit of help they can get nowadays. I find it incredible and outrageous that public and school libraries are being forced to close – we'll all pay the price in the long term."

And Philip Pullman has been telling Wales Online that it's all due to the death of "post-war altruism" and everything being "measured and assessed by cost". He said: "This approach is tearing apart the invisible bonds of duty and loyalty, belonging and togetherness in the name of an ideology that nothing is more important than money."

He's largely right - but there are always counter-examples, and here is one I love - not only a new library extension but an inspiring one. Although it's not in Wales, it's not too far away - Coventry!

Foleshill library was originally built in 1913 and sits in a residential suburb.

And it's been renovated! Not only does it now have improved access for disabled visitors, the extension has created a meeting room and an events and activity room which means it can host story time and reader group sessions for children and be a base for activities hosted by a youth worker who is based at the library.

But what I really like is its curved back wall, designed to demonstrate the library's core theme of ‘imagination’.

It uses multi-coloured glazed bricks that are vertically stack-bonded to simulate library books, and to represent the multicultural diversity of the community.

But the brilliant thing, which any kids interested in code will love, is that the bricks are positioned to spell a message in Morse code, with one white brick representing a dot and three coloured bricks representing a dash.

Can you work out what it is before I tell you?! Go on, have a go! The link above takes you to a page with Morse code spelled out! And if you click on the pics they will enlarge.

OK, here is comes...... See if you got it right!

The pattern of bricks repeatedly spells out the words ‘Supposing’, ‘I Wonder’ and ‘What If’!

Isn't that great? Isn't that how we all dream up our fictions, and what we hope we can inspire kids to do? Well, they do it automatically of course anyway!

Manfred Baker, a Partner at Rush Davis, the project's architect, told me: “It was important that the design of the building reflected the vibrancy of this multi-cultural area. By using coloured glazed bricks we were able to create a design that had real meaning and represented what the library was all about - imagination."

So remind me - why do we need libraries?

Richard Collins has The Quality of Lightness

2011-05-14T08:58:00.000-07:00

Is it life that imitates art or art that imitates life?

Richard Collins new book, The Quality of Light [the link is to Amazon but they have the wrong cover!], out today, is his third novel, written three years ago, three years after he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

This beautiful, poignant work is constructed ingenuously around events that happen over six days both currently and six years previously.

It is about the effect of cities upon people, and how love can echo and change over time, constricted by the vagaries of coincidence and geography.

In fact, its original title was to have been Psychogeography for Beginners, but its final title is much more evocative.

One of the main characters, Michael, also suffers from Parkinson's. Richard writes obliquely and modestly about the effect it has on people through Michael's experience of it, although this is by no means a theme of the novel.

It is an insidious and progressive disease which punishes its victim with intermittent and unpredictable lashes.

Richard bravely fights the disease by remaining as active as possible, often cycling 40 miles in a day or walking up a mountain, yet on other occasions he can be stricken down so badly that he can't even get on a bus or stand up.

He is aware that if Waterstones were to offer him a signing, as they had before, he would have to decline, because he couldn't be confident that he could actually control his hand. I took him my copy to sign but had to leave it there until a moment arrived when it became possible for him to do so.

I love Richard dearly, he's one of my best friends. This deserves to be as much a success as his first, The Land as Viewed from the Sea, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread first novel award.

So where does the ebook leave a writer?

2011-04-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

I've got a new post on the Dragontongue blog site about this.

Don't buy a Kindle or shop at Amazon!

2011-03-04T01:50:00.000-08:00

I've just been to London for a few days to promote my Sustainable Home Renovation book, and expected to see lots of e-readers in evidence on the Tube, but instead only saw ads for them.

Imagining if I had one, I realised I would probably be using it to skim read, not properly read, books with which I wanted to familiarise myself but not actually sink deeply into - which I'd still buy for real.

But if I bought an e-reader it would not be a Kindle, since Amazon is not on balance a benign influence on the publishing trade and writers' welfare.

For example, Amazon monitors your use of the Kindle. You are being watched and your reading habits reported back to their marketing department.

Furthermore, you don't own the e-books you purchase, only the right to browse them, and Amazon has the right to withdraw them from your Kindle without compensating you if its own rights over that book change. This famously and ironically happened with Orwell's 1984 - anyone who had downloaded it found suddenly that it disappeared from their machine with no compensation.

It's as if the bookshop owner came into your house one night and took back a book you'd bought from them.

In its T&C, Section 3, which deals with "Digital Content" (such as downloaded books), Amazon says that "Unless specifically indicated otherwise, you may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content."

In other words, you are forbidden to lend or sell the book you've just "bought". You can't lend your copy of 1984 to a friend or donate it to the school jumble sale.

Moreover, you can't back up your electronic books on to any other device – which means that if your Kindle fails, or if Amazon changes its technical standard, your entire digital library will disappear (where are your audio cassettes now? but books last forever).

Amazon is bad for writers

What's more, Amazon squeezes royalty rates for writers in its deals with publishers, so the more bookshops go out of business as a result of its price squeezing, the less royalty we get even if we were to sell more books.

It also encourages the purchase of second hand copies on which we get no royalty at all.

So I don't have Amazon links on my website, because they'll buy a copy that someone is selling for 1p plus postage. Instead I let people purchase directly from me using PayPal the copies I buy from my publisher at discount, so I make substantially more per sale - although of course I recognise most people opt to buy a copy for 1p from Amazon rather than a £5 one from me.

I recently redesigned George Monbiot's website and initially put in links to Amazon so people could buy his books there. After we had a conversation about this the anti-capitalist campaigner opted to remove the links and let people buy wherever they chose - and for example support their local bookshop - surely a good idea - even if he lost sales as a result.

Come on, let's not conspire as writers against our own interests, however seductive the temptation is! And readers - think about how writers need to eat before you buy that book from Amazon!

Hybrids is optioned for film/tv!

2011-02-10T06:57:00.000-08:00

The film & tv rights to my novel 'Hybrids' have been optioned by Dublin-based production company Boulder Media's rights holding sister company, Beholder. Am I happy? You bet!

It seems ages ago when I was so lucky that the novel won a competition to find a new children's author. First published in 2007 it is currently being reprinted with some very nice review quotes on the cover.

'Hybrids' takes place in the near future, when the nation is in the grip of a virus that causes its victims to become fused with technology, creating 'hybrids' - people neither wholly human nor machine.

Johnny (half-computer) and Kestrella (her hand is a mobile phone) unite to find Kestrella's missing mother as the Government's Gene Police hunts down hybrids, sending them to the sinister Centre for Genetic Rehabilitation. Their quest takes them to the heart of a conspiracy.

Boulder is well known as the service studio behind shows such as the witty and wacky (and multi-award-winning) 'Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends' and has recently completed work on Cartoon Network Europe's upcoming "live-action/animation 2D and 3D hybrid" 'The Amazing World of Gumball', which is pushing the boundaries of what is technically possible. How come young children get the most surreal telly?

Beholder says 'Hybrids' is "a compelling, thought-provoking sci-fi thriller" which it sees becoming "slick, gripping, older children's 'event' television".

[Incidentally I recently had an invitation to go and run workshops in a girls' technology school in Birmingham where the teachers, librarian and their kids had all read Hybrids. They said "We will be using Hybrids as a perfect example of a modern science fiction book". Wow.]

Anyway, Boulder's producers are Peter Lewis & Anne Tweedy and the Emmy-nominated Robert Cullen is to be the director.

I'd like to thank HarperCollins' Head of Licensing and Content Development, Melanie Beer for her great patience and help in negotiating the deal.

Look, I am trying not to get too excited about this - I have been here more than once before with a previous tv series, Doc Chaos, which was optioned and was nearly produced three times, twice for Channel Four and once for Warner Bros TV. But the vagaries of funders and producers meant the dice didn't land 'yes'-side up on those occasions.

I know that nowadays it is harder than ever to secure development finance. However I believe Anne and Pete are very serious and they have a proven track record of making the utmost effort to secure the backing required - which includes getting the toy people on board.

Just imagine model Johnnies and Kestrellas!

And, er, the computer game. Which surely undermines the watch-out-for-technology message of the book?

Let's not go there.

Pete and Annie are also open to team working, and I really hope we can keep whatever emerges true to the spirit of the book.

The tv series would hopefully encompass the whole story arc that continues from book one through the as-yet-unpublished other two books in the series. HarperCollins have indicated they will publish these when/if the series is to be broadcast.

We've discussed whether the treatment should be live action or animation. I said that although I love animation, especially Japanese anime such as Stand Alone Complex (the video above is a live-action-CGI composite from Animax TV), I have always seen Hybrids as live-action with CGI. Luckily, Pete and Anne agreed.

So now is the long wait - which could take years - to find out if Creep, the hybrid virus, will ever infect a screen near you!

Libraries are important because...

2011-01-18T03:12:00.000-08:00

Up to 800 libraries are faxed with the axe in the coming days. The Government back-down over Booktrust over Christmas, and its watering down of tuition fees, shows that it is not immune to pressure.

But here's some good news, from The Bookseller:

A simple tweet from a Shropshire ICT lecturer musing on libraries while doing her laundry of a Sunday morning resulted in the hashtag #savelibraries trending worldwide yesterday.

"Libraries are important because ... [fill in your answer & RT] #savelibraries", Mar Dixon tweeted. More than 5,000 people responded spontaneously to her invitation, which was retweeted by, among others, Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman.

Top tweets under the hashtag include @genrelibrarian's, retweeted by Neil Gaiman and more than 100 others: "Google can bring back a hundred thousand answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one." Other most retweeted comments include @JoannaCannon's "Libraries are important because, as a child, some of my best friends lived within the pages of a book" and actor Samuel West as @exitthelemming's "Times says Govt. report wants children to be 'school ready'. Perhaps not closing libraries would be a good start?" Radio and TV presenter Lauren Laverne also got involved this morning, tweeting: "Knowledge is power and all that but our libraries need us to help defend them". So too did comedian Robin Ince, asking "do you remember the first book you took out of the library?"

Hundreds more offered personal perspectives. @flangelina_iow wrote: "Library books fed my passion for reading as a child. Please don't steal these moments from our children, they are our future!" while @bootbrush wrote: "I learned more by exploring knowledge in the library than I ever did at school."

Dixon, an American living in Bridgenorth in Shropshire, said the reaction to her tweet was totally unexpected. "It was not a planned campaign," she said. "My day was doing the laundry and going to the shops and writing my assignment and taking back the dog we'd been dog-sitting. But I read a news piece online about libraries closing which I thought was very London-based, so I tweeted to invite people to give their own take on libraries. One person retweeted it, then another, and @Ukpling [the Twitter address for campaign group Voices for the Library] also got involved. When Neil Gaiman picked it up it really took off in the US, where they also have this plight with libraries hit by cuts."

The hashtag was also picked up in Portugal and Italy, and was world trending in second or third place by Sunday mid-afternoon, Dixon said. "It's reached over 5,000 tweets and is still going today, but I've got to teach this morning so I'll check in with it tonight," she added.

The Bookseller has launched a campaign to oppose the "wantonly destructive cuts to the national library service".

Called Fight for Libraries, the campaign will be centred around a Facebook site where news about library cuts and opposition to them will be reported, and which will also function as a hub for all news, sites and information on the struggle against library cuts. The site will operate from http://bit.ly/fight4libraries and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/fight4libraries

Save Theatr Powys from the cuts!

2011-01-17T01:33:00.000-08:00

Theatr Powys and Mid Powys Youth Theatre have just had their funding cut by the Arts Council of Wales. Please sign this petition against this act of cultural vandalism!

This group has provided consistently high quality drama for young people for many many years. They are one of the last Theatre in Education touring companies in the UK. Their abolition is part of the Coalition Government's attack on culture, education and literature.

Children's education benefits immensely from this kind of work. I've seen them many times. Their last show ever, The man who walked through walls, is on tour in mid-Wales.

Do go and see them and sign the petition please.

The ghosts of stories

2011-01-14T01:14:00.000-08:00

We were talking in my Future Visions Book Group last night about this, at one point talking about hunter-gathering peoples and their oral traditions. Adam Thorogood mentioned The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin, and how the aborgines of Australia encode information necessary for the continued survival of their tribes and clans in ways that embed individuals in their landscape, their ancestry and the flora and fauna that surrounds them.

This type of racial memory is the trans-generational correlate of DNA - instinctive memory that promotes survival down the generations. I'm not trying to be reductionist, but it's marvellous to me how the origin of stories lies here - how the human imagination can construct a marvellous epic like an Oddysey or Gilgamesh unconsciously from this basic drive.

Songlines and other oral stories are no less great for not being written down, and it's sad to think that whenever an indigenous tribal culture is destroyed by 'development' or colonialism or commercial interests all their oral tradition is lost too.

Of course, this happened in Wales - when the Romans came and massacred the Druids in 61AD, who were the guardians of the oral tradition. Then the country was Christianised. Both of these cultures destroyed the original oral tradition which is why there are no gods in the Mabinogion, only kings, prices and bards, with quasi-magical powers.

If you squint, you can see that these characters are pale shadows perhaps of Gods and Goddesses in earlier stories, lost hundreds of years earlier in the sieve of tribal memory.

Some of the druidic stories made it to Ireland, but even there, after centuries of disapproval from Christian priests, the gods were demoted to the Tuatha de Danaan.

So the Celtic tradition has no Thor, Odin or Freya. Instead in the British Isles we take our gods from later conquerors, the Viking Norsemen. They gave us our day names - Thursday for Thor, Wednesday fore Odin, or Woden, Friday for Freya or Frigga. The Romans gave us Saturn-day. Our pagan roots are revealed in Moon-Day and Sun-Day. Tiu'sDay belongs to a Germanic God of War.

What would our day names be if the Druids and Boudicaa had never been conquered, or if they had discovered writing, I wonder?

Deganwy Authors’ Day and Book Fair

2010-12-10T12:35:00.000-08:00

David Thorpe is giving a reading from his book Hybrids and a signing tomorrow as part of Deganwy Authors’ Day and Book Fair, from 10-4pm at Quay Hotel, Deganwy, near Conwy, LL31 9DJ. More at: http://www.jeanmead.com/#/authors-day/4544004220.

The day's schedule is:

10.15 Dewi Roberts
Anthology:
Christmas in Wales
Publisher: Seren Books
Dewi Roberts has compiled many anthologies. Christmas in Wales and A Childhood Anthology were both published by Seren Books.

10.30 Rosalie Marsh Winner of International Book Award
Adventure and Travel Writer
Just us Two
Publisher: Author House
Ned and Rosie were empty nesters, and born again bikers. They travelled thousands of miles across Europe and rediscovered their lost youth.

10. 45 Natalie Scott
Poet
Brushed
Publisher: Mudfrog
Natalie is based in Teesside and has been involved in writing projects for 15 years. Currently works at Prior Pursglove College in Guisborough.

11.00 Elaine Walker
Fiction
The Horses
Publisher: Cinnamon
Has a doctorate in English literature. Elaine lectures for the Open
University, the University of Wales, and the Open College of the Arts. She is also a successful Rock Musician. The Horses is her second novel.

11.15 David Thorpe Winner of Harper Collins Award
Children’s Fiction
Hybrids
Publisher: Harper Collins
David is the author of How the World Works, Doc Chaos: the Chernobyl
Effect, besides writing comic and cartoon strips. He has also written much environmental material.

11.40 Peter Griffiths
Fiction
Tongue Tied
Publisher: Y Lolfa
Peter’s background is Investment Business and he moved to the States in 1972. Returning to Wales in the late Nineties.

12.00 Bryce Thomas
Fiction
Rhamin
Publisher: Thomas Hamilton
Bryce graduated from Leeds University with a degree in law but left the legal world behind him to become a farmer. Living close to the land, and his involvement with nature, inspired him to write Rhamin.

12.20 Angela Topping
Poet
Publisher: Salt
Her poems have been published widely and her children’s work is included in 45 anthologies.

12.40 Dr Graham Lawler
Writer and Educator
Back to the Black
Publisher: Aber
Graham is the BBC Bitesize Maths author. Also wrote Understanding
Maths with a foreword by the late Arthur C Clarke and co-wrote Channel 4 TV’S Family Counts.

1.00 Break for Lunch and the Colwyn Bay Male Voice Choir in the Conference Room.

2.30 Clare Dudman Winner Kathleen Fiddler Award.
Historical Novel Winner Art Council of England Award
A Place Of Meadows And Tall Trees.
Publisher: Seren Books
To research for her novel Clare travelled across the Patagonian desert in a bus, and then took The Old Patagonian Express in the Andes. Along the way she met the descendants of Welsh settlers who came here in 1865. Other research included intensive courses in Welsh and shamanism. Written several non-fiction books

3.00 Gwen Davies
Anthology of Folk Horror
Sing Sorrow Sorrow, Dark and Chilling Tales
Publisher: Seren Books
Sing Sorrow Sorrow is a chilling collection of supernatural myth and otherworldly horror stories.

3.20 Gladys Mary Coles Winner of Welsh Arts Council Writers’ Award.
Fiction
Clay
Publisher: Flambard
Gladys Mary has written 10 collections of poetry. Clay is her debut novel. She runs the Ruthin based Headland Publications, and tutors creative writing at Liverpool University.

3.45 Mike Wood
Talks About Publishing
Ward Wood Publishing
Ward Wood Publishing is based in London and Wales.

4.00 Finish.

New book, blogs and appearances

2010-08-10T04:49:00.000-07:00

• David will be reading and answering questions at a literature and storytelling night for children on Friday, 10 September, 6pm in Carad, East Street, Rhayader, LD6 5ER, mid-Wales. Tel. 01597 810192.

• New Captain Britain Hard Cover Omnibus out.

• Guest blog at The Ecologist magazine on the great British Refurbishment campaign and the new Coalition Government's Green Deal.

• Guest blog at Dragon Tongue about the influence of landscape in mid-Wales on writers.

How to vote tactically for a greener new government

2010-05-05T06:26:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Frannie Armstrong for this!

A Tory government would be a disaster for the environment and climate change.

Their candidates rank climate change as 19th out of 19 most important issues and want to decrease onshore wind and increase North Sea oil drilling. Their party is riddled with climate sceptics (with one even rumoured to be lurking in the shadow cabinet).

There are six seats (Battersea, Brighton Kemptown, Calder Valley, Colne Valley, Hove and Stroud) where the Green vote is large enough to give a Labour seat to the Tories.

There are at least three (including Carshalton and Wallington, Dorset West and Torridge and West Devon) where it would either give a Lib Dem seat to the Tories or prevent the Lib Dems from taking one from them.

So we urge everyone who understands the precipice on which we all stand to be highly tactical with their vote:

If you live in a hope-in-hell constituency, vote Green: Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion (now the bookies' favourite), Tony Juniper in Cambridge, Adrian Ramsay in Norwich South and Darren Johnson in Lewisham Deptford.
If you're in a Labour-Tory marginal, steel your environmentalist's heart and vote Labour rather than Green
If you're in a Lib Dem-Tory marginal, vote Lib Dem rather than Green
If you're in a Labour-Lib Dem marginal, vote for Labour, with an eye on helping stop Clegg siding with the Tories if there's a hung parliament. (Clegg said last week that he'd be happy to work with the Tories as long as they concurred on four policies - fairer taxes, a shake-up of the education system and economic and political reform. Nothing else important, Nick?)
If you're in a safe seat for any of the three main parties vote Green to add one more to the Greens' total and strengthen the case for proportional representation next time.

Meanwhile, till Friday morning, you can watch The Age of Stupid free for 48 hours - from now till the polls close tomorrow night.

Captain Britain and The Siege of Camelot is out!

2010-05-05T02:43:00.000-07:00

Captain Britain and The Siege of Camelot is out, which contains my work on Captain Britain and a new introduction written by myself - plus one by the writer of the Black Knight series, Steve Parkhouse, as well as the feature and art from the Captain Britain Summer Special and Inside Comics - A short history of Captain Britain by Alan Moore.

It contains the Captain Britain strips from Marvel Super Heroes Nos.377 - 389 and The Daredevils Nos. 1 - 11 chronicling the stories by myself, Alan Moore and Alan Davis. It costs £12 from Forbidden Planet.

Bored with the election? Try these new political parties...

2010-04-18T04:07:00.000-07:00

Fed up of the same old politics and policies?

I thought I'd invent a few more. These are parties you can trust:

The Utopia Party

Believe: Utopia is a state of mind not a place.

Happiness is more important than wealth; and happiness is an attitude: we are already in the best of all possible worlds. It's just your mindset that needs adjusting.

Vote for us and we'll help you to change it.

The Retro Party

Believe: Things were better in the old days.

Vote for us and we'll turn the clock back. We'll:

Close down the internet

Bring back hanging

Bring back pounds shillings and pence (and farthings)

Only two tv channels

And four Trebor Chews for a penny

Vote for simpler times!

The Parity Party

Believe: The Poverty Gap - the difference between incomes in society - is responsible for most of our social ills.

So in future everyone will be paid the same salary pro rata no matter what job they do. Then people will choose the job they do because they want to do it not because it pays more.

Greedy people will leave the country: good riddance.

Bonus: besides creating an equal and happier society we'll save billions on paperwork in tax and NI since it'll be the same for everyone.

UKIP 2: The UK International Party

Believe: We will get the UK out of Europe by towing it to the Indian Ocean - and everyone benefits from a warmer climate.

UKIP 3: The UK Interplanetary Party

Believe: The World is going to hell in a handcart.

So we'll work to take the whole country into space and leave everyone else to fester in their own fetid juices.

The Nothing Party

Believe: We stand for nothing.

Vote for us and you won't be disappointed.

The Criminal Party

Believe: Only known lawbreakers can be MPs.

Result: for the first time you will have fully transparent MPs - you will know that they break the rules. Let's be honest: everyone breaks the rules if they can get away with it.

The Lazy Party

Believe: If you can be arsed to vote for us maybe we'll do something sometime.

Or not.

Like, how about the two day week?

Or is that too much?

Which one will you vote for?

