Event Report: Melinda Salisbury, Catherine Doyle and Lisa Williamson

Oxford Lit Fest: Part Two! 

A Summary of the Panel of Melinda Salisbury, Lisa Williamson and Catherine Doyle - The Rising Stars of YA 

I was really looking forward to this panel as all the writers on this panel are fantastic and two of the books were ones I was highly anticipating even before they were released ( the third didn't disappoint in the slightest either!).

This panel was more guided with an interviewer talking to each of the authors in turn followed by a Q and A session from the audience. Each author also did a reading at the start of their turn.

Catherine Doyle

Catherine Doyle talked about her fantastic book Vendetta (which is a sort of Romeo and Juliet style tragic romance with a lot of hot Italian boys, mafia and death threats). She was asked her inspiration behind it and spoke about the movies she loves about the mafia and criminal underworld and how she wanted to add a touch of Disney style romance into it, albeit a rather ill-fated one.

There was also a lot about her American routes. She spoke of how she had set the novel in Chicago (partly because she didn't feel the mafia would fit into Ireland so easily), because her mother grew up and lives in Chicago and Doyle went to visit her a lot. She said that she drew a lot from her mother's personality and experiences and that her mother recognises herself a lot in the main character of the book. She also mentioned an anecdote of her mother tricking her into going into writing, by begging her to come to creative writing classes with her. (which is in the acknowledgements in Vendetta if anyone wants a fuller story). 

When asked about research, she spoke about her very incriminating internet history from researching the horrific mafia murders, but also how much research she did into beekeeping, which is a rather big part of the novel. She also spoke about watching movies related to the mafia and how she writes in a very filmic way so this fitted well with her writing style. 

She talked about the honey pot that is found in the first chapter of the book and how it was her father's idea to make it what it was (which is a bit of spoiler, so I'm not going to say explicitly, but if you've read the book, you know what I'm talking about.) 

Finally she talked about Persephone's name being from the Greek Myth and the parallels she drew with Romeo and Juliet and how it's all about crazy romanticism with a thread of darkness.  

Melinda Salisbury

Melinda "What a Badass"  Salisbury spoke about her book The Sin Eater's Daughter (which I adore). 

Again the first thing she was asked was about the inspiration behind it. Which ended in a hilarious anecdote of how she was singing in the shower and the acoustics in her bathroom made her sound amazing. She said that she started thinking she was so amazing that she could go pro. Which got her thinking about what would happen if someone had a wonderful singing voice which was turned around and changed into the most horrible thing imaginable. 

After that she spoke of how much she traveled and liked to travel and how she based a lot of the setting of The Sin Eater's Daughter on Norway and Iceland and took a lot of influence from the culture of Scandinavia and their honesty- how they don't put on much airs and graces. Although a few of her characters do, put on airs, this can be seen pretty clearly in the book. 

She talked about her upbringing on a council estate and how it led her to be quite afraid of wanting and dreaming. She didn't think she could ever be a writer. But she spoke about a bleak time in her life when she didn't have anything to look forward to but the final Harry Potter book and how the book inspired her to get on with her life. How if Harry could defeat lord Voldemort, she could do something with her life. 

After that she talked about getting her work published. How she wrote The Sin Eater's Daughter while she was trying to get something else published and therefore had a bit of luck when an agent asked if she had anything else and she had something to give.

Finally she talked about the flowers in her novel and how she learnt a lot about them from her grandmother. She was taught a lot about flower meanings and uses from an early age, but how her grandmother liked the darker uses of flowers, which inspired a lot of the poisons in The Sin Eater's Daughter. 

Lisa Williamson

Lisa Williamson, author of the ground breaking The Art of Being Normal, a story about transgender teens, was the final one to talk. 

She spoke a lot about her work temping with the NHS, working with transgender teens and being allowed to sit in on group support sessions. which helped her understand a lot about how it is to be transgender. She said that it made her look around and see that there wasn't that much written about being transgender and wanted to tell their story. She also mentioned that she wanted it to be a very British story. 

