An Interview with Seth MacGregor - hero of Gillian Philip's Firebrand

Alright, so this may be a little unusual, but today I bring you a unique and rather special guest: one Seth MacGregor, a Sithe, the main character of a remarkable novel, and a right handful.

Seth’s "boss" is Gillian Philip, author of the amazing and epic Firebrand. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s fair to call Gillian Seth’s boss, as I get the distinct sense he does far more bossing about than she does. It can get like this when your characters take control… Seth, for goodness sake, even Tweets. I’ve yet to see him on Facebook, but I’ve no doubt he’ll make his presence felt there in due course.

I met Seth a few weeks ago, having heard so many people enthusiastically talking about him. He appeared from between the pages of his book and grabbed my attention. His story, as told in Firebrand, is one of the best stories I’ve read for a long time. You watch this space; Seth, Gillian Philip and Firebrand will be going on to great things yet, because Firebrand is the sort of novel that’s up there with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series. Yes, it’s that good. It has been said by Amanda Craig in her review for the Times, that Firebrand is the best children’s fantasy novel for 2010. I can’t disagree. It might even be the best fantasy novel of the decade.




But let’s not muck about, the Sithe hate to be kept waiting, especially this one, who’s a right hot-head…


So, Seth MacGregor, tell us about yourself, what it’s like to be a Sithe, and what the Sithe are like as a people. And how are you different from us, the full-mortals?

What’s it like to be a Sithe? Um… I dunno, what’s it like to be a full-mortal? Tell you what, though, we are allegedly not very nice. That’s full-mortals’ opinion, anyway. We’re supposed to be baby-stealers, for a start. As if we’d volunteer for all that squalling and shi… I mean, nappy changing. You’ve given us a very bad reputation over the years, you know.

Deep down we’re a lot like you. Except we live a lot longer. And we’re faster (in all sorts of ways). And for some weird evolutionary reason you can’t do the telepathy thing.

Seth MacGregor
(he's a dead ringer for one Billy Crudup, you'll notice, which means, of course, that Billy is probably a Sithe too...)

Now, you’ve said that you don’t have much of an opinion of full-mortals (for my readers – that’s you and me…) – why’s that?

Well… you know, I’ve mellowed a bit in my old age. (Not that I’m old old, you understand; I’m still looking pretty hot, if I do say so myself.) I used to hate full-mortals, but you know I had good reason, Nicky. There was all that witch-persecution business… but let’s call that water under the bridge. I’ve got to know a lot of you much better since then. Some of you are fine. One or two of you may have saved my life over the years. Actually, one of my best friends is a full-mortal (but that’s another story). And by the way, some of you are pretty hot yourselves. What are you doing Saturday night?


Have you found since you’ve been hanging out with the boss and her friends, that there’s any chance of hope for full-mortals or are we utterly doomed?

You’re probably less doomed than we are, but that’s not saying much. There are a lot more of you, for a start – is that why you’re inclined to try and wipe each other out? The Sithe do like a fight – nothing we like better (well, not much) – but we’re not trying to achieve mass extinction. (Except for one of us, but let’s not discuss her.)

I think you need to work on the telepathy, you know? Getting inside other people’s heads. It’s like, even if I want to kill another Sithe and she wants to kill me, we at least understand the way each other thinks, what it’s like to be the other person. Oh, and I think you need to look at the stars more. Good gods*, the chances of us and the planet existing at all are so infinitesimal, you’d think a bit of self-preservation would be in order.

*not that there are any


I notice, by the way, and not to put too fine a point on it, that despite your dim opinion of us, it didn’t stop you from falling in love with a full-mortal girl. Why Catriona, what made her so different from the rest?

You’re being tough on me, aren’t you? OK, so I wasn’t very nice to Catriona to start with, but you have to consider the circumstances. And believe me, I did not intend to fall in love with her. It was Catriona who made me realize I did like full-mortals.
Actually, can we not talk about this any more? It’s kind of a sore point.





So, given, that you’re not entirely averse to full-mortals, who, looking around you in the modern world, might take your fancy? (I do notice that from time to time you bat your eyelashes at Lucy Coats…) What characteristics make up your ideal lover, Seth? (Girls, will you please stop panting, you’re steaming up your screens.)

‘Not entirely averse’ – heh, that’s one way of putting it. There are some fabulous ladies on Twitter, and you’re right, that Lucy Coats is hot stuff. She knows her faeries, too.

I don’t really have an ‘ideal’ lover… I like somebody who can stand up to me, I guess, somebody with a sense of humour. I like smart women who can shoot and are good with horses. The ‘ideal’ person is one I’d want to bind to, I suppose, and I’ve never met anyone like that. I’m not keen on the idea, to be honest.

So anyway, you never answered my question about Saturday night…

We'll get to Saturday night, patience, boy!


Now, as I mentioned, you have your own Twitter account. How do you enjoy engaging with the full mortal world through it? And how did you persuade the boss to let you have a Twitter account?

I didn’t persuade her, I snuck onto her laptop when her back was turned. She’s kind of possessive and she was as mad as a demented kelpie when she found out. I’m really enjoying it, though. The Boss doesn’t actually interact with me as much as she should, so I used to get bored – it was seeing her on Twitter so much that gave me the idea. It’s fun. There are some great conversations going on; it’s almost like being in a bar with a bunch of Sithe pals. There’s an awful lot about Spooks and Doctor Who and Merlin, too, but that keeps the Boss happy.

By the way, when I call her ‘the Boss’ I want you to imagine a really sarcastic tone of voice.

The "Boss"...

Your world, behind the Veil, is like ours in many ways, and yet quite different. Do you think you could paint a picture of just what your world is like?

It’s incredibly like your world, but – how can I put this? – less spoiled. That’s not very fair of me, because the thing we do steal (not babies, I emphasise again) is bits and pieces of technology. You’re clever that way, and I’ll grant you’re a lot more advanced than us. So we take things through when we go home. I had to take some CDs for Eili last time (we can’t download tracks, for obvious reasons). Not just small things, though – I like your wind power technology, your plumbing gadgets. Yeah, you’re smart. But if we take those things from you, we don’t need the whole industrial-production thing ourselves.


You have a water horse, I don’t think many full-mortals know what a water horse is, can you tell us, and tell us what’s so special about having a water horse and how you come to “own” one another?

Our other word for them is kelpies. I think full-mortals call them that, too. Opinion’s divided among the Sithe, to be honest – I know people who think they shouldn’t be tamed (not that they ever really are) because they have essentially wicked natures. In the wild they’re famous for hanging around near water and enticing travellers to ride them – they’re very beautiful and they can be charming. Once a stranger’s on a kelpie’s back, though, he can’t get off, and the horse takes him underwater, drowns him and eats him. Pretty good hunting trick, when you think about it.