Some nice comments on The Drowning

2010-04-03T01:45:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to get some good critical feedback from the first draft... thank you very much. Especially nice to have the very successful Jenny Woolf call the writing "brilliant" and "accomplished".

She asked me soe questions in her email and as they're very interesting it's worth posting some of my responses:

Influences: Alan Garner began as an influence - I remember vividly re-reading The Owl Service (set nearby) when I moved here and admiring again his sparse style, but when I tried to read him again in preparation for writing this I found the style too old fashioned. The influence in style came from more a MEMORY of him, but also a touch of Cormac McCarthy and a beautiful classic of ornithological writing - The Peregrine by J A Baker which is absolutely extraordinary in the number of different ways he finds to describe, say, a bird flying, with powerful observation. This is the first time I've set a book in a place where I live, and I did a lot of exploring and photography and talking to people.

Publisher: I have no publisher as yet. A Welsh publisher, Seren, has expressed interest, but they have little reach outside Wales unfortunately. Seren has an interesting new series updating/reinterpreting Welsh myths.

Structure: I'd pictured the opening as curling into the narrative. You see Gary, then Bryn, then Gary again. You realise both are victims in their own way, though Bryn only of Gary. So, why? Gary is the character with the furthest development arc to travel. You follow Gary through the storm, and its aftermath until he is forced into the company of Bryn on the run and the core story begins.

Bryn and Gary represent polar opposites. One endures the other dies. But it's suggested that what the one who died represents is a quality that is really the more enduring. We've sacrificed so much and we will lose more, but it is nature that endures. The land outlives us and we are blinks in its eyes. Even the legends have life beyond us.

Gary's disability cannot be used as an excuse for his irresponsibility. That's what he learns.

The website: The Chance To Create team (see the credits page) stipulated a website in their grant conditions. You wouldn't believe what else - I have to give a seminar to tourism providers in the area about local legends and other novels set locally (there are quite a few - cf also the late great Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising series) to make the area an attractive literary destination! The things a writer has to do to earn a crust!

Anyway, I'm still buzzing from Jenny's comments!

The Drowning Novel - draft completed and new website

2010-03-31T08:52:00.000-07:00

I've finished a draft of my current novel, The Drowning, and published a website all about it. Go to: The Drowning Novel.

I've begun work on my next non-fiction book - an introduction to solar technology. It's great to alternate between fiction and non-fiction!

My house is for sale - near the Centre for Alternative Technology

2010-02-07T01:32:00.000-08:00

We've just put our house on the market! It's near the Centre for Alternative Technology and is a 3-4 bedroom house plus a self-contained one-bed 'granny-flat' or sublet on the side, by a river! It's been well-renovated and has a large garden and has loads of potential. Only £185k! I love the whole valley - I'm just moving to a smaller place in the valley. I even spent a while commuting to London for work - you can go there and back in a day by train. More info?
http://www.davidthorpe.info/house-for-sale-mid-wales.htm

Bounty for the first citizen's arrest on Tony Blair!

2010-01-25T12:55:00.000-08:00

Today we are launching a new fund – arrestblair.org – to reward people who attempt to arrest the former prime minister for his crimes in Iraq. George Monbiot has written the text - and it's his idea. My part is to design and manage the site. More on the website and George's blog.

Murals, myths and Mid-Wales

2010-01-18T13:26:00.000-08:00

I'm hard at work writing The Drowning, and it's when you're deeply immersed in something that coincidences start to happen.

I was going to Borth (the village I drown in the book), and pulled up at random, by the sea front. I'd always known there were mosaics embedded in the wall at one point, but finding myself parked right beside them I took a closer look.

They depict two myths I am using in The Drowning. Here they are:

This is a mosaic by Pod Clare of the Cantre'r Gwaelod myth in Borth, Ceredigion, Wales. The myth tells of the drowning of Cardigan Bay when a prince meant to be keeping guard over the floodgates falls asleep, drunk on the job. On the right you can see the water flooding in to cover the land.

This depicts the origin of Taliesin, and shows him being discovered floating in the reeds after his birth, by Elffin, the son of King Gwyddno Garanhir, 'Lord of Ceredigion', while fishing for salmon. As soon as he was found he announced that he was a poet, and began spouting poetry. The prince called him Shining Brow, which means Talisein, or blessed (radiant) one. Round the edge you can see the chase, when Ceridwen tried to kill him because he stole the special wisdom-bestowing broth meant for her ugly son, Avagddu. Using his new magical powers, Gwion, as he was then, turned himself into a hare, fish, bird and grain of corn. In turn, Ceridwen transformed into a greyhound, otter, hawk and hen, and pecked at the grain until she had swallowed Gwion.

Captain Britain - order it!

2010-01-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

• David has a profile on the new website for school visits Author Hotline.

And although it's behind schedule you can order the Captain Britain collection featuring his work from Marvel Comics, and while you're at it, the omnibus published last year

Ideas behind The Drowning

2010-01-07T04:31:00.001-08:00

A note on the context of the writing of The Drowning, and the philosophical approach I'm taking to conceiving and writing the book.

It touches on the theme of how 'nature' is a human cultural construct - cf Simon Schama's brilliant book Landscape and Memory.

The two main characters in my novel epitomise opposing attitudes to 'nature':
• as a place in which you must survive, and therefore understand and know how to use, and
• as an unknown out-there-ness.

Climate change in my book presents a crisis that suggests to the reader that enduring, but changing, nature puts the brief period of human 'civilisation' in its tiny context.

The book does this partly by using Welsh mythology and updating it.

Earth: Art of a Changing World at the Royal Academy

2009-12-31T04:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I visited the Earth: Art of a Changing World exhibition at the Royal Academy. It's fantastic, the best show I've been to in a long time - superior to the Radical Nature one at the Barbican earlier this year.

It collects works by many artists that have enviromental themes, especially addressing climate change. In many ways it does what the Centre for Alternative Technology's (CAT) Arts in Transition initiative wants artists to do.

It's not overwhelmingly polemical. Many of the works are oblique, some funny, many sad or touching, some make you angry, and a surprising number are very beautiful.

36 pieces are gathered under the following themes: Introduction; External, Perceived Reality; Destruction; the Artist as Explorer; and Re-Reality. Many current art world stars are represented, including David Nash, Anthony Gormley, Keith Tyson, Sophie Calle, and Tracey Emin - whose 3 pieces are the best things by her I've seen - touching and beautifully executed.

Several artists have been to Greenland on Cape Farewell tours, specifically organised to expose artists to the physical effects of climat change in the arctic. Novelist Ian McEwan, who went on one such trip, is represented by a text he wrote in response.

Yael Bartana's video about Israeli men driving their 4x4s over sand dunes for kicks is crazy - is this the summit of human progress? 'Progress' is also questioned by Lemn Sissay's poem, performed in a video with a jazz trio, "What if?" - poignant and challenging.

Another video, 'Doomed', by Tracey Moffat, is a hilarious compilation of disaster sequences from Hollywood movies. Yao Lu alters an image of rubbish dumps to make them seem at first glance like traditional Chinese landscapes.

Clare Twomey's ceramic flowers and Adriane Colburne's fabulous installation Up From Under the Edge of the Earth, are among pieces that by being incredibly beautiful and fragile remind us of the care we need to take to preserve our awesome natural environment, while Edward Burtynsky's photographs of Canadian tar sand exploitation, quarries and a Chinese chicken-processing factory (whose rows of women workers themselves look like factory farmed chicks), show us how little care some industries are taking.

Finally, we are made to hope that Antti Laitinen's documention of his long, futile attempt to make an island in the freezing Baltic Sea, striving like King Canute to fight the inevitable tidal forces, is not a prophetic allegory for humanity's attempt to stave off the effects of global warming.

The Drowning has begun

2009-12-30T03:13:00.000-08:00

Earlier this year I won a grant [scroll down from this link to the item] from Powys' Chance to Create to write a novel for older children called The Drowning. One of the grant conditions was the production of a blog to document the writing of the novel. Now I have begun to write it this is a fine time to start.

What is The Drowning?

The story is set in Borth, Taliesin, and West Powys in the not-too-distant future when sea level rise threatens low-lying dwellings and the smooth running of society.

It is a mystery story - what happened when a boy died one stormy evening on the moors north of Nant-y-Moch?

It is a story of the love-hate relationship between two very different boys from contrasting backgrounds forced to get on together in order to survive, and how the arrival of a girl affects this.

It mixes in and updates Welsh legends - specifically the origin of Taliesin and a reinterpretation of his character and this story, and the story of Cantre'r Gwaelod which, besides having obvious resonance with climate change-related sea level rise and weather events, is situated in this same area.

There are other elements as well, and one challenge of writing a blog about a work in progress is to not reveal the plot and spoil it for future readers!

Progress

I have so far:

researched all of the mythological elements I wish to use
walked in most of the areas where the story is set - but will need to revisit some during the writing
done some research on the flora and fauna - need to do a little more
conducted most of the research on the science of climate change and sea level rise; sources include articles in the New Scientist; Ranyl Rhydwen, a lecturer on climate science at CAT; a study of the Dyfi Valley coastline (near Borth) by a German researcher/Ceredigion Council; and Bill Thompson of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
need to in particular find out more about the Eastern Greenland coast and the behaviour of melting ice sheets there
I have worked on the characters, learnt some Welsh, and plotted the novel out on scene (index) cards)
begun to write it (a week ago) - 2000 words completed. Projected length: 40,000 words, maybe less, mixed media format

More to follow. Offers of help (research information) welcome.

Captain Britain revisited

2009-12-17T06:15:00.000-08:00

Here is an introduction I have just been asked to write for an anthology of Captain Britain strips that will include my stint on the character. It will be published by Panini in 2010.

Captain Britain reborn

It had been a childhood ambition to work for Marvel. Following a conversation in 1980 with editor-in-chief Jim Shooter at the New York office I contacted the London office in Kentish Town to ask if there was a vacancy for a writer. Paul Neary, then editor, told me that one would materialise soon and in the meantime would I like a job as an editorial and art assistant? I jumped at the chance, hoping that my degree -- in Dada and Surrealism -- would prove adequate training.

It proved more than adequate: nothing could have been more surreal than working for Marvel UK at that time.

The rickety-floored office lay above a cobblers and a second-hand shop. Marvel UK was then licensed by an absurd duo, the Babani Brothers, whose main interest was and still is publishing technical manuals, and who employed someone to polish their Rolls-Royces out the back while we toiled on meagre wages. Bernie Jaye edited the monthly anthologies, in one of which, Marvel Superheroes, Captain Britain would appear.

After a few weeks Paul explained his plan to me for relaunching Captain Britain, who had lain moribund in comics limbo for a good while. He wanted to team me up with a new artist, Alan Davis, and completely overhaul the character, with a new costume and introducing him into an alternative England in order to create a different identity to the derivative Claremont-Trimpe creation and Parkhouse's Celtic epic. The idea was to produce a superhero relevant to a modern British readership that would reflect something of contemporary UK. It was Paul who, despite my reservations, came up with the idea of a comic sidekick in the form of an elf on a surfboard.

Both Alan and I had much enthusiasm but little experience - we were learning on the job. I concentrated on creating a new pantheon of villains and supporting characters to populate a new storyworld. I realised that we had to do more than import an American formula to make Captain Britain work. Comics like 2000 AD, at the time the most popular amongst the target readership in the UK, had a totally different flavour to American comics. They are more throwaway, humorous, self-aware and anarchic - they don't take themselves so seriously. Americans are generally prepared to be much more nationalistic than us and use their flag patriotically. Over here only fascists do that with the Union Jack. Captain Britain can never be an Anglicised Captain America.

So I introduced a peculiarly British surreality, drawing on the tradition of Jonathan Swift, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, HG Wells, John Wyndham, and Dr Who, embodying eccentricities which I associated with the upper-class world that Brian Braddock comes from; hence characters like the Avant Guard and Mad Jim Jaspers. The latter is a take on the notorious "Mad" Frankie Fraser from the Richardson gang which operated in London in the '60s and '70s. They had a turf war with the Krays and another gang called -- seriously -- the Quality Street Gang. Calling James' gang the Crazy Gang actually seemed less surreal than the reality.

(As an aside, even more surreally, I was asked eight years later by gang-leader Charlie Richardson and Frankie Fraser themselves to write Charlie's life story in comics form, clearly a case of reality imitating comics!)

My thought was, you had this muscle-bound upper class twit with a brain the size of a pea draped in a Union Jack jumping from tall building to tall building -- what can you do that isn't ridiculous?

The first story had an environmental theme - The Junkheap That Walked Like A Man - environmentalism being a parallel passion in my life. Another story introduced a multicultural flavour, as I was living in Brixton, and so had Captain Britain taking a young Afro-Carribean girl for a fly-around, to convey a sense of wonder. I developed an overarching storyline of cosmic proportions involving Saturnyne, a beautiful enigmatic figure from another dimension modeled visually on Lauren Bacall, and developing the concept of alternative Captain Britains -- Captains UK, England, Albion, etc - and Merlyn's overall control theme.

Many of these characters and concepts were developed and expanded upon by subsequent writers such as Alan Moore and the Excalibur team.

After I had been working on the strip for about a year I received a letter from a reader pointing out that a younger me had written to the first Captain Britain comic, wondering what the Captain might think about political issues such as the civil war in Northern Ireland. This had completely slipped my mind, but everyone knows Marvel fandom's memories put elephants' to shame. It set me thinking, and in some ways I regret receiving that letter because of what was to follow.

I figured this reader and therefore others wanted to see such a story and drafted one which made reference to the conflict in Northern Ireland - then spilling over to a bombing campaign on the mainland - trying to avoid favouring one side or the other. I wanted it to sympathise with kids living there caught up in the conflict. It revolved around a sad, true story, which seemed to epitomise the tragedy of the province, of two children who had met and become friends while away on holiday. But when they returned home to Belfast they realised that they came from opposite sides of the divide -- one Protestant and the other Catholic. So when one visited the other's neighbourhood he was attacked. Captain Britain, flying overhead, on a mission that was part of the overarching storyline, noticed this and came down to break up the fight. That was the sum of it. I naively felt that as this was an alternative world we could play around with it without risking offending people.

Boy, was I wrong.

First of all Alan Davis, who lived in Corby where there was an Orange (Protestant) population, refused to draw it. In response, to soften it, inspired by Swift's Gulliver's Travels, I changed it into an allegory and made the names into anagrams -- e.g., Belfast became Fablest. This cut no ice with Davis. I remember sitting one evening alongside Bernie Jaye as she scrubbed out every reference to Northern Ireland. This explains why the bland story which you'll read in these pages seems just to be about gang warfare between rivals in different blocks of flats. How utterly flat. Jaye - a woman with a sociology degree who tried vainly to conduct debates on feminism in the letters pages of the Savage Sword of Conan - actually said that if she received one letter from an irate vicar in Surbiton her job would be on the line. I found this hard to credit, but this was an object lsson in how censorship happens - people fear for their jobs. We were two years from 1984 but in Marvel it had already arrived.

I thought we would get away with it because Alan Moore was already writing his own 1984 - V for Vendetta - but more relevantly Marvel US had in the 'seventies run a Captain America story written by Steve Engelhart, reflecting the Watergate scandal and its resulting political upheavals. In it, Steve Rogers (a.k.a. Captain America) had stopped being Captain America because he believed that the founding values of America had gotten lost. Engelhart created a symbolic new identity for him -- Nomad, the man without a country -- and the title had no Captain America in its pages for 14 months, until Rogers eventually resumed his old identity, concluding that "the values I stood for still apply even if they're not embodied in the present administration". I greatly admired Engelhart's work and thought if they could do that in America surely I would be able to do a much milder thing here.

But it was ahead of its time -- eight years later, in the overtly political Crisis comic, Fleetway was to publish Garth Ennis' True Faith, about the Troubles (but even that graphic novel was scandalously withdrawn from sale, following complaints).

Paul and Bernie did ask me to come up with further storylines, but did not accept them, and I was terribly disillusioned. I left to take a scriptwriting course in film and television scriptwriting, and went on to produce independent comic stories, such as Doc Chaos, and to edit for publishers such as Titan and McDonald-Futura.

Alan Moore took over, continuing with many of my ideas but losing interest in what he saw as a two-dimensional character so that he became a mere punchbag, which I know offended Alan Davis.

Davis and I had had dreams of Captain Britain becoming a kind of superhero Doctor Who. Personally, I think it is when his stories approach this kind of feel and don't shy away from the complexities resulting from the Union Jack on his spandex that he is at his most engaging and dramatic.

© David Thorpe, Tre Taliesin, Wales, December 2009

Watch me on MTV!

2009-11-29T05:54:00.001-08:00

Watch a clip from my MTV interview when I was ambushed by interviewer Caza as I turned up to rap to students at the ESPM University Sao Paulo on November 18th

Ambushed by MTV in Sao Paulo

2009-11-24T02:11:00.000-08:00

Flying over the countryside north of Curitiba - the Serra do Mar's forested mountains look stunning, as do the series of rivers pouring their sediment-laden waters like opening fans into the ocean. In at least in one case after a very long isthmus parallel to the coast. At 7000 feet you can still make out white horses and the long sandy beaches. Sao Paolo is visible as a circular sprawl inland from a coastal conurbation; from above it is like a white inkblot. Coming nearer, the clusters of hundreds of skyscrapers seem puny in their pretence to be high, thin teeth bristling their serated edges at the clouds. We bank westwards of the city swooping down over a forested but well-occupied area to make a perfect landing.

The plane is late. At Sao Paulo airport there is chaos as people are leaving for a public holiday. By the time I get to the DCL office via bus ad taxi it is 1.30pm.

This is a company of about 40 employees and its own canteen. Otacilia greets me. Its very hot and humid. We have a late lunch after which she gets down to business. She asks me to list all my projects, which I do - about five of them. I give her the manuscript to We Can Improve and synopsis for The Moebius Trip. She is not interested in The Drowning because it is too local. A Hybrids comic might work.

She shows me a huge cupboard of samples from the Bologna Bookfair she has to read, and manuscripts sent in. Then a box full of titles bought for the 2010 schedule. One of them is Exodus, an excellent novel for teens aout climate change from 2002 which I have recently read as preparation for writing The Drowning.

I'm introduced to the team including the deputy director, Mr Maia Jr. His office is also drab, with bare walls. We are in a light industrial part of town. Otacilia works long hours as well as having a freelance job and doing voluntary work teaching English literacy to adults.

She explains how the publishing process works in this state. Print runs are low - about 3000 - unless there is a government intervention, where the state decides to bankroll a 50,000 print run for direct donation to schools. Next year it's focussing on teens so I'm in with a chance there. But whereas HarperCollins will decide in months if a title is to make it, and provide marketing support for just one month when the title comes out, here a title is given two years to build. They still don't have sals figures for Hibridos. Sales channels are mostly direct sales, to schools and door to door. 30% of a print run, a staggering number, is given away to teachers, who read them and discuss them befor deciding wether or not to place an order. So it will be a while before they know how to proceed with Hybrids two. I complain that by that time the ideas in the book may have passed their zeitgeisty sell-by date or the readership of the first book may have out-grown it and not be interested in the sequel.

That's how we leave it until the following week when I get back from wherever Im going for my out-of -the-city break. Still haven't decided where. Was going to be Rio but no-one's responded to requests for meeting and anyway it's a yet another city. Otacilia suggests Paraty, where every year there's another bookfair, FLIP, a coastal unspoilt old town. A small place with beaches watersports, old buildings and nearby contryside. Sounds perfect.

At the hotel which the university has booked and paid for by Avenida Paulista they tell me that the booking was for two days including the previous night (I never asked for this but it's nice of thwm to think of it). As I didn't show up the previous night the whole booking is cancelled and I will have to re-book for tonight. I tell them there is no way I will accept this as a room has aleady ben paid for and it is immoral for them to accept payment twice for the same room. The receptionist says he will talk to the manager but takes my credit card number anyway.

By this tme there is only twenty minutes for me to briefy check emails and shower before heading off. There's an email from Gil at the uni about MTV wanting to interview me, but I don't pay it much mind, it sounds a bit crazy. Why would they be interested in me? Diego had said he might meet me at the hotel a 6.15 to go to the uni together but he doesn't show by 6,30 so I take a taxi on my own.

The uni is lively and buzzing. Thiago greets me and takes me up to the lecture hall. There's the professor Gil a fit, sotcky indian looking guy, with muscles and very relaxed in jeans and t-shirt. He's very happy to see me. Diego it seems missed me at the hotel held up by the dreadful traffic. He arrives half an hour later.

To my surprise there is the MTV crew. Caza, the presenter / director in a black t-shirt and heaavily-tattooed arms, and a three-person crew. He wants to do it now before my talk. While they're setting up he runs through the questions from his Blackberry. What about Hybrids, politics, how is Brazil going, what should young people be thiking, am I optimistic about the future, what do I think of cyberpunk. Suddenly everyone is talking about cyberpunk. It seems this is the take on Hybrids and it's a cool subject here. To me, that wave is well over. Gibson's Neuromancer came out in '79, thirty years back, another era. Still if that's how they latch onto it.... for them this is the zeitgeist. It's their developmental stage. We joke about what they'd merge with, the cameraman with his huge cam on his shoulder would have probems getting comfortable in bed. He tells me he interviwed the Super Furry Animals from Swansea once and how he liked their Welsh in which they'd discuss how they'd answer the questions before saying them in their lovely (his word) version of English.

I find that the way I answer the questions on camera is instinctively very different to how I talked on camera at Aymara. This is curious. For MTV I am speaking very fast in bursts of animation and a much younger style. For Aymara I was more serious and formal. In both cases my sentences are long and structured, but the style for MTV is more throwawy. I do this without thinking.

