An interview with Keren David, debut author of "When I Was Joe"

Overview:

Being part of the children’s writers’ community on Facebook and belonging to the SCBWI has brought with it a host of benefits, not least being getting to know so many amazing writers – and London author, Keren David is one of them. I had a feeling, long before I read Keren’s debut novel, When I Was Joe, that I was going to enjoy it. What I didn’t expect was the sheer impact the book had on me. I read it pretty much in one sitting and all I can say is, “Wow! Read it”! When I Was Joe is a gripping, vivid and intense thriller told with dramatic pacing. It is a novel which has left me utterly breathless – and more importantly, it’s a novel that has left me thinking long after I closed the book.

14 year old Ty witnesses an incident of knife crime and gives police evidence, doing what he believes is the right thing. As a result, he and his mum are forced into the witness protection programme and are given new identities and Ty becomes Joe. As Joe’s life spirals out of control he attempts to cling to some semblance of normality and his own identity, all while events and his own decisions seem to do nothing more than lead him further down a path of destruction.

In Ty/Joe, Keren David has created a strong and poignant character with a powerful and evocative voice which is full of integrity and credibility. She also shows that she is unafraid to tackle gritty and powerful themes.

Debut YA author, Keren David

An interview with Keren David:


The first thing that struck me when I started reading When I Was Joe was the strength and integrity of Joe’s voice, so I’m intrigued to know, what came first, the character or the idea?

The idea came first. I’d started an evening course in Writing for Children at City University so I was looking around for things to write about. At that point I thought I might write something for 8-12s.

I saw an item on the news one night about a young boy who’d been caught up in a robbery and had to be taken into witness protection and given a new identity. I was struck by the paradox that the witnesses suffered almost a worse punishment than the criminals, and interested in the possibilities that a false identity offered. I realized quite quickly that it fitted a YA book best, because it’s such a good metaphor for adolescence.


Through the power of Joe’s voice, you’ve created a wonderfully rich and credible character and you write with tremendous insight into Joe’s life, his fears, his longings and his hopes. What enabled you to hone in so powerfully on the emotional life of a 14 year old boy?

I thought the boy in my book might welcome the idea of a new identity, and that implied that he hadn’t been very happy in his old life. So I thought about why that might be. A lot of who Ty/Joe is comes from his family background - particularly the absence of his father.

I also thought a lot about teenage boys, their bodies and their emotions, their lives and influences. It was important to me that Ty was a child of his time - he wasn’t going to like 80s music or classic films because it happened to suit me.

Gradually I got to know Ty very well - his voice got easier and easier. I loved spending time with him, he was really entertaining.


When I Was Joe deals not only with issues of identity but also taps into the increasing concern about the rise of gang and knife crime amongst teens in the UK. This is given witness to not only in your book but also in Shank, the recently released movie starring hip-hop star, Ashley “Bashy” Thomas, which predicts the potential future for kids on the streets by 2015. What personally motivated you to deal with these issues? What are your thoughts on the rise of gang-related knife crime and what do you think could and should be done to counter it?

When I started writing, the focus of the book was going to be identity. I picked a stabbing pretty much at random as the crime that Ty would witness, and thought it would remain very much in the background. But I was writing in spring/summer 2008, when there was a spate of horrific knife crimes in London. Every day the papers seemed full of terrible cases of murder, and a great deal about gangs. I learned a great deal from these reports about Ty, his milieu and the crime he’d witnessed. I started responding to politicians and commentators through his eyes.

If I’m out alone I carry my car key in my fist, just in case I need to punch it into the eye of an attacker. This was so much second nature to me that I never thought about it - I’ve been doing it since I was a young reporter 20 years ago, going out to all sorts of potentially dodgy areas. I read about kids carrying knives to protect themselves, and I started examining my own actions and fears. I wasn’t so different from some of the knife-carrying teenagers.

I’m encouraged when I read about initiatives which seek to make kids feel safer on the street and provide help for them to free themselves from gang culture - Strathclyde Police seem to be the leaders.

Although they take a different approach and have a significantly different "flavour", the movie Shank and When I am Joe both show the impact of knife crime and gang violence in the UK

You reveal an acute insight into gang violence, knife crime and the witness protection programme – did you have to do a lot of research to achieve this?

I read a lot, and I talked to a barrister friend who has worked with intimidated witnesses. I was helped by having worked as a news editor on The Independent from 1990-95 – I knew a lot of background about witness protection in particular. I would have liked to have done more research, and talked to the police in particular, but I felt the book was so topical that there was an urgency about getting it finished and - if possible - published.


You’ve packed numerous gritty themes into one novel, aside from gang and knife crime and the witness protection programme, you also look at teen pregnancy, cutting/self-mutilation, religion, abortion, ostracisation, family violence, identity and death threats. Did you plan to deal with so much or did the story just pour out with all these ingredients? And if planned, what motivated you to try and cover so many issues?

Don’t forget disability! I don’t like ‘issue’ books because so often they focus on one person with one ‘issue’. They’re surrounded by ‘normal’ people and their problem is solved by a wise counsellor. I fear books like this could make one feel even more isolated.

In my experience most of us grapple with multiple ‘issues’ and counselling may not be available. Some people cope better than others, and very little is ever completely resolved. I wanted to reflect life as I find it. I didn’t want to dole out messages or glib solutions.

Ty is someone who’s super sensitive about his mum being very young, he’s very affected by perceived slights and criticism. He gradually learns that he’s not the only one with problems.


