A Scattering of Authors

          I haven't posted a blog for a couple of weeks.

          Blame the summer.
          You have to rush out and soak up the sun when you can in Britain, so for part of that two weeks, I was away in Devon.
          Last week, I was in Oxfordshire for the 2013 Scattered Authors Society Conference.
          This has been held annually for over ten years now, in a beautiful medieval manor house, in a small English village.
   Scattered Authors from all over Britain gather there, from Monday to Thursday.

          It's a gab-fest, a chance to catch up with friends, an opportunity to learn new workshop techniques to take into school sessions, to pick the brains of other authors about editors and publishers, to drink Pimms in a sunny garden while swallows and swifts dive and soar - and, above all, to talk about writing with other people who really understand what you're talking about and why you love it.

               The gathered authors - nearly thirty of them - ate in the stone-floored undercroft. The food is excellent; the talk almost non-stop.

We met mostly in the lovely solar, with its great chimney-breast, its wooden beams and stone-framed windows. A small private chapel opens off it. Every session begins with a five minute read, where one of the writers reads aloud, usually from a book they're writing. Celia Rees says that every book she's read from at Charney has won a contract!
          Celia, Mary Hoffman and Penny Dolan combined their experience of travelling abroad as writers to give us some tips. Anticipate disaster! - that's their advice. And if it's for work, claim expenses against tax. The discussion afterwards brought up more experiences, and advice.

          Jenny Alexander gave us a wonderful workshop session, using the greater arcana from the tarot cards. She pointed out that these intriguing distillations of dream images can be used for meditation and to inspire stories and poems. Jenny is always inspirational.
          Katherine Roberts led a session bringing us up to date on e-publishing and her adventures in it. I chipped in where I could, with my own experience. Kath provided lots of advice, and emailed us all a list of the sites she'd mentioned, with links.
          Dianne Hofmeyr led a very enjoyable drawing workshop - but Di's triumph was the performance she gave of her book, The Bojabi Tree. She sang, she danced, she acted, and it was a joy - though Julia Jarman almost stole the show with an impromptu and funny impersonation of a tortoise.
          But, as ever, the most vital thing about the Scattered Authors Conference was being there, talking and laughing - there is always almost non-stop laughter at Charney.
          Here's one last toast to all the Scattered Authors - success! 

 

Cheering Charney

Charney Manor

          I write this blog in a hurry, as I'm only just back from the Scattered Authors' Society's annual conference/retreat/get-together/shin-dig.

Uffington white horse

     It's held here, in the beautiful Charney Manor, a medieval manor house in the vicinity of the famous white horse.  Are you jealous yet?
          This year was a smaller gathering than usual, due to the demands made on writers' purses by the recession, the Olympics, the Children's Writers and Illustrators Conference (in September, at Reading) and the IBBY conference - but Charney was all the friendlier for that.  The group was so small that were were able to meet and talk with everyone there.
          I was especially glad to meet Frances Thomas and Joan Lennon, who I've come to know via e-mail, but never met, and who had never been to Charney before - and Sharon Jones, who runs with the poodles, and who was new to Charney and the SAS.

In the solar, getting set for the quiz.

          What do we do at Charney?  Well, we talk a lot - a lot! - and we eat a lot, while talking - and we drink a lot of wine, while talking - and we sit up late, while talking.  And we laugh as much as we talk.

Another Charney visitor

       Most years we do a lot of this talking on the lawn, in the sun, while the Charney swifts swoop, soar and scream around us.  And we usually go for a walk on one afternoon.  But this year it rained, the rain it rainethed every day.  So, less sun and less swift-watching this year, but just as much talking and laughing. (And eating and drinking.)
         We pretended to work. Kath Roberts and I brought people up to date with our e-book adventures, and answered questions on the whole process.  There was, as last year, a lot of interest.
          Miriam Halamy led an excellent poetry workshop, during which I found myself writing stuff which surprised me, as I'm no poet.  Miriam has a gift for poetry and for getting others to think they can write it - check out some of her poems on her website.

