Prepublished

Anthony McGowan is the author of various children’s books but the one that won the Carnegie Medal was Lark, which he wrote for one of my favourite publishers, Barrington Stoke.

As well as Anthony's contemporary books featuring young, male protagonists, I was curious to hear about the Carnegie Medal process and I think Anthony explains very well why the shortlist is exciting, for readers as well as for writers. The Carnegie tends to favour a certain kind of book, but he reminded me about the range of other prizes out there too, and the absolute importance of libraries. 

It just takes one book to resonate with someone and turn them into a reader. Anthony talks about the book that did it for him when he was nine, and how he read it over and over, and it taught him what a novel was. You want to know what it is now, don’t you? 

We recorded this episode in April 2021, before the latest winner of the CILIP Carnegie medal was announced. He is the US poet and author Jason Reynolds, for his book Look Both Ways, published by Knights Of … a small, brave, young publishing company whose success I’m happy to celebrate today. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Anthony. 

Links:
Barrington Stoke: https://www.barringtonstoke.co.uk
Anthony McGowan at Penguin Books: https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/68003/anthony-mcgowan.html 
Anthony McGowan at Faber & Faber: https://www.faber.co.uk/author/anthony-mcgowan/
CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children's Book Awards: https://carnegiegreenaway.org.uk
CILIP: https://www.cilip.org.uk/page/AboutCILIP 

Phil was born in Hull, where he grew up wanting to play football for Hull City. His first job was as a care worker in a children’s home. Nowadays, when he’s not writing, he works as head of sales and marketing for the independent book publisher, David Fickling Books, who publish Philip Pullman. 

We talk about getting into reading through comics and graphic novels, agree on a book that’s a masterclass in structure and characterisation – a checklist of excellence, Phil calls it – and the joy of the rollercoaster of writing a story for the first time. When it comes to marketing, Phil believes in the power of the voice and is reassuringly passionate about supporting a writer through their career, and not just the debut, when they are the shiny new thing. But writers must put the work in too. 

Links: 
Phil Earle website: http://www.philearle.com 
When The Sky Falls: https://www.waterstones.com/book/when-the-sky-falls/phil-earle/9781783449651 
David Fickling Books: https://www.davidficklingbooks.com 
The Outsiders by SE Hinton: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/575/57559/the-outsiders/9780141189116.html 
Skellig by David Almond: https://davidalmond.com/tag/skellig/ 
Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/609/60993/goodnight-mister-tom/9780141362717.html 
Holes by Louis Sachar: https://www.waterstones.com/book/holes/louis-sachar/9781408865231 

How many of us dream of meeting a glamorous Frenchman, finding a tumbledown house by the sea and restoring it together, whiling away our afternoons in the sparkling pool between writing sessions and heavy manual labour on crumbling walls? Well, anyway, I do. The first of Carol's Olive Farm book makes it clear that money was very tight, and while I was reading it I wanted to know how she felt when she took the risk of writing it. After all, she couldn’t be sure it would earn the money she so desperately needed. 

I had thought that perhaps Carol’s acting life and writing life would be two separate things, but she is enlightening about the ways in which she brings her training as an actress into the way she writes.

Links:
An Act of Love: http://www.caroldrinkwater.com 
The Olive Farm: http://www.caroldrinkwater.com/books/theolivefarm 
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King: https://stephenking.com/works/nonfiction/on-writing-a-memoir-of-the-craft.html
On Writers and Writing by Margaret Atwood: https://www.virago.co.uk/titles/margaret-atwood/on-writers-and-writing/9780349006246/ 

As we’ll hear, Julia's writing and teaching careers developed side by side. I wanted to talk to her because over 60 students on her courses at Bath Spa have gone on to be published writers, some, like Elen Caldecott and Sally Nicholls, with stellar careers.

We talk about Julia’s path to teaching, and how it feeds her writing, the importance of staying grounded and keeping the day job, getting a PhD after a career and bringing up children, and the effect of lockdown on writing. We also discuss the process and the benefits of something like an MA in creative writing. They’re not for everyone, but with the focus on workshops, on experimentation, and on reading as a writer, they have a lot to offer. These are ideas you can take for your writing too, however you do it.

Julia talks about the importance of keeping writing alive, rather than getting too serious about black and white lines on a screen. I like that.

This episode is about changing direction as a writer, and writing a high concept novel. 

