11 Books that have influenced this pre-published author...

They say if you want to write, read. Read, read, read. And write, of course. So, having read Candy Gourlay’s blogpost about the Seven Books from the Last Decade that made her an Author, I started to ponder which books had particularly moved or influenced me. I’m not sure I want to particularly stick to just seven books, or confine them to the last decade because every book I read impacts in some way and there are books that I read as a child that told me that if I could do something like that, well, my life would be a good one.

So deviating slightly from the structure of Candy’s post (and Kathryn Evans, Vanessa Harbour and Dave Cousins - who've done similar posts) here’s my list of influential books, in no particular order (other than the first two):



Linnets and Valerians - Elizabeth Goudge
If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll have seen this one come up time and again. For me it is a classic case of magic and realism brought together beautifully and I suppose, no matter how “dated” the story may seem to a modern child, it is that deftness of touch and lyricism of words that always resounds for me.





The Little White Horse – Elizabeth Goudge
I read this story as a 10 year old, having borrowed it from a friend. Over the years I forgot its title but I never forgot the story - the magic had totally captivated me. Much to my delight, I found it had been reprinted earlier this decade – after JK Rowling had said it had been one of the books which had most inspired her journey to becoming a published author.





Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – JK Rowling
Of all the Harry Potter books this one stood out for me – it further developed the Potteresque world, was better written and combined, as Goudge had done, magic, myth and reality in a classic fantasy. The series per se, no matter what you think of the quality of the writing, opened up the world of reading to many non-reading children - and, in doing so it opened the market for writers and authors.




The Pure Dead series - Debi Gliori
OMG! This woman can make me laugh out loud, she gets humour so bang on and her imagination is a riot. I take my hat off to anyone who writes children’s humour with such insight and ability to tickle the funny bone. Although I don’t write humour, I am well aware of how difficult it is to do and get right, and, moreover, I think every book, irrespective of genre, benefits from having even just a couple of lines which make the reader chuckle.




How I Live Now – Meg Rosoff
I wasn’t sure how I was going to like How I Live Now and I wasn’t sure I felt about it even when I’d finished reading the book. Meg Rosoff broke all sorts of barriers when she wrote this book and I soon came to realise that was exactly the reason why the book resonated for me - and resonated more the longer I thought about it. It’s a book that’s tough, it’s real and it’s powerful, and it’s written by an author unafraid to do things differently and tell the story in a way she has to tell it. Meg has gone on to become one of my favourite authors.



Lucas – Kevin Brooks
I list Lucas as it was the first Kevin Brooks book I read. Frankly, I’d happily list the lot (Road of the Dead, Killing God, Candy, they’re all up there amongst my top books). I love this man’s writing. He’s unafraid to tackle difficult subjects (in Lucas he deals with love, hatred, prejudice and jealousy), and he writes in a way that may be defined as both art and craft. He’s good, really good, and if I get to write anywhere near as well as him, tackling tough subjects head on and yet with insight, sensitivity and power, I’ll be happy.
(You can read my interview with Kevin Brooks here.)


Wicked Lovely – Melissa Marr
This is a book that brings me back almost full circle – it’s urban fantasy, myth and lore colliding head on with reality. It’s faeries and humans and all the confusion and hopes of being a young adult in-between. There’s romance, there’s grit, there’s magic – it’s the sort of mix that I would have loved to read as a 16 year old. It’s got everything that has timeless appeal to older teen girls.




Crossing the Line – Gillian Philip
This was the first of Gillian’s books which I read and I knew immediately I was in the hands (or between the pages) of an author who was going places. Like Kevin Brooks, Gillian is unafraid to tackle tough subjects – and to do so with tremendous insight - and deft touches of humour – take it from me, it’s not an easy balance to get right. Gillian’s honesty and her fearlessness really struck and resonated with me.
(You can read my interview with Gillian Philip here.)