Apart from simply telling a riveting story, is there anything you’d particularly like your novel to achieve in a greater social context, given your story offers up a strong social commentary of life in certain parts of the UK today? Did you in fact set out to create a social commentary or was this simply how the story unfolded?

I enjoyed reflecting life in the UK as I found it, because I’d recently returned to live in London after nearly nine years in Amsterdam. It’s odd coming back to your home country from a long time abroad, you notice things that otherwise you’d take for granted. So I suppose there was a lot of social observation in the book.

I wanted to make readers think about the questions that arise – about telling the truth, about identity, about criminal justice. I don’t have any easy answers.




You have been a journalist for most of your adult life, to what extent and how do you feel this influences how you write and what you write about?

I left school at 18 and got a job as a messenger girl on a national newspaper, which eventually offered me an apprenticeship as a junior reporter. The Deputy Editor, David Nathan, was in charge of training, and he taught me how to write clear, accurate and punchy English. I owe him a great deal.

As a reporter I learned not to be too precious about my writing - you’re part of a team, not an artiste. As an editor I learned to cut text - probably the most essential skill for a writer.

They say ‘write about what you know’ and I know about news…I know about the media and how it works, how stories get reported and distorted. I know about crime and justice, lawyers and policemen. Being a journalist is a great privilege - you enter so many different worlds, meet hundreds of people in all sorts of situations. It all feeds into my fiction.

I started out as a news reporter, then worked as a news editor. After that I had a job as an editor on the comment page. So this felt like a natural progression – from factual reporting, to commentary to fiction.


When I Was Joe is written in the first person present tense, something I’ve noticed an increasing number of YA authors doing. What prompted you to write in first person present tense and what do you believe this narrative form creates in the story?

Looking back at my notebook, I wrote the very first page of the very first chapter in third person past tense. By the next page it was first person, past tense. By page three I’d settled on first person present tense. It makes everything feel very immediate. In a book about truth-telling, first person present tense feels like you’re getting the unvarnished truth. I found that useful!
In my latest book I’ve switched to first person past tense and I’m struggling with it. I keep on wanted to revert to present tense, but the members of my writing group are urging me not to and it does help to differentiate the narrator from Ty/Joe.


You have a cast of strong secondary characters in When I Was Joe. Who, apart from Joe stands out for you the most and why?

Ty’s mum, Nicki - I felt very sad for her, but I loved writing all the bits where she’s a complete and utter nightmare.

Ashley, Ty’s sometime girlfriend, the sexy control freak - just such fun to write.

Claire, Ty’s friend – she’s very secretive, full of potential. I felt I ‘knew’ her less than any other character. I loved having the chance to find out more about her in Almost True.


What sort of contact do you have, if any, with the kind of kids who inhabit Joe’s world?

My children go to state schools in Hackney and Haringey, north London, and they mix with all sorts of children. I’ve not met any who’ve been so directly affected by crime though. But Joe’s world is my world - what happens to him could happen to any of us.


What sort of response have you had from young people who’ve read When I Was Joe?

I’ve had a great response. I was really thrilled by a 15-year-old boy who reviewed it on Amazon and wrote “I find it hard to believe the writer isn't a teenager themselves, they seem to know exactly what goes on” which was just the biggest compliment possible.


Many writers of young adult and children’s fiction speak about the importance of hope in their writing. Where do you see the hope in When I Was Joe and how important do you believe hope is in children’s fiction?

A story with no hope in it at all would be so bleak as to be almost unbearable. Having said that, I don’t sit and think about injecting hope into a story, or contriving a happy ending. In When I Was Joe I think the hope comes from friendship, and Ty’s growing understanding of the importance of integrity.



The sequel to When I Was Joe is Almost True, due for release in August 2010. Will it be the last we see of Joe, or will there be more?

There’s no more planned at the moment, although the ending of Almost True would make it possible to return to the story - maybe with a different narrator.


Who or what do you feel most influences your writing?

Who: I’ve got a great writing group, which came out of the courses I did at City University. They’re fantastic at giving feedback and support. My daughter is 13 and she reads everything I write. My agent Jenny Savill is a great person to talk to about anything to do with the work in progress and I’ve been incredibly lucky in the talented editors I’ve worked with at Frances Lincoln, especially Maurice Lyon, the editorial director, who has an almost magical ability to plant ideas in my head without it ever being clear (to me) how they got there.

What: the world around me. My children. The things people say. Newspapers, television, the internet. The past and the present.

Keren and her daughter

What was your journey to publication like and what advice would you give unpublished writers?

Now that I know more about the publishing business I can see that I did everything wrong. I started querying agents as soon as I’d finished the first draft - I didn’t even have a title. I got a few rejections and then I was lucky enough to get some good advice from one agent and I rewrote the beginning of the book to make it more dramatic. That did the trick and three agents wanted to represent me.

Submitting the book to publishers was difficult - the recession was upon us and a lot of editors said positive things but couldn’t make an offer. I was very happy when Frances Lincoln made an offer for two books, as I’d written about a third of Almost True by that point and I was very fond of it.

I’d advise unpublished writers to join SCWBI and read Nicola Morgan’s excellent blog. Develop internal and external armour and refuse to take rejection personally. Cut and polish your work. And make sure your first chapter grabs the reader’s attention.


And finally, where to from here for Keren David?

I’m working on a new book, with a female narrator and I hope to be able to tell people more about it quite soon. I love writing fiction, especially YA, and I hope there will be more to come.


Many thanks to Keren for agreeing to this interview and here’s wishing her huge success with her writing and with Joe – she certainly deserves it!

Thanks Nicky!


For more about Keren, news about her books, take a look at her blog