Maisie Chan is the winner of the 2022 Branford Boase award with her brilliantly funny and thoughtful Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths.  We were delighted to talk with Maisie about her writing and about the award.

What was your journey to becoming an author?

It’s been a long journey!

I guess I had an epiphany when my mum passed away in 2003. I remember telling someone I wanted to ‘write books!’ but I had no idea where to begin. Three years later, I began with short stories and flash fiction for adults. I felt that was a good place to begin as the form is short and I could then move onto novels. I have to say that I was immensely scared of writing a novel and didn’t try to write one for years. I felt it was too big a hurdle and that I was not ready for the task. I also wanted to write a memoir, however, I remember someone telling me that I was ‘too young’ to write a memoir. At the time, I didn’t agree, I felt I had a lot to say about my life. Yet, they were right in terms of my writing ability. I was still very much learning to become a writer. I had support from Writing West Midlands.

I had some short stories published and lead creative writing workshops for adults and children, but I still didn’t write a novel until I became a mentee on the inaugural Megaphone scheme with mentor Leila Rasheed back in 2016. I’d had some time away to have children and had hardly written a thing for five years but felt that this was a great opportunity for me to get back to what mattered to me, which was writing. I had wanted to try writing for children after a librarian had told me my ‘voice’ suited children’s and Y.A. I thought I would give it a go. The year I spent as a Megaphone mentee was brilliant. We had masterclasses from Patrice Lawrence (just before Orange Boy was published!), Catherine Johnson, Candy Gourlay, Alex Wheatle and more. We got to speak to editors and agents, and we had a showcase at the London Book Fair. I wrote a novel for teens called Looking For Lily Wong and landed my first agent soon after I finished writing it.

During the time I was editing my teen novel, I felt something just wasn’t working and put it aside. My agent asked me if I had any middle grade ideas and I pitched her Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths (which was then called Lychees and Bingo Balls). She liked the idea, and I wrote it. A year later we went on submission, and it was picked up by Piccadilly Press in a two-book deal and it was bought by Amulet in the States a few weeks later. I thought Danny Chung might do better in the States than in the U.K. because there hadn’t been many (or any) titles published here for that age group by or for British Chinese people. I wasn’t sure there was going to be a readership. But I’m glad to say I was wrong!

Can you introduce us to Danny Chung please?

Danny is eleven-years-old and is a young artist. He loves drawing comics and getting his friend Ravi to help with the speech bubbles. It’s an activity that makes them laugh and one where they can be truly themselves. He also uses drawing to vent his frustrations and to work out things going on in his life.

Danny lives above a Chinese takeaway with his parents. They want him to do well at school, and in their eyes that means being good at maths and other subjects. His mum’s best friend, Auntie Yee is always comparing him to Amelia Yee who is good at everything. This makes Danny feel bad.

Danny also wants to be part of a ‘cool’ group of boys who play physical games (scooting and shooting their foam pellet guns around the park) rather than the more imaginative activities that he and Ravi partake in. And to make things worse, he’s got a math presentation and his gran from China moves in. No-one has told him this is going to happen, so it’s the worse surprise he can think of getting. Danny has a lot of personal challenges to overcome in the book.

He's a regular boy on one hand. But he’s also a British Chinese boy too and so there are things about his family’s situation and lifestyle which are uniquely British Chinese. My main concern when writing him was making him relatable. He’s got wants and desires like any eleven-year-old boy whose parents hope they’ll to be a certain way, but he has his own path to follow.

The relationship between Danny and his grandmother, Nai Nai, is beautifully realised and is often very funny, was it challenging creating the dynamic between the pair when language is a barrier for them?

Well, yes and no. My concern for Nai Nai was that I wanted her to inhabit the space in the book without speaking much and so she is very physical in how she moves, and her actions speak volumes. I wanted readers to ‘see’ her in their minds clearly when they read the book and she is by far the most beloved character. I have a lot of experience in real life of staying with people or communicating with others who don’t speak the same language as me. I lived in Taipei for a while and I was the one who was the outsider, who couldn’t speak the language and would smile and point at things. You find that you can use your body, your expressions and your hands for communication when language is a barrier, so I put all of that into the novel. There may be the occasional blip too and you can see that in the scene were Danny takes Nai Nai to the bowling green and there is an incident with a large fruit. It made me laugh to write those kinds of scenes and I think people have enjoyed the humour of the book, but it was hard not to make Nai Nai into a caricature. She is based on a few older women that I know, grandmothers and mothers who do spit out lychee seeds into buckets, or who bash watermelons with their palms. Women who want to show their love by feeding you and feeding you some more.