And now, as I begin my talk for the students, with the crew gone a few minutes later, I have another style. There are about 50 of them, all but four are women. It occurs to me dimly that as this course is about creativity, start-ups and digital technology this might be the main reason why I've been invited, but I don't care. I speak in English of course. There's no translator but Gil assures me they all know English. Some if not all are 'mature' students but I am by far the oldest person in the room. One beautiful woman in particular is eyeing me and smiling and seemngly nodding in agreement at everything I'm saying. I give them the schpiel about the size of the threat and how busiesses will be sustainable or fail. I sumamrise all the usual stuff - resource efficiency and closed loops, CSR and industrial symbiosis and run briefly through the opportunities for low carbon goods and services. Isn't this why I'm here? There's a lot of interest but not too much feedback. I'm told later they probably got about 50% of it. Then Gil says he wants me to talk about Hybrids. I so I do but not a lot. It gradually sinks in that this may be why I'm invited but I don't care, I'm a green evangelist, this stuff is more important than the products of own imagination. And everyone is pleased. One girl, Lilandra, has brought a copy of Hibridos for me to sign.

Afterwards, a small meal and a few beers, but all the women have melted way, it's just Diego, Gil and a keen young blogger with an iPhone, who pelts me wih questions and gives me a lift back to the hotel afterwords. I still don't exactly know what I'm doing tomorrow.

Curitiba

2009-11-24T02:10:00.001-08:00

I arrive in Curitiba as dusk settles. There's a storm and the landing is very bumpy. I take a taxi at rip-off price to the eco-hostel I found that morning on the internet. The rain absolutely charges down, and lightening flashes intermittently. I'm glad I took the taxi as it's dark now and the hostel is way out in suburbia. On the way there we pass mile after mile of high riss, shops, advertisement hoardings and traffic, all identical to any developed city in the West. It depresses me. I did not think Curitiba would be like this. It's supposed to be green. That's why I've come her - to see what a self=proclaimed 'green' city in the developed world is like. I hadn't expected to find out of town shopping centres, Wal-Mart, McDonalds and even C&A and Burger Kings.

The hostel turns out to be an oasis of calm and green in the middle of an urban desert - more precisely a suburban desert. It has young trees, birdsong, a pool, and I have my own wooden cabin with two beds and a bathroom. There is no towel or glass for water. Luckily I have a glass with my capoierha kit! It's calm, and the internet is free in the reception/lounge area.

In the light of day I see the area is surrounded by gated communities - condominiums like fortresses, with high walls topped with razor wire and electric fences, and elecric gates manned by sentries. Inside, small houses have tiny gardens, and children can play safely. Stuff can be owned with less fear.

This is an eco-city?

A bus that stops outside takes me to the town centre, a square on the edge of the famed pedestrianised area. It's like Nottingham centre, or Birmingham. I do what I always do in a new city and find the modern art gallery - another place I always feel at home in. As it's Monday, it's closed. I walk. And walk. And walk. I get lost in the downtown historic area. I try to find the Oscar Niemeyer gallry, an iiconic piece of architecture shaped like a huge eye, but there are no maps or signs to say which bus to take. No one understands English. I feel a fool for having no Portuguese. I eventually find the Civic Centre and abandon a plan to ask for the Press Officer to get a view of City Hall on developments, for my lack of language.

So I jump on a bus at random and find myself taken on an eliptical trip around the city, lasting an hour and a quarter, on one of the renowned metro-buses. You access them by climbing first into a glass tube where a man sells your ticket through a turnstile - the ordinary buses always have a ticket-seller with a turnstile situated on the bus a third of the way down so you pay to get off. These metro-buses have a different network, and whereas the ordinary bus system lets you get off on the right side of the road (driving on the right), the metro-buses, faster and making fewer stops, let you descend on the left hand side. Thus, the two systems don't get in each others' way. The road network is mostly alternating one-way streets, as in American cities. The city was designed around this transit system, and it is this for which Curitiba is the most famous.

The bus races round miles of urban area. I start off by trying to follow it on my limited tourist map but soon we're off it. Past the Telecoms tower, and along suburban streets past shopping centres, miles of people. It's afternoon, and we don't encounter one single traffic jam. I think this is a smooth system. In the next couple of days however I do meet jams; they happen in the rush-hours just like everywhere else.

I buy a kind of fried cheese-in-pastry envelope (called pastillas) from a side stall and provisions from a supermarket. Exhausted I take the bus back to the hostel, longing for greenery and thinking about taking the old train journey to the coast the next day, giving up my mission to investigate the eco-credentials of Curitiba.

It was not to be. Messages abounded on my return, from a guy called Rafael, working for a local publisher Almaya, who wanted to show me around the next day and facilitate my detective work.

He collected me in a taxi at midday. He turned out to be wheelchair bound - a slight figure who ade up for his diminutive stature by his volubility and anxiety to communicate. We talked non-stop. On enquiry he revealed how his inability to control his wasted legs was caused by his prematurity: he was as premature as Dion, yet survived despite being born in a town outside Sao Paulo where specialist medical help in 1982 would have been scant. There was no midwife. He suffered respiratory infections, common at that age, which starved his brain of oxygen causing lesions which affected his development. I told him about Dion's exprience. I revealed how Dion had had no nipples at first and we had the privilege of watching them grow.

"I had four!" he replied.

"Still?" I said astonished.

"I don't know," he said, "I haven't looked lately. I'm very hairy."

I said, "Well, that's a good chat-up line for girls anyway - 'Want to see my four nipples?'"

"I never thought of that!" he said laughing.

We had lunch in a veggie restaurant. I had to push him everywhere, and it was an education in accessibility. We took the tourist bus, and they are all, including the metro bus, fully wheelchair accessible. The metros have a ramp that descends every time connecting the raised tube to the bus. This is evidence of sustainability mentality in the planners. All the time Rafael was on his mobile making arrangemets for us to meet people. It's short notice and hard to pin everyone down. It's a shame he didn't get the messages I'd sent to his employers the previous week, via Otacilia.

He told me the city is resting on its laurels. It won its reputation for sustainability in the '80s and '90s when many of the initiatives it is still renowned for were inaugurated. But now it's fallen behind the times - the rest of the world has caught up.

We alit at a place called Universidade Livre do Meio Ambiente - the Free College of the Environment - Unilivre for short. We met the educational officer, Naiana Arruba and I pushed the wheelchair along a raised wooden platform over a stream up a dripping, plant-walled creek, emerging into a lake-filled quarry with swans, ducks, and Koi carp. Unilivre is nothing other than a version of CAT, set up in 1991 by Jaime Lerner the Mayor himself, to try and raise awareness and do research into environmental issues. Like CAT, it is in a disused quarry and it ran short courses that were free to the public.

However, Naiana said, it has fallen on hard times. The City stopped supporting it four years ago for political and personal reasons and other consultants have sprung up to offer training. It has to charge fees and people don't like this. Its offices, which resemble a large treehouse cum helter skelter constructed from old telegraph poles, eucalyptus and rammed earth, are empty. It still employs 20 people, who fear for their jobs. Unless they can secure more sponsorship they may close.

She also says the water in the lake is being polluted by an invasion in the land above the quarry.

"An invasion?" I ask. It sounds like aliens have landed.

"An invasion is what we call the beginning of a favela," she explains. A nearby favela has become full. Some of the inhabitants have decided to squat on some land up there. They are building shelters. There is no sanitation and so the watercourse is polluted.

It's an illegal occupation of land. "Cohab, the municipal housing agency, should turf them off," she said. But I say "It could be an opportunity". Has she not heard of reed beds? No she hasn't. I explain how they, like marshland everywhere, are the kidneys or liver of the world, removing pathogens and impurities from water. CAT has pioneered thmm. She shugs. No money. Not their business. The authorities must act. This doesn't sound sustainable either. Has everyone lost their way now Jaime is no longer Mayor?

An 'invasion' also sounds biological like the body being invaded by pathogens and microbes.

While we talked, seated on benches by the lake, visitors ambled around. Suddenly I spotted on the far side, two young men. They'd been using a hook and line and poached a large carp, which was flopping around on the bank. Quickly they stuffed it into a large transparent plastic bag. I nudged Naiana. She phoned the entrance while I photographed them. They smiled acros the water, flashing the V-for-victory sign, and ran off with thir prize. They didn't look like they really needed it - it's not as if they're from a favela.

On the way back, Rafael and I started to talk about the favelas. "They're hidden away," he said. "On the edges of the city. Curitiba is also surrounded by several 'sleepover cities". Commuter towns. There are favelas there. Curitiba is a victim of its own success. In the nineties, as it proclaimed how eco and successful it was, it attracted inhabitants from all over the country eager to share its fortune. It has exploded in size from a few thousand to 1.7 million. These people sort the rubbish. Only 3% of the waste is recyled by the City. The rest is collected by workers from fsavelas."

I've seen them everywhere. In Sao Paulo too. They pull large barrows by hand, laden with anything they find on the streets, from cardboard to old exhausts, abandonned white goods to plastic. It all gets hauled back to the favela where it is sorted, and sold to middlemen who sell it to the recyclers. The favelas also house the women who work as cleaners and nannies in the middle clsss homes.

"Isn't this a kind of aparheid?" I mused. "Is it Curitiba's dirty secret, that it would grind to a halt if not for the existence of these second class citizens hidden away from the eyes of visitors and 'nice' people, and the squeaky clean steets of the central areas and gated suburbs?" It sounds like a truly Ballardian set-up.

"Could be," agreed Rafael.

"We have to check it out, before we can publish this," I said.

Rafael got on his moble to make more phone calls. He was trying to get to speak to a senior secretary at City Hall.

Back at the hostel, I shared a meal with some French/Swiss people. The woman chain smoked and sipped red wine. Her boyfriend and 22 year old daughter did neither. She is voluble. Next day they are takng that train jorney I dreamt of and invite me along. Part of me would really like to get out of urban coccrete and go. But Rafael has made arrangements and I can't give up now.

Hr's late the next day - 8.30. The traffic is bad. We go to the HQ of SPVS, an NGO responsible for conservation where a director, Ricardo, explains their mission: to preserve the remaining 7% of the original 1.3 million square kilometers of forest cover that once covered 155 of BraziI when the Portuguese first came in 1500 and started denuding it for the valuable Brazilwood and its red dye which hosiers back in Europe needed for the fashion-conscious classes.

There are two types of biome - the Amazon (called this even this far south) and the Arucaria, named after the distinctive upside down Jweish-candelabra shaped tree that is seen everywhere. In Parana state, home of Curiiba, less thn 3% of the original is left, mostly in national parks The usual threats abound: logging, urbanisation, cattle and agriculture.

SPVS audited the Curitiba green areas and discovered that a City Hall claim that the city had over 50 square metres per person of greennspace wasn't exctly as green s it sounded. In fact much of this greenspace was actually just lawn; grass verges. As a result they began working in 2006 with the city to reclassify these so credit only goes to the truly biodiverse areas with native species. Ricardo says the City is broadly co-operative, in particular to pressurise the owners of larger gardens to conserve and restore their biodiversity. This includes the city's many parks - of which there are many, as I have already seen, more perhaps than Birmingham, a ciy of comparable size.

To avoid further deforetation, SPVS acts as a go-between in a carbon-offsetting scheme. Each hectare of forest costs $R2500 per year to protext. In Curitiba itself, there are two projects to protect green areas. The 'Condominio do bioversidade', with support from City Hall. works to educate people about the native species ad their value. 'Bio Cidade' aims to create officially protected areas. The City has signed up to the UN Convention on Biodiversity but Ricardo if not sure if this has had any efffect on th ground yet. Meanwhile, favelas are spreading into natural wetland areas.

Garbage is a big problem. So is flooding when there are flash floods. There are so many environmental technologies in Europe that hey haven't heard of here yet, which they could be implementing instead of 'wiring in' unsustainable infrastructure and habits. A short list would have to incude: sustainable urban drainage green rooves nd bioclamatic architecture to cool the city; solar water heating, micro-renewables, trains, even small water-saving tricks like fitting plugs in sinks and basins.

Ricardo givs us a package that includes examples of their environmental education work - a board game that explains climate change in which you lose or gain carbon credits depending on your knowledge and progress around a lotto/Monopoly style board. Very clever. I wonder if anyone's designed one back home.

We are still waiting for our meeting with someone from City Hall to put their side. We were supposed to have lunch with a senior guy called Castella from the State Administration, who might have been able to give us a more objective view of what the city is doing, but he was suddenly called to the bedside of his 89 year old grandmother. The secretary of the city environment chief keeps not calling back and Rafael is indefatigable in his pestering to get a result.

"The funny thing is," he confides, "I don't think I could do this on my own. It's only because you're here that this opens doors. They want to meet you to explain themselves." We spend a while discussing what it takes to be an environmental journalist. Rafael is grateful to be learning so much and I'm grateful to be helping him.

While waiting we ascend the nearby Telecom Tower and the panorama stretches twenty miles in all dirctions. On two sides are hills, the Serra del Mar being the largest range. I imagine the Swiss family's journey through it coast-wards.

The Tower takes no advantage of visitors to sell anything, no rotating tower-top cafe like in Berlin, so we lunch in a nearby restauarant at Rafael's employer's expense before taxi-ing to our second appointment - with an Empreendor Social (Social Entrprise) NGO that works at the other end of the scale, the favelas.

Lina Useche is a stunning Penelopw Cruz-lie Spanish 25-year old, who co-founded the NGO at age 18 and is now a director. She enthusastically describes their work with the women of the favelas, encouraging them to take training in crafts and sewing and business management, obtain micro-credit, via support from banks and Wal-Mart, and create co-operatives to make and market their work. The NGO finds outlets but thy must also find them themselves. It's mostly women because the men think it's not real man's work and they'd rather do nothing than this.

She explains how they work with the rubbish-collectors. The existing system replicates an arrangement as old as Brazil itself. In the days when sugar was worth its weight in gold, European traders leased the milling equipment to managers on the coast at extortione rates they could never pay back. Few lasted ore than a couple of years, it seems, before returning to Europe in exchange for some other sucker. Certainly the plantation workers never escaped poverty either. The enormous profits were all made by The Man in the Old Country.

The Man is still at it. The collectors lease the barrows they tug up and down the hills for $R10 a day, and they can barely earn that from what they collect and sell. So SE began a project called Avina in 2005 that obtains microcredit to buy the barrows and, by clubbing togther, they can acquire balers cheaply to package the sorted garbage and cut out the middle-men, selling direct to the top buyer for a better price. Anyone can invest in the business. Help comes from an ulikely source - the Wal-Mart Institute and the ABN Amro Foundation.

Lina shows us beauiful bags and wallets and other items mde from recycled materials. some of them are even sold in Wal-Mart. 97% of rubbish is recycled by the favelas. The City has realised that they need to help the collectors and have just given the Co-ops responsibility for the remaining 3%.

Later in the day Juliana from Aymara takes uss on a tour of a favela. It's not far off the bus route I took on the first day. Now this is how I pictured Curitba in my mind before I came: a tight hodgepodge of small homes cobbled together with bricks and other materials in rubbish strewn streets, a lively area owith its own economy of shops, barbers, cafes, but most of all warehouses where the rubbish is sorted into types for selling. For the first time I see barrows pulled by ponies and am reminded of the rag-and-bone men that used to come round the neighbourhood in my childhood in Nottingham with their cry of "ragsa'bo'", and who inspired the now archaic-seeming sitcom Steptoe and Son. It hits me: we're back fifty years. Fifty years from now will the favelas seem archaic? Will they ever go?

It's a question i'd already put to Ricardo - his answer waas to shrug his shoulders. It's as old as Brasil. "We have a saying which is untranslateable but something to do with applauding those who 'get away with pulling a fast one'- The little Brazilian way". Everyone's on the make, every man jack for themselves. There's no social security safety net.

So we see, in the middle of the favelas how some homes have been modernised: good materials, a fresh coat of paint, beautifully applied with style. These are no longer shanty town dwwllings but beginning to be respectable. As Lina had said, in answer to my question, "When people become richer, they don't leave the favelas - they improve them, and give employment to those around." The community bootstraps itself up.

But there's no trickledown. It's due to the work of these charities and to the funding from the City Hall for these typs of programme. Now I understand: I've seen the progression from an invasion to a favela to self-improvement. The City agency, Cohab, is charged with providing housing. "It's not well-structured," says Lina, "and there are political problems. Also, when people leave the favelas they have to pay taxes, watr and energy." Why should they want to?

Of course ES is only able to help small proportion of these people and more are arriving all the time. It is a drop in the ocean, and controversial. Some politicians oppose these measures because they may they attract the wrong sort of people from outside.

But it is a symbiotic relationship. unless the City completely changes its system of rubbish recycling they will always need the favelas. And the favelas need the rubbish. Bottom feeders - every ecology needs them. Fair? Not really, but fairer than other cities where the collectors are not even supported.

Lina descrbes how their recycling programme involves introducing the rubbish collector to each householder on ther route by name, so they form a personal relationship door to door. The householder is shown how to separate ther rubbish by example and how it benefits the collector. A specially-printed circular leaflet on recycled paper explains how and when the rubbish is collected and the name of the collector. This ensures maximum co-operation. I saw encouragement to recycle also printed on the sides of the council refuse lorries.

It's early evening. I'm taken to the publisher Almaya with Rafael. They are a medium-sized concern with three premises. The first is the Pedagogical Division. There one of the editors explains how they work directly with the authorities and schools to produce materials as part of a teaching programme. The show me carefully designed award-winning ring-bound publications. Some of them are huge, with very large print for the special needs children, and some are even in braille only. I suggest that I don't envy the prooof-reader of these.

The offices are brand new and light and airy, painted in well-designed primary colours. I'm introduced to everyone.

Then Juliana takes us to another premises, designed in the same style. This is the audi-visual division where videos are made. I see the editing suite and get shown an educational language video. There's a large use of green-screen, and the editing in Final Cut Pro is highly professional. It's all state-of-the-art. Downstairs the original garage is converted into a studio where the same actor I've just seen upstairs on the video is being filmed against the green-screen in another scene.

Now comes the pay-off. Almaya has been paying for my lnces andtaxi and Rafael's time withe me. In return I'm expected to record a video message for business students. The cmera and boom is setup and Rafeal, out of shot, spins questions at me about what is suatianability, why is it important, what shoud we be doing, what do I think of how Brazil is doing, what should it do, and what should the businesses of tomorrow do? They are so pleased with my responses that they want to shoot another video statement, this one about comics - my work with them and why or whether comics are useful in education. This is a little more out of my field and all I ca manage is o talk about the importance of catering for dfferent learning styles and the work I did on the title "How The World Works". They seem satisfied.

Goodbye Rafael. We've got to know each other pretty well these last two intense days. We'll stay in touch. I climb into my taxi back to the eco-hostel. It's 7pm - we never met the guy from City Hall, but we did a lot, and I can try to contact him by email later.

Porto Alegre bookfair 2

2009-11-24T02:08:00.000-08:00

Otacilia shepherds and mothers me around, arranging this and that and paying for meals that are not paid for by the Bookfair - which paid my accommodation, taxis, and most of the food in Porto Alegre. The flight down here was paid for by DCL but I was met at the aiport by an 'angel' (it's what they call them) from the bookfair wh helped me change my return flight so it goes to Curitiba and not straight back to Sao Paulo - I do not want to return there for a while.

We had a meal in the evening at the worst restaurant I've ever been to for years. Supposedly posh and exclusive, and right by the bookfair's stalls in a main square. The waiter forgot my beer; then the vegetarian pasta had a slab of meat hidden beneath it; when I returned it, they took ages to bring another, by which time everyone else had finished eating; and this had far too much salt in it to be edible. In compensation they gave me a chocolate pudding. This rather skewed my diet since earlier in the afternoon, the same crowd went to a cafe in the art gallery which only served cheesecakes. I ordered one, ate it, and then the owner discovered who I was and wanted me to sign a copy of my book for her in exchange for another pudding, this tie a lemony cheesecake. I was stuffed.

Unfortunately I was taken back to the same restaurant the next morning by Ricardo, the chief press officer for the bookfair, who was very enthusiastic about my work and my talk and the one who wrote the glowing review (well he would wouldn't he). He suffered from polio since the age if nine months and walked on crutches, but is really well, strong and on his second family. He asked me a lot about my beliefs about technology. And what science fiction and writers should be writing about.

When I explain my theory of SF here - the part containing the 'America dreaming' imperialist fantasy idea of Star Trek and Star Wars, everyne understands it. They all profess to hate America. Yet they all drink Coke - especially Otacilia. In fact at the evening meal, everyone drank fizzy drinks and no one drank alcohol with their meal - on a Saturday night. Try finding teetotal publishers and writers after a bookfair in England. About as likely as finding a panda in a pine forest. But American culture is naturally ubiquitous here and insidious regardless. Disney titles, its stories well known for plagiarising and corrupting local myths in favour of its sanitised, sentimentalised versions, is the best selling of DCL's lines, and Otacilia admits the irony of this - it provides one third of their income and allows them to finance other imprints including Lighthouse, the one which publishes Hibridos. They hate it but can't do without it.

After leaving Ricardo I return to the hotel, passing burnt out buildings which the city can't afford to renovate. It reminds me of Nwcastle, or Liverpool. I wait with the taxi driver for ages for a third passenger to go to the airport. The second is a Parisian academic who writes about cities and planning - he tells me he has never visited a favela. I think he can't really know then what South American cities are really like. I want to visit one. He says he wouldn't feel safe. But I know you can get a guide.

Porto Alegre bookfair

2009-11-17T06:09:00.000-08:00

Is this the oldest book fair in the world? It's certainly one of the biggest. It goes on to about six weeks, as long as the Hay on Wye festival, but unlike the latter, and unlike any other book fair I have ever seen, it is entirely free -- no doubt the factor that ensures its vitality and survival.

The fact that it's supported by the authorities in this way means that everybody can attend any event, including the poorest. Many of the events are for children and schools though by no means the majority of them.

Most authors represented here South American and especially Brazilian. I was the only author from the UK, but as this that is the year of the French there were several from that country, and I found myself leaving the hotel showing the taxi with a French professor specialising in the study of urban areas. For there is a strong academic element at the book fair.

Much of the fair is also outside, despite the humidity. About half of it takes place in a couple of urban squares ringed with thronging bookstalls from distributors, publishers and other retailers. The juvenile area is on the old dock front, and venues include the old warehouses, and the opulent interiors of former Portuguese offices and halls that line the downtown avenues.