Tall Story – Candy Gourlay
Candy is a writer whom one cannot help but admire and respect. I have watched her journey through the slushpile over the years. Her sheer determination to work at and hone her craft and achieve publication are credit to her, and the arrival of Tall Story on the shelves earlier this year proves that working at it and persevering are worth it. Tall Story is a triumph and in so many ways. It’s a story that blends magic, humour, reality and it makes you laugh and cry. Moreover, it’s a book that is superbly crafted and deserves every award for which it is being nominated. Of course, I am biased – Candy is my pal and critique partner and I’m kind of hopeful that some process of osmosis will occur…
(You can read my interview with Candy Gourlay here.)


City of Thieves – Ellen Renner
Now here’s another author (and pal and critique partner) who has honed her craft. For me, Ellen Renner’s characterization and her ability to “show not tell”, stands out from the crowd. She is also unafraid to tackle big subjects in a way which is accessible to younger children. If you want to learn about crafting a story, and enjoy a jolly good adventure which challenges your thinking at the same time, you couldn’t do better than reading this book.
(You can read my interview with Ellen Renner here and my review of City of Thieves here.)


Forbidden – Tabitha Suzuma
I’ll be honest, I struggled with Forbidden – and yet I couldn’t put it down. For me, what stands out is Tabitha’s ability to tackle the grittiest, the most challenging of subjects - and to do it bravely, honestly and without pandering to niceties and sensitivities. Forbidden is a story which challenges not only the reader and his/her perceptions, but, I suspect, heartily challenges the publishing industry as to what is acceptable reading for young adults. Yet Forbidden is also a book which is beautifully crafted and sensitively told. All credit to Tabitha for her courage in writing Forbidden.
(You can read my interview with Tabitha Suzuma here.)


You’ll probably have noticed that most of the books that stand out for me are written for teens or young adults – and that’s because I’m blown away by the quality and variety of writing for this age group and wish that books like these had been around when I was 16. I guess it also becomes pretty apparent that similar things constantly inspire and inform me – from craft to honesty, from perseverance to genre – and frequently the blending of realism with “magic” or the supernatural. But above all, I think it is the courage of each writer to boldly and deftly tell the stories they simply have to tell. With each book I read, with each aspect that stands out for me and which I take on board, I know my own writing grows stronger as does my confidence in telling the stories I know I too have to tell.

And the winners are...

The opportunity to win a signed copy of Ellen Renner’s wonderful children’s novel, City of Thieves has now passed.

And there are two winners.

Yes, it was all done properly. To the chagrin of my tree-hugging friends, I printed out all the entries, cut up the paper and folded it neatly. Then I put the names into a mixing bowl – sorry, no hat available – and tossed them together like a good salad, and got Lovely Husband to close his eyes and draw two names from the bowl.

So, I’m happy to announce that the winners are…

Michele Fabio of the blog Bleeding Espresso,

and

Alice – for whom I have no contact details.

So, Alice, would you please contact me by Monday 20th December - you will find an email address on the blog’s profile page - and let me have your postal details so Ellen can send you your copy.

Congratulations to both of you, and I hope you both enjoy reading Ellen’s wonderful story!

To the rest of you, I’m sorry you couldn’t all get a copy of City of Thieves, but thanks for entering!

UPDATE - 21 December 2010:

I've not heard from Alice and have no way of contacting her, so I've drawn another name from the mixing bowl - and this time the winner is BlueIceGal from the Fantasy4Eva blog. BlueIceGal, I'll be contacting you via your blog to get your postal details. Congratulations on the win!

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.

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

An interview with debut children’s author, Candy Gourlay

First off - go and get a cup of coffee or tea or whatever - we're settling in for a long and very interesting chat.

Tall Story, by Candy Gourlay

Unlike many of my other interviewees whom I’ve only met via Facebook, I’m happy to say that Candy Gourlay and I have actually met – twice! – in real life. I first encountered Candy on the Wordpool and SCBWI-BI children’s writer’s groups and then met her at a conference in Winchester and again last year in London. Candy and I are also in the same critique group (I’m hoping only good things can come from this sort of illustrious shoulder rubbing…).

Children's author, Candy Gourlay

Candy is wonderful – she’s funny, feisty, exuberantly energetic, industrious, professional, kind and caring and there is far, far more to her than meets the eye. Are you blushing yet, Candy…? But aside from all that, the way Candy writes, well, it’s magic!

