David Almond and a Life in Short Stories

My highly literate reading friend Hugh brought in a copy of David Almond’s fascinating collection 

Half a Creature from the Sea; a life in Short Stories.

This will be discussed at the next meeting of Hugh’s Reading group in Spennymoor. I was instantly interested as David is an old friend and colleague of mine. (I remember seeing the first manuscript of his fabulous prizewinning novel Skellig.)’ In my opinions David is the most significant writer of his generation. Digging into the real, the surreal  and imaginative truths of children’s lives in the Twentieth Century.

 His writing workshops, like his stories, are simple and complex, ambitious and accessible.

I asked my friend  Hugh what he thought  of Half a Creature from the Sea; a life in Short Stories. He loved it. 'These stories are enchanting, highly  imagined; an  extraordinary  mixture of realism and magic. And  there is an invaluable accompanying narrative linking them to his life: how stories are an interesting blend of preparation and inspiration.'

 FOR YOU!

Extract from David Almond’s book of short stories       Half a Creature from the Sea.harry miller’s run

I have quoted it here in full because it is an experience we shared when I was writer in Residence at Low Newton Women's Prison and I appreciate the truth of what he says here and his mentioning Avril and me. We had many visiting writers during my time there and he was the best.

Page 106 “… to prepare to write the story I went to watch the run. That morning I’d arranged to give a writing workshop at low Newton women’s prison in Durham along with the writers Wendy Robertson and Avril Troy who ran the (creative writing) program there.

When I arrived I was guided through a series of gates and doors by uniformed prison officer. Each one was unlocked, opened, then shut and locked again. Keys jangling steel clanged.

I was taken to a library and with a few arm chairs and tables and it. Then the women came in. They were shy at first, may be suspicious, but they soon relaxed. I talked about my life and my writing.

We did a couple of quick imagination exercises, made a a few first scribbles. Some of the women began to tell me about their own lives in childhood. They hinted at the difficulties deprivation and abuses they’d endured they talked about the constriction of being in this place, about the fellowship they try to develop with each other, and the inevitable frictions and fights. Many of them wanted to write about themselves, set to to somehow turn their lives into coherent stories.

 I said that fictionalising in your life can make it seem more real and can make difficult personal experiences more bearable. We scribbled again, and began to shake the scribbles into narratives. Before I left one of the women suddenly said,  ‘ I’m like you David. My childhood was like yours.’

She laughed.

’And look where I’ve ended up!’ she said.

I was led back through the clanging doors. At the exit Avril told me that there was much more the women could have said.

‘ They’ve had some awful journeys,’ she said. “

……………………………………………………………………….

  Afternote: My book  Paulie' Web  is the  creative outcome of mytime in Low Newton  over three years, as Writer in Residence

Book on Amazon

Should There be a Qualitative Distinction between Adult and Children’s Literature?

My piece last week on the tributes to Alan Garner reminded me of the age -old dispute of whether so called young adult and children’s literature can realistically be viewed as mainstream literature. I am reminded on Alan Garner’s Red Shift which – with some discussion - was placed on both adult and children’s lists in libraries.

It’s an old discussion which has never really been resolved.

Of course, well written, perfectly crafted stories touching fundamental issues with poetic simplicity, published in the young-adult/children’s literature field,certainly should count as mainstream literature. Writers like Alan Garner, David Almond, Susan Cooper and Lucy Boston come to mind. Perhaps it’s the elements of magic so clearly intuited by  children and some special adults are a link between these writers.

This discussion means a lot to me. Written simply as novels, my first four books were placed by the publishers into the Young-Adult and Children’s Novel category. These novels were read and enjoyed by adults as well as children. In writing them I never saw then as any different from my later adult novels. I researched and told the story as it blossomed in my mind. I didn’t write them for ‘young adults’ or ‘children from eight to twelve years.’  For me they were just stories I was compelled to write. 