Some of these restored mansions, reminding you of the old glory when the city was founded, provided a striking contrast to dilapidated more recent 20th-century buildings adjacent to them. The town is in decline but struggling to reassert its new identity as a cultural magnet.

From the dock you can take a boat tour up the river Guaiba, actually almost a lake, a delta, and the journey takes you around islands that are protected as conservation areas - very unusual in Brazil so near to an industrial area. The Brazilian name for the body of water means 'lake of ducks', and there is much birdlife in evidence, though not much else. Some areas are less protected than others, and there houses come down to the waterfront.

The river flows swiftly but it still has 200 km left to get to the Atlantic Ocean. Porto Alegre was constructed by the Portuguese on the west side of a long isthmus, so that he could defend the river from the Spanish, so it was never an Atlantic port.

The bookfair doesn't start till around lunchtime and then in the afternoon the place is absolutely packed. Everywhere are authors signing books and street performers entertaining children.

I am introduced to the director of the book fair, and have lunch with the chief press officer, Ricardo, a wonderful, indefatigable man, who has suffered from polio since the age of nine months, and who also like me has two sons, about the same age. Unlike me he has married again and now has a nine-month-old!

I am also introduced to many other authors and illustrators, including the talented André, and Barroso and Marta Lagarta.

My session, held in a small room next to the children's library, goes well, and I use a couple of PowerPoint slideshows to illustrate my talk that I have been using at the British schools where I was two weeks before.

They precipitate a discussion on the nature of science fiction, how Star Trek and Star Wars represent the imperialist dreams of America but how dystopian fiction has sadly proved more prescient as a way of predicting or describing the reality of a least parts of the world.

And how it is the duty of writers now to provide hope to the children who will be tomorrow's adults, because it is we, the older generations, who have fucked things up so badly for them.

Afterwards, Ricardo writes it up, and this is the result:

http://www.feiradolivro-poa.com.br/noticias_det.php?noticia=722

Pretty poor but just about understandable Google translation:
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.feiradolivro-poa.com.br%2Fnoticias_det.php%3Fnoticia%3D722&sl=auto&tl=en

I am currently in Curitiba exploring its environmental credentials, staying in the eco-hostel which is very nice, an oasis in an urban desert, and will write about this shortly.

I am feeling that I have been here over two weeks and not seen the real Brazil -- I have been in one city after another and many of them are strikingly similar to European cities. Somehow in the remaining time I would like to see some of the countryside, wildlife or forest, but I don't quite know yet how to do this.

I go back to São Paulo on Thursday morning when I have to visit DCL's offices in the afternoon and to give a talk in the evening at the University, but from Friday morning until Monday morning I am free and may go to Rio. I leave to go back to the UK on the Wednesday, and am saving Monday and Tuesday for possible more meetings with Otacilia.

Porto Alegre and the art Biennale

2009-11-17T06:02:00.000-08:00

Of course I was only there for the weekend, flying in at 1030 in the morning, taxi to the hotel, leaving again the same way the Sunday evening. But of all the towns in all the world that I have visited it reminds me of none more than Newcastle-on-Tyne - Geordie-land.

Both are struggling to recover from a period of decline and scarred by areas of neglect. Several buildings had been gutted by fire and left like that apparently for some time. Many others were empty and covered in graffiti.

Both towns are trying to use culture in order to attract outside interest to the downtown areas. Newcastle has its brilliant Baltic art gallery, while Porto Alegre has its Biennale, a large art exhibition that takes place in several venues every two years, reminiscent of the one in Venice. In fact the best venue for the exhibition is line of disused dock warehouses on the waterfront, that is strikingly similar to the Armoury area in Venice.

The exhibition showcases Brazilian and South American artists, unlike the Biennales in Río and São Paulo, which also provide much space for European and North American artists.

It is very interesting to see how these artists are interpreting and mixing Western traditions with their own. I saw a portable beach holiday (complete with campervan full of sand with a palm tree growing out of the roof), a football match made entirely out of wood (football is of course a matter of life and death here), not to mention a campervan also made entirely a wood.

The latter reminded me of Heather and Ivan Morisson's post-apocalyptic garden shed on wheels that is a mobile library of dystopian literature - including a copy of Hybrids!

Campervans are ubiquitous here, and are used by people wanting to start businesses in another town but not yet able to rent their own space. They symbolise the magnetism the city, the promise of affluence, the energy of growth.

Another fascinating piece - I'm sorry I didn't have the chance to note the names of the artists - was an almost life-size reconstruction of the Parthenon made of scaffolding from which were hung thousands and thousands of books each wrapped in polythene bags. The public was then invited to help themselves, and videos and magazine and newspaper articles document people gladly ripping down the books and throwing them to the crowds below, who ran off hungrily with them.

Because of my interest in Dadaism it was astonishing to discover a Brazilian version, inaugurated 45 years after the original, but aesthetically and insensibility strikingly similar, called Nadaism -- or nothing-ism! I love it.

Another piece celebrates popular graffiti on concrete Modernist architecture, of which there is too much in abundance in the cities.

There is a spirit of enquiry and invention in the art here, a celebration of what it means to be Brazilian. 25 years after the end of the dictatorship, and 20 years after the CIA mostly lost interest in South America with the fall of the Berlin Wall, Brazil is becoming more and more confident, and debating positively its new identity.

Brazil - a Celtic island

2009-11-17T05:40:00.000-08:00

I was given a fascinating book on the history of Brazil by the first editor of the Brazilian edition of Hybrids, Camile Mendrot. I met her in São Paulo one evening when we went to an excellent jazz club/bar where a trio of drums, electric bass and electric guitar were crammed into a small corner with us crammed at a table next to them.

She works for a publisher called Callis now, and made me a present of several books, most of them for young children and excellently produced, in English, but this one is by Eduardo Bueno entitled 'Brazil: a Brief History'. Amongst the many fascinating facts I've picked up so far is a connection between the name of the country and Celtic mythology - especially of interest to me since I live in Wales.

Apparently in Celtic the word "bresail" means "blessed land". It refers to a mythical island called Hy Brazil which is the setting for the Celtic legend of Brandon, an Irish saint, who in the year 562 took to the seas to evangelise, arriving at the island some years later, and where he died, allegedly 181 years old. The book says that "from 1351 until at least 1721, the name Hy Brazil could be seen on maps and globes and up until 1624 -" (Brazil was discovered in 1500) "- there was still extinct expeditions looking for it" - rather like Atlantis!

According to "Brazil in Legend and Ancient Cartography", by Gustavo Barroso published in 1941, "the literate men of the 16th century had no doubt that the name Brazil came from the legendary island", rather than the name of the tree, Brazilwood, which the Portuguese and other Europeans systematically exploited and almost eradicated for its reddish dye, and which the simple sailors assumed gave the country's name.

There are others who might prefer the name the original inhabitants of the land had for it - Pindorama.

Porto Alegre bookfair

2009-11-16T15:47:00.000-08:00

David Thorpe has found a review of his gig at the Porto Alegre bookfair. They called me a hybrid!
http://www.feiradolivro-poa.com.br/noticias_det.php?noticia=722

Pretty poor but just about understandable Google translation:
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.feiradolivro-poa.com.br%2Fnoticias_det.php%3Fnoticia%3D722&sl=auto&tl=en

Rich pickings

2009-11-13T14:04:00.000-08:00

Going home time from St Paul's School, Sao Paulo

You can tell the nannies because they wear a uniform of white slacks and tops and contain a high proportion of indigenous Indian or African slave-descendant genes. The mothers breeze by in designer jewellery and the overall atmosphere is tense. One of them, clad in a flowing leopardskin print robe slit high up to the thigh and of fairly mature years, totters by on her high heels having presumably already partaken of several caipirinhas this afternoon. This is the national drink, consisting of fermented cane sugar juice mixed with mashed lemon and more sugar and crushed ice - rocket fuel, broadly indistinguishable from the fermented cane sugar bio ethanol they put into their cars. In my bag is a kit for making it, a leaving present from the school.

You would expect mothers collecting children from school to be overall a pleasant experience. Half the people here have their ears glued to mobile phones. Most of them seem stressed. They are watched by men in black suits and shades standing arms crossed on the sidelines. All of them have memories of kidnappings. A kiosk run by another man with darker skin sells popcorn, pop drinks and ice lollies on the sidewalk while the nannies or mothers tow kids towards a never-ending parade of chauffeur-driven 4x4's or land cruisers, all obeying Henry Ford's mantra: any shade as long as it's grey, silver or black, and the windows are smoked.

The queue of vehicles is maybe half a mile along and conducted through a parody of suburbia in the shadow of walls topped with razor wire and electrified fences, bristling with security cameras, the sidewalks dotted every 200 metres with kiosks populated by security guards, paid by a collective of all residents and operating a secret code of whistles; which they displayed last night when I walked through the estate back from the town centre, inadvertently straying into this area. The whistles transmit down the line the nature of this unusual pedestrian, a rare species of invader, this time quite harmless.

It's warm and muggy and to this northerner it seems an incongruous time to be seeing Santa Claus, fairy lights and snowmen materialising on the streets as Christmas approaches.

This is my final day in São Paulo, at least until later next week and I have finished work. Later, I sip a beer outside a bar on Rua Joao Cachoeira. On the other side of the road the same migrant family in the same disused shop front that was there a week ago when I watched some official taking their details. More darker skinned people, mostly children, ignored by the thronging crowds on the streets. One of the boys changes his shirt from a wheelie suitcase. Their clothes at least seem quite new.

Smokers are few, and so are the smiles. I'm glad I'm leaving tomorrow.

My talk at Porto Alegre bookfair - this Saturday evening

2009-11-12T05:39:00.000-08:00

I will be giving a talk at Porto Alegre bookfair:

Place: Ducha das Letras - Armazém A do Cais do Porto - Av. Mauá, 1050, Porto Alegre, 90010-110, Brazil; (0xx)51 3211-5022

Time: Saturday 14th November, 18.00 hrs.

Topic: The Limitations of 'Literature' and the value of 'science fiction'. A plea for other genres to be taken seriously as 'literature' as a way of confronting the world's problems. Hopefully there will be a discussion afterwards.

I am staying at Hotel Grande Hotel Master, R. Riachuelo, 1070 - Centro Porto Alegre - RS, 90010-270. Tel. (0xx)51 3287-4411

Meeting Diego

2009-11-11T17:11:00.001-08:00

Tonight I met one of my Brazilian fans, Diego Remus, at the place where he works, The Hub, which coincidentally is right near the restaurant where we were the previous night during the power cut.

When we met he first took me to a bookshop on Avenida Paulista and surprised me by finding on the shelves a copy of my book Hybrids in English as well as Portuguese and made me stand there while he took a photograph.

I'm getting kind of used to this while I'm here. in

Diego is a specialist in social networking and electronic media, a consultant to start-ups and interested in applying sustainability theory as well as communication theory to new models of business enterprise. He set up a Portuguese language fan club for Hybrids.

He works also for Startupi, which is a pun, because the Tupi is an old indigenous culture.

We especially talked about industrial symbiosis, resource efficiency and the potential of the sustainable economy new business model to benefit Brazilian businesses. He's going to arrange for me to give a talk at The Hub on the subject at the end of next week when I'm back in town from Porto Alegri and Curitiba.

See also Blackout in Brazil

Oh yes, I did finally get my laundry back last night, and find that there is tea to drink at St Paul's British School, but really, I think the UK must get the best pick of the tea leaf crop. This grey concoction is a pale shadow of what my constitution is used to!

Hanging out in Sao Paulo

2009-11-08T07:39:00.000-08:00

It rained last night and today is much cooler and overcast. A relief from the last week. People here in São Paulo work very hard and long hours and I have found that an arrangement to meet is liable to be cancelled at the last minute for one reason or another.

Mind you, it's not as hard as trying to get a cup of tea which is in fact impossible. And of course I'm dying for a cup of tea.

At a restaurant yesterday with my DCL editor Oticilia in the Museum of Modern Art I asked for tea. I was brought a cabinet containing perhaps 30 different kinds - but I searched through them in vain - they were all fruit teas. No cafe or restaurant will serve tea! Arghh!

Today in a supermarket I finally found a packet of English breakfast tea. Heaven! However the price - five pounds for a small packet - made me think well, perhaps the Brazilians are right to drink so much coffee after all. And they do drink a lot of it -- many small cups of super-concentrated espresso.

Another thing you can't get is an up-to-date English language newspaper - or the American and English ones when they finally arrived two or three days out of date. Why do they bother in the age of the Internet?

Otacilia had cancelled two possible appointments before we met yesterday. But we had a beautiful day going to the Botanical Gardens Parque Ibirapuera and drinking coconut milk from the green fruit through a straw. I encountered for the first time a lates tree, its huge dripping roots like Rasta dreadlocks. The gallery had an excellent exhibition of non-Brazilian artists influenced by Brazilian art, including a Welsh artist, Wyn Evans. I particularly liked Mateo Lopez' lace-like map cut-outs, Simon Evans, Marjetica Potrc and Franz Ackermann.

In the early evening yesterday I found myself at an opening party for a new venue for a school for comics artists, Impacto Quadrinhos (Quadrinhos is Portuguese for comics). Luke Ross, a local (he anglicised his name for the sake of his career) who is successful illustrating many marvel comics, was giving a workshop. He is an old friend of the artist I am working with, Felipe Cunha, who introduced me to him.

He seemed very happy with the way Marvel were treating him. Me, I'm still waiting for a copy of the compilation of Captain Britain stories, containing my work, which was published in the summer. This is the second compilation - I never got the first either. Nor have I been paid a penny.

The owner of Impacto Quadrinhos, Klebs Junior, used to work for Marvel himself and still does occasionally. He told me he lamented the fact that Brazil still doesn't have a market that can accept home-grown comics with a Brazilian theme and all of the artists that he represents as an agent have to sell their work in North America or possibly Japan.

It was somebody's birthday so we went to a bar off Avenida Paulista, the commercial centre of São Paulo. We stayed there for several hours drinking iced beer and eating polenta chips. Felipe had told me the other night that it might be possible to sell a 12 page story to Heavy Metal magazine. I had sent him on Friday a story set in the story world of Hybrids, but with Major Winter of the Jean Police as the central character. All of the characters from Hybrids appear in this story which could be the first of a series and is aimed at a more adult audience. At the bar we discussed this and Felipe really likes it. Now I have to add some dialogue.

It's great that I finally have time to write fiction and have started work on my next novel The Drowning, by starting to write out the scene cards. Quite frankly I'd rather sit in the hotel and do this then go out and exploring São Paulo, traffic filled street after street after street after street of charmless buildings. It feels more like a cosmopolitan European city rather than a developing country.

My laundry has got lost. Eleanor, from St Paul's School where I am teaching from tomorrow, said she would do my laundry for me as it would cost a fortune to let the hotel do it. I had to take it to the school yesterday but she wasn't there and Rita, the woman who met us at the airport, stashed it in an office. Eleanor came over today to the hotel to see Katy and I. Katy Moran is the other author from Britain who is teaching in the School's. She didn't know anything about the laundry being left there. I only hope I can get it back, clean, before tomorrow!

São Paulo - city with a future

2009-11-04T13:42:00.000-08:00

The chocolate is melting and so am I. It is 34° and I am sitting beside a small pool on the roof of the 27th floor of my hotel. As far as I can see in almost every direction are buildings: a crenellation of 10s of thousands of high-rises. Their rooftops map an archipelago of suntrapping eyries, many of them inviting landing spots for helicopters.

São Paulo is a city with a future, confident of its ability to be the capitalist Mecca of the South American continent. Its infrastructure creaks under the strain of its 10s of millions of inhabitants, but its optimism propels it to meet and exceed expectations during the 2016 Olympics when the world's eyes will be on Brazil.

As we crawl along its sclerotic arteries driven by taxi drivers who can't read maps and rely on us, strangers, to give directions in their own city we witness a bank robbery, street urchins and rubbish recyclers pushing their carts alongside splendid temples to the banking system.

Brazil knows crises and thrives on them so, unaffected by the recession gripping the rest of the world, its burgeoning young population demanded the baubles that have satiated and bored the dwindling young population of the North.

At Frankfurt, my lovely Brazilian editor Otaclia - of the Brazilian edition of Hybrids - reports that she was was doing more deals than anyone from a northern publisher. The children of the huge middle class of Brazil need literature, and if publishers can't buy it from Europe or America they will buy it from India and China. The balance of power in the publishing houses of the world has shifted. American comics publishers seek Brazilian artists for their energy and hard work. Brought up on a diet of both Japanese manga and Marvel, they look both ways. There are more Japanese people in São Paulo than there are in the whole of Japan I was told. Can this be true? It's big enough.

The children are astonishing. St Nicholas British school in Sao Paolo has to be one of the best schools I have ever been to. English is a second language, but at all ages they are highly motivated and must be among the brightest kids on the planet for their age.

They ought to be - the school is well resourced and costs £1000 a month to attend. These sons and daughters of bankers and multinational executives are of many nationalities - Europeans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Jewish, South African, Brazilian, with a few Indian, Muslim and the odd descendant of African slaves. The small campus crawls with security guards and technical staff who in radio contact with each other, shepherding students across the public road and into buses and cars.

The threat of kidnap and ransoming is high.

Greater Sao Paolo is reputedly the third largest city in the world: 30,000 sq km of buildings, with about 10% of the 20 million population living in makeshift favelas. But this area is one of gated communities, choked by jams of the latest models of cars, stress-fueled horns blaring in rush-hour.

I am running workshops on story-telling, journalism, and my own work, and when I give them exercises the students all complete them perfectly in good time - show me this in a UK schools, apart from the odd academy school.

Looking at their work books I notice immediately that teachers correct their English - grammar and spelling - in every case; something considered discouraging in UK education, but which I consider vitally important. If children are not taught these things how can they be equipped to be fully articulate? Is the language not the blood of a culture? Infected by misuse can it flow smoothly?

Next week I am in another school - St Paul's. This will be larger, and I look forward to seeing how different it will be. Otacilia promises to take me to a 'normal' school for comparison. The wonderful Otaclia promises me many things: guided tours, a party, introductions to environmentalists trying to make the world a better place, art galleries, and a publishing deal. In a couple of weeks we go to a bookfair together in Porto Alegre, where I am to give a talk on science fiction and surrealism. This is very exciting.

Having collaborated by e-mail for 18 months, I meet penciller/inker Felipe Cunha and his colourist George at my hotel for the first time. It's as if we have known each other for years. Over iced beers we discuss the challenge of surviving and succeeding in a city so huge you are less than nothing. Felipe lives two hours outside the city -- he came by bus, Metro and bus. Where his parents moved to 20 years ago was then trees. Now a favela has sprung up just five minutes away -- the rural desperate pursuing their own dreams to find themselves trapped in the double net of poverty and prejudice.

Over an excellent Italian meal the three of us plan escapades and promise to meet again on Friday night at a party at the city's best comics store, thankful, as everyone is, for whoever invented air-conditioning.

Environmental Homemaking - and Sao Paolo here I come!

2009-10-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

I have just (Oct 29) sent off the manuscript to Environmental Home Refurbishment: The Earhscan Expert Guide to Retrofitting Homes for Efficiency, which will be published by Earthscan in June 2010. It will be published in hardback and is expected to cost £34.95. The draft cover design is right. Thanks to everyone who helped put it together!

I'm now preparing to go to Sao Paulo to deliver creative writing workshops in two schools, meet my Brazilian editor, Otacilia, for the first time, and Felipe, the comics artist I've been working with for over a year! Otacilia has promised parties, good food, fascinating peopple and a trip to talk and sign at the Porto Alegre bookfair on November 13. I feel very lucky!

I've also been working in October with Film 15 and animator Mikey Ford on the Animation Tank, with local primary school kids. They now know how important stories are - and have some great ones to turn into films in the next few months!

Take the time

2009-10-02T14:46:00.001-07:00

Take the time

How often are you able to take the time

Take

The time

Take

The time

How often are you able to notice

The blinking first star of the inking evening

The criss-crossery of branches cracking the sky

The blown sand twisting like long blond hair

Take the time

To be there

Intelligent witness

Unpressured I.

Take

The time

Take

Your time

Don't fill it

Let it fill itself

Take hold of moments

Mark them off

How often can you abscond

With minimum cost

And watch

The pink pregnancy of cumulus at dusk

The pheasant ducking under the bent hawthorn

The dug dykes draining the golfing green

It forces you to realise

Your tiredness

Why you need to

Take the time

Instead of it taking you.

Update

2009-10-02T14:30:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy I haven't blogged in a long time.

I have spent the last few months writing a book on sustainable refurbishment of domestic properties for the publisher Earthscan. I am blowing away a few misconceptions about what works and what doesn't work - things like roof-mounted wind power and air source heat pumps.

I am desperate to involve myself again with creative work. I have to finish that book by mid October, then I am doing some teaching work with kids to do with scriptwriting.

In November I am so lucky to be invited to Brazil where for two weeks I am doing some writing workshops and appearing at a bookfair in Santo Alegre. Then off to Curitiba and back to São Paulo.

I still haven't started on the fiction book for kids, The Drowning, that I got the grant to do, and that's what I really itching to get down to, and hope to start work on while I'm away. It's becoming less and less worthily about global warming, although it does figure, and more about mystery, intrigue and Welsh mythology coming alive in the future.

When I come back however, Earthscan want me to start work on a book about solar technology, but I am currently holding out for a better contract and because I want to do the Drowning.

I am taking the - gulp - daring and risky leap of selling my web design company in order to concentrate full-time on writing. If anyone wants a job let me know!

This all sounds like I am raking it in. In reality this writing business barely pays the bills. But it sure beats working for the man.

Interviews published and grant for new novel

2009-06-24T03:20:00.000-07:00

Writing Magazine features an interview with me in its June 09 issue. Download a pdf of Anita Rowe's interview with David. Also, the current issue of Judge Dredd Megazine (286) carries a long article on the development of the Marvel character Captain Britain, including part of an interview with me on my stint on the comic.