The book is written in first person, so we see things form Danny’s point of view and I think he was meaner to her in the earlier drafts.  My editor helped me to bring out Danny’s feelings about his grandmother more, but to have him less stroppy. She said he also needed to be likeable! I think the tricky part was making him dislike her for taking up space in his life, rather than disliking her for being ‘foreign’ – I didn’t want readers to see her to ‘other’ even though she is newly-arrived, so that was a challenge and I hope it worked. In the scene with the chicken feet this came to the forefront – I didn’t want Danny to be embarrassed by the food, he loves the food she brought to school. He wanted to eat it. He’s embarrassed that she’s shown up to school. Little things like that were important for me. I’ve seen books where Chinese food is posited as ‘disgusting’. It’s about showing the relationship between them as a bridge between generations and cultures. I had a lot of worries about representation when writing it. I wanted to centre a British Chinese character, he’s from the diaspora and so it’s almost a third space. Non-Chinese people might see him as an outsider even though he’s British, Chinese from Asia don’t see him as fully Chinese because he can’t speak the language. It’s a precarious place to be.

Danny finds self-expression through his art, did you have any means for release when you were growing up?

I used to like drawing when I was a child. I won a couple of art competitions when I was in reception class. My painting of Little Red Riding Hood was put up in my local library (the now closed Selly Oak Library in South Birmingham) and I used to like music. I was a fan of Shakin’ Stevens and Adam and the Ants and put masking tape on my face to replicate the Adam Ant stripes that he used to have on his face. I liked to read and to go to the library. I had a few of those Ladybird fairytale books at home but we weren’t a family who read. My parents would read the local newspaper and my dad would buy the Angling Times, as she was a fisherman, but that was it. I liked to make up games and play out on the streets and in the local park, which was called Graffiti Park by the kids, you can guess why!

There's a lot of thoughtful comment around the fusion of different cultures and traditions but there is also a lot of humour, were you conscious of creating a balance between the two and is humour a useful means for exploring complex ideas?

I think the humour comes from my family background. I think humour can be used to break down barriers between people. It can also create divides if you are using it to bully or make fun of someone. How can I centre this person’s experience and add nuance to their character? I think was one question I looked at when writing the characters. For example, Auntie Yee is a tiger mom. She is like a lot of parents I’ve met (Chinese and also non-Chinese) who are pushy, they’re competitive and think about their child as the sum of their academic achievements. I presented that stereotype (because there are people like that I know), but I also added a layer of empathy where we can see that Auntie Yee, also strives to belong in a culture that does not accept her fully so then she thinks that by having certain things or having a daughter who is the best is the way to make friends of be accepted.

The Branford Boase recognises both a debut author and also their editor, can you tell us a little about the relationship you had with your editor Georgia Murray at Piccadilly Press?

Georgia loved my writing from the beginning. When we met for the first time, I was sure this was the right editor for my book. I could tell she loved the characters and she said it was in ‘good shape’ which made me feel like I wasn’t a total novice.

Georgia sends me notes about the big things like structure, characters, plot and then there are notes on the actual manuscript. I must say that each time I’ve had editor notes from Georgia, they have been kind (which is very important for first time writers), the tone is not condescending, or demanding either. She offers gentle suggestions and so far, there hasn’t been a note which I’ve disagreed on or had to dispute. I think there is a now an inherent trust between us. She knows how I work, which can be disorganised, as I have a rough plan when I start writing but I like to see what will appear as I’m writing. I have to delete a lot of words sometimes as I try things and they may not always work but I accept that as part of the process of writing.

It was interesting for me to have Georgia there from the idea stage with my second novel - Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu and I would say her input into the shaping of Lizzie Chu was a lot more than with Danny Chung as I had her support all the way through. She was particularly helpful when I was stuck. I think sometimes I want someone else to come up with the answers for me, but Georgia is good at encouraging me to stick with the process. Parts of the novel appear in the writing of it and some of it feels unconscious and magical almost, I don’t know where some of it comes from.