I was reminded of this on Monday when I was sorting out the shelf of my

own books. I came across a novel of mine called French Leave, on the flap of which was the review of the earlier novel The Real Life of Studs McGuire. It was from Growing Point, then a prime review source for children’s books. It said  The Real Life of Studs McGuire states the urban dilemma fair and square in an up-to-date setting and through strongly contemporary characters...the action is swift and exciting enough to carry the message to th0se who read it,...
I like that, It reminded me of the joy of writing about Studs. This one was categorised as ‘Young Adult’... 

Next I came across a novel of mine called Cruelty Games which was

On Kindle and Paperback here 

published as an adult novel. These are very different novels but both of them centre on the inner and outer lives of boys of sixteen and their impact on the lives around them. Interestingly my present novel-in-progress The Blue Pool, centres around Dee, an eccentric girl of thirteen and her impact on the people around her. It will be categorised as an adult novel,

Both Studs and Cruelty Games were  published by mainstream publishers and have been more recently republished by me.  I thought perhaps adults, young  and old,  might enjoy reading them and deciding whether they should be placed in and adult or young adult category.  

Or any category at all?
Wx

Alan Garner, Elidor, and Me

 ‘Garner lives and works close to the Edge and is neither metropolitan nor provincial, He’s closer to being parochial, in Patrick Cavanaugh’s sense, never being ‘in any doubt about the social and artistic validity of his parish'. But he’s more than that. He goes under the parish to fetch out stones, he cleans them, he inspects them, he turns them into steeples and into walls, he lifts them up to the stars above. He turns stones to words. He is the first in his line to use words not things...’ David Almond.

The postman – late today – hands over the package. It is beautifully packed, so I open it carefully to find a book that I’d forgotten I’d ordered. It’s a finely produced book – good paper, good bindings. I smell it, as I always do with new books: a seductive smell for a lifelong reader,

I had forgotten it, because it’s months since I made my contribution to this important book – a crowd-funded publication by Unbound of London. My own name is there in the back, with hundreds of other individuals who contributed to the publishing process.

First Light, meticulously edited by Erica Wagner, comprises a series of

celebratory essays and tributes to Alan Garner - that leading shamanistic literary writer of his generation - that magus of the stones and the earth -who can take us back with ease to into the magical ages of bronze and iron and the Celtic sunrise.

Children are at the centre of Alan Garner’s novels which speak clearly to children who read. But he does not speak just to children. He speaks to all of us in the language of storytelling which links the reality of today with the the myths and magic embedded our human identity that we have inherited from with our Iron Age, Bronze Age and Celtic ancestors.

One important element in all Garner’s writing is that – unlike many so-called; fantasy writers today – it derives nothing from the more esoteric escapist fiction of CS Lewis or Tolkien. Looked at properly, Alan Garner – like David Almond, quoted above -  is much better labelled a reality writer than a fantasy writer.,

This volume,First Light, features tributes from a wide range of writers: from

Margaret Atwood to Neil Gaimon, from Helen Dunmore to Philip Pullman, from Rowan Williams to David Almond  

David Almond’s contribution is my favourite. As a writer he is closest to Alan Garner in having the magical skill of using child characters to give us access to the everyday magic all around us.  Children today can do this, still wrapped as they are, in the birth-caul of innocence. We can do it too, using the child inside us as a conduit for wonderful insights.

These days an increasingly rigid desire to catologue literature has led the public imagination to categorise the work of supreme writers such as Garner and Almond as ‘Children’s Literature’. Both of them are garlanded with prizes and awards acknowledging their success specifically in this field. But they are much more universally significant writers than that,

This collection of essays – in which every contributor has her or his own personal story of the impact of Alan Garner on their lives and their writing - convinces me even more that it’s time we stop  marginalising writers inspired by and accessible to children and honour them in the mainstream of literature.

Every reader will have their favourite in this collection. As I have said my favourite is David Almond’s .And I was touched by the very different contributions from two of Alan’s children the novelist Elizabeth and the scientist Joseph.