The lavender friinged courtyard

          Di Hofmeyr and Penny Dolan led a session on book-trailers, showing us a varied selection and getting us to think about what made them effective or not.
          Mary Hoffman, the History Girls organiser (where does she find the time and energy) gave a talk on the blog, on organising a multi-blog and writing historic fiction - with help from the other History Girls present, Penny Dolan and Linda Newbery.  (And I chipped in a History Girl Reserve.)
          There was free time to cram in a little writing - and on Wednesday evening there was the famous Charney quiz, organised and presided over by Penny and Lynne Benton.  Score was kept by Cindy Jefferies.

A Charney work-session in between downpors

          The quiz was hard-fought, as ever.  I was on Celia's Reivers, led by Celia Rees, together with Sharon, Joan, Kath and Yvonne Coppard - but the intellectual power-house that is Mary Hoffman led Mary's Marauders, and they also had Joe Friedman, who proved an ace mime-act in the charades round.
          Celia's Reivers therefore did all we could to distract and infuriate the opposition, with psychological undermining, nobbling with strong drink, overdoses of chocolate and surprise attacks with screwed up paper balls - but as Celia, Charney quiz veteran, predicted, we lost despite it all. (Her address to her troops went, 'You do realise, don't you, with that Hoffman on the other team, we're going to be utterly trashed?')
          Charney was, as ever, wonderful.  Now, back to work.

The gardens at Charney Manor

          And here's Blott, the writer's muse...

So What Do You Do In Schools Anyway?

In full story-telling flow: 'Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum!'

          A friend asked me this the other day.  It’s not the first time I’ve been asked it.  My friends seem deeply puzzled by the amount of time I spend in schools.

          I can understand, I suppose.  After all, unlike many other writers, I’ve never been a teacher.  I have no qualifications.  I know lots of little bits of odd things, but I can’t claim to be an expert in any one subject.

          My partner, Davy, who phoned while I was writing this blog, insists that I put in here that my education came from ‘voracious reading’ (his words.)  He insists that I add this, with his usual relentless Scottish persistence, in case people think that I’m "thick and only managed to write a book by a fluke. You shouldn’t keep telling people you’re unqualified, you should stop that now."

          Sixty-odd books, Davy?  Some fluke.  But now, when he reads this (and he will read it, just to check, I ken the cheukster) here is his correction, [almost] as dictated over the phone.

          Despite being thick and flukish, I’m always telling friends that I’m off to some school in Yorkshire, or South Wales, or Scotland.  I’ve even been into schools in Germany, where one boy asked me breathlessly (in beautiful English) whether I’d met the Queen.  He and his classmates gasped with shock when I replied, “No: and I don’t want to. I think Britain should be a Republic.”  Seeing astonished expressions on all sides, I added, “Not everybody in Britain adores the monarchy.”

Soon to be available for download

          The head thanked me later, saying that was exactly why he wanted British visitors – to counter the impression of Britain that his pupils received from television and magazines. (The ever protective and vigilant Davy doesn’t like this part either.  He thinks I’ll lose my monarchist readership: as if I ever had one.  Honestly, love the man, but if I listened to him, I’d never open my mouth or write a word. And when Davy reads this, he will cry – his constant refrain – ‘Suzzie, you never do as you’re told, Suzzie!’)

         Countering impressions received… That’s pretty much the answer to my friends’ question.  As a writer in school, I – and other writers, such as my SAS friends – are giant teaching aids. There are thousands of children who’ve never given much thought to where books come from, or who think they’re only written by – well, by people like the Queen, perhaps: distant, rich people with private educations and plummy accents. And then I turn up – an ordinary woman, with a Black Country accent, and read from the books I’ve written.

Tales of the Underworld on Amazon

          It makes writing a book suddenly seem like something ordinary people can do - something that living people you can talk to can do.  I tell them about the slum I was born in, and the council estate I was raised on, the comprehensive I attended.

          I tell stories, which I love – and because I read an exciting story aloud from one of my own books – well, suddenly, books are exciting and worth investigating.

          And that’s what writers are doing in schools near you.

          Here, you'll find SAS members, including me, reading from their books.  And I daresay one or two might two might pop up in the comments.

          Blott's come down from the roof....