I have also won grant to write a new novel. The Drowning will be a novel about two sworn enemies - young teen boys - thrust together to survive in the wild when climate change makes them homeless. I'll be blogging about the process of writing it, and the research results. The £6,326.90 grant is from 'cyfle i greu' - 'chance to create' a scheme run by Powys Arts Forum under the Wales Assembly Government.

First, though, I need to finish the book I'm writing for Earthscan called: 'Environmental Home Refurbishment:
The Earthscan Expert Guide to Retrofitting Homes for Efficiency'. This has to be done by October and is supposed to be a definitive book on the subject!

Remembering JG Ballard

2009-04-25T03:22:00.001-07:00

In a way it is appropriate that JG Ballard should die at the point of which so many of his dystopian forecasts seem to be coming true. Only this week I was listening to Radio 4 where some middle-class talksmiths were discussing a pronouncement that the credit crunch could generate middle-class riots. As one of them said, "bring it on!"

Ballard laid bare the violence that lurks beneath the thin veneer of so-called civilisation. Many times he has documented how he was witness to this when growing up in Shanghai during the war, but it took several decades for him to synthesise the various threads in his thinking, from his earlier accounts of the effects of extremes of nature on humankind, such as The Wind From Nowhere and The Drowned World, through his numerous short stories and his more experimental work that was serialised in the excellent New Worlds magazine, to Crash, and The Atrocity Exhibition, and then to High Rise and Cocaine Nights and following three novels. His mainstream work Empire of the Sun may have bought him a larger audience, but is untypical.

The contrast between his mild manner and the ability of his work to shock middle-class sensibilities was striking. As with William Burroughs, who always dressed like a banker, he seemed to be a man in disguise sent, like de Sade - who wouldn't shut up even when put in an asylum - to remind us of the dark currents beneath the surface of the social world. I can't help thinking that Crash and The Atrocity at Exhibition weren't written firmly with his tongue in his cheek. It is their ambiguity which unsettles. Just as Waiting for Godot or Endgame can be performed as deadpan comedies or as tragedies, it seems that this devoted family man took refuge in imagining the extreme in order to feel comfort in his conventional environment. Or perhaps it was the other way round.

I feel compelled to mention de Sade again, because what really shocked his contemporaries wasn't what he did, but that he wrote about it. Let's face it, all the aristocracy were screwing the hired help anyway they could. As far as we know, Ballard himself lived a clean life, but his reflections of the sides of our existence that we preferred not to reflect upon, bear comparison in that society likes to draw a line between the acceptable and the unacceptable, but often what is deemed "acceptable" actively encourages the "unacceptable", and it is this effect that fascinated Ballard.

It seems strange that much of his work is characterised as science fiction since it has very little in common with spaceships. A well-known fan of Surrealism and Salvador Dali, Ballard claimed that science fiction of the form he knew it, which imagined tendencies of the present, and psychological reality, as the future, was the dominant and most useful literary form of the 20th century. Both Surrealism and science fiction, though themselves not popular labels, have spawned a vast territory of our collective unconscious, thousands of dynamic icons and terms of reference through every conceivable media.

The sexual aspect of car crashes as a subject for writing seemed absurd and offensive, but its metaphorical resonance is felt in every single advertisement for automobiles. Man's fetishism of the car bears a large responsibility for global warming. We are human-automobile hybrids. Our clutches engage with metal and flesh. And it is no coincidence that the car industry is one of the major casualties of the banking crash, which we watch ourselves with horrified fascination.
My own work lies partly on the territory which Ballard and Burroughs laid out, and I remain eternally indebted as a writer to Ballard's advice: "follow your obsession". Bring on the middle-class riots. Thank you James Graham Ballard.

London Book Fair 2009

2009-04-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

The Fair was quieter than previous ones. Not surprising really.

I went to a few seminars on: writing for teens, including one with Patrick Ness, who was very polished; Julia Donaldson, Graham Marks; and on the new websites for teen readers, Penguin's www.spinebreakers.co.uk, and one upcoming from the Reading Agency [this will be good].

What Teens Really Want featured real teens and they said they don't want to be patronised, they don't need genres, they want cheaper books and they decide to read them on peer recommendation and the cover, most of all.

Remixing reading for teenagers - intelligence from The Reading Agency was about their web based social network site for readers and HeadSpace, the initiative to make library facilities cool and accessible for teens and disadvantaged readers. They need authors to help out and connect with readers - contact claire.styles@readingagency.org.uk, or ruth.harrison@readingagency.org.uk.

I met the Publishing Director of HarperCollins and their Head of Content Licensing, and had a really positive response. I also reconnected with my old agent, Julian Friedmann, and had several meetings with the publisher of my non-fiction book on eco-refurbishment, Earthscan.

I've won a grant to write a new novel!

2009-04-07T05:44:00.000-07:00

I've won grant to write a new novel. The Drowning will be a novel about two sworn enemies - young teen boys - thrust together to survive in the wild when climate change makes them homeless.

I'll be blogging about the process of writing it, and the research results, as I write it. The work will begin in the summer, after I've finished my current book (which I'm just starting), a non-fiction title for Earthscan about eco-refurbishment of existing homes.

The £6,326.90 grant is from 'cyfle i greu' - 'chance to create' a scheme run by Powys Arts Forum under the Wales Assembly Government.

SCBWI Wales second gathering

2009-04-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

At yesterday's crit group gathering of the Welsh Society of Children's Writers and Illustrators were Bear Tyler, Derek Webb, Gordon Jones, Hedley England and Tomos Morgan - and myself. We discussed work by each of us, including in detail, Hedley's Sniffers, my Moebius Trip and Tomos' wonderful witch story written in Welsh and English. Tomos is an illustrator working for the publisher Y Llolfa. We met at the Orangerie, Aberystwyth.

Books for children written in Welsh are submitted to the Welsh Books Council for readers report. If this is favourable, a publisher receives a grant to publish the book.

This was SCBWI Wales' second gathering. Currently we are organising a programme of events for the future, to involve talks and presentations by Welsh publishers, illustrators, editors, Academi and the Welsh Books Council. Watch this space.

Monty Python came to Machynlleth!

2009-04-05T05:42:00.000-07:00

Last Monday was the day of the screening I organised of Life of Brian, which featured live on stage to answer the audience's questions: Terry Jones - Star & Director! and Sue Jones-Davies - Star & Aberystwyth Mayor!

It was a charity event at the Machynlleth Tabernacl in aid of Fadeco, a grassroots development agency in Tanzania, which I am on the organising committee of.

It went extremely well. Congratulations to the audience, many of whom dressed up as members of the Popular Front of Judea, or maybe it was the Judaean Popular Front! there were women with beards, people carrying sandals, and shepherds! Terry Jones was knocked out, as was Sue.

Sue is my former yoga teacher, and now the mayor of Aberystwyth, which, as was pointed out by Terry, just goes to show how appropriate was her casting as the political Judith Iscariot in the film!

I was privileged to be on stage interviewing the actors, and amongst the things they revealed were that Sue got the part because she had the same agent as John Cleese, and was told about the auditions. She went along and the Pythons were so knocked out by her passion and conviction they gave her the part.

Terry revealed many interesting aspects of the production, in Tunisia, including how Spike Milligan walked off set in the middle of shooting his scene because he got bored, and how he is still friends with most of the Pythons. Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam live not far from him in Hampstead above the heath, but he says finds John Cleese a little too critical and judgemental. John and Eric Idle now live on the west coast of America.

Terry also recounted how he is a local boy. He was brought up until the age of four in Colwyn Bay, then the family moved to a street off Camberwell Grove, Grove Park in South London. But he has a hideaway old stone cottage in Pennant, near Staylittle, which is about 8 miles up in the hills to the east of Machynlleth. This was in his wife's family and he used to come here from the mid-'60s onwards to write.

With Sue was her son, Sion, who with my son, Dion, were members of the INCA film/music project from 2005 to 2007. Sion is a lovely young man, and talked about his desire to study architecture.

Terry also talked about his new project, Adam and Eve, an animation, and the argument he is having with his producer, who changed the script he had written without consulting him (so, it doesn't matter how famous you are, this still happens). He marvelled at how self-contradictory the book of Genesis is, and how it is rich in humour. One of the animators working on the development has also worked on The Simpsons.

Discussing whether you could make a film like the Life of Brian today, he said that there was a lot of misunderstanding surrounding the film itself. He did not consider it antireligious, but about the credulity of people. "In many ways everything, Brian, Graham Chapman, says in the film is common sense: how we should get on with each other and think for ourselves. This," he said, "is pretty much what Jesus himself said." Jesus of course figures in the film so the film does not dispute the existence of Jesus. What he does complain about is how people subsequently twisted and misinterpreted what Jesus said. He also got the most animated when he attacked people like Malcolm Muggeridge and other critics at the time who attacked the film for being antireligious without even having seen it, or in one case missing the first half-hour. "How dare these people judge a film without having seen it!" he ranted.

In 1985 I interviewed Graham Chapman because he had just broadcast an Opinion piece on Channel 4 which voiced libertarian, anti-authoritarian views. These were not 1,000,000 miles from the views preached by Brian in the film, so I asked Terry if Graham had written his own dialogue. After all, he says "don't listen to me, think for yourself!" at which point the entire crowd shouts as one "yes, we will think for ourselves!". Terry responded that basically everything Brian said they all worked on together, and it's common sense. Well, that's a matter of opinion!

He also discussed another animation project based on an opera which he wrote the libretto for, and directed, Evil Machines, staged in Lisbon last year, which features singing washing machines, vacuum cleaners and parking meters, not 1,000,000 miles in concept form my own Hybrids. He is currently seeking funding for the project.

The event was a great success, both Terry and Sue agreed to be patrons of Friends of Fadeco, and we raised over £2000. Profuse thanks to both of them, and everyone who helped on the night.

Writers and illustrators of children's books gather in Wales!

2009-02-27T04:25:00.000-08:00

I have started the Welsh branch of The Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI). British SCBWI's website is: http://britishscbwi.jimdo.com/.

The benefits of being a member are - a fantastic membership pack stuffed with contacts, advice and invaluable help; access to crit groups, seminars, training, the conferences, daily support, a profile on the website, access to the mailing list and much more. I joined a year ago and have received huge benefits, made good friends and not regretted a moment.

There were 12 attendees, shown in the picture, clockwise from bottom left:
• David Thorpe (writer - Hybrids)
• Wendy Artiss (illustrator - unpublished)
• Mr & Anita Rowe (writer - Green Fingers & Grit, Stepsisters, A Chance to Dream, regular monthly contributor on 'writing for children' to Writers' News and Writing Magazine)
• Sophie Lording (Hay Childrens' Literature Festival organiser)
• Bethan Gwanas (editor, and writer of 20 children's books in Welsh, inc. the Blodwen Jones trilogy, and Ramboy, an English adaptation of Pen Dafad)
• Gordon Jones (librarian, editor for various Welsh publishers)
• Bear Tyler (writer, unpublished)
• Hedley England (writer - unpublished, director)
• Graham Gardner (writer - Inventing Elliot)
• Brian Lux (writer - Court of Foxes)
• Jenny Fell (illustrator - Second Thoughts, I Can Move the Sea).
In addition, 22 other people expressed interest but were unable to attend. A list of these is below.

After the introductions and a sampling of the free wine supplied by the director of the Arts Centre - for which thank you very much, we discussed the benefits of joining SCBWI, because none of the attendees were members, and how it differed from other writers' organisations.

We learnt about the National Association of Writers in Education (www.nawe.co.uk), and the American Children's Writing Resource Centre (www.write4kids.com).

Sophie Lording and Bethan Gwanas reminded those of us who had forgotten, of the existence of the Writing Squads in Wales, which will pay writers £200 a day to tutor on Saturdays promising young writers whom their teachers put forward to come to these squads, although typically the writing is done in Welsh. These are organised by Academi - see www.academi.org/squads.

Gordon Jones explained how the editors working for Welsh publishers typically combine many of her the roles of a publisher -- which can include proofreading, copy editing, art direction and marketing as well as editing! A book is considered to do well in Welsh if it sells 1200 copies. The most successful book ever published in Welsh, not a children's book, sold 10,000 copies.

We discussed how membership of a national organisation with a strong networking component like SCBWI could benefit Welsh writers from wider exposure, since they are frequently unknown outside of the principality.

Sophie Lording explained that she is looking for ideas from writers to help her work with the Hay festival. This work includes going into schools, exhibition stands and so on. The programme for this May's festival is 90% booked, but there is room for anybody who wishes to propose an exhibition. Could SCWBI have a stand there?

Academi Is the Welsh organisation which supports writers, and we decided that we if we spoke together as a group we would have a stronger voice in Academi for children's writing.

We discussed the value of Readers Days, and how we should get involved. See for example: www.readingagency.org.uk.

in terms of what we want to do in the future, the following ideas were floated: inviting Welsh editors, English editors and agents to come in from London, librarians, and illustrators agents.

Gordon Jones offered to organise a panel involving Welsh editors. I offered to continue with fund raising and coordination.

The next gathering will be a critique discussion group, on Saturday, 4 April at 1.30pm, venue to be decided.

Apologies from: Sue Moules, Jenny Fell, Brian Lux, Graham Gardner, Jane Moran, Maria Hayes, Henni Tremlett, Nicola/Paul Burgess, Derek Webb, Femke van gent, Liz Whittaker, Katrina Michael, JIm Bowen, Phil Thomas, Herbert Williams, Frances Thomas, Wynford Ellis Owen, Alan H, Dahlian Kirby , Tomos Morgan, Eleanor Burnham, Penny, Jenny Sullivan, Mererid Hopwood

I like playing games - but not the Blame Game [poem]

2009-01-28T02:49:00.000-08:00

Don't talk to me about climate change
It's coming out of my ears
I'm feeling uneasy that my low carbon diet
Is cooked on an oil-fired range.
I don't dare fly 'cos I'll be sent to Coventry
By the greener than thou eco-tocracy
I'll be sent by bike
Doesn't matter what I like.
My oil's peaked too soon - I need eco-Viagra.

I've got eco-phobia - A fear of greenies.
They're worse than an attack of the Blue Meanies.
When I see a wooly jumper coming down the street
I'll cross over so as not to meet.
Green meanies point and say
"You're not wearing hemp - which is Green Heaven sent
To solve all evils it has the ability."
My Lycra two-piece is a liability.

I want Tesco's - it's all about choice,
Everywhere else's got it so hear my voice.
"But choice is bad. We should do what we're told.
Burning carbon's like hoarding gold.
Learn to do without, don't live in the past."
But I want to enjoy it while it lasts.

In the Gospel according to George Monbiot
Satan's sat at the wheel of a Ford Mondeo
He has Jeremy Clarkson's hideous face
And Richard Branson's plan to conquer outer space.
The boot's full of tins of greenwash
And vocabularies of total tosh.
But just because I want to have my cake and eat it
Shouldn't mean I have to beat it
When the Green Police come calling
To check my electricity bill is falling,
Leaving their filthy carbon footprints
All over my pearly chintz.

'Cos we know they've got their ipods,
Their PCs, their digi-gods
Their mobile phones with low carbon ring-tones
Homes full of green bling from the Natural Collection
A selection of fair trade organic confections
An oil-guzzling jalopy to take them shopping
From their so-called self-sufficient hill-billy small-holding
Well to paraphrase David Byrne I wouldn't live there
If you paid me in shares in a holding company.

I want all my lights on
I want the tv always on
I work hard, I've a right
To throw away half my food if I'm in the mood.
I care about polar bears and receding glaciers
But my life's also precarious and I'm not nefarious.
I didn't make the mess we're in
I'm a victim of 21st century capitalism.
I didn't ask to be addicted to oil
Jail the pushers don't roil me.
Who made you judge and jury?
I'll resent you for making me feel ashamed
Take the plank from your own eye -
I've been framed.

Rags-to-riches: the resonance of the Obama narrative

2009-01-19T15:30:00.001-08:00

It does seem almost miraculous that a man of African descent should become President of the United States of America, the son of a Kenyan immigrant and the grandson of a man who was tortured by the British for his part in the Mau-Mau rebellion.

There are many explanations as to why the American people elected him; undoubtedly much credit is due to his highly impressive moral character.

But as a storyteller, I believe some value arises from the archetypal narrative type which the Obama story represents, one that is at the heart of the American dream: the rags to riches story. This story form is dear to Americans because many of them still believe that it is possible for anyone to become their president, no matter how humble their background. The Obama story epitomises the democratic ideal perfectly.

In its classic form, the rags to riches story has five stages:

The first stage is the 'call', where the hero is in a low state, perhaps unhappy, usually in an impoverished home. For Obama, this might be as a child in Hawaii, or it might be in New York, 1982, when he lived in an apartment in a sixth-floor walkup on East 94th Street, "a drug-ridden neighborhood filled with gunshots". At this stage something happens which calls the hero to the wider world that could lift him out of his miserable state. In the Cinderella story, it's when she gets her invitation to the ball. It's debatable if there was a specific moment when Barack Obama felt the call to serve - his was more a gradual evolution. It might have begun in his second year at Occidental College, Los Angeles, when he began to heed his mother's warning that he shouldn't be partying too much; prompting him to leave for New York. It might have been during his time there, from 1982-1985, where he studied and thought a great deal. Or it might have been in Chicago where he threw himself into the task of helping disadvantaged black people get what was theirs by right at the Calumet Community Religious Conference. His boss, Gerald Kellman, later said: "He wanted to make it from the grass roots and he wanted to learn". It was while there that he became convinced that the most serious problems he confronted couldn't be solved on the local level. So perhaps the real call was here, when he changed course again, for Harvard to study law, a path which many an aspiring politician was supposed to follow.

The second stage is when, out in the world, there is initial success. Cinderella gets to dance with the Prince. Aladdin finds his magic lamp. Our hero becomes a Senator in Illinois.

But in the third stage there is always a setback. Cinderella has to return home when her chariot becomes a pumpkin again at midnight. Dick Whittington is forced to leave London. David Copperfield's child-wife dies. The Sorceror tricks Aladdin's Princess out of his magic lamp. And in The Gold Rush, Charlie Chaplin loses his girl and fails to find gold. In Obama's case it was in the year 2000, when he lost a Democratic primary run for the US House of Representatives. As setbacks go, it wasn't a big one, but it taught him a necessary lesson. He still had more to learn, and remained at that level for a further four years.

The fourth stage of the rags to riches is when the hero has victory in his sights but must face his final ordeal. Undoubtedly, this point in the Obama story comes when, after becoming only the fifth African-American Senator in U.S. history, and the third to have been popularly elected, he decided to run for president. This campaign set numerous fundraising records, but before he could win the ultimate prize he had to defeat his most fearsome and implacable enemy. In a sense, this was not a Republican, John McCain, but two Democrats - the Clintons. Boy, would she not give up. But the reason why ultimately Hilary and McCain lacked the spontaneous popular support expressed by ordinary people for Obama, is because the Obama story is so much more appealing and inspiring than the story arc represented by either of them, which have, let's be honest, more in common with tragedies (after all, there are very few victims of Obama's pursuit of power, but one can think of more than a few metaphorical corpses littering the McCain and Clinton wakes).

The Obama story is inspiring precisely because of its resonance as an archetypal narrative, because it is the story we want to believe. It's one that we all remember from the tales told to us at bedtime in our younger years. Not just Cinderella, but Dick Whittington, Puss in Boots, Aladdin, Moses, and Joseph. Then as we grew older in the forms of adult stories such as Moll Flanders, David Copperfield, Great Expectations and in modern times Rocky, Citizen Kane, Scarface, JK Rowling's personal story, The Pursuit of Happiness, Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, and this year, Slumdog Millionaire. Rags-to-riches is even the basis of many hugely popular reality television shows such as Big Brother, The Apprentice, American Idol and Joe Millionaire (in the States).

The Democrat demagogues knew of its power. It's why, in the 2008 Convention, they requested all speakers to deliver a rags-to-riches story.

Obama's enemy fought till the bitter end. She would not let up until way beyond anyone else would have conceded. It was, like all good stories, nail biting till the final moment. But of course he was victorious -- his followers and fans would say that virtue won out, for once in politics, against absolute lust for power.

In classic rags to riches stories, the fifth and final phase is purely and simply success. The hero gets his princess, or vice versa, and wins the kingdom. Everyone lives happily ever after. The hero's inner virtue has been recognized by everyone at large. The slipper fits Cinderella because she deserves it - being humble and pure, unlike the ugly sisters, McCain and Hilary Clinton. In some versions of the story, the hero himself has to undergo an inner transformation for his virtue to manifest. In other versions, her previously hidden virtue is finally acknowledged by everyone.

Because of this, the reign of the heroine or hero over their kingdom, or city in Dick Whittington's case, is fair and benign. And here is where this narrative form achieves its greatest resonance and attractiveness to people at large, especially the underclasses. So much hope is invested by people all over the world, not just in America, that Obama will make their problems go away, or at least lighten their burdens.

It is almost scary. From Pashtuns to Pakistanis, and Afghans to Africans, we want him to dissolve the war on terror, save us from climate change, enervate the economy and propel us from poverty. He is, sadly, not from a fairy story, wreathed in magic. Remember how we felt when Tony Blair was elected. Remember how it fell apart. We want it to be different this time because that's what the story tells us it's going to be like.

We can only wait and hope that this time, in some way, history really has delivered us the best possible leader for these, the worst of times. We hope that Obama's success will enrich us all.

Welcome to the New Year

2008-12-30T01:19:00.000-08:00

I wish you a New Year
more beautiful than you are now
more rewarding than the darkness foretold.

A New Year with no comparison to any gone before
(full of bad experiences perhaps, lost opportunities or wasted time)

Not a New Year that is painted up, glossed over, made up, made over
But one rebuilt from the inside out,
reconstructed from the roots of your being.

Not a New Year of hollow laughter and ignorant abandon
There is no need to drink in excess
to wish health for others or rose-tint your view.

There is no need to make a list
Of good intentions and file them away.

There is no need to cry
and regret the past, consumed by guilt.

From January, change things. Make them light.
Reward justice, fairness, truth and honesty.
See clearly, feel spontaneously.

Taste what you eat, savour whom you touch.
Greet the morning with a smile and hope.