I wouldn’t be without mine, though, and neither would Conal or Sionnach. There’s nothing like riding a water horse because you have to get inside their mind, and let them get inside yours. And it’s strictly a one-on-one thing. There’s no way I could ride Conal’s horse, for instance, and no way Eili could ride mine.

Water horses in action...

In the course of your adventures, you have more than one encounter with a Lammyr. Without terrifying my readers too much, could you tell us what the Lammyr are, and why the Sithe hate them so?

Supposedly, we’re related. The Lammyr and the Sithe, that is. It’s hard to describe them: cadaverous creatures with papery skin and colourless blood. Translucent, in certain light. You could mistake one for a seriously underfed human, I suppose, but their aura of evil is so strong, just the word makes you feel sick if you’re not used to it. Having one around, that’s even worse. It’s not that they don’t have emotions, because they do – just not especially nice ones. They’re truly loathsome. The only thing they love is death, and they love it more even than their own life.

They do, however, have a pretty funny sense of humour.

I have to tell you, funny's not exactly what I'd call it... but still.


Your real name is Murlainn – a small, deadly falcon. That would seem pretty accurate… Do you feel the essence of the falcon in your veins – and especially when you take your sword or your dirk to your enemies?

Oh, my true name. It doesn’t half upset my brother, who got stuck with being ‘sheepdog’. It could have been better – I’m not especially keen on the ‘small’ part – but it could have been worse. I overheard somebody in the dun once, saying he’d no idea there was no Gaelic word for ‘snake’. Unkind, don’t you think? Anyway, his name is now ‘Nosebleed’.

As for feeling like a merlin-hawk? More like a wolf, but that’s because when I’m fighting I’m in Branndair’s head half the time, and he’s in mine. You can probably relate to that, Nicky. Nice fangs, by the way.

Ssh, not everyone knows I'm a werewolf, Seth. They think I'm a sweet, chocolate-drinking writer. Help me keep up the pretence, here, please.


You and your brother Conal were forced into exile, and it seems this is not entirely uncommon for Sithe who’ve peeved their queen. Are there others of your people in the full-mortal realm and how is that we seldom know you walk among us? On the flip side, how many full-mortals cross into the world of the Sithe and how do we get on once there?

Oh, all the time, all the time. There are Sithe who like being here, as well as the ones who have been sent over against their will. And there’s been a certain amount of – how can I put this? – inter-tribal breeding. The offspring tend to be sickly, though. That’s – look, that’s kind of a sore point too.

Full-mortals tend to get through to our world too, it’s true, but it’s never a good idea. There are lots of legends about this stuff, because it’s hard for full-mortals to get out unharmed. Our queen is a bit of a bitch about this: falls for a full-mortal, tires of them, and then… well. Your man Keats even wrote a poem about her.


Your world and mine are divided by the Veil. What is it, and why does it seem to me that it grows thinner during the hours of 2 and 4 in the morning? And what would happen if the Veil were to tear or dissolve?

Hah. That’s the big question, isn’t it? Our world is more fragile, and ours is the one that was made separate, so it wouldn’t survive the collision. And the Veil is what keeps our world in existence, so if it ever vanished, so would our world. We wouldn’t; we’d just be stuck with living in yours. Without the Veil’s protection, I might add, because it also acts as a filter, a kind of distorter of your perceptions. It’s why we’re not so noticeable in your world. The witch-queen has a beef with that, because she wants power in your world, and she can’t have it with the Veil there. So she’s got this mad idea of destroying it. Not that she has to, because it’s thinning anyway, and one day it’ll die of its own accord.

My stepmother has some mad idea about strengthening it, but she’s a witch too. Superstitious old bat. Talks to soothsayers too much. I’d rather just fight it out.

It’s perceptive of you to notice the Veil’s thinner in the small hours. That’s what I’ve always thought, too. If you see things in the corner of your eye at that time of the night, you’re probably seeing through the Veil.

You’ve given us, very kindly, the first years of your very long life in Firebrand, will we be seeing more of you – and when?

Ah, I’m working on it. There have been quite a few years since my Firebrand days, but things are starting to happen around here. Conal and I are still sneaking over the Veil, naturally – as if he could stay away from Eili – and we’ve got a feeling something bad’s going to happen quite soon. Kate the witch-queen seems to be making moves. At least we’ll see some action again. It’s time somebody put a stop to her.

On which note… Bloodstone is due out next August 2011 - if she gets her act together…


A huge thanks to both Seth and Gillian Philip for this interview – I look forward to meeting both of you, in person, really soon, when there will, I hope be wild tales, dancing, singing and whisky.

And thank you, Nicky. I’m sure there will be all those things, and as you know I get along great with wolves. In the meantime… about Saturday…?

Well, I do have a date with Dr Who to go time-travelling in the Tardis on Saturday, but I tell you what… whisper whisper whisper…


Follow Seth MacGregor on Twitter
Follow Gillian (and Seth) on Facebook
To read more about Gillian Philip, see her website
Follow Gillian Philip on Twitter
To order a copy of Firebrand go to Amazon.co.uk

Gillian Philip at a book signing

Images either courtesy of Gillian Philip, or nicked from the internet.

An interview with Nick Green, debut author of The Cat Kin

For thousands of years it has been a secret: the Ancient Egyptian art of moving and sensing like a cat. Now, for the first time, the hidden world of Pashki is revealed.
The Cat Kin tells its story.

I wasn’t sure that, as a dog lover, I was going to like Nick Green’s The Cat Kin, but The Cat Kin is a gripping story about children who learn to tap into their inner cat – their Mau power. It is a brilliant read for 9 – 12 year olds who’re looking for excitement, danger and adventure. In The Cat Kin, Nick Green has created a well-written and intriguing book that will hold your attention the whole way through – and asking if there’s to be a sequel.


Ben and Tiffany never expected their after-school gym class to be like this. For Mrs Powell teaches pashki, a lost art from an age when cats were worshipped as gods. But who is their eccentric old teacher? What does she really want with them? And why are they suddenly able to see in the dark? They are going to need all of their nine lives...


It’s my pleasure to interview Nick Green on Absolute Vanilla and learn more about The Cat Kin and writing.

Children's author, Nick Green and his cat, Red.


I heed no words nor walls

Through darkness I walk in day

And I do not fear the tyrant.

First off, Nick, the obvious question – why a book about cats and Pashki? Where did the inspiration come from, where did you learn about Pashki and, why Pashki in particular?