I value Georgia’s measured nature and if I have any concerns (I am a worrier!) then I feel I can always go to her and tell her what’s on my mind. I trust Georgia (and her team) to know about the market and so when they came up with Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths as the title of the book, I wasn’t sure, but then I told myself, I have to trust her and the team to know what is best for the book.

Your latest book is 'Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu,' can you tell us anything about it please?

Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu is about a young carer whose grandad, Wai Gong is acting a little strange. They’re huge Strictly Come Dancing fans and Lizzie gets tickets to the Blackpool Tower (the home of Ballroom and Latin dancing) and she wants to take him there for a special day out but she’s twelve-years-old and needs help. It’s got a road trip, cosplay and of course, dancing. But there are also intermissions of Chinese myths and legends about the goddess Guan Yin who features in the book. She is the goddess of compassion and mercy. The book is influenced and was written during the pandemic. It was hard going! It’s really a homage to popular culture which was our escape during a tough time, and also, it’s a book about joy and kindness. It’s quite different from Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths, the themes are a little bit older, as is the voice. The writing was also different as the story isn’t as layered as Danny Chung either and there isn’t an antagonist as such, the obstacles are linear. But it is emotive, so I’ve been told and there is humour in there too and a lively cast of characters. I hope readers like it!

The winner of the Branford Boase traditionally goes on to judge the award, is there anything you will be particularly keen to see next year?

Ohhhh, what an interesting question! I don’t know! I loved seeing a highly illustrated book on this year’s shortlist. I think graphic novels are highly sophisticated and so perhaps I’d like to see one of those do well – a YA graphic novel maybe? They’re becoming increasingly popular for all age ranges. Also, funny books are hard to write but often don’t get the kudos that they should in children’s literature. If you can make a children smile, laugh or giggle that is no mean feat and I think children need joy now as they’ve been through so much. So maybe a funny book where you learn something new too? Who knows what we are going to get next year!

A big thank you to Maisie for the interview and to Andrea Reece for the opportunity.

We are delighted to welcome Mini Grey to the blog to discuss her hugely exciting and ambitious new picture book The Greatest Show On Earth.  Mini is a multi award winning author and illustrator.  Biscuit Boy won the Smarties Book Prize, Traction Man is Here won the Boston Globe Horn Book Award, and The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon won the Kate Greenaway Medal.  You can find out more about Mini by visiting her website.

Please can you introduce us to ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’?  

It’s the entire 4.6 billion year story of life on Earth, brought to you in the form of a performance by Rod the Roach and his insect Troupe in a Shoebox Theatre.

[See photo one in picture gallery]

What was the reaction from your agent and/or publisher to such an unusual and big book idea?

 The idea for the Greatest Show actually began around 10 years ago, and to begin with the book was small and very long! It was a little zigzag book that pulled out into a 4.6 billion year tape measure (which was on the back.) The lovely people at Penguin tried to find a way to publish it, but the zigzag format was difficult, and the little pages didn’t do justice to the story that Rod was trying to tell. For some years it drifted around, in search of the right format. And then I realised it could be a big book, rather than a little one, with space to delve into Earth’s story, and my editors Joe Marriott and Emily Lunn at Puffin decided we could make this happen!

You say the idea for ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ started with a trip to the Oxford Natural History Museum, can you explain how the idea grew?

When my son Herbie was about 5 years old, we spent a lot of time hanging out in the Oxford Museum of Natural History. Gazing at the dinosaur skeletons, I realised there were enormous gaps in my knowledge of prehistoric life, and I didn’t even know how old the Earth actually is. Well, it’s 4.6 billions years old – and I just wanted to see what all that time looked like, and hold it in my hands. Later, when Herbie was at primary school, they would do projects on the Ancient Greeks, the Egyptians; how did those timelines fit with the dinosaurs? Could it be possible to tell the whole history of Earth as a story? We humans are uniquely good at absorbing information through stories. Before writing, story was how information was passed down generations. Stories are memorable. Story makes us want to know what happens, makes us pay attention. It seizes our imaginations and curiosity.

[See Photo Two in Picture Gallery]

Could this be a first story-scaffold to hang subsequent knowledge about life on Earth upon? I think once you have a mental framework you start to collect new knowledge, and you see things that could be added to your scaffold everywhere – you see more, just in your ordinary everyday world.