For years Candy has kept a blog called Notes from the Slushpile, in which she talks about the difficulties of getting published. She’s provided her readers with humour and loads of tips and insights. She has done an inordinate amount for her fellow writers. So it’s only right that Candy now gets her chance in the limelight – and my god, she’s done it with style.

Candy's debut novel, Tall Story, is a bittersweet, funny, poignant and magical story. It will make you cry and it will make you laugh out loud. It is a story about wishes and being careful what you wish for. It is a tale of basketball, mythology and of a brother and sister separated by bureaucracy and bound by love. It is told from both points of view – the sister, Andi Jones, born in London (Candy’s adopted city) and her brother, Bernardo Hipolito, born in the Philippines (Candy’s home country). It is a cross-cultural novel but without being heavy on cross-cultural issues. It is the very best kind of story, beautifully told and powerfully written. Buy it and read it. You’ll love it.

But without further ado, here’s Candy Gourlay…

Candy Gourlay with her publisher, David Fickling, at the book launch of Tall Story

Candy, her publisher, the Philippines ambassador, and fans at the launch of Tall Story

Candy, you’ve written about your inspiration for Tall Story in several places on the internet, but for the benefit of Absolute Vanilla readers, please tell us what inspired Tall Story.

Nicky, thanks very much for having me on your brilliant blog. Yes, I have talked about the inspiration for Tall Story in several places already but today, I suddenly remembered something that I haven’t ever mentioned before.

When I left the Philippines to live in England, my two younger brothers were only just so tall … they were little boys. I visited Manila only a year later and who should open the door to my family home but a young man. It took me a long minute to realize that it was one of my brothers, grown tall in the months that I’d been away.

It’s a little bit like that, living away from your family. You visit, there’s a babbling baby. You return, the baby has morphed into an articulate boy with a penchant for singing the theme songs from Marvel superhero cartoons.

In Tall Story, one of the big moments is when 12 year old Andi, a mouthy, basketball-mad Londoner, meets her gentle Filipino half-brother Bernardo for the first time and realizes that he is eight feet tall.

I’ve always been fascinated by gigantism, and when I told my sister, Joy, that I would like to write a teen novel featuring a giant, she told me the story of Ujang Warlika, a seven foot four inch tall Indonesian Boy. Joy’s husband, a basketball coach, was asked to turn Ujang Warlika into a basketball star like the Chinese giant, Yao Ming who is seven foot six and earning millions as a player for the NBA in America.

But the problem with Ujang was that he was not tall, he was a giant – he suffered from a pituitary tumour that produced abnormal amounts of growth hormone.

Basketball player, Yao Ming
(image nicked off Wikipedia)

Along with the story of Ujang Warlika, you also tell the story of Bernardo Carpio, the mythical giant. Woven together with Bernardo Carpio’s story are elements of Filipino folklore. To what extent does the mythology of the Philippines influence and underpin your writing and how important do you feel it is for children to understand something of mythology?

I think mythology enriches our perception of who we are. Think about any myth and it will reveal so much about the people who originated it – myths are all about life and death and taking the measure of where the power lies in our environment.

In places like Indonesia and the Philippines on the earthquake/volcano/typhoon belt, our mythologies attempt to make sense of calamity. And with the passage of time, the stories continue to live and breathe as the storytellers adapt them to current events.

Bernardo Carpio’s mythology may have risen from earthquakes but he has also been portrayed as a revolutionary (when Filipinos were struggling against Spanish rule) as well as a hero who fights to release Filipinos from poverty.

The first novel I ever attempted had English characters and European locations – partly because I perceived my ethnicity as a barrier to publication. Then I met an agent who pointed out that unless I somehow used my Filipino-ness in my writing, readers would find it difficult to make the connection between the book and the author.

“But I’m writing what I know,” I pleaded. Isn’t that what all writing books tell you to do? Looking back, I realize that all those books were wrong. James Scott Bell, one of my favorite writing gurus, says: “It’s not about writing about what you know, it’s about writing who you are.”