Philip Pullman, in a fine appreciation, embraces the difficult task of analysing the depth and complexity of Garner’s craft: ‘There’s an area of human activity where wiliness and cunning share a border with magic and the ability to call spirits from the vasty deep, and to call a storyteller crafty is not to disparage his craft but to acknowledge the borderland between conscious skill and inspiration from somewhere unreachable by logic and reason.’ He goes on: ‘There’s much I’ve stolen from Garner but this interest in craft, and the craft of story-telling has been the most rewarding.’

As T S Eliot once said, ‘All good writers steal. The trick is to steal from the best…’

For me, as a writer, the most inspiring words come Alan Garner himself. ‘At the bottom level, my stories have to work as entertainment, keep a reader turning the page to find out what happens next. At the top level, they have to work for me, say what I want to express. In fact, I must write poetry, making words work on more than one level, subjecting myself to the poetic disciplines - pace, compression, simplicity.

Most of all I hope First Light will send shoals of readers back to reading the excellent novels of Alan Garner.

My favourites are  the fabulous Elidor 

and The Stone Book Quartet. What’s yours?

Personal note: My novel The Pathfinder also draws on Iron Age and Bronze Age and Celtic identity colliding with the Roman occupation of Britain, See in side panel,      wx

A Surreal Treat from The Pied Piper of Cullercoats

On Saturday our Room to Write Trio ploughed through walls of Northumberland Rain to spend a day at IRON AGE a very different literary Festival in the little fishing village if Cullercoats  on the North East Coast.  For five days the village hosted  the fortieth anniversary of IRON PRESS (set up in 1973): an example of independent publishing  to be celebrate in these days of depression and downgrading in the broader field of publishing.  

IRON PRESS is the literary child of one-off writer, playwright, cultural entrepreneur Peter Mortimer. Over the years what started out as the influential  literary magazine IRON  in the 1970s has evolved into a full blown independent publisher IRON PRESS,  dedicated to finding and publishing writers and poets of quality and originality.

Vintage IRON magazines in the window
of Oliver's bookshop on Cullercoats.

The festival was presided over by Cullerocoats' most illustrious literary resident Peter Mortimer who like the Pied Piper had enticed here hundreds of the literary and musically  minded young at heart  from across the north, including writers, poets, musicians - some to bread or perform, some to just relish the special atmosphere that seems to gather around Peter who has managed to sidestep the be-fogging bureaucratisation of the arts and retain his originality and iconoclastic vision of the nature of artistic enterprise.

Peter Mortimer: A literary Pied Piper - funny, clever, the doyen of original writing in the North East. Every region should have one.    

Novelist Kitty Fitzgerald reads a short story from her new collection Miranda's Shadow.  The talented Kitty works alongside Peter Mortimer as editor and quality controller to ensure the high standard ot the IRON PRESS list. She has been the other  key player in the success of this vivid festival,

One venue for the readings and performances was the Lifeboat Station witt this marvelous view of the Cullercoats harbour. Very moody. Worth a poem in anybody's page.

Despite the weather they built a symbolic Flat Iron 'birthday cake' on the beach,complete with candles and the Number 40. Worth braving the weather.

The Carnival band played, making us dance about under a canopy in the rain, then led brave souls  onto the beach to march and caper around the 40th birthday cake.

Musicians in red and black

Blue sails of the Lifeboat Station in the background

Sweet music! On Saturday night  Bridie Jackson and her stunning group Arbour made ethereal music in The Community Centre, warming us up for  before the headlining David Almond event.

 (And more music in the evening when David's daughter  Freya Grace and her friend sang a set for us alongside the poets  in the pub.)

After the Arbour performance David Almond read from his retrospective IRON PRESS publication NEST.
Listening to him read his own work is like listening to music crafted in spoken words. David is a friend so it is hard to reach for the proper superlatives. So i'll l let others speak for me....