Begin with your right to live with gusto.

To win a New Year that deserves this name,
you, my friend, you have to earn it. You have to try again.

I know it's not easy, but try, try hard
and when you fail try again, because you will fail
but this is life and there is only one.

It is within you that the New Year begins
and hope, and new life forever expectant.

(With thanks to Laurinha and Carlos Drummond de Andrade)

Calling all childrens writers in Wales

2008-12-11T05:13:00.000-08:00

All other regions of the UK have local branches of the Society of Childrens Book Writers and illustrators, who meet regularly fdor crit groups and socialising, except for Wales.

See the website britishscbwi.jimdo.com/networks/

I've taken on the job of being the Wales coordinator. Ideally we'll be mid-Wales, meeting in Aberystwyth, and I'd like to see people come forward to coordinate in NBorth and South Wales.

Academi is the Welsh agency supporting writers. I have posted an appeal for any writers - published or not - to join the Welsh branch of SCBWI at
academi.org/opportunities/i/133697/

They can also contact me directly.

The Academi website is also worth a browse for competitions etc.

Before Watchmen - Footmen!

2008-12-05T06:35:00.000-08:00

I have moved - this time more permanently, please universe. For the first time in three years all my stuff is in the same place. I've lost count of how many times I've moved my pillow in that time.

I am putting my life back together like a jigsaw and seeing the picture that emerges. I found a piece two nights ago: the only comic strip I ever wrote AND drew. Four pages. Click and be awed. It is unbelievably dumb.

page 1
page 2
page 3
page 4

I want to meet an illustrator who can develop the character concepts with me into a totally different book series proposal, if they're crazy enough.

Evidence that the recession is biting publishers

2008-11-20T02:52:00.001-08:00

Evidence that the recession is biting publishers: a new rejection letter today for my latest novel We Can Improve On You, begins, as always, by praising it - "a really interesting and provocative idea, and very clever", then goes on to say "We are being quite careful about what we acquire at the moment, as we are to put more effort and financial investment behind fewer books", which the editor admits is "depressing to hear, I know, but essential in the current trading conditions".

Anecdotal evidence from other writers suggests a similar trend is occurring elsewhere.

Rejection letters come in many forms, but few as bizare as another I received this week - from an agent, who wrote that despite thinking "both these books could well be published" ... "I just feel that your connection with cyberspace would fall on ignorant and rather unreceptive ears!"

This means that an agent for children's literature is admitting she feels unqualified to market material the content of which is key to the experience of many kids today - social networking sites and the like. This is also, alas, not uncommon - many agents of maturing years began their career in a former time when publishing was a more genteel profession.

One feels that the publishing world is moving so fast that agents are struggling and most writers have a diminishing chance. The pyramid of the 'pyramid model', whereby only a few authors receive most of the marketing, is becoming narrower at the base: you either write fully commercial best-sellers that will ship by the barrel-load in Tesco's or don't get published at all.

writers and illustrators

2008-11-12T08:17:00.000-08:00

Wales for Africa - Stories of Success

2008-10-21T02:12:00.000-07:00

I have just completed a commission from the Welsh Assembly Government to write a book about how Welsh communities and groups are linking with African communities - to mutual benefit.

I've had the privilege of meeting many selfless, inspiring people while researching this - including Wales' only black fair trade producer, Martha Musonza Holman of Abergavenny, and Angela Gorman, who has saved many lives of pregnant mothers in Chad.

The 12 case studies will be published by Cynnal Cymru - Sustain Wales next month, in print and on their web site.

Back to Main News Page

Satirica is out!

2008-10-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

I have two stories in this hardback collection of satirical speculative fiction published by Cowboy Logic in the States. They are Perfection, and a Doc Chaos story - The Last Laugh.

Perfection is a cautionary allegory about addiction, glamour and politics.

The Last Laugh contemplates the end of civilisation - and imagines the glee of Doc Chaos as we fell prey to the lies we wanted to believe.

You can buy it on Amazon for around £9 - for 24 hardcore tales.

I've also just finished working on a book of case studies - 'Wales 4 Africa' for the Welsh Assembly Government - and meeting totally inspiring people!

Let's run the banks like e-Bay and Wikipedia

2008-09-18T02:52:00.000-07:00

Let’s not despair that human nature always causes ruin just because the banks are collapsing. Individuals can make a fantastic difference, and together, given a leap of imagination, can find a solution to global financial inequality in an unexpected place.

In a week when capitalism's Goliaths have fallen so swiftly, not by the action of many Davids, but because they were made rotten to the core by their own rapacity, I have been gleaning potential solutions to some of the world's most pressing economic problems from a quite different quarter.

I am researching a book on links between individual and communities in Africa and Wales. This means I am travelling around Wales talking to people who are changing the lives of others thousands of miles away, and whose lives themselves are being transformed in the process. Individuals like Angela Gorman, who, just because she saw a BBC documentary in 2005 about women dying in Chad during childbirth for want of a simple and cheap compound, has given up her job to raise money to help them, and as a result slashed the mortality rate from 17% to under 2.5%, exceeding a Millennium Development Goal. These drugs cost just 60p a pop, and a woman would need five to seven of them. Yet they had, until her straightforward intervention, been dying by the hundred. In short she has achieved in a year what the United Nations failed to, so much so that they have asked her to repeat her success in neighbouring Liberia. [http://www.hopeforgracekodindo.org/]

On Wednesday I met Denise Lord from Pen-y-Craig, in the Rhondda, an ex-coal-mining area classed as 'deprived' in the lexicon of EU or government grant-dispersing bodies, and which has had millions poured into it in an attempt to help its children. Although Denise says the kids she runs workshops for are "materially rich, with their mobile phones and Sky boxes" compared to those she has visited in the slums of Cape Town, the problem is that compared to the Cape Town kids they are "spiritually poor, while the Cape Town kids are spiritually rich and materially poor". [http://www.valleyskids.org/news_details-13198.html]

I asked her to explain. "We have so much to learn from these people," she replied, "And I think among the most important is humility. The kids there have to struggle to get to school so they value it. The kids here take it for granted, so they don't. They bunk off and think it's cool to drop out and get into trouble."

'We have so much to learn from these people' is a phrase I've heard from every one of these extraordinary-yet-ordinary individuals I have talked to so far. But Martha Musonza Holman is one apart. She left her two sons, aged 9 and 12, behind when she fled Zimbabwe in 2001 to come to Wales, where she now resides running a fair trade business called, appropriately, I Love Zimbabwe [http://ilovezimbabwe.co.uk]. She and her partner David struggle to import crafts made by people from her community back there to sell here, so she can send the profit back.

It might be easier to trade in hedge funds. To start with she has to contend with officials in Zimbabwe who demand a cut which puts the price up. "You may think they're corrupt," she says, "like some financial traders. But they're just trying to survive themselves in the worst of economic conditions. However we have a consignment of ceramics that has been sitting in a port for three months and we can't bring it here to sell."

The bankers on Wall Street and in the City, who paid themselves billions of dollars in bonuses, don't have the excuse that they were just trying to survive.

"The last consignment we received cost us £1130 to bring here, but I can only sell it for £1200," she complains. Furthermore, sometimes she sits in the Abergavenny market all day and sells nothing. "People in Zimbabwe think it's simple. We are all rich in the West, they believe, so it's easy for me to sell their crafts. But it is not!" The market decides what sells. If no one buys, or if the profit is miserable, her people back home will starve, fair trade or not.

Here is a clear case where the market needs intervention, to help the poorest. That is exactly why the Welsh Assembly Government has commissioned me to write this book and help Martha and all the others to find a bigger market.

Fair Trade is about transparency. Those who pay can see, should they choose, that their money benefits the community where the producers live, and that the producers receive a fair wage. Should not all trade be fair? Should not all banks be transparent? Why do we expect one system to apply to one type of financial transaction, and another, of supposedly far greater import, to be shrouded in secrecy and occluded by hopelessly obscure rules?

The few exceptional people I am meeting are passionate, inspirational, hard-working and often unpaid, as they try in every way they can to help people so far away. Why do they do it? Because their own spirits are enriched and their lives gain meaning by doing so - without the need for religion.

I struggle to understand human nature when I compare their generosity to the insatiable greed of the equally exceptional few bankers who have sucked dry the trough that millions, also far away, are now unable to feed from.

So what is the solution I am advocating, besides transparency, fairness and humility? I believe that it is glaringly obvious. It's a solution dreamed up by ordinary people and millions use it every day. It is a model which others have proselytised for other spheres of human endeavour but few have dared suggest could equally apply to the financial world. When I suggest it you will doubtless laugh. You will snort. But after you've done that, consider it further with me.

We all know that a lack of regulation has brought the crisis upon us. We all know that this has encouraged human greed. I believe that particular aspects of human nature, multifarious as it is, are manifested in different environments purely as a result of what is acceptable in that environment. If you approve excess, excess is what you get. If you reward honesty, then that is what you get.

Every day, millions of people use e-Bay and Amazon and other online marketplaces, buying and selling to other invisible individuals whom they will never meet. They do so with trust and faith because they can clearly see their trading history. Bad deals get bad feedback, and we can all read it. Yes, sometimes scams occur, and sometimes people get ripped off because they don't bother to check the trader's history. But compared to the majority of transactions these are rare.

If, thirty years ago, I had told you that in the future people would trade to this extent with others whom they would never meet and, by and large, have faith that they would not be defrauded, you would have called me hopelessly idealistic. You would have said that such a thing was only possible in a small community where everyone knew everyone else and the high probability of repercussions for bad behaviour would help to curb it. Yet here we are, and, thanks to simple rules, effective monitoring, and modern technology, it happens all the time and millions of dollars change hands every day.

Furthermore, Credit Unions [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_Unions] and community banks trade cash and help individuals and communities bootstrap themselves up without recourse to high interest rates or rapacious moneylenders. In these constituted environments individuals or groups invest money, and other individuals or enterprises borrow it, in a transparent way. They are owned and controlled by their members. The average U.S. credit union has $93 million in assets versus $1.53 billion in assets for the average U.S. bank, so they are commonly smaller - not a bad thing, since if one fails it is not the end of the world.

So here is my horribly naive, simplistic and obvious solution, in outline, to the problem of global financial ineqality and the dark side of capitalism. Here is my mad plan to render these monstrous predatory dinosaurs of banking and insurance extinct once and for all. Here is the route to allow small and medium sized traders - everyone in the world, eventually - access to capital fairly and in confidence: use modern technology, e-Bay type rules and checks and balances, transparency and fairness, to apply a credit union style model to mutual one-to-one exchanges.

Even if those traders be large concerns, they must still follow the same rules of transparency. Everyone's credit history will be visible to all. And if you can see your own history so plainly, would you not be more prudent yourself?

The same rules would apply to everyone, not one set of rules for us and another for the bankers. As with peer-to-peer networking, file-sharing, and indeed Wikipedia-style collaborations of any sort, we would all be bankers, whether lenders or borrowers. If millions of otherwise unconnected people working together can build something as essential and huge as Wikipedia or e-Bay, why can't they build lending institutions, independent of banks? I am not an accountant, or a banker. I can't work out the nitty-gritty of how it would work. i don't need to. I believe in human nature - someone else will, or a crowd of people working together.

If this were done then maybe, just maybe, we might learn some spiritual wealth and humility; by doing things the slightly harder way - and following some simple rules that we collaborate on to make up.

Campaign for the book Charter 2008

2008-09-10T01:07:00.000-07:00

A few days ago i mentioned this campaign, described by Alan Gibbons at the Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group of the Society of Authors conference last month. It is about to be formally launched and already has 245 signatories including Michael Rosen, Philip Pullman, Anne Fine, Sue Palmer, Beverley Naidoo. Malorie Blackman and David Almond.

But why have such a campaign? The 2008 Year of Reading has been a great success. There have been many exciting initiatives such as the Boys into Books campaign. In many ways, reading has never been more popular. Millions of books are bought and devoured by a huge reading public. Many authors are major figures in public life.

These successes can disguise very serious problems, however which are undermining the place of the book and reading for pleasure in national life. Here are some of the challenges we face:

public library closures- sixty last year and more planned
a loss of professional library staff- down 13% between 1995 and 2005
more untrained volunteers instead of qualified library staff
fewer books in schools, (according to one report, a 15% reduction while there has been 28% rise in spending on education)
a shift from books to computer services
the closure of school libraries to make way for ICT suites
the sacking or down grading of both public and school librarians
the closure of school libraries
the marginalisation of reading for pleasure and the reading of whole books in many schools as teaching to the test replaces the pleasure of acquiring knowledge for its own sake

Given the present economic difficulties, many of these challenges are likely to become more pressing.
We, the signatories of this Charter commit ourselves to campaigning for the following:

The central place of reading for pleasure in society
A proper balance of book provision and Information Technology in public and school libraries. We welcome the integration of new technologies but believe that they must not erode the key place of books and the need for a healthy and expanding book stock
The defence of public libraries and librarians from attempts to cut spending in a ‘soft’ area
An extension of the role of the school librarian and a recognition of the school library as a key engine of learning. All staff employed in school libraries to have access to appropriate and adequate support and training
The recruitment of more school librarians. It is a national scandal that less than a third of secondary schools has a trained librarian
The defence of the professional status of the public and school librarian. We oppose downgrading. In some places this has reduced librarians’ salaries by up to half
The promotion of reading whole books in school rather than excerpts
A higher profile for reading for pleasure in schools, including shadowing book awards, inviting authors and illustrators to visit, developing school creative writing magazines
To support the sustainability and future development of Schools Library Service provision nationally.

Supporters of the Campaign for the Book do not see themselves as competitors with professional associations, trade unions and existing library or school campaigns. We seek to create a national network to help coordinate the efforts of all who want to protect the status of the book and reading for pleasure. We will offer our support to local campaigns and initiatives.

It is time to stand up for reading.

It is time to campaign for the book.

For further information contact Alan Gibbons at: aagibbons@blueyonder.co.uk.
Alan took paprt in a debate on the writers' and publishers' podcast show Litopia. You can listen to it by accessing: http://podcast.litopia.com/?p=212.

A gathering of authors

2008-09-05T08:28:00.000-07:00

I don't know if there is a collective noun for a gathering of authors, but last weekend I went to the Society of Authors conference for children's writers and illustrators in Cambridge. There were certainly a lot of them.

I enjoyed meeting a lot of people I had only either read or chatted to online, as well as some old friends.

Highlights were:

- William Nicholson's extremely funny account of his life and writing career -- how he started off wanting to be Proust, and ended up writing Gladiators and Shadowlands

- Philip Pullman's tub thumping, a barnstorming speech against age banding in which he said that if we allow it to go ahead all of civilisation will grind to a halt and the earth will turn to a desert. This won riotous applause. We all then felt terribly sorry for the publisher from Scholastic who had to get up and follow him and speak in defence of age banding. At the end of it most of us were still against age banding, and the publisher apologised that they never consulted all the writers before going ahead with it, and promised that no writers will have to suffer age banding on their book covers without consultation. Of course this does not necessarily mean that it will not go ahead....

- Alan Gibbons launched his campaign in support of reading, as lots of libraries are being closed by local authorities and schools seeking cutbacks, and they are also not appointing qualified chartered librarians to fill vacancies. Writers who sign up to the campaign -- and I will post the website later -- as well as teachers, local authority staff, librarians themselves, and anybody else, will be asked to sign petitions against specific closures that we find out about, and perhaps speak at a public meetings.

- Michael Rosen, who lamented the fact that kids nowadays can go through the whole of their school years without reading a whole book, just extracts, and are not taught to enjoy reading for pleasure merely reading functionally and to help them fit into the job-centred world.

- Malorie Blackman, who is lovely and immensely approachable.

- David Almond, ditto. He spoke with Polly Dunbar about his collaboration with her on My Dad's a Birdman

Thank you to everybody who organised it, in particular Enid Stephenson.

An interview in Brazil

2008-09-05T08:26:00.000-07:00

The Brazilian version of Hybrid Nation has just published an interview with me. For those of you who can't speak Portuguese, here it is in English:

1- How Hybrids was born? Does your work as an environmental journalist influenced your writing in this book?
Hybrids was born alive and kicking in a nest made from all my obsessions! Some of its roots lie in an earlier work, Doc Chaos, some in a postcard I picked up on holiday in Barcelona in 1984, while others are to do with my disability -- I have mild cerebral palsy -- and my interest in comics and the work of Philip Pullman. I try to keep out most of my environmental knowledge, except in my description of the landscape around the Centre for Genetic Rehabilitation, and the swollen snake of the River Thames which has flooded part of London due to global warming. Hybrids is about our obsession with technology and the human, emotional and political repercussions of fear of plague. Some of this comes from a work by Susan Sontag called Illness as Metaphor. In an earlier version of the story set in the Hybrids story world, it was a comics script called the Gene Police, and Major Winter was the main character if you can believe that! I sold options to Marvel comics and to Eclipse comics but neither actually published it. That was in the 1990s. There is much more in some 2007 posts on my Sympathy For The Moon blog. I talk about the difference between a hybrid, a mutant, an android and so on.

2- Some people say that great novel transports the reader and it's like watching a movie. Hybrids can evoke that same experience and maybe one of the reasons is the book's structure that seems wrote to be easily adapted to the silver screen. Do you agree with this and if so, was it something intentional?

Yes this is completely intentional. The turning point for me as a writer was when I did a course in scriptwriting for film and television. I have written TV and film scripts, and plenty of comics which I have also edited. I see things in my mind's eye and write them down. I try to keep the suspense going. However I am not too specific -- it's best to let the reader make their own images in their minds.

3- I'm curious in how exactly Creep works. In Hybrids we have people with guns and musical instruments attached to their bodies. How low the technology can be to "merge" in a human body?

Creep can only work in connection with a gadget that works on electricity. Some guns have electronic parts, at least they do in my future, and this is what Thom Gunn has. The musical instruments are electric guitar and electric bass. Later on in the projected Hybrids series, as scientists discover more about how Creep works, this is related in the narrative. We already know from volume 1 that it is to do with nanotechnology.

4- What was your reaction when you knew that Hybrids would have a Portuguese translation and be published in Brazil?

Absolutely delighted! I have just received a package with the book in and all the publicity material and it looks fantastic. I can use my English and Portuguese editions side by side now to try and learn Portuguese! I think Brazil is a fantastic country of many contrasts and a vibrant culture, and I love much of the films and television that I've seen from your country.

5- Do you have plans to visit Brazil someday?

I can't wait to visit you. It's also an amazing coincidence that the artist I have been working with on adapting Hybrids to comics, Felipe Cunha, lives near Sao Paulo and I will take the opportunity to meet him for the first time as well. I would also like to go and see some rainforest and visit Curitiba.

6- What can you tell us about the sequel?

Books two and three are plotted out. The climax is amazing. Something happens to Johnny and Kestrella that as far as I know has never been put in a book for teenagers before! The journey is full of surprises. The plot thickens and gets much darker with much more at stake. I can't give any details away however.

Johnny Online launches Hybrids in Brazil

2008-08-26T04:41:00.001-07:00

Hybrids - Hibridos in Portuguese - was launched last week at the Sao Paulo bookfair. They hired an actor to play Johnny Online - here are some great pictures!

Terrific DCL editor Camile Mendrot with Johnny Online:

Now Brazil has a Hybrid Nation!

2008-08-08T07:35:00.000-07:00

Now, Johnny Online fans have started a Portuguese version of his blog, Hybrid Nation: nacaohibrida.com. and, if you use the social networking tool of choice in South America, Orkut, you can be his friend! He has his own profile here.

Meet Johnny and Kestrella at the São Paulo bookfair!

2008-07-22T02:51:00.001-07:00

Hybrids is to be published in Brazil next month, by Editora DCL. It will be their lead title and will be heavily promoted at the 20th International Book Biennial of São Paulo between 14-24 August.

Events promised so far include a "Johnny Online" and a "Kestrella" walking around the Bookfair to talk about the book (an actor and an actress dressed like the characters with make-up and hybrid add-ons to make the characters alive)!

They will give away a vacuum packaged bunch of goodies including the book previews with a label or a tag informing that the contents are free of any virus and is safe to touch and read!

More later...

Genre and Literature

2008-07-04T04:19:00.000-07:00

I have written this in response to an interesting post by Juliet Marillier on her blog Writer Unblocked. She is discussing whether genre fiction is 'literature' or not. One comment on her blog argues that 'literature' is a genre as well, and I would agree. But my discussion below, argues that all of this is irrelevant.

As I've written earlier, I begin with JG Ballard's assertion that science fiction is the only literature (yes, I'm calling science fiction literature) which has accurately reflected what has happened in the 20th century. Of course he is talking about a particular kind of science fiction, the kind that Star Trek fans would not recognize. His work was often marketed as science fiction and still is, even though everybody knows that it is JG Ballard, basically, and not "proper" science-fiction. In the end, he has succeeded in defining his own genre, kind of in the way that William Burroughs did, an author also originally marketed by Pan as science fiction.

My novel Hybrids was promoted as science fiction by HarperCollins, but for me it was not. Just because it had people merging with bits of electronic commodities didn't make it science fiction for me, although you might call me naive as a result. It was the themes that counted.

I've gone down this road even more with my latest work, and the touchstone which I am using is Kazuo's Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. There has been much written about whether this is science fiction or literature, and everybody generally agrees that although the subject matter -- cloning and breeding people for operations and spare parts -- is in the ballpark of science fiction, the treatment of it is not. And the reason is -- and this contradicts what Juliet says -- that it does not present a consistent storyworld.

A science fiction writer would normally create a whole self consistent world and describe its features. Kazuo doesn't do this because he is interested in the emotional lives of the characters, not explaining the wider world in which they find themselves. We already know what our 'real world' is like, we don't need to be told. We accept the 'real world' whether it is self consistent or not (and some would argue that is you not)! So you wouldn't stop the narrative of a 'work of literature' to explain how a mobile phone works when a character starts using one. And yet science fiction writers do sometimes stop the narrative to explain something about their story world for readers.