[See Photo Three in Picture Gallery]

There’s a wonderful sense of drama and theatricality in the presentation of the book; how did the idea for this develop as the central conceit for the book?

I have a mild obsession with toy theatres, and at one point long ago I worked as a theatre designer. Making a picture book is a bit like making a theatre performance: – both in how you make them, but also how you perform them (every reading is a new performance). But also the theatre was the answer to how to present my story – especially the Victorian-style Pollocks toy cardboard theatre. Modelling my book page on a Victorian theatre meant that I could organise the information into areas. The main stage is where you look first, to see at a glance THE MAIN STORY. But then to be able to delve deeper in, if you want to, you can peruse the wings and also see what's going on down at the Tape Measure of Time.

[See Photo Four and Five in Picture Gallery]

How much research was involved with the book and did you have any support with that?

When I’m making picture books, sometimes I am creating artwork, and have worked out most of the story-telling and the layouts. At these times the listening-and-words part of my brain is at liberty to listen to things – in fact sometimes I really NEED to listen to things to keep on persisting at making pictures. I developed a massive thirst for all online lectures, podcasts, radio broadcasts– about things prehistoric. (In Our time on Radio 4 has brilliant prehistoric broadcasts in its archive!) So I had an overview of what my ‘scenes’ could be. I took a copy of Richard Fortey’s LIFE – An Unauthorised Biography on holiday & scribbled on it. Making the final storyboard – I had to be sure I was telling the right story. But places to find information are infinite, it wouldn’t be possible to read up everything there is to know. I ended up with a shortlist of my go-to books: about 5 books for adults, and also about three go-to children’s illustrated information books. And lots and lots of Wikipedia. At the next stage, when I thought I’d worked out what to say: a few friendly expert fact checker professors helped, and another level of Puffin in-house fact checkers. But you can never get everything right and the science changes, as we see deeper in, as it should.

Were there any facts which particularly surprised and stuck with you?

[See Photo Six in Picture Gallery]

So many! It’s amazing and terrifying that life on Earth has been REALLY close to being snuffed out (the worst: 251 MYA). How the Earth has often been a TERRIBLE place to live in the past – (possibly even trying to get rid of life, you could suspect…) There have been huge volcanic lava outpourings, there have been tremendous freezes, there have been times when the ocean became anoxic and hostile to life. There’s also just how extremely bizarre animals of even not so long ago are: for example, the chalicotherium was an unholy mammal mash-up of a horse and a gorilla – it just looks all wrong! There is the almost accidental way one animal group takes over from another after a mass extinction: mammal-relatives (therapsids) were poised to dominate Earth 270 million years ago, but it was ultimately dinosaurs who kept the mammals small and in the shadows until that fateful asteroid impact 66 million years ago. But also dizzying is the incredible recentness of humans, and the extremely nice climate we happen to find ourselves in (compared to a lot of the past), and that our happy Holocene times (the last 10,000 years), on my tape measure of time, is just the last one-tenth of the last millimetre.

[See Photo Seven in Picture Gallery]

It’s a huge and very exciting topic, do you think picture books are a useful means for explaining big and complex ideas and if so what helps with that?

The secret power of picture books – is to tell with pictures as well as words, and pictures can tell big and complex ideas. But actually they show, not tell! I hope with very visual pages, picture books can reach ‘reluctant readers’ and also children excited by prehistoric content, who have a thirst for science. I think giving children big numbers, long names, the actual facts – is something they can handle. Picture books can make things visible and tangible.

Can you tell us a bit about your technique for creating the book and the media you used?  

When I was making the pages, I was building each scene as if it was a theatre set, with actors, scenery and backdrops in layers. I’d work out the layouts with loads of layers of tracing paper cut-outs that I could move around. I’d make artwork for all my actors and scenery pieces separately, and then layer them up in Photoshop in my theatre page framework. The fun challenge was inventing what sort of puppetry Rod & Co might be using; there was quite a thrill in making insects manipulate giant puppet insects (in the Carboniferous era). I was also trying to hide jokes maybe for grown ups: eg in the Cambrian explosion page, Brunhilda (beetle) and Edna (earwig) are trying to work out which way up a creature goes: that creature is Hallucigenia. When it was discovered in the Burgess Shale, it was so odd-looking that palaeontologists couldn’t work out which appendages it walked on, and which were (maybe) for defence, and its name reflected its very mind-bending puzzlingness.