  

"There is nobody quite like Almond writing in adults' or children's fiction today. A writer of visionary, Blakean intensity."

The Times

"David Almond's books are strange, unsettling wild things. They are, like all great literature, beyond classification:"

The Guardian

In a street a bit back from the harbour in Cullercoats we found this beautiful bookshop.

The interior could very well be an atmospheric setting for a  labyrinthine thriller.
     

Thank you Peter and Kitty for bringing true cultural warmth to a rainy day. 

LINKS FOR YOU

Iron Press:  Iron Press 

David Almond  lDavid Almond

 Kitty Fitzgerald /Kitty Fitzgerald

Bridie Jackson  Bridie Jackson

Room to Write Room to Write

 

Changing My Priority Back To the Written Word.

Here on Lifetwicetasted you have heard from time to time of my adventure into community broadcasting with my programme THE WRITING GAME. Through producing writing and editing 23 one hour programmes I have learned a great deal. It has been exciting and full of month-by-month pressure. If I were thirty years younger I might  have made a career of it.

But I am a writer: my commitment is to the written word and I must now focus properly on that,
You might be interested in the whole story, so below is the  piece I have posted on my Bishop FM Blog which will give you the whole picture.  It has been a great experience is the significance of the spoken word and the deadline disciplines of broadcasting.  Any writer out there who wants to spread her or his creative wings whould give community broadcasting a try.

This is what I said:

'...They say every good thing should come to an end and I am sad to say that, due to pressure of work, I will be unable to continue with The Writing Game.
This winter - writing being my day job - I will be completing the third of three short story collections[1]* This new collection is called Painting Matters & Other Stories and features painting, painters, teachers and other life-changers. I will also be embarking in a big new novel involving ... er ...ghosts.

On The Writing Game we have celebrated writing and writers, reading and readers. We have interviewed great writers such as David Almond, Pat Barker, Terry Deary, Kathleen Jones, Maureen Almond and Ann Cleeves. We have featured talented local writers such as Barbara Laurie, Geri Auton, Noma Neil, Eileen Elgey and Alison Carr. Also musician Andy Jackson and Su Kane.

Of course the Writing Game is not just one person. On the The Writing Game team – all from Bishop Auckland – we have had novelist and short story writer Avril Joy, gardener, librarian, writer and expert on mining art Gillian Wales and historian Glynn Wales who reads more widely and more eclectically than anyone I know.

Between the four of us on our team we have celebrated the Dickens Bi-Centenary, the joys of writing and reading Children’s Literature, the inspirations of music, gardening and travel, and the writing of Bishop Auckland history; we have showcased the writing skills involved in writing novels, short stories, memoirs and poetry.

 With valued technical advice from Bishop FM’s James Burrage and Terry Ferdinand, and encouraged by Gillian Campbell, I have learned a such in the course of producing these many one hour programmes – researching content, recording interviews and discussions, editing two or three hours of source material into the coherent 56 minutes which is The Writing Game. This has all been very fascinating and absorbing – a great learning curve for me. But in the end it has left little time and energy for my equally fascinating and absorbing 'day job' of writing novels and stories.

The good news is that all of the Writing Game programmes will remain here as THE WRITING GAME ARCHIVE an archive of podcasts on the Bishop FM Website as well as being featured on the widely available iTunes. So the opportunity is there for everyone to listen again to these good words about reading and writing on The Writing Game.

So in signing off here I would like to thank Gillian C, James and Terry for allowing and encouraging me to share with them the airwaves of South Durham. And Gillian W, Glynn and Avril or their ongoing inspiration and comradeship. (I hope you will hear their voices again on the aor waves of Bishop FM.)
Thank you all so much.

I hope I too can come back here now and then to share with you my opinions about writing and books which may be in the news. If you want to share with me the ongoing delights of my day job, look at my blog at http://www.lifetwicetasted.blogspot.co.uk

Until then, happy writing, happy reading.

Wendyx ...