In my own country, folklore and mythology still hold powerful sway, to what extent is this true of the Philippines, or have generations of religious influence erased the impact of mythology – and if so, what is your view of that?

The Philippines is the only Catholic country in Asia – a result of 300 years of colonization by Spain. But all that religious and cultural influence has been assimilated into our folklore – in the same way that Filipino Catholicism is an amalgamation of our ancient animist practices and modern belief.

We cannot escape our mythology because it lives and breathes in the natural environment of the Philippines.

What does endanger Philippine mythology is the fact that most of it is not written down. But children’s publishing is burgeoning in the Philippines and I have high hopes that the rise of publishing will result in the archiving our folkloric heritage.

Through mythology and his size, you give Bernard Hipolito almost godlike qualities, yet at the same time you juxtapose “ordinary” people’s responses to anything which is out of the ordinary, responses which are invariably less than charitable. Andi’s own initial reaction to meeting her brother is a case in point. It seems to me that you make some critical social observations in doing this, can you tell us more about that?

People are always making assumptions about other people before they know who they are. If you met me on the street, for example, what assumptions would you make about me? Would you think I’m an author? Or someone’s cleaner? Does it matter?

It’s not just how you look but what you sound like. Anywhere in the world, accents send out clues to someone’s social status and upbringing – I blogged about it recently.

I am acutely sensitive to how assumptions are made based on an accent – here in London, I often help a Filipino friend by making phone calls on her behalf because she finds that people – like her doctor and council workers – change their behavior when confronted with someone who has an accent that is not as “other” as hers.

In Tall Story, Bernardo speaks in hilarious, broken English. But half the book is told in his voice, showing his thoughts and feelings to be as complex as anybody’s. I guess this was me trying to tell the reader not the judge a person by his accent!

You used to be a journalist, to what extent do you feel this has influenced how you write and the subjects you choose to write about?

I feel really lucky to have been a journalist at a seminal time in the Philippines. There was so much going on, and my reportage took me all over the country – I wrote about famine in the sugar cane growing regions, I toured the countryside interviewing witches, I witnessed utter poverty and shocking wealth, I saw the effects of guerrilla warfare on the lives of people who lived in the countryside, I’ve been tear-gassed while covering opposition rallies, I was exposed to values and issues that made me question my own place in the scheme of things … and made me realize that nothing is black and white, everything is a complicated shade of grey.

At the time, I was very young - I could report what I saw, but I couldn’t tell you what something meant. Coming to live in the so-called First World allowed me to see my world from different eyes. I can’t say I am wiser – but certainly, it was easier to see the stark contrasts between a developing country like the Philippines and comfortable, cozy England.

A photo Candy took during her time as a journalist, of soldiers and village people

Candy and her best friend - newbie journalists saluting,
while in the background a riot assembles

You write with a social conscience because, I suspect, this is “who” Candy Gourlay is. How important do you feel it is to bring social commentary/observations into children’s writing?

I was recently involved in a Carnegie shadowing event, where children were discussing the books that were shortlisted for the Carnegie prize.

The children were so amazing in that they just get what the books are about. They don’t miss a thing and they embed a book’s message in their hearts. Kids who read good books are packing a lot of good stuff that will be useful some day. As Newbery winning author Richard Peck says, children should read because the words that build a story become theirs to build their lives.

One of Candy's photos taken during the Marcos years - a woman singing in an evocation of hope and despair

Candy arrives in Pyongyang to cover the 40th anniversary of Kim Il Sung

One of Candy's photos of crowds in Pyongyang celebrating the 40th anniversary of Kim Il Sung. She says, "It was a strange and amazing experience to see a million people in the thrall, or so it seemed, of one man."

Tall Story contains several themes, one of them is the issue of migration to Britain. Bernardo and his mother, Mary Ann, are separated for 16 years while bureaucracy takes its course. What is your view of how this is handled, has there been any improvement over the years and do you have a view on how new immigration policies might impact upon this?

When I first visited England in the Thatcherite eighties, immigration and asylum were already raging issues.

I remember arriving in Heathrow, very excited to be in my first cold country. I told the immigration officer at the desk that I was there to visit my boyfriend and she became very hostile. “You’re not going to marry him while you’re here,” she said.