Well, I like cats, of course, except before 6am. Years ago I read something interesting. Domestic cats, even those that are kept indoors, rarely lose their extraordinary agility, no matter how sofa-bound they are. The theory is that all the stretching they do keeps them in shape – like a kind of natural yoga or Pilates. My wife’s into yoga, and I still have an old notebook with this note in it: ‘Cat yoga… what if humans did cat yoga? Would they become as agile as cats?’ Then asterisked: *A form of yoga that gives you cat-like powers.*

This idea languished for over a year in the notebook, because (perhaps absurdly) I couldn’t see where to take it. I didn’t want to write a ‘superhero’ story, I wanted to be a more literary author than that! Then, one evening, I was watching an overblown action movie on TV, and was forced to admit that I really liked this sort of stuff. I thought, ‘I should stop trying to be worthy, and write something like this.’ Then I remembered the old scribble in the notebook. Before long the ‘cat yoga’ had a name – pashki – and the story just caught fire.


Did you have to do much research in writing The Cat Kin and if so, in terms of which aspects of the story?

Pashki I decided would be Ancient Egyptian in origin (as cats were a sacred animal in that culture), so I did a fair bit of research there. The name takes ‘pash’ from the cat goddess Pasht or Bast and ‘ki’ from the word meaning ‘spiritual power’ or ‘life force’ in many cultures. In fact, in Ancient Egyptian this word is actually ‘ka’, but I presumed a certain evolution of the word over time. And pashki just sounded better.

I also read up a lot about cats, just trying to absorb any information that might help in developing pashki and the characters. I wanted pashki to seem as real as possible, and worked out complex systems for it, only a fraction of which make it into the first book (although more trickles out in the sequels). Research into real martial arts and also disciplines like yoga and tai chi helped to ground it in something that hopefully feels real.

Some other research was into muscular dystrophy (a disease which affects Tiffany’s brother in the book) and also into bear farming in China, a real-life atrocity on which I based something similar that features in the book. For obvious reasons I didn’t make it bears in my story, but this foul and pointless practice continues and makes me angry beyond belief.


You tie the Pashki theme into some fairly esoteric stuff – meditation, awareness, chakras, yoga, inner power – what is your view on alternative ways of being and experiencing the world?

Perhaps surprisingly, I’m a rationalist to the bone. I don’t have ‘spiritual’ beliefs myself, of any kind. However, I am fascinated by them. I think such things are our attempts to explore our own selves, the mystery of our own consciousness. I find it quite easy to reconcile a stunned awe and wonder at the world, with the underlying premise that it is rationally explicable. For example – I don’t believe that crystals are magical. But it fascinates me to ask why some people think they are! What is it about a transparent, angular mineral that fires our imaginations? What is going on there? Why is it beautiful? The questions that follow on from that are endless.


The adventure elements of the story notwithstanding, you actually tackle some pretty big issues, for example developers who literally get away with murder, animal abuse, domestic violence, divorce, chronic illness, shonky alternative medicine. Did you deliberately set out to cover so much or did the story just unfold like that?

‘Shonky’ – great word! And a new one on me. Let me see… I suppose it just turned out like that. I tend to plan my plots in advance, but since plot must be driven by character, this means I need the kind of characters who will deliver me that plot! But Ben and Tiffany aren’t heroic by nature, they’re just kids. So I had to throw a lot of problems and upheaval at them to make them get up and go. Why those problems in particular? I suppose they were things that either bothered or intrigued me. There are real landlords like John Stanford; animal cruelty like that really goes on. I suppose I was following one of the writer’s top tips: write everything you love, and everything you hate.

Nick Green

To what extent did your own personal life experiences inform the story?

My own parents did divorce, but the situation was nothing like Ben’s. I was at pains to point this out to my own mum, who on reading the book said to me, ‘You’ve made me really awful!’ There was one line, I think, which echoes a real-life incident in our lives! Everything else was entirely made up. But people will see themselves in books. Especially parents. I’m sure my own experiences do colour the story throughout, but in such tiny bits and pieces that no-one but me would ever notice.


Of the two main characters, Ben and Tiffany, who do you prefer more, which one resonates more for you and which one was easier to write – and why?

It’s hard to say. I’m writing book 3 now and I still don’t know. When I’m writing Tiffany I think, ‘She’s so much easier than Ben,’ and when I’m writing Ben I think, ‘He’s so much easier than Tiffany.’ They’re like different hemispheres of my brain. Tiffany shares my love of cats and is more middle-class, like me. Whereas Ben has something of my hot-headedness about him, and of course he’s a boy which might make it easier. But I must say I like writing girl parts – you can say more and be more open, and you don’t have to always mask emotions! That can be really tiring; boys don’t reveal as much, they tend to imply more.


You’ve created some spectacular villains in The Cat Kin – what was it like to create and write such ultimate baddies?

Glad you like them! I used a tip from Roald Dahl there. He once wrote that the trick to a good story is to have really detestable villains. John Stanford is the less evil of the two; once or twice he almost shows flickers of conscience. But I pulled out all the stops with Philip Cobb, to make him truly diabolic. He could be exhausting to write; trying to imagine what it’s like to be that person, with no empathy or morality at all. Sometimes you feel like you need a shower after being around him.




Mrs Powell, the Pashki teacher, is an elusive and mysterious character – quite catlike, one might say. Was her characterization a deliberate attempt to make her seem more cat than human?

Absolutely. She’s done pashki for so long that it’s fundamental to who she is. Also, without giving too much away, it might be all she has left now. By nature she is a very alone person, and it strikes me probably very lonely too; but she’s made her choices in life and has the courage to live with them.


Although he’s a secondary character, you create strong characterization in Tiffany’s brother, Stuart, a child with Muscular Dystrophy. Were you inspired by anyone in the creation of Stuart and what prompted you to choose MD as his illness?

I was approached recently by a muscular dystrophy charity, who assumed from my book that I had personal experience of the disease. I don’t, touch wood. I just researched it, like everything else. Reading about some young sufferers, I was struck by their courage at living with this debilitating condition, and how in their own way, they were heroes. If you have severe MD, picking up a book can feel like lifting a bookcase. MD seemed a poignant contrast to what happens to Ben and Tiffany, who develop superhuman physical prowess. Stuart is the flip side of Tiffany – his muscles are wasting away, but in many respects he’s every bit as heroic as her. I like him a lot; he has more to do in subsequent books, as he becomes the only non-Cat Kin person to learn Tiffany’s secret.


The Cat Kin is a brilliant adventure, is it the sort of book you would have read as a child? And what sort of books did you enjoy when you were younger, and did they, or any book in particular, inspire you to write for children?

The authors I read most as a child were Diana Wynne Jones, Susan Cooper, Nicholas Fisk, Robert Westall, Tolkien, C. S. Lewis… I don’t know if any of them are remotely similar. Perhaps Fisk. It could be that I’ve filled in a gap in my own reading, by writing the book I would have liked to discover back then. Who knows! I’m not sure why I chose to write for children. Maybe it was that I remembered my childhood reading so fondly. The books you read as a child can stay with you for life. That doesn’t seem to happen so much as an adult. There are books I read now and adore; but they don’t become part of me. I’ve lost that ability that children have to take something absolutely to heart.


The Cat Kin is your debut novel – what did it feel like when it was accepted for publication? And what has been the best and worst thing about being a published author?