When asked about whether it was difficult to put herself inside the head of a teenager, she said that she didn't feel that different from when she was a teenager.  Catherine put in that teenage emotions are more heightened but much the same as adults and Melinda gave the advice to not shut yourself off from new experiences. 

Lisa spoke of her writing technique and how she often imagined her scenes as little plays and acted them out so that they're easier in her head to write. 

One of the main aims she wanted with The Art of Being Normal was to make it a positive book, even if it's painful along the way. She spoke a lot about the feedback she'd gotten from young trans people and how the book has helped them and how they've been happy to see themselves in a book. 

Questions

There were so many great questions that it seems wrong not to include them at all, but as this has been such a long post already, I don't want to include them all. So here are some of my favourites (paraphrased as my note taking ability isn't good enough to write down everything). 

Catherine and Melinda were asked: Their heroines weren't the typical kind who are there to be liked, was that intentional? 

Melinda:  Found she was getting tired of the go getting heroine types and wanted to show a person she would have emphasized with when she was younger. She wanted to write about a young naive girl who has to learn how to get power.  

Catherine: Wanted someone who wasn't amazingly talented, someone normal and a little naive who had to learn about herself and those around her.  She also strongly wanted Sophie to be a product of her environment. 

The authors were asked about their experience of publishing. 

Catherine: Is getting a lot of feedback from readers, some of which are threatening emails from people who are invested in characters relationships and want her to have things go certain ways. She was also surprised by how long publishing a book takes.  

Lisa: Leo has become a sex symbol for some of her readers and she's excited that her characters are getting a life outside the book. She enjoyed being edited and having her book become more of a team effort than just something she did on her own. She liked seeing the book actual book.  

Melinda: Feels really freaked out by it all and doesn't really know what to do about it. 

All three were asked if they had any particular writing processes. 

Melinda: Pajamas (This was her exact answer, she answered immediately after the question was asked. ) 

Lisa: Dresses in regular clothing, but not really the sort of thing that she would be comfortable going out in. Said she often dressed in weird combinations when writing. She also said she is trying to write her next book in sequence as The Art of Being Normal was written out of sequence and had to be fitted together. 

Catherine: Was very shocked by the fact that writing could be done out of sequence as she can't see how it could work. She said she had to write chronologically. She didn't mention how she dresses when writing. 

Event Report: Jack Gantos and Phil Earle

Oxford Lit Fest: Part One

A Summery of the Talks Given by Jack Gantos and Phil Earle

On Saturday, I went down to Oxford to meet up with a couple of bloggers to go to see some of the panels at the Oxford Lit Fest. The first one I went to was a hilariously funny panel from Jack Gantos and Phil Earle.

Jack Gantos

First on the stage was Jack Gantos, the author of (among other things) the successful children's book series Joey Pigza.

He spoke a lot about story and structure, starting off talking about his childhood and children's literature.

There was a slide show to accompany him with many pictures from his childhood as well as the books that inspired him as a child, speaking about how you can see with children's books how it is much easier for children to empathize with the characters.

He talked about how he likes to write out things by hand and how he organises them as he goes along. That writers have to constantly think about two things at once, what you want to write and where you want to place it.

There were pictures on the slide show that he had drawn when he was young. Maps of his neighbourhood and childhood home with lots of detail about things that happened. One thing that caught my eye the most was a picture of a cockroach in the kitchen that was labeled and named. He talked about how Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh) was a major inspiration for his childhood self as she was the first character he had seen that carried a journal. After reading the book, he started spying on his own neighbourhood and family, resulting in the maps and drawings.

As many authors do, he mentioned how he writes hundreds of rewrites. He also mentioned that structure is very important to him as a writer.

