Eastern open opening

I went to King's Lynn with my studio-mate John Clark today.  It was the opening of the Eastern Open exhibition at the Arts Centre and we both had paintings chosen.

In fact - to my amazement I had all three of the paintings I entered accepted.  It was fitting in a way, because all three paintings were created from old drawing in sketchbooks, done when we lived in Norfolk.  The two trees against a dark background were from drawings I made of trees in a field next to the track that ran up to our house and along which I would walk with my son every day on the way to school.  The one of the tree next to a road is from a drawing I made in our early days in Norfolk of a road not far from where we lived.  All three are acrylic on a smooth gesso ground on canvas.

Neither of us won any of the prizes on offer, the largest of which was a not inconsiderable £2000, given to a photograph of what I think was Orford Ness in Suffolk - the work the selectors chose as being the best in the show.

Prague again....

Here I am with Ríchard Klíčník from Argo at the Park Lane International School opening last week.

Here I am doing my bit - a very short speech as guest of the school.  This photograph shows off my ears to great effect I feel.

Here I am with the school administrator, Maya Kopecká, who was my point of contact with the school and who took care of all the arrangements concerning my visit to Prague.

And here I am afterwards, signing books in the school.  I look very smug here - but then we did sell a lot of books.  I loved the fact that so many of the parents were buying books for children who were far too young, with the notion of holding on to them until they grew old enough to be exposed to my stories.  Little ticking time bombs of terror....

Dickens at last

I lived in London for over ten years and knew the area I walked through last Sunday very well.  I had a studio in Shoreditch and would frequently travel through it by bike or bus, or simply wander through taking photographs.

I have no idea how many times I walked or cycled along Doughty Street and past the Charles Dickens Museum.  But when we live in a place, we always think we will be able to come back tomorrow.  Well on Sunday I found myself once again outside Charles Dickens' house and this time I decided to go in.

I'm really pleased I did.  It was a beautiful day, as I have already said, and so it was tempting to stay outside.  But the house is lovely and is fascinating as much for the glimpse it gives of the vanished interiors of the many Georgian terraced houses that line the streets in Bloomsbury as it was for the Dickens memorabilia.  Though of course, it is very special to stand beside the great man's writing desk.

I am very glad to have finally visited and especially now as I have just written a novel tied to A Christmas Carol.  Maybe it was the right time....

Dracula's guest

I returned from Prague via British Airways to Heathrow and had one day at home in Cambridge before heading back to London for the autumn meeting of the Dracula Society at which I was to speak.

I was honoured to receive the Dracula Society's annual Children of the Night Award in 2009 for Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth and have kept in touch with some of the members ever since.  I was asked to contribute to His Red Eyes Again - a small anthology of short stories the Society published to celebrate its fortieth anniversary, and I was delighted when Tracy Lee asked if I might speak at the meeting this year.

The meeting took place in a suitably Dickensian pub in a little lane off the Strand near the Law Courts. A rather strange buffet was produced, with a seemingly random and never-ending selection of food and then, once the furniture was rearranged, it was my turn.

I talked a bit about my writing life and read from The Dead Men Stood Together.  I also read the story I added to the rejacketed edition of Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror - Skating.  It seemed to go down well.  As always, I probably talked too much.  But there were lots of questions and we sold a few books afterwards, which I signed.

It was a very pleasant evening and nice to meet everyone - and particularly good to see Tracy Lee and Tony Lee again.

I stayed overnight in a hotel in Charterhouse Square near the Barbican and after a leisurely breakfast I walked through Clerkenwell and Bloomsbury on a beautifully sunny and quiet London Sunday morning.

From Reading to Prague....

I know many authors who are on a perpetual Bob Dylan-ish world tour.  I don't do that much touring, but I have had - for me - an active couple of weeks.

After coming back from the Beyond Twilight Gothic YA event in Lancaster, I had a few days at home, before heading off to Reading for a Booktrust librarians event.  It was a really nice opportunity to talk about what I do - particularly in relation to Mister Creecher which is (rather fabulously) part of the Booktrust Future Classics Library Pack for schools.

I think it went OK.  I enjoyed it anyway.  I was trying to speak up for teenage boys as being a bit more complex than we are often led to believe, and not necessarily only interested in fast-paced thrillers full of sex and/or violence.  Some want that, sure.  But by no means all.  There is no template for teenager - boy or girl - and we need to make sure there is the range of books out there to keep them all reading.

After the event I got a cab with Ian Lamb, the publicist at Bloomsbury, and we headed for the train - his back to London, mine to Heathrow where I stayed at the rather noisy Yotel so that I would be ready for my morning flight to Prague.

The Park Lane International School had invited me to Prague as a guest for the grand opening of their new campus in the old Indian Embassy at the foot of the Castle.  And very grand it was too, with dancers and music and speeches (including a very short one from yours truly) and very delicious finger food.  Afterwards I signed books (we pretty much sold out) and chatted to children and their parents.  It was all very nice.

It was a lovely school with very confident children and very friendly staff, many of whom were English.  One of them asked me if I knew who had written the creepy story about a woman who turns people to apple trees and then prunes them.  'Me,' I said.  'The story is called Winter Pruning.'  I had Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror in my hand at the time.  He had read the story out loud some time in the past and had loved it.

I had been picked up from the airport by the school administrator Maya Kopecká who took me to the school where I looked around, met the Principal, Paul Ingarfield, and spoke to the children, reading Climb Not for Uncle Montague's Tales of Terrors.  The youngest of the children was eight (the oldest eleven) and English is a second language for many, so it was probably a bit hard for them, but despite sitting on the floor, they were very attentive and asked really good questions at the end.