The big ‘hooray’ moment was getting an agent. That felt like my big break. Then I waited a year with no news at all, officially ‘gave up’ and self-published. The self-published book caught the attention of Faber, but before long it became clear that they didn’t want to do the full trilogy, so I had to get the rights back in order to publish the sequels somewhere else. I’m now with Strident, who are great, so it’s now my ‘second debut’ if you will. I’m too wised-up now to feel more than cautious optimism. I just get my head down and write.


Finally – what next for Nick Green?

The rest of the Cat Kin trilogy will be out in due course. Book 2 (Cat’s Paw) was briefly available in self-published form, but the Strident version will be much better produced. Book 3 I’m halfway to finishing now. I also have two new, unrelated books currently looking for a publisher. I’m really pleased with them, but it’s now harder than ever to get publishers interested. But they’ll be out there sooner or later. Just you wait.

'Pashki awakens the part of yourself that is like a cat. For cats have much to teach us. They are proud spirits yet calm. They live in the present, without worries beyond it. Cats are pools of serenity that may surge up in storms. They are weightless clouds that can quicken to lightning.'

To find out more about the books, Nick and Pashki, visit Nick Green’s website .

To order a copy of The Cat Kin go to Amazon.co.uk or order directly from Strident Publishers.

Baaaad Vanilla!

Mea very very culpa. I have been a bad girl. I have become horribly behind in all sorts of things I undertook to do and I hereby beat my chest, tug my forelock and groveling-ly apologise to all those I have let down.

Yes, yes, it’s true. I am entirely behind all the author interviews and book reviews I promised to do. I owe Sarwat Chadda and Nick Green author interviews. I promised book reviews to Ellen Renner and Gillian Philip. And I’ve been so caught up in “life” that reading - and I regret to say, writing - have been cast aside.

In an effort to catch up, I am now reading Sarwat Chadda’s Dark Goddess and Nick Green’s The Cat Kin at the same time. It’s causing me no end of trouble… Sarwat’s Billi Sangreal keeps morphing into a cat, while Nick’s Ben and Tiffany keep getting chased by werewolves – and that’s just all so wrong – because it’s Billi who’s hunting down the werewolves who’ve abducted the Spring Child, while Nick’s Ben and Tiffany have the wondrous ability to draw on their inner Mau and morph into catlike beings in order to go after the bad guys.




Note to self: really, don’t try to read two books at once, you are simply not in any fit state to do so – go and eat chocolate instead.

At least, I’m not getting confused between Ellen and Gillian’s books, as I’ve not even started them yet (sorry, grovel, sorry). But what I will say is this: there is a smouldering burn on the carpet next to my bed - and it’s all that Seth’s fault – for those who don’t know, he’s the seriously hot half-feral son of a Sithe nobleman in Gillian’s YA novel, Firebrand. He’s so seriously hot that I think he’s sent Ellen’s Tobias running for a huge bucket of water in the City of Thieves. Good old Tobias – I’m hoping he’ll prevent my entire house from burning down – assuming his family don’t nick the house first...




Anyway, at least you know what will be forthcoming on the blog, if I ever manage to get my life sorted out. And…there will also be, when it arrives, an interview with Savita Kalhan about her debut YA novel, The Long Weekend.




Right, now I’d better get on with catching up on the critiques owed to three of my critique partners, Jackie Marchant, Candy Gourlay and Lynn Huggins-Cooper.

I may be a while – again.

An interview with Tabitha Suzuma, author of Forbidden

Tabitha Suzuma is yet another of the remarkable authors I have met online via Facebook – it highlights how social networking can indeed enrich lives – and I very much look forward to meeting her later this year. Tabitha is not only a gifted writer (she has won, been nominated for and shortlisted for multiple awards); she is also a warm, funny, extraordinary and courageous person.

I had not previously read any of Tabitha’s work but I was aware of the subject matter she chooses to write about – and let’s be clear about one thing – Tabitha does not choose easy subject matter. In her latest book, Forbidden, Tabitha Suzuma tackles the taboo of sibling incest.

“How can something so wrong feel so right…?”

Before you recoil, read on.

A romance with a dramatic difference, Tabitha Suzuma’s Forbidden should come with a warning label: “Expect to have your world rocked.”

Forbidden is without doubt one of the most emotionally disturbing, powerful and haunting novels I have ever read – even Nabokov’s Lolita pales next to it. Richly complex and emotionally dramatic, Forbidden left me reeling.

Tabitha’s words are beautiful, her characters are vividly alive, the raw emotional power is palpable, and her story is challenging and intense. Forbidden is not a story for the faint-hearted, but it is a novel which will grip and hold you throughout.

This is writing at its most potent. This is a story which will push your buttons and leave you seriously questioning an openly accepted moral taboo and legal crime as you face, just as Lochan and Maya Whitely face, the forbidden love which Tabitha Suzuma has so bravely written about.

Lest you think that sibling incest is both an exception and something morally bereft, consider this:

History is littered with examples of brother-sister love: Cleopatra VII was married to her brother Ptolemy XII, the Roman emperor Caligula is rumoured to have had sexual relations with all three of his sisters, and the Hapsburg and Bourbon dynasties are riddled with incest. It is interesting to note that incest is not illegal in all jurisdictions and the taboo is more often than not driven by religion. On the flip side, “incest” is fairly normal in the animal world and, at its most fundamental, the issue for humans is that avoidance is about genetics and gene pools - inbreeding creates small gene pools and those groups subsequently die out. At its most simplistic, it becomes then, a matter of biology rather than morality. Taken like this, the taboo and law against incest becomes an interesting one, particularly if abuse is not involved. As Tabitha's Maya says: “They’ll never stop us. Not as long as this is what we both want. But you’ve got to stop thinking it’s wrong, Lochie. That’s just what other people think; it’s their problem, their stupid rules, their prejudices. They’re the ones who are wrong, narrow-minded, cruel…”

In reading Forbidden, the reader truly feels for Lochan and Maya Whitely; one does more than just empathise with them and one might even support their “forbidden love”. If it feels so "right", how can it be "wrong"? Forbidden raises many interesting moral questions, some of which are highlighted in an article The Guardian ran in 2002 entitled Forbidden Love in which it becomes quite clear that incest happens all around us, all the time. In short, sibling incest is far more common and prevalent than we’d like to think.

“You’ve always been my best friend, my soul mate, and now I’ve fallen in love with you too. Why is that such a crime?”

But enough of the background, let's get on with the interview.


I am totally delighted that Tabitha agreed to be interviewed on Absolute Vanilla, even though this is the toughest interview I’ve done to date. Tabitha, I'm afraid, found my questions equally challenging and begged to bow out on some of the more complex ones, so if it appears that there are "holes" in the interview, well, there are.