I think the most interesting part of his talk for me was about his Joey Pigza series, a series about a child with ADHD told from the point of the child. He spoke about how he knew a real child with ADHD who inspired him to write the series then went on to speak about how he felt that originally writing it in third person was minimalising the child to to a problem child and how in first person it made him feel a lot more comfortable with what he was writing. He spoke of how he liked the feedback he got from the Joey Pigza series was not only from children with ADHD but that the series had inspired empathy in children who had classmates with ADHD who might before have not been so understanding.

He finished by talking about his new book Dead End in Norvelt, which is based on his childhood home. He spoke a lot about history but about how you experience empathy, the different sides of stories and historical events. He talked about a dead end sign in his town and how you should question why it's a dead end and not just take it for granted.

Phil Earle

Phil Earle took the stage next. He had a hard act to follow but rose to the occasion wonderfully with his stories about how when he was young he absolutely didn't want to be a writer or ever read at all. He blamed it a lot on the sorts of books he was given to read in school (which were classics), which he didn't relate too. He spoke a lot of how he wanted to be a footballer.

 He started out reading comics and graphics novels, especially Batman and found that it gave him a lot of confidence in reading. He mentioned how upset it makes him when he goes into schools and finds that the children are not allowed to read graphic novels in reading times.

While working at a bookshop, he was transferred to the children's department where he was given books to read such as Skellig (David Almond) , Holes (Louis Sachar)  and the Joey Pigza (see above). He felt that these books, especially Joey Pigza gave him "permission to write". They made him feel that he could actually write something good enough to be published.

"Stories surround us" was one thing that he spoke a lot about. And he talked about various places that stories can come from, such as music, books and newspapers.

He talked a lot about a story he read in the metro that gave him the inspiration for the Superhero book he is writing. The story was about a man called "Parallel Parking Man" who helps people park their cars while dressed in a towel, a hat and swimming goggles (which he dressed his adorable daughter up to look like as a demonstration).

He finished his talk by saying the thing he felt summed up writing the most was that when writing he could be anyone he wants to be.

Questions

It has to be said that there weren't many questions on this panel, and when there were, I have to admit that there weren't many that really interested me. But the one I have to comment on was about Young Adult literature. It caused a fascinating discussion between the authors about the differences between American YA and UKYA and how American YA is doing so much better because there is a separate section in the bookshop for Young Adults, where as a lot of British shops have it lumped together with the children's books (which could make it embarrassing for the  teenagers going to buy books). Maybe our bookshops need to take note of this? 

The Making Of the Solitaire Cake

For those of you that don't know, Waterstones Birmingham High Street, kindly agreed to let me make a book cover cake for the launch of Alice Oseman's Solitaire. So I thought I'd make a post showing exactly how I did it.


I started with a basic sponge cake and added chocolate fudge buttercream icing, then covered it in fondant icing (with a ton of food colouring to make it black).

I had a lot of luck with the chocolate balls I found, 'cause they were almost the same colour as the book. To get them into the right shape I cut a heart shape out of grease proof paper and laid it on top of the cake.

So then it was just a case of putting the writing on, which was probably the hardest bit. Luckily, I found a tip online to use a toothpick to draw out the letters first.

What do you think? Have you ever tried to do book-themed baking. I'd love to hear your stories. 

Event Report: YALC

I'm not posting a review today because this weekend has been far too hectic and tiring. And that's because I was at YALC!

It was a crowded, busy, tiring, stressful and completely and utterly wonderful weekend. My feet are screaming at me for walking too much and my arms are refusing to stretch too far up or even lift the kettle (I just want a cup of tea!) because of all the books I was carrying around with me. But I would do it again right now if I could. In fact I wish I was still there.

I met so many amazing authors that it would take too long to list them all, let alone detail any of the conversations I had with them, but I met a lot of them as well as a lot of really lovely writers who weren't listed, bloggers, Booktubers, writers, publishing people and YA fans in general.