Later during the trip, sitting alone in a restaurant somewhere near Trafalgar Square, a man suddenly sat at my table and began to shout things at me. It took me a while to decipher what he was saying because I wasn’t used to the British accent yet. He was telling me to get out of his country. The waitresses chased him away and apologized to me.

On that trip I met a lot of Filipino women who entered the country with foreign employers who brought them in on tourist visas but treated them like slaves. There was a woman hiding in a church who was fighting to stay in England with her baby, fathered by her British pen pal who subsequently decided not to continue with the relationship. When my husband and I decided to get married, we discovered that it was usual for a bride’s visa to be delayed – officialdom hoped that this would discourage any marriages of convenience.

I met many Filipino workers who never went home for fear of not being allowed to return to England. When my own brother applied for a visa to visit me, he was turned down because he was deemed likely to become an illegal immigrant.

Are things better now? Well yes and no. In Europe, the anxiety over immigration continues but the law has changed so that the slavery stories are rare (though not non-existent). Nurses are now allowed to bring their immediate family into the country to live. Many long term workers have been given proper status that allow them to work and pay taxes in England.

But the forces that drive people to leave their families are just as strong. It is an act of total desperation to leave everything you love behind. And yet in the Philippines, which was once regarded as one of the most successful countries in Asia, migration to seek better jobs/future/livelihoods is the norm. How can a successful economy be built in a country where leaving is the only path to prosperity?

I wonder what would happen if the energy and resources put into keeping migrants out of Europe were poured into helping migrants stay in their home countries?

The plight of Mary Ann and of Bernardo, separated from one another by bureaucracy, is the story of a mother trying to improve her life and that of her family. It doesn’t take much to imagine how very hard it is, and having recently watched a documentary about Filipino women who leave their country I have to ask: how do you feel about the need that drives people away from their homelands and the way many are subsequently treated by their host nations?

For a few years in the nineties I was the editor of a pan-European magazine called Filipinos in Europe. I got to visit Filipino communities all over Europe, interviewing women who decided to leave the Philippines. Are their lives better for it? Some do have better lives. But there are many who have only experienced heartache as a result of their decision to leave. Children who don’t know them. Husbands who stray. Money that is frittered away by relatives.

The Philippines is the only Catholic country in Asia and Christ-like sacrifice is elemental to our culture. Leaving is one such sacrifice.

But I really, really wonder if the sacrifice is worth it. What is clear to me is that this kind of sacrifice is an unsustainable way of bringing up children.

I couldn’t help thinking when I started reading Tall Story that Andi and Bernardo’s mum seemed so much like the mothers Amy Tan writes about, particularly in the Joy Luck Club. Is this depiction of Asian/South East Asian mothers something of a caricature or is there more to it?

No, it isn’t a caricature – I recommend Amy Tan’s books to anyone with an Asian mum. It’s nice to know that you are not alone.

Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club gives a fascinating insight into Asian mothers, so similar to Mary Ann, the mother in Tall Story
(image nicked off Amazon)

There is much about Tall Story which is undoubtedly a reflection of your own life and your own life experiences clearly influence what you write. This is visible in the weaving together of the magical mythology of the Philippines with the gritty realism of London and the juxtaposition of life in a small Filipino village with life in a London suburb. How easy, or difficult, have you personally found it to integrate two worlds and then to write about it?

Coming home to the Philippines from England is like moving between two fantasy worlds with two different sets of rules and boundaries. In England, life is secular, practical, say what you mean. In the Philippines, it is spiritual, everything is personal, and nobody says what they mean – you have to be good at mind-reading and guessing at the feelings of other people.

If my mum says, “No, I won’t go shopping with you.” She might well mean: “I’d really like to go with you but I don’t want to say I will because I don’t want to be a burden so please could you persuade me just a little bit more.”

In England, there is an invisible space around each person that you have to respect. It’s all about being an individual.

In the Philippines it’s about being part of a group, all for one and one for all. Maybe that’s why I try to turn everyone I like into extended family. It’s because I miss my herd.