Tabitha Suzuma

Genius, tortured souls, worlds falling apart appear to be trademarks of your storytelling, and you are unafraid to tackle emotionally challenging topics such as depression, alcoholism, dysfunctional families, and, in Forbidden, sibling incest. What draws you or influences you to write stories of this nature?

Haha – when you put it like that, it makes me sound completely mad, which is only partially true! I guess I write about what I know, what fascinates me, and what I think is important, and all of these topics fall into at least one of those categories. The genius in A Note of Madness and its sequel A Voice in the Distance is Flynn, who is a musical prodigy, and his ‘genius’ was greatly influenced by my then teenage brother who is currently training to become a professional concert pianist. I am also fascinated by the link between mental illness and the artistic temperament. I studied psychology for a while, and one of my favourite books is Touched With Fire by Kay Redfield Jamison, which studies this link by exploring the lives of the many, many illustrious writers, musicians, composers and artists who suffered from some sort of mental illness.

Most of my books revolve around mental illness or mental suffering because it is something I am very familiar with. Refractory clinical depression is a condition I have lived with for most of my life and one which has come close to ending it on numerous occasions.






In Forbidden, in addition to the central tenet of the novel, you also draw together the threads of a broken family, an alcoholic mother, social phobia, older children raising younger children and the constant threat of intrusion by social services. Where did you start with this story and how did you find the various threads came together?

The threads you mention came from the need to find a reason for the two main characters, Lochan and Maya, to be drawn together into a romantic relationship. Consensual sibling incest happens more often when the siblings in question are brought up apart and meet for the first time as teens or adults. Consensual incest between siblings brought up together is relatively rare and so I needed some form of explanation for this to occur. Making them child carers, without any real or positive parental influence, forced to act as adults from a young age and to look after their younger siblings enabled me to make their relationship different from most brothers and sisters right from the start. They were close friends, partners, who shared an incredible burden that the rest of the world was unable to understand. They had to act like parents themselves which drew them into a relationship very different from your average brother and sister. It also alienated them from others as they were not free to hang out with friends after school and Lochan’s social phobia reinforced this sense of alienation by creating an actual barrier which prevented him from being able to reach out and talk to his peers. The threat of social services coming in and tearing the family apart placed an extra burden on Lochan and Maya and meant they had a secret (that they were living without parents) which drew them even further together. All of these factors pulled them closer together and made them increasingly dependent on one another for love and support.


In Lochan Whitely you have created a brilliant yet deeply troubled, complex and tragic character. How did he arise for you and how did he form as you wrote?

Lochan was a great character to write. I put a lot of myself into him, as well as a lot of the kind of person I would like to be. His social phobia was just an exaggeration of the kind of social discomfort many teens experience at some point or another and his sense of responsibility from being the eldest was greatly influenced by my own experiences growing up as the eldest of five. His kindness and sensitivity towards others was influenced by a close friend of mine and his brilliance was inspired by the link between genius and the troubled mind.


Troubled male main characters, albeit often balanced by strong secondary female character, seem to be prevalent in your writing. What draws you particularly to write from a male perspective – and the troubled main character perspective at that? And how important do you feel a balancing female protagonist is, and why?

I put a lot of myself into my main characters and when I started my very first book, A Note of Madness, I decided to try writing it from a male perspective so that I was able to create some distance between the character and myself. So that I could be less self-conscious, I suppose, and free to put as much of myself into the character as I wanted without actually feeling as if I were writing about myself. I guess it was a form of camouflage. But I also wanted to write a book about a teenage boy suffering from a mental illness because I think that society makes it far more difficult for boys than for girls to talk about their feelings, especially when things are going wrong, and much more difficult for them to speak out about their problems and seek help. Not that it’s easy for anyone, but teenage boys are much more inclined to keep their feelings bottled up. I also felt there were far more books about troubled girls in YA fiction and that more books about troubled boys needed to be written as they suffer just as much but often receive far less help. I now feel extremely comfortable writing from a male perspective but I also enjoy writing in a dual narrative, as in Forbidden, because for a love story I think it’s important for the reader to experience the feelings of both characters involved.


Lochan and Maya’s mum is a hopeless, and ultimately destructive character, who clutches at her fading youth, a bottle of booze in hand. Were there any particular influences and inspiration behind the creation of her character, which is the primary and fundamentally abusive force within her family?

I think her complete disinterest in her family and her selfishness and most importantly, lack of parental love was influenced in part by my late father, who was physically abusive towards me when I was a child and rarely showed affection.


Would you say that in creating Forbidden you wrote intuitively or did you have to do a considerable amount of research?

The only research I had to do was regarding incest and the law, and the details in the final chapters.


So now, Tabitha, the obvious question arises: what motivated and inspired you to write a book about sibling incest?

It started with the desire to write a tragic love story. It came down to incest by a process of elimination. I wanted the book to be set in contemporary London and I needed the two teens in question to be old enough for their love for each other to be taken seriously. But I quickly realised that (fortunately) in modern-day Britain there are very few – if any – obstacles that could keep a couple in love apart. Cultural and religious difference maybe, but if the couple were determined enough to go against their families' wishes, they could always run away together. I needed something that would be condemned by everyone wherever they went – a relationship that could never be and moreover, was against the law.


Many authors believe their writing is autobiographical to a greater or lesser extent. To what extent does your own life inform your writing?

As I mentioned earlier, I suffer from clinical depression so on the one hand I have always viewed writing as an escape from the real world and as an escape from my own problems and from myself. On the other hand, I also find it very therapeutic because I am able to discharge a lot of my own pent up emotions onto the page. I think it’s an escape because I’m not writing about myself directly and I’m not writing about my own immediate problems; however I definitely use the intensity of the emotions I’ve experienced at various points in my life to make my books as real as possible. I often also find, upon re-reading, that I have unconsciously used many episodes in my life to influence my writing and choice of subject matter. Obviously, my books about depression stem from my own battle with the illness but it took me a while to realise how much of Lochan and Maya’s responsibilities and concern for their younger siblings mirrored my own childhood. I am the eldest of five and although I wouldn’t go as far as saying I was a child carer, I did leave school at fourteen when my youngest brother was born and played a big part in bringing him up: I did the school run, the bedtime routine, bathed him, dressed him, even had his friends round to play. My sister, ten years my junior, called me ‘mummy’ until she was three.




Your characters and your voice are mature, some might even say more suited to an adult as opposed to a young adult readership. What is your view on this and what it is to write for young adults?

I never set out to write for young adults. In A Note of Madness, if you read the prologue, you might be able to tell it was intended initially for an adult audience. But then I found that because I was writing about teens, the book seemed more suitable for a teenage audience. I find myself drawn to writing about teenagers and about what some might call teen issues. Therefore my books fit better in the YA section. However I have had a great number of adults write to me to say how much they have enjoyed my books and I certainly don’t change my style or significantly simplify the vocabulary I use.