[See Photo Eight and Nine in Picture Gallery]

The tape measure is a clever way to create a time, what was involved in mapping events across such a huge span of time?

[See Photo Ten in Picture Gallery]

There were massive problems with mapping the entire 4.6 billion years. For the first 4 billion years, there’s no complex animal life. But on my scale of 1 million years to 1 centimetre, this bit would be 40 metres long – right down the street! But very luckily, after the dawning of complex animal life, about 600 million years ago, time becomes more mappable. The International Stratigraphy Chart was invaluable! I discovered a lot of geological time periods last about 50 million years. (There’s usually some sort of extinction event that differentiates the rock layers of different geological periods.) This was incredibly useful and lucky, because my open book was going to be about 50cm wide – so each spread I’d have 50 million years of timeline to play with. I had to be careful not to overload the tape measure – so that meant a lot of thought & research to work out what climate ‘story’ to tell on each spread. With the Tape Measure I was trying to show: the date/time, earth’s changing climate, earth’s changing continents, and snippets of the animals that were around at the time, and introduce the geological eras. The Time Team use cocktail stick animals and teeny road signs to mark out what’s going on.

[See Photo Eleven and Twelve in Picture Gallery]

Are there any other ideas for information topics which you’d love to approach?

How there are so many amazing animals that didn’t get to appear enough in The Greatest Show – for example: dimetrodon, therapsids, mad palaeocene mammals. What would happen if Rod and the Troupe had a time machine instead of a tape measure?

A huge thank you to Mini Grey for a fascinating interview and to Puffin Book for the opportunity.  If you have enjoyed reading about The Greatest Show on Earth, you may also be interested to attend the YLG annual conference this year, Reading the Planet follow the link for more information.

Picture Gallery:

One:           The Greatest Show on Earth
Two:           Oxford Natural History Museum
Three:        First Zig-Zag version of The Greatest Show on Earth showing the
                   Timeline.
Four:          A Pollocks Toy Theatre
Five:           This page explains how to read the book
Six:             251 million years ago – the End Permian mass extinction
Seven:       A chalicotherium – from the DK Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs
Eight:         Some of the pieces for making the Age of Fish page
Nine:          Hallucigenia
Ten:           International Chronostratagraphic Chart
Eleven:      Tape Measure research
Twelve:      Tape Measure

We are hugely excited to welcome the incredibly talented authors and illustrators James Mayhew and Jackie Morris to the blog to talk about their new collaboration Mrs Noah’s Song, illustration, influences, music and nature in a far-reaching and wide-ranging interview.

Please could you introduce us to Mrs Noah?

Jackie:

Mrs Noah is a woman of few words, but great action. She is kind and gentle and thinks for herself. She’s also a wise woman. She is a mother first and her family mean the world to her, but/and her family includes all that is living, from stone to tree to bird to bee to mythical creatures whose blood are stories. 

James:

I love the connection Mrs Noah has to nature, and her strength and resourcefulness. What I love about her in this story is her vulnerability, which we haven’t seen much of before. This story explores sadness, memory, and what you leave behind when you migrate. At the same time, Mrs Noah is a positive force, and through song she connects her family deeply in their new land.

What was involved in building out the character of Mrs Noah?

Jackie:

There are parallels between the story of Noah and Mrs Noah and the story in the Bible, but they are most certainly not the same thing. Mrs Noah is a story of migration, whilst the Bible story is one of apocalyptic vengeance, involving the death of all life, except for the one chosen family. As a child I could never understand why this story of extreme horror was told to children as a cute ‘look at all the animals, two by two’. I saw all that was left out, all who were drowned, punished and wiped from the face of the earth. Horror. Mrs Noah may have an ark, a husband and lots of animals. The roots may have sprouted from the Bible, but they all come from a place of love, not vengeance.

James:

I’m always amused when people complain that this doesn’t follow the bible story! In fact, Jackie was initially prompted to write the story after seeing my designs for Benjamin Britten’s children’s opera Noye’s Fludde. This has a rather irreverent Mrs Noah, who gets drunk, gossips and in one scene slaps Mr Noah - and the text is from the Chester Miracle Plays, written down in the 13th century! So the idea that Mrs Noah can only be one thing is absurd and has been for centuries. Jackie version is the best of the lot, of course!