Whatever label you put on a book defines its readership to an extent until the writer is sufficiently well known that people will follow his/her work. S/he will break out of the genre. Terry Pratchett is Terry Pratchett. Interestingly, the Raw Shark Text, by Steven Hall, although arguably fantasy, was marketed as non-genre by Canongate Books, presumably in order to maximise its potential readership.

Then again there is the old chestnut of whether someone like Franz Kafka or George Orwell would be marketed as science fiction nowadays.

It doesn't really matter -- they are unique, and perhaps what we should all be doing as writers is concentrating on finding our unique voice and not worrying about genre.

Hybrid Nation - Johnny Online's own blog

2008-07-03T04:19:00.000-07:00

Unbelievable - Johnny Online has started his own blog - just like in the book, Hybrids. It is here, at Hybrid Nation

The kids are alright, Hail Lewisham, publish Hybrids 2, and stop age banding!

2008-06-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

There's such a lot of great work going on to encourage children to read widely.

I was down in Lewisham and Forest Hill School last Thursday where they presented me with a lovely trophy for winning the Lewisham Book Award.

Then they got me asking questions at their annual books quiz. There were teams of three or four Year 9 children from each of seven schools in the area. There were seven rounds of 10 questions each, along the lines of who wrote what book, which book does this character belong in, and which book is this the first sentence of? There was a very wide range of books covered, and not all children's literature or contemporary. I would say Roald Dahl was the most frequently cited author.

There was even a section on So You Think You Know Shakespeare, which was one of the highest scoring rounds - they do know him alright. I'm not going to say who the winner was, because all the kids did extremely well and I was really impressed with how widely they read and their enthusiasm.

The campaign to persuade HarperCollins to publish Hybrids 2

Oh, yes, and that the kids, teachers and librarians in Lewisham all like Hybrids so much, that they are writing to Gillie Russell, the head of children's books for older readers at HarperCollins, to ask her to commission the next books in the series.

If any of you want to see this happen too, far be it from me to suggest that you write to Gillie Russell yourself as well... It wouldn't be such an awful mistake for them, as the first book's so popular, would it?

No one can understand why they're so far refusing to publish it.

No To Age Banding

I've also added my name to Philip Pullman's campaign No To Age Banding, to stop publishers age banding books. Books choose their readers and readers choose their books, they don't need marketing people telling them what to read or not to read.

It's patronising and condescending and doesn't help anybody, in my humble opinion. If you agree, sign up yourself on that web site.

Ribbon cutting and techno-addictions

2008-05-13T03:43:00.000-07:00

I felt very honoured to be asked to open a new school library at St Matthew Academy, London, last week. This is another brand new Academy building, a bit weird in the contrast between its corporate grey steel-and-glass scale and some of the kids who are as young as 3!

So I had to cut a ribbon and then had a very interesting discussion with a lot of Year 7 and 8 kids on young peoples' attitudes to computers, mobile phones and their technology use, some of the themes of Hybrids.

Nearly all said they themselves thought they used technology (PCs, mobiles) too much. This contrasted with just one third of the group (140 kids) I'd asked the same question of in Sefton borough, Merseyside, where Hybrids is shortlisted for another regional award.

I'd been there the previous day and met 140 kids from ten schools, signing in two days about 150 books. The event was in the Crosby Civic Centre, which is near the beach where Anthony Gormley's Another Place sculptures stare out blankly at a new windfarm out to sea. People were sunbathing.

I put the difference in response between the two groups down to the perceived danger of being on the streets in south London - where a teenager was killed just a mile away two days later. They said they didn't know what else to do with their time.

When I modestly suggested "read" this was a weird idea for some! They thought this was probably due to the addictive nature of technology use and - as pointed out by one girl who'd recently arrived in the UK - because the technology is so cheap, that everyone owns it and uses it to communicate with everyone else.

I have been invited back to Lewisham to formally receive the Lewisham Schools Book Award and host a quiz for the kids on June 5 at Forest Hill School, Dacres Road, London, SE23, at 1.30pm. I'm so looking forward to this, as i love meeting the kids and hearing their viewpoints!

The Sefton SuperReads award is announced on June 21.

On the road - in Merseyside and London next week

2008-05-01T10:29:00.000-07:00

Next week I'm coming out of my hermit's cave in deep mid-Wales and hitting the road.

On Wednesday 7th May I'll be making two appearances at the Civic Hall in Sefton, Merseyside, answering questions from kids from the local schools and anyone else who cares to drop in (at 11.15am and 2.15pm) and signing copies of Hybrids.

Then it's off to London where that evening I'll be at a Children’s Book Circle event 'Are Series Books Ruling The Shelves?' at Penguin Books on the Strand.

The following day, 8th May, I'm opening a new library at the brand new St Matthew Academy, St Joseph's Vale, Blackheath (11am) (I must sharpen my scissors for the ribbon-cutting!), and again there's a signing.

If you're in the neighbourhood, consider dropping in!

Tagged!

2008-04-23T05:23:00.000-07:00

Oh dear I've been tagged - by Jane Volker.

The rules of this game are:
a. Link to the person who tagged you.
b. Post the rules on your blog.
c. Write six random things about yourself.
d. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
e. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment at their blog.
f. Let your tagger know when your entry is up

I have to come up with 6 random things about myself. This is hard. Anyway here goes:

I was a co-scriptwriter on an awful movie made for Comic Relief in 1989 and starring Jerry Hall - we had a day to write it and 3 days to shoot it and it was called The Fastest Forward!
My favourite dessert is probably sherry trifle - but without custard - and my favourite drink is Irish Coffee
I sometimes confuse blues and greens and left and right
I'm a vegetarian (but like seafood and very occasionally some organic duck!)
I love cycling and swimming, but hate running
My favourite band is Muse.

The six people I am tagging are:

What a long time this takes. Now I got to tell everyone too...

Two stories in a new anthology

2008-04-18T07:25:00.000-07:00

I have two stories being published in the summer in an anthology of satirical speculative fiction, Satirica.

They are Perfection and Doc Chaos the Last Laugh.

Perfection follows the story of a young man who finds the secret of success and happiness, not just for himself, but the whole country.

Doc Chaos the Last Laugh revisits the subject of my novella, Doc Chaos: The Chernobyl Effect. The great doctor is at the end of civilisation. And guess what? He wants to take all the credit for humanity's downfall. But will he, poet Arthur Rambo, or arch-Taoist Yin-Yang Bradley, all sharing the same fortified mountain retreat, be the last one standing?

Satirica is out in hard cover edition this summer. Paperback edition next summer. The publisher is US based Cowboy Logic.

Other authors include:

Edward Morris
Tomas L Martin
R.J. Astruc
Victor Giannini
John Parke Davis
Bill Housley
Steven J. Dines
Joshua Allen
Dudgeon
Gary Cuba
Mike Philbin
Kevin Spiess
Roger Haller
Jason K. Chapman
Dan Kopcow
Paul Mannering
Lawrence R Dagstine
Anden Sharp
Dan Marcus

A novel for barcode readers

2008-04-15T03:14:00.000-07:00

In the future, novels will be written for machines to read.

When they have merged with machines, some hybrids will have barcode scanners.

For their benefit here are the first few pages of Hybrids in barcode language.

This means Hybrids is the first novel to be published in barcodes. Awesome, eh?

(Now, presumably, novels will begin to be written by machines... Maybe some already are!)

At the mercy of publishers

2008-04-05T06:59:00.000-07:00

Author Jane Volker has written a nice piece about Hybrids and HarperCollins and the plight of writers vis-a-vis some publishers on her blog, Pastures New. Thanks Jane!

Buy signed copies!

2008-04-04T07:34:00.001-07:00

My web site has just been updated and you can now by signed copies of both my novels direct from me using PayPal.

Click here to visit it.

Also, I’ve just been contacted by the commissioning editor at Chicken House, my favourite children’s book publisher, to ask to meet me to discuss some book proposals I sent. We’ll meet next Friday. Fingers crossed!

Hybrids wins the Lewisham Schools Book Award

2008-04-03T05:06:00.000-07:00

When I blogged last month that the winner of the presentations competition of the Lewisham Book Award was a team from Prendergast and Knight’s Academy, what I didn’t say was that they were presenting my book Hybrids.

I have just found out that also Hybrids has won the Lewisham Book Award, which is a joint event between Lewisham Secondary Schools and Lewisham Public Libraries celebrating the National Year of Reading 2008. This is wonderful news, and my thanks to them.

Below are slides from the wnning team’s presentation, as presented by: Kate Deedman & Rukshana Uddin Yr8 - Prendergast School and Alexandra Truong & Nicole Akano Yr8 - Knight’s Academy.

Each team was told that they represented a publisher who wanted a bookseller, represented by guest author, Sam Enthoven, to buy their book. They had to persuade him to buy whatever title they were allocated, from the six shortlisted books, even if it was not their favourite. They were given approximately an hour and a half to make notes and to transfer these to a five slide Powerpoint presentation.

The other books on the shortlist were:
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
The Black Tattoo - by Sam Enthoven
The Wave Runners - by Kai Meyer
The Book of Everything - by Guus Kuijer
The Outlaw Varjak Paw - by S.F. Said

My thanks also to Natalie & Michael Powell Davies Yr9 & Yr7 & Judy Burnett Yr8 – Sedgehill School who also presented Hybrids very well, and to the organisers of the event and competition Chris Sivajnanam, Sedgehill School Librarian and Joanne Moulton – Children’s and Young People’s advisor - (Public Libraries), and to the judge Sam Enthoven, plus all the other school librarians.

It’s great to see so much enthusiasm into getting kids reading.

Fingers crossed now for the Sefton Super Reads award (Liverpool) where Hybrids is also shortlisted.

Now, come on HarperCollins, commission books two and three!

Well done kids!

2008-03-17T04:12:00.000-07:00

The picture above shows a team of students from Habershers’ Aske's Knights Academy secondary school. in Lewisham. They are involved in voting for the best book in a shortlist of 6, one of which is mine, in all the secondary schools in Lewisham, south London.

I met them a month ago when I was invited to the school, and their presentation has been judged the best in a competition run at a local library.

I’m not surprised. I was totally impresesd by this school. Run by a charity that took over a failing state school, it has been turned around, keeping the same students and teachers, in just two years, to achieve outstanding results.

The new school building, while seeming corporate, is conducive to focussed learning. Boys and girls are taught separately. There is a fantastic sports hall also available to the people on the surrounding council estate.

When I asked the English teacher who was my contact there what the secret of its success was, she said it was the fact that the new headmistress was always available, always popping in and out of classrooms, and not tucked away in an office.

The staff felt there was always back-up when they needed it and the kids seemed to have a very positive attitude that I know only comes when they are taken seriously. The head’s philosophy is that ALL children inately want to learn and the staff’s job is to facilitate this.

Why can’t all schools be like this? Good luck to them all!

An interview with me

2008-03-16T09:37:00.000-07:00

The literature 'zine 'Neonbeam' has published in its latest issue (4) a long interview with me. It's full of all kinds of highly revealing stuff.

I am quizzed about my approach to life, how I go about trying to find the truth and strive for simplicity at the same time, where I get inspiration, what I am working on now, and the conflict between wanting to change the world and being content with what I have. I am asked whether writing is an agency for change, or an end in itself, and what's the most important thing in the world: friendship or writing. I give an answer, but I'm still unsure.

You can download Neonbeam 4 here.

Thank you Sammi.

The State and Religion

2008-03-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

Buddhist monks are standing up for freedom and self-determination of their country's people again - and being killed for it.

This time, in contrast to Burma, the US and UK are less supportive because we can not apparently upset China. There is too much trade between UK plc and China plc,unlike with Burma.

This raises once again the vital question of the role of religion in politics.

We are supposed to think nowadays that religion is bad and produces bad politics.

But there is a very interesting piece on religion and secularism that attacks the anti-God squad of Dawkins and friends by John Gray in yesterday's Guardian.

He argues that -

- forms of socialism and communism have led as much to war and torture as monotheism;

- secular states are still open to religion and still promulgate war and torture (the US, UK);

- you can no more eradicate religion than religion would like to eradicate the sexual drive;

I would add:

- the same applies to war and torture;

- except when you consider Buddhist states!

Gray uses the word 'religion' almost exclusively to refer to monotheism and not to Buddhism, like that in Burma and Tibet/Nepal, and other non-monotheistic religions.

I do not want to be a Buddhist; I am a humanist; I believe in the power of myth - the power of the stories we tell ourselves to move the human spirit to extraordinary places; I believe liberal democracy to be the most advanced form of society yet conceived; but that it is still self-deluding and highly vulnerable as a result; it contains notions of individual freedom that have been allowed to be exploited by unfettered capitalism; I believe that while education is a good thing (Dawkins believes it should be used to eradicate the illusions of religion), the content of education must be more open-ended and evidence-based; I believe liberal democracy does not have to be allied to capitalism but there is no example of a successful model of this.

And I believe there is no difference between the behaviour of modern China and that of a modern large corporation, benefitting its directors.

What we're seeing in Lhasa is a graphic and direct version of what happens more slowly, invisibly and less directly everywhere as a result of this type of behaviour, which is no more driven inevitably by religion or even secularism than is the will to trade.

I believe instead that the potential of human nature is manifold, to behave or manifest in any number of ways; and that therefore it is necessary as a society and as an aim of good global governance, to develop social and legal structures which reward and encourage constructive human behaviour and do the opposite to destructive tendencies...

Whether this happens through religion or through law and education is ultimately immaterial, as long as we recognise the means as being contingent, not absolute, which evangelical religion does not.

What about a ’fair trade’ ’organic’ publishing imprint?

2008-03-02T04:16:00.000-08:00

As a writer I feel the same way towards the retailer and publisher as a farmer feels towards the supermarkets - they call the tune, if the profit margin isn't right and the niche targetted it doesn't matter how quality your product is, you're out.

Editors expect agents to do their work for them. Agents expect you to have paid one of the legion of bottom-feeding 'consultants' to get your submission up to scratch so they'll even look at it.

It's a buyers' market and you have to be not just excellent, marketing driven, and very lucky, but prepared to be poor, especially if you're relying on the internet for your audience. Only a few can get to the top of the pyramid.

It's similar in the music industry. Music currently is going thru a big shakedown. My partner's got a band and her own label and finds it almost impossible to get paid gigs - how do you make being a musician pay when everyone expects music to be free?

She reckons in a couple of years musicians are going to have to come up with some radical new ways to get noticed and an income stream. The market's super-saturated.

Writing's the same.

So where can we go from here? In the end, the way things ar now, I think the reader is losing out.

Here's an idea: what about a 'fair trade' 'organic' label where you know the writer gets a good deal and the editor really cares? As with supermarkets, the industry might find the public will pay the premium.

David Ian Rabey

2008-02-28T02:36:00.001-08:00

My good friend David Ian Rabey has a new book out.

He's celebrating his fiftieth biurthday and the success of the fact that he is now one of the few British Playwrights to have all his work in print, as Intellect books have completed his written work so far with the publication last week of -

Lovefuries, which contains three plays The Contracting Sea, The Hanging Judge; Bite or Suck, (ISBN 9781841501840)

My favourite is Bite or Suck, an erotic love-hate story.

David's work is uncompromising, and risk-taking. We share a passion for comics and JG Ballard and this shows in his work.

More info: Doollee.

_________

There's a new item on the lowcarbonkid blog where I alert everyone to the fact that the nuclear industry wants to relax the rules on the transportation of radioactive materials. Don't let them do it! Write to your MP! The world is dangerous enough already.

Hybrids - the comic: sneak preview

2008-01-18T02:01:00.000-08:00

The first inked page of a comics version of Hybrids - by Brazilian artist Felipe Cunha. Currently seeking a publisher.

Hybrids shortlisted for regional award

2008-01-13T07:58:00.000-08:00

Hybrids has been shortlisted for theSefton Super Reads award – secondary schools in the Sefton borough of Merseyside.

School librarians have chosen books, and groups of pupils will read them all, and meet regularly to discuss and review them.

At the end of May each group votes for their 1st, 2nd and 3rd favourites (from 6 titles) and from this vote an overall winner is chosen.

In praise of Henry Miller

2007-12-24T10:12:00.000-08:00

The following piece was written for Dogmatika to celebrate Henry Miller's birthday, on 26 December.

The Lucid Rebel

Good writing reinvents the world, and when I say it reinvents the world I mean it reinvents the way we see the world, since there's no other source of knowledge about the world. And when I say it reinvents the way we look at the world, what I really mean is that it reinvents the way we look at ourselves. I.e., it reinvents us. It follows that writers, by writing, reinvent -- or change -- themselves. I've always used writing whenever I am in a hole -- a psychological tight spot -- to write myself out of it. Writing as Rapunzel -- knitting words into a rope to climb out of the tower in which I am imprisoned. All writers do this to an extent, but there's one who above all showed me the extent to which it was possible, with sheer fearless bravado and imagination, to invent a new version of yourself which you then become. He literally wrote himself a set of clothes fit for a king and then put them on and went swaggering about town -- whether in Brooklyn, Clichy, Paris, or Big Sur -- with the attitude of a street punk but the sensibility of a Buddhist Rimbaud. I used him as inspiration to transform my own life and become the writer I wanted to be.

It is sad that Henry Miller is no longer fashionable and I would like to add my voice to those who think this should change. Without Miller, many subsequent American authors from the Beats through Norman Mailer to Charles Bukowski, Luke Reinhardt or Thomas Wolfe would have had to beat a much tougher trail through the publishing undergrowth. In the history of 20th century literature in Miller is often bracketed along with DH Lawrence for the simple reasons that they both challenged the sexual mores of the time and that their obscenity trials occurred virtually in parallel in the early Sixties, Lawrence's in the UK and Miller's in the States. Although they have much in common -- another thing is their insistence that sex and philosophy be treated on an equal level -- and belong in many ways to their age, in many other ways they are very different writers. What Miller did, which Lawrence couldn't quite manage, is to liberate literature from the plot. He made himself the subject of his work -- not just his real life, but an imagined life which makes the real life so much more bearable. Paralleling developments in modern art, he made himself the work of art.

DH Lawrence did it for me first, but that was probably inevitable given that I attended the same school as he and grew up a few miles from where he grew up. His landscape was my landscape, though separated by a few decades. Furthermore, I fell under the rather poisonous spell of Sons and Lovers at the too-vulnerable age of 15 or 16, with devastating effects. I had to wait until my twenties before discovering Miller,which was a far more liberating experience. I devoured everything that he wrote, especially loving the free jazz, intoxicated epiphanies that constitute passages of Black Spring or the Tropic of Capricorn. The reason for the affinity became clear when writing my second appenticeship unpublished novel, Desire and Misery, which was based on the film Orphee, by Jean Cocteau. It was then that I came across B Mathieu's inspired book about Miller, Orpheus in Brooklyn, which details the many parallels between Miller's own life and the myth of Orpheus in the underworld.

The myth of Orpheus is the eternal story of the passage of the artist and his return as inspired outsider. Every true artist must confront and conquer the daemons in themselves in order to understand human nature and yield its secrets -- and this is a continuous process. The fact is, there aren't enough people like Henry Miller. Like Walt Whitman before him, and the many other thinkers and writers he often wrote about, Miller sees the beauty and glory of life in 16 dimensions, in unlimited colours, and embraces the dark side, the dirty side, just as much as the beautiful side with uncritical love.

Following the relationship between Miller, his wife June, and Anais Nin, his first patron, was for me just as fascinating as trying to fathom the relationship between Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Miller was one of the first male writers to write realistically about women's attitude to sex -- and of course this was part of the reason for his being banned in his own country for over 20 years. It's true that he was hated later by feminists -- but really I think this was a little hypocritical and over-ideological of them, if you compare his work to the erotic writing of his lover Anais Nin.

It's easy to forget that for many, many years he was championed by critics and artists, venerated by pilgrims and became cultural hero -- or villain for many. He was the Brooklyn boy who went to Paris when everyone else was going home, he lived the stereotypical life of the starving bohemian. In 1939 he went to Greece, to visit Lawrence Durrell. While there, he soaked up the narrative basis of the Colossus of Maroussi. Forced to return to America by the war, he presaged Kerouac's journeying across America with his own year-long odyssey, which resulted in his devastating critique of consumerism, the Air-conditioned Nightmare, another book which was prophetic in its content. Settling in California, he started to paint and took on the mantle almost of a Buddhist sage. The writer from the Paris Review, who interviewed him in 1961 described his voice as "mellow, resonant, a quiet bass with great range and variety of modulation".

Given the vast range of his output, one of the things that is really interesting about Miller's ouevre, is that he claimed that his best work occurred when he was not thinking. He said "A writer shouldn't think much. I work from someplace deep down: when I write, I don't know just exactly what's going to happen." He's talking about an ideal place which writers love to reach. It the one where there is no separation between yourself and the words, in fact your entire self just disappears. Like he says, he "becomes saturated with it, you can't sleep". Miller called these passages written under this kind of spell "cadenzas". It is a type of lucidity which happens only through total immersion in your work. It is through this Orphic immersion that Miller transformed himself from a Western Union postal worker to a world-class writer. He dived off the Brooklyn Bridge and came up for air in the Seine.

When we survey the modern publishing landscape, we realise how boring most of it is. Writers are packaged, they don't take risks, they write to formulas, to have their works turned into movies. Their audience is immediate, their worlds are unquestioned by themselves. Yes, there is sex everywhere, but there is little tenderness or wisdom. The point is that Miller was a rebel intoxicated by language -- we need more of them now.

© David Thorpe, December 2007

Maddie spotted by Hubble Telescope

2007-11-23T03:11:00.000-08:00

NASA has suppressed the picture above taken by the Hubble Telescope proving that Madeline McCann was abducted by aliens.

The picture was taken the day after she was reported missing, but has not been given to the Portuguese investIgators because the Portuguese did not send any soldiers to Iraq.

The Saucer has reportedly since flown to the Andromedan system, which is outside Portuguese jurisdiction.

Police are now working on the theory that her parents are also aliens, sent to earth as part of a plot to infiltrate the NHS as a prelude to selling it off to an interplanetary Hedge Fund.