I think anyone who moves away from their home experiences a kind of push-me-pull-you, love-hate thing with the life they left behind.

At the beginning of living away you spend a lot of time comparing your new home with your old home. Moving to a first world country as I did, you marvel at how life is more comfortable, services more efficient, the future more predictable. You feel more acutely all the many inferiorities of your old life.

Then as time passes, the comparisons become more emotional. Do you laugh as much now as you used to? Are your friendships more true?

And then you put down roots and the new home isn’t so new anymore. You know all about the little imperfections, the cracks beneath the surface … and the odd thing is you have come to love them in the same way that you realize you will always yearn for your old home – and everything that comes with it.

Candy's family - 1986

Candy on assignment for a destinations article - she claims she was working...

Candy on one of the white sandy beaches of the Philippines

You evoke an incredibly vivid image of life in the Philippines – do you think you could have created the same effect had you never moved to London or do you think that being away from your homeland gives you a unique insight and perception of the Philippines that you could never have had, had you not moved away?

I think my writing would have been very different had I never left the Philippines. I read my old stuff now and like my current writing, they reflect a social awareness that probably comes from being a journalist as well as growing up in an environment where social inequalities are constantly in your face. What my writing has acquired is a kind of yearning that probably comes from being homesick all the time.

Images of reality from Candy's home - a sleeping volcano in the Philippines...

The aftermath of the awakening of a Filipino volcano...

The volcanic theme is powerfully evident in Tall Story

Despite the fact that you show and interconnect two different worlds, in many ways they remain very separate. As Andi says at one point in the story, “The blank faces on TV are not people either”. As much as we live in a global village, we still live separately in our own villages. Living with a foot in two worlds, how does that make you feel? And do you believe that Tall Story and cross-cultural stories like it can make any kind of difference to bridging that gap?

Whenever I see a Far Eastern calamity on the news, I see myself in the close ups of brown faces. I guess I wrote that bit about blank faces because I wanted to make my readers aware of the humanity behind the TV screens. That these people who don’t look like you and speak the same language have mothers and fathers and complex feelings like you do.

At first Andi does not see herself at all in Bernardo – but there comes a point in the story when she’s watching him sleeping and she realizes that yes, they are just like each other.

Will Tall Story bridge any gaps? I don’t know, but I hope children who have read Tall Story will realize that there is no such thing as Us and Them because we are, all of us, just people.

Some of Candy's favourite scenes from her homeland, the Philippines

Despite the bittersweet moments in Tall Story, your novel is ultimately one of love, acceptance and hope. How important to you feel these elements are in children’s writing?

I think the American author Richard Peck puts it best: “A story for the young must move in a straight line with hope in the end.”

Hope is what differentiates writing for children from other forms of writing. Our readers are looking forward, not back, and it’s our responsibility to give them lots to look forward to.

You have created two very distinct voices in Andi and Bernardo, something which is not always easy to do. To what extent did having a daughter around Andi’s age influence Andi’s voice, and which character did you find easier to write?

My daughter is no way as lippy as Andi. Andi came from … Andi! I just positioned my hands over the keyboard and everytime it was her turn to speak, she spoke. It was far more difficult to write Bernardo’s voice. I was very worried that I would not find his voice while I was writing the scenes in the Philippines. And then Bernardo landed in England and opened his mouth and said: “I am glad you meet me.” Suddenly he too began to speak and writing the book progressed easily after that!

I’m not inclined to classify Tall Story into a particular genre but… Although the story is very much one of realism, it might also be said to fall neatly into the genre of magical realism. How do you feel about such a classification and would you agree with it?

Someone in a critique session mentioned magical realism to me and I’m sorry to say I had no idea what it meant. I went home and googled magical realism and still I couldn’t be sure. I really can’t describe what sort of story I wrote – magical realism sounds lovely but I didn’t set out to write Tall Story any particular style.

Who or what have been the most significant influences on the development of your writing?

Well, I have to say that my husband Richard is my inciting event. My life in the Philippines had a very clear trajectory until I met Richard. He took me out of my comfort zone and everything has been unexpected since.