The best thing about this sort of event is that you can just start a conversation with anyone and have a great chat with them. And you couldn't throw a stone without hitting a blogger (not that anyone tried, I hope!). Although I missed quite a few people I wanted to meet, there were so many bloggers who I did meet (both who I already follow on twitter and brand new) and I really feel like some of them will become great friends.

Unfortunately, I didn't make it to any of the panels, but I did get into the blogging workshop. It was brilliant and so, so useful. I won't say much because I want to write a post solely about it, listing some of the advice from it as well as my feelings about it and blogger goals that I've taken away from it.

I am so glad that I went as I had a really wonderful time. I really can't wait to go again next time.

Did you go to YALC? Or anything similar? Did you make friends? I'd love to hear your stories.

Event Report: Bookshop Crawl

Yesterday I met up with my friend, A, to take part in a Bookshop Crawl for Independent Bookseller Week. The purpose, to raise awareness of Independent Bookshops.  The idea of the crawl is that you visit as many of your local independent bookshops as you can in one day. Loads of Vloggers and Bloggers all around the country took part.

So I researched the local Independent Bookshops in my area. Since the city I live in is pretty small, I wasn't surprised to have to widen my search. But the only bookshops I could find were in Hereford, where I've never been and would have no idea how to find anything. Instead, I took the train up to Bath.

  We started out the place at Good Buy Books, a small shop near the train station. When I say small... I mean tiny. It really didn't have many books, so unsurprisingly, we didn't find much to buy. I did manage to walk away with a Books Are My Bag tote bag though, so the trip wasn't totally wasted.

Second up was Toppings. Despite the fact that I lived in Bath for three years, this was only the second time I'd been in and I really regret that, because it really is a wonderful bookshop. There's a great selection of books, small tables and chairs scattered around the place and you can even get coffee while you browse. It's got an atmosphere that is exactly what makes a lot of Indie Bookshops nicer to browse than chain stores.

My browsing was slightly more fruitful as I came away with a copy of Undone by Cat Clarke.

Our final stop was, of course, the ever wonderful Mr. B's. We actually ended up going there twice. I came away with a lovely stack of books, including two that were recommended at the counter. The friendliness and constant recommendations of the staff is makes this shop, in my opinion, one of the
best.

We both really enjoyed the bookcrawl. It was exhausting and took a sizable chunk out of my bank balance, but I'm really glad I did it.

Do you have a favourite Independent Bookshop? Or just a favourite bookshop in general? Did any of you take part in the bookcrawl? I'd love to hear your opinions and stories.

Event Report: John Green Party

So on Saturday night, I went to the John Green party at Birmingham high street Waterstones. I didn't really know what to expect but they said there would be cake so I thought it would be cool. Although the cake part ended up being a bit disappointing.

The friend I was supposed to be going with had to cancel last minute, which made walking into a room full of people I didn't know, being unsure what was actually going to happen, really nerve-wracking. Luckily I managed to sit with three girls (and met more awesome people later on) so it was fine.

The event started with announcements of some future events ( Maze Runner Party, Lauren Oliver Signing and the Launch of Alice Oseman's Solitaire, all very exciting) followed by a really hard TFIOS quiz (who can remember the name of the drug Hazel was on?).

We were given awesome goodie bags (see picture above), even though they're both ones I've already read. Though the new John Green covers are so pretty and I've been wanting a hard copy of The Year of the Rat so I'm keeping both!

Then we were let loose to buy books (all buy one get one half price), raffle tickets and event tickets, eat cake and chat. The cake consisted of a table of nibbles with a disappointing lack of cake. There were cake balls, which you have to try if you get the chance, but they were 50p each. The money went to a cancer charity, which is great, but after delicious cupcakes at the Laini Taylor signing, I expected more.

The raffle was filled with loads of amazing prizes that I didn't win, and I mean loads. So many people were made happy by winning T-shirts and signed posters and star prize goodie bag that I'd have sold my soul for.

The whole event was just amazing. I met a ton of people and had a lot of fun. The cake, while being a lie, was lovely and I can't wait for the next event.