The Imagined Nation

2007-11-05T02:03:00.000-08:00

Well so teenage drinking is up, so's junkfood eating and illegal drug use. Today's young people just wanna satiate their superficial sensory instincts and hang tomorrow.

This sounds like a pretty sane response to the state of the world to me.

The Blair gene-ration, supposed to have been programmed to fit the demands of the modern, 24/7 world-class economy, and at the same time guilt-tripped to sickness on a "We've fucked up the planet so you've got to save it" mantra, have apparently decided they want out of the responsibility.

They look (if they bother at all) at politicians and see "representatives" who do the usual say-one-thing-do-another Janus trick, pretending that we can have business-as-usual and avoid environmental and social melt-down.

They don't buy it.

If the leaders abdicate their responsibility, what do you expect the sheep to do?

Depression is the sickness, self-numbing the treatment. In a double bind, where each avenue leads nowhere useful, paralysis results.

Looked at another way, it's patently obvious to anyone that with all the global sustainability indicators divebombing, the human race, with its skyrocketing population growth and resource demands, is killing its host with its parasitical activity.

If God put humans in charge with dominion over the beasts, that was his big mistake. The children couldn't take that level of responsilibty. They hadn't grown up enough.

In the face of this future, what would you expect powerless individuals to do? With all our leaders pretending that everything is ok, what can we do?

Each gene-ration has the chance to start again. It's the onus of each gene-ration to renew hope.

Hope sometimes seems a precious currency. Even more precious is imagination.

Imagination is the one resource kids have in spades. Even if every attempt has been made by the schooling system to drill it out of kids, many of them are still full enough of the "What if...?"s and the "Why not...?"s to make a difference.

Imagination, coupled with faith in its fruits, is needed now more than any other time. Kids have to envisage and live a different way or face death by tabloid prophecy.

Imagination is currently primarily channeled into music, but also into graphic arts, video, celebrity wannabe-ness, fashion, games - all of which are often just a way to suck kids into the system and hoodwink them with fake glamour.

Real imagination rejects the forms and contents presented, rejects the rules of the given game, and breaks them. It invents its own.

Imagination is needed to vision another way of living that isn't about money, jobs, economic growth - ie, buying useless stuff that either breaks or is out of date next week - but which is about you and me, and friends and building meaning back into everyday life.

Imagination is your secret weapon. Imagination is what they can't take away from you.

They'll want to - so they can sell it back and maintain control position.

Imagination is drumming on a skin of facts with sticks of poetry.

Imagination is painting on a canvas of science with a dancing brush.

Imagination transforms victims into escapees, it makes you the revolutionary's revolutionary.

With imaination they can try to pigeon your hole, but you've already flown.

With imagination they can try to peg your square but you're no longer a round there.

With imagination you're armed to the kilt with parallel worlds.

With practise you can make your imagination so strong that you can even make a memory seem to belong to someone else. Make them believe in your alternate world.

People learn by example, and you have to find the appropriate examples that work for you. If you can't find them, invent them.

Role models? They are not much to be found in celebrity magazines. They are the pied pipers, the evil faeries that lure you along the dangerous path.

Everyone must find and be their own hero and heroine.

As you journey through this workaday world, perhaps on the way to school or college, work or shop, and you see the bored faces of everyone else on train, bus or sidewalk, ask yourself why they are bored, and if they dislike it as much as you. What untapped potential is in their minds, and what are the creative uses of such cynicism.

We live in a narrow world, and there is so much more to explore. Reach out and take it to avoid the living death - and at the end a death full of regrets.

I realise this is a risky post to put up. Maybe it's just me. But you know, after years and years of trying, I can't see the world in any other way - I become more and more convinced:

There's not just one road less travelled; there's thousands.

Build your own Imagined Nation.

Keep Britain Normal

2007-10-22T03:33:00.001-07:00

It began with MRSA. A mutated bug no drug could kill. Then that mutated further...
Infection produced alarming symptoms. Soon the entire population lived in fear... No known treatment. The ill afraid to go to hospital... a death sentence.

A panic-stricken government introduced the Biological Security Act. It set up the Biological Security Agency...

Seconded from the military, their suited medics patrolled the streets responding to calls to the freephone number on all the posters and tv/internet ads...

As strange changes began to be wrought by the bugs on their victims 'Keep Britain Normal' became the mantra of all mainstream political parties....

The new profile artwork is by Felipe Cunha. Hybrids is itself hybridising into a comic. We have perfected character sketches. A teaser is coming before Christmas. Watch this space.

Doris Lessing and the Nobel Prize for Literature

2007-10-15T02:28:00.000-07:00

Doris Lessing has at last been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Better late than never - although she has no shortage of gongs on her mantlepiece.

Many people today under 40 will never even have heard of her. This was certainly true of 20-30 year olds 15-17 years ago when our paths crossed.

I had commissioned a graphic novel from her. It's called Playing the Game and was eventually published by HarperCollins when they bought the rights to all her work. It was part of a series intended to match 'literary' authors - like Kazuo Ishiguro, Angela Carter and Ian Banks - with the best comics artists - like Lorenzo Mattotti, Dave McKean and Francois Schuitten. Sadly it was the only title published in the end.

I visited her house a number of times. She came across as a wonderfully alive person, with piercing blue eyes, and a genuine interest in everything you had to say. She really wanted to understand and would ask searching questions, listening intently to the answers.

At dinner, her adult son, who lived with her and has learning difficulties, hovered in the background, a source of guilt and responsibility for her - as well as of material for at least two of her works.

I had thought that such a giant of literature would not be concerned with mere comics, but her desire to push creative barriers knew no limits - not even comics!

Her choice of story was unusual - a fable, and one written in the form of an aria, which the artist was intended to illustrate. She wanted it to be an opera too (she'd just worked with Philip Glass on an opera) but I don't think this ever happened.

There came the task of choosing an artist. I came over with a large pile of books and we went through them. And you know what? She picked out the darkest, most heavy metal, and accomplished of the lot - Simon Bisley, who was drawing Slaine and ABC Warriors for 2000AD at the time and had a massive following, particularly among bikers, of which he was one... and a body builder.

I was surprised and pleased. So I asked Simon - who had never heard of her. He was too busy and anyway didn't like the story.

This pattern continued through all the other artists she liked and approached. The next, for example, was Duncan Fegredo, who I had 'discovered' and worked with since he was at Leeds art college, and who also draws astonishingly and with dramatic electric dynamism.

As we progressed, it became apparent that - most comics artists being working class and anarchic in sensibility - Lessing's reputation and style meant nothing to them.They all turned down this job - which some might have considered a dream job - one by one.

In the end the artist who eventually agreed was a hack, to be honest. An unexceptional and arrogant young typical Marvel artist who couldn't relate to the work either. No one liked the result, least of all me.

So what is it about Doris Lessing's work which doesn't speak to the recent young? After all, she has written many times about the quest of youth for meaning, and the difficulties of growing up in problematic surroundings.

The way I see it is that both the attraction and disadvantage of much of her work lie in its naivety. Perceptive in matters of the heart, her style and political idealism leave her at times exposed. She is at home when writing about things she has direct experience of, such as Zimbabwe, and awkward when not.

At the time when I began working on this, I was still involved in the grassroots anti-capitalist political scene in London. I was part of the collective producing Monochrome newspaper.

A couple of years earlier her book 'The Good Terrorist' had appeared. We all felt this was intended to be about people like some of us - for example Sarah Gellner, daughter of historian Ernest Gellner. So we all read it - but it did not resonate. It was not grounded in reality, we felt, and therefore was making a judgement about 'middle-class' 'revolutionaries' based not on research but on ideology. We laughed at it. What did she know?

But it's the ability to continue asking questions and experimenting that marks the true artist. Whether you arrive at the 'right' answers is not always relevant - you're bound to get it wrong sometimes. So I do believe that after a lifetime of such practice, Lessing every bit deserves her prize from Stockholm.

Hybrids has been shortlisted for award

2007-09-25T03:41:00.000-07:00

Hybrids has been shortlisted for an award in London. School librarians in Lewisham and their students have chosen it for the second annual Lewisham Book Award.

There are 12 state secondary schools in Lewisham, in south east London. They say that students have already started reading the books, and will be voting for their favourite on the shortlist in February, with the winner to be announced in March. They will need to read all six to be able to vote.

They add: "We also expect many students to write reviews of the books which will be posted on the Lewisham VLE (Virtual Learning Environment)".

The other books on the shortlist are:
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
The Black Tattoo - by Sam Enthoven
The Wave Runners - by Kai Meyer
The Book of Everything - by Guus Kuijer
The Outlaw Varjak Paw - by S.F. Said

"Thank you for writing such a thought-provoking and thrilling book," they conclude.

Whose collective memory is it anyway?

2007-09-17T01:49:00.000-07:00

ADS, or attention-deficit syndrome, is the metaphorical disease of the age. Just as junk food creates unfit bodies so junk culture produces unfit minds. By consuming it the current generation lays itself weak for exploitation, its minds open for colonisation by commercial and political interests.

What is required is the cultural equivalent of wholefoods, slow food, organic, fair trade, fresh and local nutrition - but what is this? Where are there examples of mind vitamins, spiritual enzymes, emotional minerals, intellectual roughage - brain nutrition?

It comes to something when the utterances of ex-Stone Roses front man Ian Brown seem to be extreme - reference his new album and the interview in this weekend's Guardian Guide.

Looking back, the most dystopian past visions of the future have turned out to be the most accurate, and the most radical ideas have turned out to be the most necessary.

But the flow of mindless mediocrity and short-termism - both short term thinking and short attention span fostering - which the global capitalist system and its politicians have been foisting on us for the last two decades, has produced a generation that barely seems to understand the meaning of words like 'radical' or 'protest'. The recent climate camp at Heathrow, for instance, was attended by around only 1800.

That's why every generation has to keep questioning. Every generation has to understand the status quo and attack it. If it fails to understand, recognise and attack it will be ruthlessly exploited and its life wasted, sucked dry, spat out at the end as a useless husk full of nothing but regrets.

For example, this is why we have a credit crisis now - millions with a massive millstone of debt round their necks that will take a lifetime of pointless, soul-destroying labour to pay off. They seduce you with baubles, get you into debt and then you're hooked into the system.

Kids, don't get into debt! It's a trap! Don't believe marketing and advertising. It should be banned! Question everything. Believe nothing.

Teach yourselves what they don't expect you to know! But how?

The problem is that each generation has to learn this for themselves. They have to start afresh. They have to reinvent protest.

But the enemies - mainstream history and the status quo - have an excellent inter-generational memory - a version of history. They fill your head with it at school. They fill your head with it in the media. And they have their own vast, extensive archives. They have honed tactics, resources, laws, etc. etc. They therefore have a massive head start.

As a result, normal conventional protest (Live 8, Live Earth, marching against the Iraq war) doesn't stand a chance. It will always be out-propaganda'd, out-manoevered, or beaten into submission. Hence terrorism - the last resort of the powerless.

Because, it's in the nature of opposition that much of what happens from its point of view is undocumented. Therefore there is little inter-generational memory.

For example, I was involved in the Leveller magazine's successor, Monochrome, in the '80s. This lasted about six years and put out bimonthly issues - 10,000 print run - all free - financed by adverstising and the Leveller Graphics studio, itself set-up to pay off the debts of the Leveller Magazine, the most radical mag of the late '70s (its heyday was the ABC (Aubrey, Berry, Campbell) Official Secrets trial of 1979). Some of the covers of this you can see in 'my pics' on my myspace.

Naturally, both journals took inspiration from the Levellers and Diggers, the seventeenth century's give-the-land-to-the-people revolutionaries.

In the sea of history, Monochrome has disappeared without trace, as no one documented it, not even the book about the '80s counterculture media 'No Way To Run a Railroad'. (The same is true of the excellent Vague magazine, featuring Jamie Read, Jon Savage and Tom Vague.) I have a complete set of Monochromes that one day I must digitise.

Now in the '90s I had a conversation with the manager of that excellent band, the Levellers, and established that although they also took inspiration from the original Levellers, they had never heard of the Leveller Magazine or Monochrome. And this was barely a decade later. No inter-generational memory. No foundations, no learning from experience, no sense of tradition.

Most people haven't a clue about the rich and noble tradition of political protest, radical thinking, extreme art, revolutionaries, riots, strikes, working class movements, emancipation struggles, human rights struggles, and more, that has been going on in this country since the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

Where do you go to find out about it?

My dream, then, is for an alternative online and perhaps offline college and library, a wiki-style place where all this stuff can be stored and learnt. A resource, a memory, a constantly self-updating treasury of radical history, culture, ideological, methodological, and strategic weaponry.

Who will be its curators and lecturers, its librarians and chancellors?

As Tony Benn once said, you can't trust what you read in their media; you have to have your own.

Why we fight for freedom

2007-09-01T15:55:00.001-07:00

Before I explain why, let me ask you a question: Is satire dead?

I mean, is it possible to have political satire in an age where everything that the satirist can possibly imagine has already been exceeded by somebody somewhere? Our society has become a caricature of the kind of nightmare society writers used to imagine 20, 30 or 40 years ago. We gratefully watch rubbish and consume rubbish while CCTV cameras follow our every move and our every spending habit is tracked remorselessly. Robot police drones police pop concerts. Someone becomes Prime Minister without being elected. We imagine we live in a sensible country while over half of the world regards us as a jingoistic menace.

Surely, political satire is only possible in an age when people care about these things. Instead they laugh at the idea that anyone could care.

Perhaps instead it is possible to satirise the satirist who attempts to write satire -- Armando Iannucci, for example, who has been co-opted as the latest court jester. You can't get away from him these days. Why do the powers that be find him so irresistible? Another Oxbridge darling. He paid somebody to tell him what is really going on inside the Cabinet so he could put it in fictional form and astonish us. He paid someone else to write in the expletives. This is not satire, it is plagiarism. It is bad journalism.

So why should I care? Why do I care? What does it matter if I care? It matters nothing, nada, nihil.

In fact as of last night I have decided and resolved not to care any more -- I am giving up caring. And I am someone who used to care a lot -- after all, I was a Guardian reader (that's a joke). I supported lots of charities. I campaigned extensively on the subject of climate change. I believe completely that in the next 80 years millions of people are going to die as a result. Not to mention thousands of species. As if enough have not been sacrificed already on the altar of so-called progress.

I must have cared in the past -- I bought the Big Issue. I wrote passionate articles about important subjects as if I cared about them. I raised money for poor people in Africa. When friends came to me for advice and help I would do my best to help them. Even people I didn't know very well. People think I know something about computers and ask me to sort out their problems which I almost invariably have done. All of this is now going to stop.

I am no longer going to put my clothes neatly away at night. I am going to leave them in piles. I am not going to religiously clean all the surfaces in the kitchen every day and do three lots of washing-up every two days. I am not going to clean the car ever again. If the houseplants need watering and are about to die, what do I care?

I am not going to judge people -- they can do what the hell they like for all I care.

If I don't care about anybody else, why should they care about me? I don't want them to care about me. If they care about me it means they are watching me, and if they're watching me they are judging me, and if they're judging me I can't do what I like.

Besides, most people, it seems to me, especially politicians and corporate executives, seem to get away with not caring. They just do what they want to do and sod everyone else. I've always been someone who goes out of their way to, for example, pass on a bit of information that I get that I think will be useful to someone I know. I scrupulously recycle and watch my energy usage. No more.

My head has become too full of what other people think ought to be there, and what I think up other people think ought to be there. My time has become too filled with things that I do because I think I ought to do them or because somebody else wants me to. Now I'm going to be like most other people and just do things I want to do. And you know what? I don't care. I don't even care if you care that I don't care.

It's very liberating, not having to care. I feel free -- lighter than air. I am like the people of Iraq -- liberated.

Now I understand why we went to war, in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are supporting freedom, we are fighting for freedom. We are fighting for the freedom not to care, to stop caring. Why should we care that the world is going to pot? Tigers are about to become extinct. People are dying of malaria and beri-beri because pharmaceutical companies can't see a profit in producing a cure. Leprosy is still around. Children and pets are mistreated all over the world. Why should we have the burden of worrying about this?

Well, we don't. We are free of it. We are convinced that it will happen whether we worry about it or care about it or not.

In truth, we are fighting for freedom from the burden of having to care about the consequences of our actions. If these consequences occur on the other side of the world or if they occur in our own backyard it doesn't matter. Like the Catholic faith and belief in God, I am absolved of having to care because I believe in freedom.

Freedom is therefore the only thing worth caring about.

Thank you President Bush and all other previous American presidents for continually reiterating the reason why we have such big armies. No other country values freedom so highly, therefore America must be right.

It follows that it is right not to care. And that anyone who does care is an enemy of freedom.

That's why we fight for freedom.

(And a big Hah! to anyone who thought I was going to say it was because we want the freedom to satirise.)

"It is the government’s pandering to mass fear ... of which we should be afraid"

2007-08-27T04:32:00.000-07:00

A pleasing new review by Donal Cumiskey in Inis - the Childrens Books Ireland magazine:

Hybrids is a thought-provoking novel that delivers a fast-paced plot, good dialogue and engaging characters.

As the story progresses it becomes evident that it is not just another 'live and let live' moral tale of inclusion and social harmomy, but a warning to readers of the danger of public panic and misuse of technology.

The Machiavellian actions of the corporations and government agencies and the differing responses from volunteer groups, freedom fighters, the media and the international community are all too real to people growing up in the modern political climate.

Thorpe injects a seriously Orwellian feel to the book, illustrating how it is the government's pandering to mass fear and not the victims of the disease of which we should be afraid.

Readers aged 13+ should enjoy an exciting read with substance from this great debut.

More Hybrids reviews

2007-08-02T05:39:00.000-07:00

These have just come in:

"When our teenage reviewer took this into a school as part of a lesson showing what you read at home, the book drew an appreciative crowd and was the star of the show. Not a bad reaction for a first novel! David Thorpe has cleverly tapped into the teenage psyche with awesome precision. The main characters are totally reliant on the gadgets that teens now take for granted and this book takes that obsession to a different, almost believable level. Oh, this is clever stuff and you will just love it! Bring it on!" - From Bump to Grump

"Seriously spooky" - CY ezine, which made it Book of the Month, as did Collins Educational

"An inventive, dystopian world whicvh plays with the role of technology in our lives and as part of our humanness. The plot hurtles along ... a rattling adventure" - Books for Keeps

"The writing in Thorpe's debut is tight, and the dialogue convincing..... It would serve as a good jumping off point for debate about ethnic cleansing and human nature with young teenagers, as, like all good science-fiction, it's parallels can be clearly seen in the real world." Write Away (Featured title)

Full list on Del.ic.ious

The Next Big Thing: Who will be the next JK Rowling?

2007-07-25T02:45:00.000-07:00

A Texan journalist, Kevin Garcia, had the neat idea to write a piece about authors who've been labelled "the next JK Rowling".

They include Michelle Paver, author of the amazing "Wolf Brother" series (I saw her speak at this year's Hay Festival and she was fascinating), Emma Maree Urquhart, of "Dragon Tamers" fame, and Louise Arnold, whose story "The Invisible Friend," won a contest by BBC Online - as well as myself.

We all agreed that there can be no next JK Rowling.

As Paver says "we don't actually need the next JK Rowling" and Arnold: "I don't see it as a void waiting to be filled."

Urquhart "loathes" the title.

And I'm quoted as saying "There's never going to be a next JK Rowling. That's not the kind of thing that you can manufacture.

"It's a very, very competitive field. In the end, it's the kids who decide who's big and who isn't," Thorpe said. "The only thing you can do as a writer is write what you want to write about and tell a damn good story."

> Read the whole piece - The Next Big Thing: Who will be the next JK Rowling?

Sold out again in less than 24 hours!

2007-07-25T01:37:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago Doodled Books sold out in one week of 20 copies of signed and drawn-in copies of Hybrids at £19.99 and ordered 15 more. They went on sale yesterday and sold out again in less than 24 hours! More are on order for me to draw in. I wonder who is buying them?

> See the galleries here
> Read their interview with me

I'm looking forward to Womad and a break.

Is the mood of the country changing?

2007-07-20T02:34:00.001-07:00

The Scottish and Welsh assemblies have green and anti-Westminster coalitions. Both are pro-peace, and anti-nuclear power and nuclear weapons

Seven British cabinet ministers have admitted to smoking dope

The super-Lotteries have been scrapped

The Daily Mail attempt to smear the Labout Administration has failed

Here in Wales the new cabinet gives fresh hope for international peace and justice:
- Of the three Plaid Cymru ministers, Rhodri Glyn Thomas is a former Chair of
  CND Cymru and Elin Jones and has been a speaker at all the peace and justice demonstrations in Aberystwyth over the past 5 years
- Labour cabinet members include: Brian Gibbons, who spoke regularly at anti - nuclear medical campaign against Nuclear Weapons meetings in the 1980s;
- Jane Hutt is an ex-Greenham Common campaigner
- Edwina Hart supported the Stop the War protests in 2002-3
- John Griffiths is against nuclear power was involved in Stop the War
  protests
- Jane Davidson has recently pledged to work to reverse the senseless House of Commons vote to replace Trident.

I've always been too much of an optimist whilst writing dystopic narratives. Perhaps with Blair out of the way, we have a window of opportunity to work with more chance of success for a fairer, more peaceful and environmentally sane world.

What's it feel like from where you sit?

Doodling fun

2007-06-29T06:14:00.001-07:00

There's a remarkable web business dedicated to selling first editions of books. Their gimmick is they get authors to sign the books and doodle in them.

Needless to say, it's called Doodled Books.

Its manager, Claire Main, asked me to doodle in 20 copies of Hybrids, which she put on the web site. They sold out in a week at £19.99 each.

Now Claire wants more of them. Very nicely, she says "I think you have huge potential" and all the ones I do in the future will go "on the Harry Potter pages as we are getting loads of hits due to the next book coming out and it would be a shame for you to miss out on the hype."

She's going to send me batches of 20, and each book will have a different doodle and slogan. I've promised her that as long as she keeps sending them, I'll keep defacing them!

You can view the sold out doodles here.