In this book Mrs Noah is teaching the children to sing.  How important do you think it is for children to sing and what benefits do you think this brings?

Jackie:

Singing it a beautiful thing, and the rights of the child to sing, to be heard, to learn how music fits together and to find their own voice is of fundamental importance to me. Through music children can learn so much about listening and sharing.

James:

Children are naturally musical. This fundamental means of communication seems incredibly important to me, and I really don’t understand while music (and all the arts) are sidelined in education. The benefits are huge: language, memory, collaboration, confidence, storytelling, history, cultural differences, celebration, mourning, joy and sorrow - and humour! It’s all there in song.

You’ve both been involved with projects that bring music, stories and art together, can you tell us about this and the impact of music on children?

James:

I’ve been painting with musicians and orchestras for 15 years. It’s grown to become a huge part of my professional practice and inspired my book Once Upon A Tune. I work mostly in the classical world, restoring original tales to music inspired by myths and legends, and illustrating live to underpin the meaning of the music. It’s had a hugely response with family audiences who come back year after year. But also, as an art/music workshop in the classroom, I’ve been moved to see how many of the quiet, under confident children start to shine. Autistic children, elective mutes, Down’s Syndrome children too, they see to respond deeply to the music, and create and join in. It’s been exceptionally rewarding.

I was fortunate enough to see Jackie painting to music at the World premiere of Spell Songs at Snape in Suffolk. This concert of folk music is inspired by her collaboration with Robert McFarlane, The Lost Words (for which Jackie won the Kate Greenaway medal). It was very special to be in the audience and witness how art, words and music can intertwine so powerfully, so gracefully. Jackie has gone on to tour all over the country, painting in beautiful inks and casting her own spell. It’s funny we’ve both ended up enchanted and bewitched by music, and song.

Are there any particular pieces of music which especially resonate with you and do you listen to music when writing and illustrating?

James:

When I’m writing I need silence. When I’m illustrating I listen to all sorts of music. I love any music that tells a story. I tend to listen to mostly classical music, but I also have a big long of traditional folk songs from other countries.  I especially love Spanish folk music - I have many records by a Spanish/Catalan soprano Victoria de Los Angeles. Although she was best known as an opera singer, she was also the first to record many traditional songs of Spain. What fascinates me is the Arabic, Indian or Jewish influences on the songs, many written during the time the Moors ruled Spain. The Arabesques in the music remind us that these are songs that travelled from other cultures. Like Mrs Noah and her family, songs migrate too!

In the classical world, my biggest loves are Sibelius and Rimsky-Korsakov - they were both “musical illustrators” creating wonderful images and stories in sound.

Jackie, how does it feel to write stories that are illustrated by somebody else?

I love writing for other illustrators, and it is always a delight to see my words come to life in the paintings and collages. I would love to do more. I would so love to write for Petr Horacek and Angela Barrett, but then would have loved to have written for Brian Wildsmith and Pauline Baynes.

James, please can you tell us about the process and media you used for illustrating Mrs Noah’s song?

This is a technique I developed especially for the first Mrs Noah book. Essentially it is collage, but it involves lots of printmaking too. I love printing and lino-cutting, so I create often abstract linocuts and print them to create interesting textures. These linos can be printed on all sorts of paper, including music scores. other papers are painted, scribbled on, rubbed with crayons etc. I them cut these up the create the images. Often an unexpected decision is made - sometimes a paper will suggest something different to what I’d intended. There is a huge amount of experiment and play, which I love. Ultimately, my eye, my *vision* guides it all, but I constantly surprise myself. Some small details are fiddly and difficult (and I may resort to drawing for those), and it’s a time-consuming (all- consuming!) practice. It is hard work. But I love that until every bit is glued, it can continually change.

The depiction of nature and of light is beautiful and there’s a real sense of joy and wonder in how children connect with nature and the environment around them.  Was nature important to you growing up and has it continued to be?

Jackie:

This seems like so strange a question. Without Nature we do not exist, so, yes, it was important to my basic life support. It’s not a theme park, it is life support. We are all connected, and humans are so small a part of the natural, wild world. We just happen to be a very badly behaved part, who need to take a good look at our place in the universe and re-establish our focus on what is important. EVERY LIVING THING.