[1] The first two -The reissued Knives & Other Stories and a new collection Fear of Flight &  other Stories –   are both  now commissioned for publication. The third collection Painting Matters & Other Stories is in its final stages of writing...  '

So now, back properly to the day job...

Thought You Might Like To See The Press Release …

Been working hard on this project for the last month so I thought you’d like to see -

THE PRESS RELEASE!

The Writing Game

with Wendy Robertson

Bishop FM Community Radio

Author Wendy Robertson is embarking on an exciting new venture – a monthly, hour long, radio programme aimed at both writers and readers, and broadcast on community radio Bishop FM 105.9

Wendy’s programme will feature discussions and interviews about all aspects of the writing process which will be of interest to both aspiring and established writers and to readers. During the programme Wendy will give her informed take on the world of writing and its craft – The Writing Game. As well as this The Writing Game will feature conversation with authors of national standing and will act as a showcase for a wide range of new, unpublished writers.

Joining Wendy as regular contributors will be Avril Joy, Gillian and Glynn Wales presenting their Books of the Month selections, Theresa Robertson carrying the banner for children’s books,. and Debora Robertson who will have spot talking about quality food writing and journalism.

The first programme will go out on Tuesday May 4^th at 7pm and after that will be available as a podcast to download from http://www.bishopfm.com/. This first programme focuses on starting points in writing and features Avril Joy in her role of published author, and local writers Eileen Elgey and Hilary Smith.

Forthcoming programmes will feature conversations with:

· Crime writer Ann Cleeves, winner of the Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award

· Internationally acclaimed David Almond, winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Anderson Medal, the world’s most prestigious prize in children’s literature

‘Our intention is that the programme will celebrate and showcase the fact that the north east of England is an acknowledged hotbed of literary talent.’ Wendy Robertson

What do you think???

wx

The Girl Who Was Punished For Reading

When I was young, for reasons clear to regular readers of these posts, I was a book worm. Well, not so much a book-worm as a book-dragon. Once I discovered that it was possible to escape into a book I was hooked.

What was I escaping from? Well, start with a drab house, a stressed mother, bullying at school, arms and face too long, hands too big, hand-me-down clothes, sparse meals…

From such a place I could escape to a ranch in Canada, a long treck in China, a Scottish farm, a Spanish hacienda, a Danish castle, a house called Manderlay, a sailing boat, or a boarding school in Surrey. Adventure, colour, drama, comedy and tragedy were at my finger tips at the turn of a page. It was fan-tastic. On reflection, my life then could define the term escapism.

Nowadays there is a school of thought that disadvantaged children should be offered literature that validates and reflects their own environment.* There are good examples of this. We have novels like those of David Almond or Alan Garner that might do this in a way sufficiently complex and multilayered to be of interest right across - and up and down- the snakes-and-ladder board of class and culture.You may have your own favourites that fit this bill.

In those days, though, I did not look in literature for what I already knew; I looked for what I could wonder about: sumptuous rooms, tea on the table and a smiling mother, picnics in the dorm, trekking in the wastes of Canada, murderous wives and predatory widowers, love beneath the oleander tree, walking with a hundred Chinese children to safety, delivering lambs on a Scottish hillside, assassinating kings and sailing with my comrades down Coniston Lake

So far, so escapist. But in so escaping I discovered for myself the universals of emotional, political and social life far beyond the confines of that small house in that small town. I now feel certain that this level of escapism ensures that - in tune with the Bronte sisters - though one’s domestic life might be contained, the spirit can roam free and the soul is never parochial.

However, being a book-dragon was not without drawbacks. One day at school, escaping the dining hall clatter of plates and voices onto Crusoe’s Desert Island, I was pulled up by my red-haired German teacher.

‘What are you doing there, Wendy?’

‘Reading, Miss.’

‘Two hundred lines! I must not read at the dinner table.’