Writing as Cass Green, Caroline Green is the author of bestselling crime novels such as In a Cottage in a Wood, The Woman Next Door and The Killer Inside. Like me, she was a YA writer first. She teaches a crime writing course at City Uni and she was the first person I interviewed for Season One of this podcast, where she talked about the art of plotting. She was also the first person I spoke to, outside the family, when I got the US deal for Her Majesty The Queen Investigates, of which The Windsor Knot is book 1. As you’ll hear, that was quite a day. 

I was so grateful to Caroline for agreeing to interview me this time. It felt odd to talk about my own experience, but I thought it might be an interesting insight into the publishing world for new writers, and a reassuring one for those who’ve been around the block a bit. There is hope! There is always hope! There was also an unfolding pandemic, and that made a bizarre experience even more surreal. I think I’m still recovering. 

NOTES

https://carolinegreenwriter.co.uk

https://www.sjbennettbooks.com

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/book-deals/article/82632-book-deals-week-of-march-9-2020.html

This is an episode I’ve wanted to record for a long time. Publishers are making changes, which have speeded up since the Black Lives Matter campaign, but I still don’t see the rich variety of experiences of race, gender and class that emerge every year from my writing groups reflected on the shelves of bookshops and libraries. As Attiya Khan says in our conversation, she didn’t want to write another terrorist Muslim woman. The reading public are missing out on so many stories. I want to know what it takes to speed things up. 

Attiya was on the podcast last season, as one of the Masterminds critique group. Her debut YA novel, Ten Steps to Us is being published this year by a new imprint called Hashtag BLAK. That imprint was co-founded by Abiola Bello, who is walking the walk of diversity in publishing. Abiola is an award-winning YA author herself. And as a publisher, she won the Trailblazer Awards in 2018 and is on the advisory group for World Book Day. We discuss what's good, what’s bad, what needs to change and how to make it happen.

NOTES

https://attiyakhan.wixsite.com/website
https://www.hashtagblak.co.uk  
http://www.theauthorschool.com 
https://www.stephnimmo.com/author-blog
https://www.spreadtheword.org.uk 

https://www.spreadtheword.org.uk/rethinking-diversity-our-call-to-action/

https://www.badformreview.com/read/dc49ricpwu6yp60n65hzceyvjh4at7  

Holly wants both aspiring editors and new writers to understand the process as clearly as possible. I love it when she says ‘writing is not something you can either do or not do’. It doesn’t come instantly to most people, but it’s something you can work at, like any other career. And as she adds, ‘you will find your place.’ 

We talk about writing with an awareness of the market, the picture book process, and what exactly it is an editor does, beyond commissioning books and working on track changes. It’s more than you might imagine. Holly and I worked together on one of my favourite books, which was the illustrated guide to women artists for young teens, that I did with her at Tate Publishing in 2018. It was a hugely complicated project to pull off and Holly needed all of her talent, experience and diplomatic skills to make it happen. 

NOTES

https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/courses/pg-childrens-publishing/

http://sophiabennett.com/books/the-bigger-picture/

Sheena is a teacher as well as a writer of feminist, historical YA fiction. She and I did a training course together with the Royal Literary Fund, to teach academic writing skills – and I saw in practice what a talented and encouraging teacher she is. A tutor at the Arvon Foundation, she’s someone whose calm confidence and experience can make any nervous new writer start to feel as if they can indeed conquer the mountain, whether it’s a book, a short story or an academic essay. She’s obviously disciplined in the way she researches, plans and writes, but she also talks about the importance of capturing the ‘careless rapture’ of when it’s going well. Perhaps it’s this combination that means she has been nominated for, and won, many awards. 

NOTES

https://www.rlf.org.uk/fellowships/sheena-wilkinson/

https://www.facebook.com/Sheena-Wilkinson-author-1415012625459973/

https://www.arvon.org/tutors/sheena-wilkinson/

It’s a difficult time for anyone in the performing arts, as we all know. But talking to Fraser, I found it inspiring to hear how the spirit of creation survives somehow, whatever life throws at it. And also, how thinking about performance can inform our writing, whatever kind of writing that is. Fraser has some really good tips for keeping your writing going, I think. And I love his understanding of how writing is a part of who we are and that we need to express that and find the time to do it.

https://wordcageonline.wordpress.com

https://www.rlf.org.uk/fellowships/fraser-grace/

https://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/client/fraser-grace