James:

One Spring, when I was about ten years old, I woke up in the night, and decided to creep downstairs. I tiptoed through the kitchen and unlocked the door. The sky was almost green, and the grass in the garden was wet with dew. In our garden was a very old apple tree, big enough for a hammock. There is a special magic about being somewhere you shouldn’t, especially when the rest of the world is asleep. I lay in the hammock and watched the sky change. One by one the birds awoke, singing their little hearts out, louder and louder! A thrilling sound, bursting with life and music; an exultation. It was transcendent and never forgotten: my first drawn chorus.

When I first chatted to Jackie Morris about her ideas for Mrs Noah’s Song, I described this memory. She very generously wove it into the story. When she first read it, I cried. It touched on something very deep inside - obviously my memory, but also something more - the beauty of the natural world, so often smothered in mankind’s noise, or threatened with environmental damage. But it also spoke of the power of music, of the arts, and of communication, and sharing.

I grew up in the country, in a tiny village in Suffolk. There was nothing else there *except* Nature. Perhaps I take that immersion in the natural world for granted? I don’t know. It was a very simple, very ordinary childhood in many ways. It wasn’t an idyll. But I learned huge respect for nature, for weather. In Suffolk, the skies and sunsets were astonishing. As an adult, going out into the world, it’s been quite demoralising to see what the human race has done to the planet - the roads, the cities, the trashing of Nature. Five years ago, I moved back to Suffolk. It called me home, and I couldn’t be happier. I need to be near woodland, river and birdsong.

A big thank you to James Mayhew and Jackie Morris for the interview and to Tatti de Jersey and Otter-Barry Books for the opportunity.  The Youth Libraries Group annual conference this year focuses around nature and the environment, Reading the Planet.  To find out more visit here.

Photos: James Mayhew by respira fotografia; Jackie Morris by Elly Lucas

We are delighted to welcome Emma Finlayson-Palmer, to the blog.  Emma is an author, artist and illustrator and runs the #ukteenchat  on Twitter and is one of the mentors for #WriteMentor.  Emma discusses her involvement with social media and how this has supported her own writing including the  brilliant new chapter book Autumn Moonbeam: Dance Magic, illustrated by Heidi Cannon and published by UCLan Publishing.

We’re in a world where it is virtually (no pun intended!) impossible to avoid social media or digital aspects of life. It can be addictive and a drain on precious writing time if you’re not careful. But it can also bring opportunities, friendships and a sense of community and belonging.

For me, Twitter has been a huge writing base ever since I joined in back in June 2011. It was a place I could be myself, and be a writer, unlike Facebook where it was filled with people who didn’t know I was a writer. Twitter provided a platform for me to openly talk about writing with other people who were writing and industry professionals too.

I first found more writers through #AskAgent sessions, where I went from seeing names of literary agents in books such as the Writers and Artists Yearbook to suddenly being accessible. Here they were online and open to answering the burning questions aspiring writers had about each stage of the writing process and publishers and talking about their favourite biscuits.

Social Media has been a huge part of my career as a writer. There are so many different events, festivals, both online and in real life that I’d never have known about if it wasn’t for social media.

I’ve become an active part of writing communities on social media over the years and seen some start up and grow because of places like Twitter, without which they wouldn’t exist. It brings writers from all over the world together in one place, giving a level of access and inclusion that wouldn’t exist without it.

This has been especially important in recent years, if it hadn’t been for the communities and writing friends I’ve made online I’m not sure how I would have managed during each lockdown. I love how this new hybrid way of life has evolved out of a terrible situation and now we have a blend of online and in person events, allowing access to individuals that wouldn’t be able to attend in person events.

Twitter is host to many different writing related chats that cater to every genre and age group people are writing for. One area that seemed to be lacking in the market I found was Teen, for that gap between MG and YA, where there needed to be more of a bridge between the two. And from this and a discussion with other writers and literary agents, that my own writing chat came about. #ukteenchat came about to champion Teen fiction and help people understand exactly what it is. Over the years since I set up the chat back in February 2016, the chat has evolved into a community where writers support others and we talk about all aspects of being a writer. The chat has also given me the opportunity to talk to so many wonderful writers and industry professionals from agents to competition organisers and publishers too. It started off as a fortnightly chat, but it’s now become weekly to accommodate the interest and being able to give a platform for me to shout about writers and stories that I love. I feel very lucky to be part of such a wonderful book related chat!