I must not read at the dinner table

I must not read at the dinner table

I must not read at the dinner table

I do now…

wxx

* (Afterthought. Of course there was all of D H Lawrence in which I did recognise aspects of my own life. And I did encounter The Family From One End Street written and illustrated by Eve Garnett, a charming and romanticised version of working class life which no more resembled my own than did The Forsyte Saga… )

Fragile Manuscripts and the Charm of Skellig

Behind me, as I sit here at my desk, are two shelves full of manuscript notebooks. These are fragile, precious things. Manuscripts chart the conception, process and completion of this whole, strange, imagined thing called a novel.

All writers have their rituals. I buy three bound hardback A4 notebooks from Rymans. Nice paper. £6.99 a shot. When the time is right I choose one of three ink pens ,and begin to write in the first book. I move from scribbles and doodles, sketches and phrases, first person riffs and place poems - on and on to coherent paragraphs and chapters. In the end there will be three or four hundred pages of writing and there might just be a novel that works. Fingers are always crossed.

On the soft brown covers of the books I paste pictures, to break their pristine touch-me-not demeanour. With my new notebook for At The Maison d’Estella - more about this on later pages – I have pasted a copy of an 1877 painting of a lady in orange lying on grass, her head on a cushion, a book in her hands. Her body is languorous, her face is totally absorbed. The painting is by Winslow Homer and is called The New Novel. I cut this image from a birthday card given to me by my friend Gillian. She is very good at birthday cards - presents too. She has a unique gift for choosing just the right gift.

I only ever write on the right hand side of the paper – so soft and easy to write on. When I was at school I thought how horrible it was to write on the skinny left hand side of the page. All I wanted to do was write on the right, easy side. (Perhaps it’s our duty as grownups to reward the child still within ourselves, by fulfilling these simple childhood desires). Then, as I work on and begin to revise and edit my first draft, the originally blank left hand side becomes full of arrows and balloons , questions and answers, speculation and self criticism. Looking back at these pages I can trace the convoluted thought processes that went into any one of my novels.


Some years ago I used to run a very successful writing group in my town. (It’s still successful without me around). Anyway, one time we asked writer David Almond to come and give a workshop and talk to us about his work. I didn’t know him then – except for his fine reputation as an editor and a short story writer - but was blown away when he showed us two bound books which were the typescript of the novel he’d written that was then hitting the literary headlines. It was a book called Skellig. He went on to show us his workbooks - which flowed with writing, scribbles, doodles, crossings outs, fillings in - which were the starting points for this book that went on, on to win the Whitbread Prize. The writers loved the notebooks. They reminded me of some of my notebooks and disabused me of my illusion that I had invented this method.

There was this other time David gave up his time to come to the prison and give a workshop for the women writers I worked with. After getting the women to imagine and invent around a series of objects produced from a velvet bag (the pastry cutter was very inspirational…) he went on the show us the visual drafts of the art work for his new book The Savage –a collaboration between him and the artist Dave mcKean. The Savage has a kind of dark energy. It’s a powerful collaboration of two artists with extraordinary imaginations and is a work of art in itself. I wrote a report for the prison of this and other events that were part of our Litfest Inside, which we put on as part of the Durham Litfest of that year. In this report, I gave David Almond the title of The Magician.

All these thoughts came tumbling back into my mind the other night as I watched – with a faintly possessive pleasure - the film version of Skellig. Since we first saw the manuscript we have seen Skellig move to become a prizewinning novel, we saw it come to world-wide eminence ( I was once in Colorado Springs USA and saw a window full of David Almond’s books, an experience brought a lump to my throat). And then Skellig was transformed into a drama for the stage, an opera for which David himself wrote the libretto, and now it is a film.

Of course a film and a novel are different animals entirely; I think it was Harold Pinter who put it very well, when he said that his screenplay from John Fowles’ novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman was a metaphor for the novel, rather than an adaptation of it. I like that.