I know that in writing Forbidden you went through many revisions, edits and rewrites. What was the view of your publishers on presenting them with the initial manuscript and what were the points on which you differed?

Actually there was only one, major rewrite. And that was in order to remove several of the sexual scenes. I was very keen to keep the story as realistic as possible and didn’t want to do any ‘glossing’ or tasteful fades to black. In order to keep the story real, I felt there would also be quite a lot of sexual content seeing as the couple are more or less left to their own devices. However my publishers felt that Lochan and Maya’s relationship was too sexual and not romantic enough and so I had to rework some scenes and do a lot of negotiation until we found a middle ground we were both happy with.


Do you get to interact much with your young adult readers and, if so, what sort of feedback have you had from them on Forbidden?

I am fortunate enough to get a lot of wonderful emails from my readers. So far, the feedback on Forbidden has been overwhelmingly positive which feels great. However many readers have also written to tell me how much the book moved them, often to the point of tears, and many told me they never thought they would find themselves rooting for a brother and sister to be allowed to have a sexual relationship but that their feelings changed completely during the course of the book.




Finally, what next for Tabitha Suzuma? I know you are working on a new novel, can you tell us a little about it and when it will be published.

My next book is a tragic love story with, as its central theme, euthanasia.



Many thanks to Tabitha Suzuma for agreeing to be interviewed and I wish great success with Forbidden and her forthcoming novel.


For more about Tabitha Suzuma you can connect with her via:
Her website
Her Facebook fan page
On Twitter

Her books can be found on Amazon UK
and Amazon USA

For those interested, overviews of incest and incest taboo can be found on Wikipedia.

An interview with children’s author, Ellen Renner

Introducing children's author, Ellen Renner

I know many lament social networking and in particular the productivity sink that is Facebook. But for me, it has been a godsend - as aware as I am of its shortcomings. As you will have gathered from the various interviews with fellow writers, Facebook has been a fertile meeting ground, and I’m happy to introduce to you yet another of my writer pals found through the connectivity of social networking.

Ellen Renner was kind enough to send me a copy of her debut novel Castle of Shadows when it became blindingly obvious on someone’s Facebook wall that I hadn’t read the book. What a treat!

Castle of Shadows is shortlisted for the West Sussex Children’s Book Award and on the Times and Independent newspapers’ lists of suggested summer reading. For readers aged 9+, it’s a beautifully written story, full of political intrigue, derring-do, wit, imagination and has a plot that twists and turns through chapters filled with smoke and mirrors. It is a story which is filled with evocative imagery and has a feisty heroine whose life story pulls at the heartstrings. It is a thoroughly enjoyable romp of a read!

The blurb reads as follows: The day Charlie discovers a scrap of paper that could solve the dark mystery of her mother's disappearance, her world changes. Forever. Charlie and her friend, Toby, must race against time on a dangerous mission to uncover the sinister truth. But in this shadowy world of secrets and lies, there is more to fear than they can possibly imagine...

But without further ado, let me introduce to Ellen Renner.

Children's author, Ellen Renner

Ellen, the clarity of your descriptions gripped me from the start. You paint the most vivid images with words and without lapsing into rambling prose. You do that thing that writers are always admonished to do – you show rather than tell. Examples which spring to mind are: “His voice was soft and sharp, like a slice of lemon cake.” “The dress was made of silk the colour of cool water.” “The pain was too fierce for tears. It burnt them to ash.” Did you find it easy to show, was it something that came naturally to you or was it something you had to work on?

Hi Nicky,

First, thanks so much for interviewing me. There’s nothing writers like more than talking about their books!
Show-not-tell. That’s the mantra, isn’t it? But you have to know how to do both. Sometimes you need to tell. However, it’s certainly true that if you want to write for the children’s or YA market these days, you must be able to show. It’s partly a fashion for filmic writing. But for me it’s also the most effective way to accomplish what I want to do.
I want the reader to experience, as much as is possible, what it feels like to ‘be’ my character. If I keep jumping out of their point of view and into an authorial voice with loads of objective description, back-story or telling, I not only slow the pace, I yank the reader out of my character’s head.
I do tell in several places in Castle, just to get some information in there the reader has to have and which I can’t do any other way. But I keep those sections to an absolute minimum. I try to work them in as seamlessly as I can and I always know when I’m doing it.
I’ve been teaching creative writing for a few years and show-not-tell is the number one problem most beginning and intermediate writers have. It’s like maths, it just has to click and then you get it. You must always know when you are telling and why. After that, by all means break the rules if that’s what’s best for your story – form should follow function – as long as you’re in control of the technique and not the other way round. Editors and agents tend to immediately reject any manuscript that starts off with back-story or telling, especially if you’re a new writer, so use with caution.


Castle of Shadows is a very rich story, a layered tapestry of political intrigue, emotion, and the heartfelt quest of one girl to find her mother. How did the idea for the book develop and what came first – the character of Charlie (Princess Charlotte Augusta Joanna Hortense of Quale), the setting i.e. the castle, the political intrigue – or something else – and, what was your inspiration?

The characters came first, the mad king and his neglected daughter. The image of the king dangling from his scaffolding about to put the last card in place on his enormous card castle just popped into my head one day.
I started off by staying in my comfort zone. I was thinking fables, a short book for younger readers, nothing too big or ambitious. Then something happened and I realised that playing safe was not an option if I ever wanted to get anywhere with my writing. I had to try to write the sort of book I actually wanted to read. I knew I had the germ of a good idea and I didn’t want to waste it.
Castle, as you say, has layers. There are some pretty heavy themes going on in the background: bad parenting, the threat of war, political and scientific responsibility, and what happens to children when grownups do the wrong things for what they think are the right reasons. It has a complex plot set in an alternative world and the hardest thing of all was to juggle all of that and keep the narrative moving forward at a page-turning pace.
The book might never have been finished if Helen Corner hadn’t run the 2007 Cornerstones Wow Factor competition. A writing buddy encouraged me to enter and then I had to write to speed to keep up with the deadlines. Castle of Shadows won and I got my agent as a result.


The depiction of the Charlie’s father, the king, swinging from the scaffolding building his castles in the air, his castles of cards is a particularly powerful image, and in multiple ways. Can you tell us more about this and what it means to you?

It is the book. It was the genesis and yes, it’s loaded thematically. My original title was Castle of Cards. Worlds built on lies, crumbling castles, political intrigue, personal relationships, identity, the king’s own fragile emotional state – it all refers back to that first image. And then there’s the climactic scene …
I feel quite tenderly towards the king: he’s gentle, kind, well-intentioned – and a bad parent. Life has proved hard and he’s opted out, neglecting the kingdom and his child, leaving her to cope with the loss of her mother on her own. She’s lonely, isolated and abused by the housekeeper, although he doesn’t know about that – or to be more accurate, he hasn’t noticed.
There’s a bit of him that’s about parents who become obsessed with their work to the point that they neglect their children. My son suffered some benign neglect while I was writing the book and some of my guilt is in there, although he was probably very pleased that Mum had something else to worry about for a while.