Candy and her husband, Richard, at her book launch

And who, if you could throw a literary dinner party, would you invite to dinner and why (you can invite six guests)?

A literary dinner party? Well!

I would have Jo March of Little Women and have a little moan with her about rejection and manuscripts (every dinner party has its quotient of whining).

I would have Bernardo Carpio, the giant, and we will laugh about how storytellers (including me) twist his story to suit our ends.

I would have Samuel Clemens, who by the way, was a great champion of Filipinos when America annexed the Philippines. We won’t just talk about Philippine history though because I’d love to hear about how he wrote the Prince and the Pauper.

I would have Philip Ardagh, just because I’d like to see how he and Samuel Clemens (another great humourist) get along.

I would have Frankenstein’s Monster. I’ve always felt he got a raw deal and I’d like to make things up to him as long as he doesn’t leak formaldehyde all over his plate.

I would have Spiderman. And I don’t care if you say comic books aren’t literary.

Candy and Tall Story
(image courtesy of Paolo Romeo)

You are actively involved in the British Isles branch of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and you’ve been extraordinarily generous with your time and insights on your blog – what motivates you to help your fellow writers in this way and what is your view of the community of children’s writers that you connect with?

I decided to join SCBWI when I became serious about getting published. I was attending a lot of talks and I thought all that good information was going to waste so I started blogging. I was deep in nappies at the time and I enjoyed blogging because it had the edginess of journalism a deadline which I missed.

I was amazed to make friendships via my blog and SCBWI – amazed because I had no idea that there were other people out there like me. The children’s writers I met were generous and fascinating and I felt blessed to be part of the community. When I started hearing the work of other people I also realized that there were a lot of really good writers out there and I had to raise my game.

People tell me I’m really good at marketing because I’ve been writing a blog for years but the truth is I was just a lonely housewife desperate to get published. The fact that I became totally enamoured with all the new technology is another story.

Tall Story on display at Candy's London launch party

Candy and the Philippines ambassador at the launch of Tall Story
(image courtesy of Paolo Romeo)

Magic and superstition are woven throughout Tall Story, do you believe in either? Do you have any of your own personal magical stories?

Moving to England, I was amazed at how one plus one equaled two. Life in London seems to be so full of certainties compared to life in the Philippines. I grew up in a middle class household constantly struggling against the odds. I always had the feeling that I had no control over my fate – good or bad, the future was beyond my control.

25 years ago, I had occasion to travel across the countryside, interviewing witches with a view to publishing the stories in a coffee table book. The coffee table book was never made but I came away from the experience realizing that for many poor women in the countryside, becoming a witch, faith healer or seer gave them better prospects than most. Magic gave them an edge.

Filipinos are often described as ‘fatalistic’ – we have an expression “Bahala na” – which roughly means, “Leave it to fate.” And yet, during that trip, I realized that many people were not leaving their lives to fate. Through magic they were making something of themselves. So no, I don’t believe in hocus pocus … but magic certainly has other uses.

One of the so-called spiritists/witches whom Candy interviewed

And finally, I have to ask this, given I know how “tall” you are… did you play basketball?

Height of course is relative. Though I was by no means the tallest, I was one of the taller girls in my class, always sitting at the back, always standing near the end of the line. Basketball was our p.e. in those days but the truth is, I was never a contender. I just couldn’t shoot straight!


Many thanks to Candy Gourlay for agreeing to this interview. It’s been a real pleasure watching Candy reach publication and a thrill to hold and read her book. I wish her huge and exuberant dollops of success with Tall Story and the manuscript she’s currently working on. Yes, that does mean I’m getting sneak previews. No, I’m not telling you about it! Not just yet, anyway…

Candy with a young fan at her book launch in London

For more about Candy Gourlay:

Browse Candy’s website

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And, most importantly, you can buy your own copy of Tall Story either at Amazon or the Book Depository


You can read other Candy Gourlay interviews and Tall Story reviews at:

Scribble City Central

Tall Tales and Short Stories

My Favourite Books

The Bookwitch

All images courtesy and copyright of Candy Gourlay, unless otherwise indicated.