In this film, Tim Roth is spellbinding as Skellig – dark, threatening, pathetic, revolting, and glorious in turns. The boy Michael, to my relief, remains firmly at the centre of the story. I rather relished the filmic cross-references - to the unique film Kes (with the pantomime sports master) and to The Snowman (where Skellig scoops up Michael and flies with him). And I was pleased that the beautiful shots of the house, the shed, the country and the sea, and the luscious music, underpinned rather than subverted the original central story.


Of course there are precious elements in any novel that are impossible to render in terms of film. In the novel Skellig there is this wonderful discussion about shoulder blades and angel’s wings which was so perfect and fragile it couldn’t happen in a film. But I did love this film. For me the most wonderful surprise was Skellig’s wings – scratchy and workmanlike, more pterodactyl than angels’ wings: not so much nativity play as a visceral link with the age of dinosaurs.

Good stuff. If you get a chance, watch it.

Wendy

PS For some great stuff on gearing yourself up to starting a novel, look at Avril Joy's blog at http://www.avriljoy.com/

Wise Owl Writers

I was inspired to think about owls by a piece on television: an examination of how silent owls are in flight. It seems that design engineers are experimenting with feather-like fringes for the wings of planes, to make them more silent as they land in cities.


Some wonderful shots of a white barn owl flying reminded me of a farm holiday we had in Scotland when the children were small. Mr J, the farmer, was a whipcord, weatherbeaten man whose hobby - when his farm chores were done - was to break in fine horses. Long before the Horse Whisperer was written, we witnessed that same strange magic on this farm in Scotland.

Every day at dusk Mr J would walk a section of the boundary of his farm. One night he asked me to join him and - as we walked - he uncovered for me the layers of history of the landscape and the nature of the families that once lived in the tumbled cabins. When we got back I was tingling all over, quite certain that I had just travelled through time. Later, Mrs J told me - without a touch of rancour - that was the first time he'd ever let anyone do the walk with him. Even she was not allowed to go. A true honour.

Because of Mr J's Pied Piper charisma the children spent a lot of time 'helping' him, so I was free to roam. Beside the river down from the farm was a ruined water mill where I spent a lot of time watching the water rush by and scribbling in my notebook. Late one evening I was sitting there and suddenly felt very conscious of being observed. I looked around. No one. Then, as I watched, a white barn owl rose with a whirring rush - up, up through the trees growing inside the mill. He glided silently across my vision and vanished into the darkening sky.

After that, I went down to the mill every night to be rewarded by that same magic. And I told no one. Not even the children.

Since then I have loved owls. I have read and enjoyed books full of owls, from Winnie the Pooh's advisor, to the one who went to sea with a pussy cat, right down to the owl that flutters cleverly around Harry Potter. I have learned that - according to legend - Greeks believed that owls had a a magical "inner light" so they could see in the night. And Greek stories tell of soldiers seeing an owl fly across the field on the night before a battle and knowing it as a sign of victory.

But owls are creatures of the night. They have a vicious, dark side. They are silent stalkers and serial killers. Maybe that's part of their attraction. For me The Owl Service by Alan Garner, (winner of both The Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal), best expresses the mythic contradiction within these enigmatic creatures. His beautifully written novel is a brilliant evocation of the fragility of adolescent relationships and young people living in the borderland betwen myth and reality. (As an adolescent I myself lived in such a place...) Only David Almond, writer of the wonderful Skellig and the even more wonderful Fire Eaters can match Garner in this combination of insight. sensitivity and crackling, poetic prose.

Perhaps it's worth noting here that The Owl Service was one of only two novels, where - once I had finished it - I instantly read it right through again, to find out what the heck had really happened and enjoy it even more. The other novel where that happened to me was The Magus by John Fowles. That must be a mark of a good novel, I think.

(I wonder what instinctive signs and signals you get, to know when a novel is a good one? I like these instinctive personal signs. Much better than waiting to be told what makes a novel good by some reviewer or literary advisor)

Happy reading!

Wendy