There is a lot of detail in terms of cloth and clothing, the castle layout, the pneumatic railway in the story. Did you have to do a lot of research and could you see clearly in your mind’s eye what you wanted to describe?

I did a lot of research. I write visually so I want to be able to see a scene, like a film playing before my eyes. The book is set in an alternative Victorian kingdom, and as much as possible corresponds to 1840s England – a fascinating period of political, social and technological upheaval. A time of boom and bust, extremes of poverty and wealth, mass migrations to the cities. The French revolution still loomed large in the imagination of the English political class: they were terrified of mass unrest and the Whigs begin the process of political reform and extending the franchise as a way of addressing these fears. Pneumatic and atmospheric railways existed. Isambard Kingdom Brunel built the only working atmospheric railway in Britain in the 1830s between Teignmouth and Starcross in Devon. It only ran for a year because rats ate the waxed leather seals and the vacuum kept failing. Vulcanised rubber was invented 10 years later. If that timing had been different, we might still be riding on atmospheric trains. There’s a working one in South America somewhere.

You’re an American who has lived in the UK for many years and your story has a quintessentially English feel to it, is this because you are completely at ease with the language and literary style of your adopted country, or because you set out to create a particular style?

I’ve lived in the UK for twenty years now. I’m doubtless pretty anglicised, although I try to keep that detachment which is one of the great benefits of being an ex-pat. My vocabulary is a mixture and I forget these days whether a term is American or English. I grew up reading a lot of English fiction, which is one of the reasons I headed to the UK first when I started traveling. I come from the Ozark mountains of southern Missouri and live in Devon now, where the local accent and dialect remind me of the Ozarks (as does the countryside). I use a vernacular for Tobias; his words may be anglicised but his rhythms and tone have a bit of Ozarks in there, I think. And that’s the lovely thing about alternative worlds: anything goes as long as there’s an internal logic.


There were many aspects of Castle of Shadows the reminded me of the classics of English children’s literature. To what extent have you read and been influenced by those English classics?

Massively. I discovered I wanted to write for children after I moved to the UK. My husband and I are always buying books; our house has piles of them everywhere because there are never enough shelves. We spent a lot of our pre-parent days trawling through second-hand book shops. He’d disappear into history, biography and social sciences, and I’d head for fiction. I bought lots of lovely old Puffins and dug in. Sometimes I’ll revisit a favourite, like Tom’s Midnight Garden or The Way to Sattin Shore, by Philippa Pearce, or John Gordon’s The Giant Under the Snow, or Leon Garfield’s brilliant Smith. I’ve read everything by Joan Aiken, Margaret Mahy and Diana Wynne Jones many times over, and I’m kept busy these days reading people like Garth Nix, Jonathan Stroud, Charlie Fletcher and Sally Gardner. My current to-be-read pile is nearly as tall as the king’s card castle and contains Halo by Zizou Corder, Hootcat Hall by Lucy Coats, The Ogre of Oglefort by Eva Ibbotson and Amazing Grace by Mary Hooper, to name just a few. There are so many good books out there!


Castle of Shadows is the first book of a quartet. Did you know from the start there’d be more than one book or did the ideas evolve as you progressed through the Castle of Shadows?

I fully intended to write a stand-alone. The message was clear: publishers do not want trilogies or quartets. But the characters hadn’t finished with me. Castle does work as a stand-alone, but I wanted to write Tobias’ story before I’d finished the first draft of Castle and as soon as that was winging its way to the Cornerstones competition I set down and wrote the first draft of City of Thieves in about six weeks.
There are four books. Each has its own villain and contains a complete story which is resolved, but at the same time there’s is a larger villain and over-arching story for the entire quartet. That has been great fun to work out. I don’t like series where a book just stops with a ‘to be continued’. There can be a sense of the larger story continuing, but I want that specific story to have a finite shape and resolution.

Ellen signs books for fans

Castle of Shadows is rich with political intrigue; the entire story revolves against this backdrop of deceit, machinations and the lust for power. What prompted you to choose politics as your canvas for Charlie’s story? And do you think it’s the sort of scenario young readers can readily appreciate?

I don’t think any subject is out of bounds if handled appropriately. My readers are 9+, same age as Harry Potter and Dark Materials. Speaking of which, ‘deceit, machinations and the lust for power’ figure pretty largely in both of those. Politics is everywhere. It affects most aspects of children’s lives and kids are not stupid or unaware, especially these days.
But the book isn’t overtly about politics. Grownups reading it will see the political aspect; many kids will be reading it purely for the adventure. At that level it’s no different than any other book with a big villain. Most villains are after power in some form: Voldemort, Lord Asriel, The Wicked Witch of the West, Aladdin’s uncle. Castle of Shadows is enjoying a wide readership; because it has levels, kids and grownups both seem to like it. At the most basic, it’s a fairy tale: mad king, neglected daughter, evil advisor. Mostly, the kids are responding to the characters of Charlie and Tobias. They are living the adventure with them.


Were you, in choosing a political backdrop, deliberately intending to parody the machinations of government or a particular state or system of government?

No. The book started with the image of a king building a castle of cards. If you have mad king you have a kingdom in trouble. It begs the question of who’s running it. Enter a prime minister. It’s that simple.
But it’s certainly true that my own preoccupations determine the slant a story will take. I was around ten when I learnt about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII. Ever since, I’ve been obsessed with the question of whether or not scientists have moral responsibility for their discoveries.
So yes, the world of my book contains a weapon of mass destruction and impending war. During the Iraq war the news media in the UK reported on ‘collateral damage’. It was no surprise to learn that the majority of those killed and injured were women and children. It’s always been the weakest in society – women, children and the elderly – who suffer most in wars. So an obvious question is: Can you be an effective politician in an imperfect world and remain a moral being? Windlass does bad things for what he believes are good reasons. Is he right? Are there levels of morality where shades of grey slide into black and when does that happen?
Again, these were some issues I was thinking about as I wrote the book, but it’s part of that thing about levels. It’s background. Adults may see some of it, but I doubt many children are aware of these themes as they read. Page-turning adventure is what they want and what I was determined to provide.




Returning once again to your fabulously evocative descriptions, I laughed out loud at the image of the “fishy” Esceanian ambassador, I couldn’t help but love the loyal Mr Moleglass, the butler, and I bristled in indignation at the malevolent and scheming Mrs O’Dair in her bustling bombazine. You have a wealth of brilliantly depicted characters and I have to wonder, are any of your characters based on real people? And, how do you go about getting to know your characters?