I had a few hours to myself after checking in to the very nice hotel the school had arranged for me and spent them wandering through the sunny streets of Prague taking photographs.  I decided to risk my fear of heights on climbing the tower of the Old Town Hall and was pleased I had, despite the terrifying spiral staircase and the traffic jam of tourists at the top.  The views were incredible.

My friend Richard Kličník from Argo was at the evening event, taking photographs and helping to sort out the books, and afterwards we went for a drink or two at Mlynská Kavérna on Kampa where we talked about publishing and politics.  Richard tells me that my books are doing well in the Czech Republic, which is great.  I feel very relaxed in the mill cafe, exercising my internal Czech intellectual.  Added to which, Karel, Prince of Swarzenberg, Czech Presidential candidate came in while I was there.

The following morning I met Petra Jíšová, my guide from the last time I came to Prague, and we walked along the river, crossing at the rickety rail bridge, and doubling back on ourselves.  It was good to catch up on what Petra was up to and to hear about Lucie Radimerská and Divadlo Puls, the theatre company that I came to see in January, about the floods earlier this year and about the trials and tribulations of being young in an evolving Czech Republic.  Petra was very good company as always, and endlessly patient at listening to me blather on in a foreign language.  We walked a big circle and came back to where we started and where she had to leave me to go work.

I wish I could have stayed longer.  Lucie was having a birthday party later that evening and Divadlo Puls were doing another performance of Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror a couple of days later.  Ah well - I'll just have to come back...

Beyond beyond twilight

I drove back from Lancaster yesterday morning.  I enjoy a long drive through the British landscape providing there are no major hold-ups and the weather is not too hideous.  This particular journey was very smooth and the sun was shining most of the time.

I had driven up to Lancaster on Thursday and gone straight to Lancaster Grammar to talk to a hall filled with two or three hundred boys.  I had not slept a wink the night before and was at the end of a wretched cold so who knows if I made any sense, but they were incredibly attentive and asked very good questions at the end.  They bought quite a few books too - and that's never a bad thing.  Thanks to all of them, to the staff at the school and to SilverDell Books for providing the books and moral support.  It was my first school visit with The Dead Men Stood Together and that is always a little nerve-jangling.  Thank you to Lancaster Grammar for making it such a good start.

From there it was off to the Holiday Inn. I tried to catch a quick nap, but a fire alarm put an end to that.  I staggered about blearily until I met up with Marcus Sedgwick and Celia Rees and her husband.  I've met Celia many times and its always a pleasure.  Marcus I hadn't met before, but he is very good company.  It is endlessly fascinating to meet writers and see the different ways people get started and the variety of impulses and inspirations that move them.

At 9am the following morning we went to Lancaster University for the Beyond Twilight event - along with Sarah Singleton whom we had met at breakfast and the last of our gang, Paula Morris.  Some went in a taxi whilst Celia and I got a lift with Marcus, who was going to have to leave straight after the proceedings had come to a close.

I had been to Lancaster the year before - with Celia - for the inaugural YA Gothic event, but this was a much larger affair, incredibly well organised by Dr Catherine Spooner and Chloe Buckley of the Department of English, Creative Writing.  Chloe did a wonderful PowerPoint presentation of Mister Creecher and Celia's Blood Sinister.  As Celia said afterwards, it is really satisfying and touching to have your work taken so seriously.

Celia talked mainly about Blood Sinister and Witch Child, Marcus about White Crow and My Swordhand is Singing, Paula about Dark Souls and Ruined and Sarah about Century and The Poison Garden.  But we all talked more generally about our relationship to the Gothic, how we got into writing and so on.  Terry Lee, Bloomsbury's Area Manager for the North of England and Scotland was also on hand for the round table discussion at the end to answer questions relating to branding and marketing.  Marcus has a background in publishing and also spoke a little about the process of getting a book into print.

The audience were mainly students and sixth formers, and so it allowed for a level of detail in the analysis that made the discussions really interesting.  I think that just occasionally - too much would be distracting - it is useful to take stock like this and really think about what it is that you are trying to do in your work, over and above simply trying to entertain your reader and earn a living.

I like doing events with other authors.  It takes the pressure off me a bit, and I get to meet some very nice people.  I'm always interested to see what other people do in their author spot - as I am always very critical of what I come up with myself.  Some used PowerPoint (or Prezi in Marcus's case) to illustrate their talks. I didn't and neither did Paula.

I came away still not convinced of either route being perfect.  There is a lot to be said for having something up there on a screen - I just need to come up with some solution that works for me.  Celia made the point to me ages ago that it provides a framework and a set of visual bullet points to keep your talk on track, and I think that is undeniably true.

Also some books seem to demand images.  I did an illustrated talk for Mister Creecher because it felt like it needed it.  I had packed a lot of stuff into that book - much of it visual - and I wanted to try and get as much of it across as possible.  I'm less sure about The Dead Men Stood Together, although it would be nice to introduce kids to the illustration work of Gustave Doré and Mervyn Peake.

Being a visual artists, it may seem odd not to employ visuals, but I think it is because I'm of this that I endlessly dither about it.  In the end I usually just go back to me and a book.  Even with the images on show in Lancaster, the best thing for me about the author talks were the readings.  It was a reminder to me, never to forget to include a reading in my own talks.

What came across very strongly, however it was framed, was the enthusiasm we all had for what we were doing - an enthusiasm that had been fired by our reading (as well as film and TV watching) when we were children and teenagers.  We may not all have decided we wanted to be writers that early, but our idea of what a book can do and what it should read like, was being forged then, whether we knew it or not.  Certainly our tastes - especially, in this case, a taste for the Gothic, was being nurtured very young.

A really enjoyable event.  Thanks to Catherine and Chloe for looking after us so well and to all the students who came along and made the day so interesting and enjoyable.  I for one am hoping for another invitation....