After swearing I never would, I have recently joined TikTok and have found it to be great fun to create book, nature and writing related videos. As long as I don’t post any embarrassing dance videos my children might not be totally mortified at having their mother on there! It’s a great community for writers and book reviewers, and more and more indie bookshops, publishers and writers are joining. I love the more immediate and visual side with TikTok, couple with music and the random mixture of cute cats, asmr relaxation videos, BookTok and more.

Whilst I have to be careful not to allow myself to give too much time to social media, and it’s a good idea to set aside a certain amount of time for this each week, it’s also influenced my writing. Social media filters into my own writing in various ways whether it be through my characters and their use of it, or for research purposes. But one thing I have found about social media that influences every aspect of my writing life, and that’s community.

The communities I’ve found myself part of and wouldn’t have been if it wasn’t for being on social media, have been integral to making me the writer I am now. So whilst it might have its downsides, for me social media has been a place of friendship, fun and finding my feet in the world of writing.

A huge thank you to Emma Finlayson-Palmer for the blog and to UCLan Publishing for the opportunity.  Don't miss the amazing activity pack based around Autumn Moonbeam below.

On day four of our blog takeover to celebrate the publication day itself for The Mab we are delighted to welcome back author and the inaugural postholder for the Children's Laureate Wales, Eloise Williams to introduce us to the role of magic in The Mab.

The world of The Mab is steeped in magic. The legends tell of shapeshifters and magicians, witches and giants, spells and curses. Dead people come back to life with the use of a magic cauldron, characters are transformed into animals or can speak to them to gain their wisdom, people disappear into the Otherworld or walk from that world into ours. Anything can happen. Everything is possible. In fact, in The Mab, the only thing which can be expected is the unexpected!

The characters in The Mab live in a landscape where magic happens so often, they unquestioningly believe in it and in its power. The boundaries of this world are moveable, and the linear spaces are filled with strange and wonderful things.

In Follow the Dream, the Emperor of Rome, Maxen Wledig, takes a nap after a day of hunting and has dreams of crossing the sea to find an island where a majestic castle lies. There he sees the most beautiful maiden and immediately falls head over heels in love with her. When Maxen wakes, instead of getting on with his day he decides that his dream should be followed. He sends some of his men to seek out the beautiful maiden and find her they do. In Wales, of course, where the original stories were told.

Three Graces is a story of three terrible plagues. The first is a plague of whispering listeners who have the ability to hear everything everyone is saying, so that people are afraid to speak. The second, an ear shattering screaming which comes from a red dragon and a white dragon in combat. The third plague is caused by a magician who steals people’s food while they sleep, so that the poor go hungry. You might well be able to find parallels between this world and ours.

The stories were originally part of an oral tradition of storytelling. The storyteller would need to keep the listener interested in the tale as they told it. For this reason, they drew heavily on the landscape of Wales, so that an audience would be able to relate to the stories and used magic to spellbind them too. Because of this the stories don’t necessarily follow a linear path. Storytellers would throw in as much drama and mystery as possible to keep listeners on their toes. If they could feel the interest ebbing, they might add in an enchantment, or a curse, a giant, or a hideous monstrous claw. This still works today as you turn the pages. You might gasp in wonder at something magnificent or wrinkle your brow at something strange. Either way, the magic will draw you in as it did those listeners of medieval times.

The characters who populate The Mab find ways to live with magic, sometimes harnessing it for their own gain, or battling against it to find a way through their weird and wonderful world. When you step into the pages you become part of that mythical landscape too. Wild and unpredictable, shimmering and enchanting, you are a magician, and you also walk between the Otherworld and this.

A big thank you to Eloise Williams for writing this fantastic blog feature for us.  You can find out more about The Mab every day this week during our blog takeover and might like to think about attending the YLG Wales Zoom training day Empathy in Your Library which includes a conversation with Eloise Williams and Matt Brown who will be discussing The Mab with librarian extraordinaire Alison King.  Special thanks too, to Max Low, illustrator of the The Mab for use of its brilliant cover and the image from Luned and the Magic Ring.