I think the best fiction is character-led. My characters are the heart of my books, although I love plot twists and shamelessly manipulate my readers to keep them turning the pages. I don’t draw on real life for my characters. I don’t know where they come from and I don’t enquire too closely. They always seem to show up as needed, often fully formed. Only one of the minor characters in Castle is partially based on a real person, and he was added in the very last draft for plot reasons.


I was intrigued throughout the story by Charlie’s maturity. You’ve made her 11 but in many ways, despite her tomboy-ishness, she reads more like she’s 14 or 15 – both in her manners and her interactions with other characters. What made you settle on 11 as her age when the book could easily have been targeted at a Young Adult audience and might even be said to be a little too mature for a 9 – 12 year old market?

I see this rather differently. Charlie’s rising 12. Her mother’s a scientific genius and Charlie is no slouch in the brain stakes, but that’s really beside the point. Her circumstances have formed her: she’s had to raise herself since the age of six, living by her wits and facing a formidable enemy in Mrs O’Dair. She’s lost her mother and is emotionally abandoned by her father, who is a burden of care to her rather than a parent. I would be surprised if she didn’t seem older than her years. I’m sure that Elizabeth the First, who lived her childhood in traumatic and dangerous circumstances, was precocious as well. She would have had to be to survive. (btw, the red hair is not coincidental.)
Adults tend to forget what it was like to be ten or eleven or twelve. I remember that age vividly: what I was reading and thinking about, my moral and philosophical preoccupations, the conversations I had with friends. At 9+ brains are fully formed and functioning; it’s only experience and context which is lacking. I would always rather err on the side of over-estimating anyone, especially children, which is why I also don’t simplify language past a certain point. If the story is good enough, kids will skip over words they don’t know, getting enjoyment from the sound of them and meaning from context. It’s how you learn.
Also, I don’t think this is a teen idea: it’s classic adventure story territory, no more complicated than the setup in the Harry Potter or Dark Materials books. And quite frankly I didn’t want Charlie and Tobias snogging! There aren’t enough adventure books for 9+ with strong female leads. Girls are often ghettoised into pink and sparkly. Publishers are worried boys won’t read about female characters. Well, they do if you give them the right one. Pullman proved that with Lyra, and boys seem to be loving this book as much as the girls.


Castle of Shadows’ sequel, City of Thieves, in which Charlie’s friend, Tobias Petch plays a starring role is due out in August this year. What made you want to write about Toby in particular in the sequel?

Yes, the second book belongs to Tobias although Charlie is still a strong presence. She returns to the foreground in the last two books. I can’t say very much about my reasons without giving away a plot twist in Castle of Shadows, but Tobias is a boy with secrets. He has a pretty big problem as well as an unusual talent, and both those things were begging to be written about. It was also necessary for the overall narrative arc that his story be told next. I loved writing him. In some ways, he’s easier to write than Charlie, because his personality is simpler and more direct.




Castle of Shadows is your debut novel; what has the journey to publication been like for you and what advice would you give aspiring authors?

That’s a huge question; we could do an entire interview on that. My journey has been untypical. I’d only ever previously submitted one other thing to an agent, a short book for 7-9 year olds (which was rejected). But I had spent years learning to write and studying what was being published. I only started to submit once I felt I was writing at a professional level. Castle of Cards (as it was then) won the 2007 Cornerstones/Writer’s News Wow Factor competition for best unpublished children’s book, which brought me to the attention of my agent, Rosemary Canter. There was luck involved as I very nearly didn’t enter the competition. There’s been bad luck too, of course. Some debuts may have stress-free and magical journeys to publication, most of us do not.
As a pre-published writer I didn’t really look past the goal of getting an agent and then a book deal. It’s such a huge, difficult thing to achieve, especially these days. Things happened fast after the Cornerstones win, and I found that my journey had only just started. The learning curve is huge and no one has time to tell you anything, so you wing it. Possibly the worst thing is that it becomes increasingly difficult to find time to write, which is what you love doing and is the only reason you’re here in the first place.
Advice? First, make sure you know what you want out of your writing. There’s nothing wrong with writing for pleasure and if you want to share your stories with friends and family, internet self-publishing is much easier now. If your ambition is to be published traditionally, then make sure you want it badly enough, because unless you’re very very lucky, there’s little money in it and a great deal of stress. You will have to promote. You will have less time for writing and your family. The positive side is worth it for me: seeing your book in shops and libraries and meeting readers is all fabulous, as is a glowing review in a national paper. Best of all is the fact that people are reading your story and giving it life beyond you. The first time I saw a copy of my book in a public library was one of the most thrilling of my life!
But do be aware that the climate is very harsh right now. Publishers are forced by current market conditions and the power of retail monopolies to take a scatter-gun approach to writers. They throw a number out there every year and see who sticks. Unless they’ve paid mega-bucks for you in a huge auction (probably becoming a thing of the past as most of these advances fail to pay back), you’ll be doing most of the promotion yourself. And if you don’t sell well enough, you’ll find it very hard to get another publishing deal.
Still want to find an agent and get a book deal? Okay, write for yourself and write the best book you can. In order to do that, join SCBWI, find a good critique group, learn to re-write and develop a very thick skin for rejection.
And when you are getting close to publication – when you are getting personalised rejections – get a website up, start blogging, get on FB and Twitter and build relationships. Don’t just promote yourself: be interesting and supportive. You need to be doing that at least six months before the book comes out. I didn’t. I was too busy writing, the family was very busy, I’m shy and don’t like the idea of self-promotion. Well, six months on and I’m still struggling to catch up. You have to get yourself out there. On the positive side, I love school visits and working with the children almost as much as writing. It’s a rare privilege

Ellen on a school visit, with some of her readers

Tell us what it felt like when you landed an agent and then a publishing contract?

It was great, of course, but in hindsight I wasn’t ready for either. I’d been a member of SCBWI for five or six years and thought I was clued up, but I was dreadfully naive. Again, if I had been on Facebook talking to all you lovely people I would have been a whole lot wiser. When Rosemary Canter told me she wanted Castle to be a ‘big’ book, at first I thought she meant longer. Duh! What I hadn’t realised (although I thought I had) is how fast the industry is changing and will continue to change. We’re in uncharted waters.


And finally, where to from here for Ellen Renner?

City of Thieves is out in the UK August 2010 and has an amazing cover. I can’t wait to hold a copy in my hands! The autumn is already booking out with promotional events: school visits, festivals, library visits, book store signings. And I get to go to Sussex in November to visit schools taking part in the West Sussex Award process: 74 schools are studying the 9 shortlisted books over the autumn term. So it’s going to be very busy. I have to write a book as well. And it needs to be brilliant. So it’s all pretty fantastic, really.


Many thanks to Ellen for agreeing to be interviewed and here’s wishing her all the very best of luck and success in her ongoing authorial adventuring!


For more about Ellen Renner see her website

Order Ellen’s books from Amazon

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All images courtesy of Ellen Renner