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Members' News August 6 Aug 10:00 PM (6 hours ago)

 August is a month for holidays and heatwaves and new books. 

First off, two new books from Jonathan Emmett

Thursday 6 August: GREAT DINOSAUR MISTAKES, a factual picture book co-written by palaeontologist Adam Smith, illustrated by Stieven Van der Poorten and published by Fox & Ink Books, explores some of the most extraordinary errors early palaeontologists made, and brings past and present versions of each prehistoric creature face to face in a fantastical time-travelling adventure full of fascinating facts.

More information and to buy

Also from Jonathan, coming Thursday 13 August: ONE DOG, TWO DOGS is a count to 20 book full of flaps to lift and pop-up surprises, illustrated by Rob Hodgson and published by Nosy Crow.

 

More information and to buy

Pippa Goodhart's You Choose series of pictures books has sold over two and a half million copies over almost two and a half decades. The sixth in the series, YOU CHOOSE, PARTY TIME, illustrated by Nick Sharratt, published by Puffin, will be released on August 20th. It has lots of choosing to do. Which party theme and invitation? Which games, music, entertainments? Which face paint pattern? Who will be your guests? Which delicious cake to choose? It’s all up to you. There is much to talk about, spot, ponder, and laugh about.

More information and to buy

Manolito and William by Paul May 3 Aug 9:00 PM (3 days ago)

This week I met Manolito Gafotas for the first time. Manolito is an 8-year-old boy invented by the writer, Elvira Lindo, for a radio show in Spain in the early 1990s. The first book about Manolito, Manolito Gafotas, was published in 1994 and six more followed. The last of these was published in 2002 and then there was a ten year gap before Mejor Manolo arrived in 2012. In those 20 years Manolito grew from 8 to 12 years old, so he managed to grow considerably faster than William Brown, with whom he shares certain characteristics. William grew not at all in 50 years despite the many birthdays he celebrated. 

Both William Brown and Manolito Gafotas have broken out of the world of children's literature to become part of popular culture. Elvira Lindo says in an interview that 'her creation has escaped her control, and even surpassed her.  . . . Manolito is popular culture. It's something collective. The readers already know him better than I do.' The same could be said of William, who just like Manolito has been translated into more than 20 languages and made into films, TV series and radio broadcasts, most notably, in William's case, those BBC adaptations performed by Martin Jarvis. William lives on, still 11 years old, long after the death of his creator. Happily, Manolito's creator is still very much alive.

William Brown's character was enhanced by the illustrations of Thomas Henry, just as was Manolito's by the illustrations of Emilio Urberuaga. Both characters are instantly recognisable from these illustrations but I'm sure that in both cases it's the writing that has made them so famous. William and Manolito are both well-intentioned boys who inadvertently end up in trouble and both are essentially comic creations, but the books have a sharp underlying vein of social commentary which is best appreciated by adults, and this cross-generational appeal must be a huge part of their success.

There are, however, just as many differences as similarities between the William stories and those about Manolito. William's world was an invention of its author. Richmal Crompton's niece, Richmal Ashbee, says: 'William's house was not like anywhere Richmal Crompton had ever lived . . . The greenhouse, stable, morning-room and all the rest were conjured up to meet the passing needs of the Brown family . . . The host of servants in the house, too, came from outside her own experience.' It may be that in these books Richmal Crompton caught something of the essence of a certain kind of English village life as it was between the two world wars, but she was never interested in precise details, or accuracy. The sense that the world of these books never really existed, together with the fact that William never grows old, makes the books seem timeless. That, along with the way that Crompton manages to catch something in William's character that adults recognise in their children and children recognise in themselves - a universal quality of childhood.

It is precisely this that readers all over the world recognise in Manolito Gafotas. I say all over the world, but it seems that Manolito hasn't been as successful in English. Four of the books have been translated, with Manolito becoming Manolito Four-eyes, but from the sample I've read I'm not sure that the slang of a poor barrio in Madrid translates that well into (American) English. The William books have been translated into Spanish and are very popular in Spain, but were heavily censored in the Franco era. 

Unlike William, Manolito comes from a real place, the barrio of Carabanchel in the south of Madrid. In their depiction of a working-class neighbourhood the books have something in common with Eve Garnett's The Family at One-End Street, though this is a very different world. The scene includes drug-addicts, muggers and fights. The kids do stupid things, they are a little wild, they play on the streets, but when their parents call them in for their sausages every evening they quickly head for home. Some of the reviews of the English-language versions (from the USA) were appalled by the bad example they thought the books set for children. The kids argue with their parents and teachers, they cheat (or try to) on school tests, they fight and play games of chicken. They are in fact real kids. And at the heart of the books is a tender description of family life in a tiny apartment on the third floor. 'We don't have cockroaches in our flat,' says Manolito's mother to a neighbour. 'We'd like some, but there's no room for them.'

Manolito's dad is a truck-driver who arrives home late each night. Manolito has a small brother he calls 'El Imbécil'. His mother doesn't think this is funny, and neither do those US reviewers on Amazon even though 'imbécil' has been softened in translation to 'bozo'. Elvira Lindo has strong views on the rewriting of children's books to conform to modern sensibilities. Of 'El Imbécil' she says: 'What the children tell me is that 'El Imbécil' is 'la bomba.' What for some adults was something inexplicable, for children becomes something absolutely natural; they know how to discern very well. They know that it has nothing to do with the intelligence of the character. They understand that it is an insult that has become something else. They have understood everything very well."

Manolito's mother, Catalina, is sharp-tongued, long-suffering and quick-witted. His grandfather, 79 years old in the first book, has prostate trouble and often gets Manolito out of bother. The words with which Manolito introduces him, 'Mi abuelo mola, mola mucho, mola un pegote.' I suspect would be recognised by most Spaniards. They mean, very roughly, 'My grandfather is cool, very cool, incredibly cool.' All of these characters help to make the books entertaining, but it is the character of Manolito himself that has turned him into a cultural icon.

Manolito is a complex character. He is vulnerable. He gets beaten up but he bounces back. He says that before he got the nickname Manolito Gafotas he used to cry a lot. He'd get bullied in the playground by people calling him 'gafotas' (four-eyes) but once he was Manolito Gafotas insulting him was a waste of time. Manolito talks all the time (luckily for the reader). He talks so much he gets sent to the school psychologist. She tells him he can tell her all his problems. He asks if that means everything, from the day he was born, and she foolishly says yes. He fills three exercise books and is very happy to read what he's written. The psychologist tells his mother he doesn't have any trauma, he just talks a lot. They need to listen to him more at home. 'MORE!!!???' says his mother.

Manolito has some crazy ideas and he is very easily led. When his friends suggest playing chicken with approaching cars on the street Manolito stands in front of a truck and thinks he's making it stop with the force of his mind. One day he suddenly decides it would be a great idea to use some coloured marker pens to draw three parallel lines above the bannisters in his apartment block. I know this boy. Elvira Lindo grew up in this barrio and she knows this place and these kids. I admire the way she understands that it isn't the job of children's literature to provide models of good behaviour in the manner of those books presented as Victorian Sunday School prizes. Anyone who spends time on a primary school playground will soon realise that what children actually do and say is very different from what their teachers and parents might want. It's a kind of parallel world that hasn't changed that much since I was a child myself.

When I was teaching there were several moments when well-meaning teachers attempted to introduce 'playground games' on the grounds that children weren't playing them any more. Children are always playing games, it's just that adults seldom recognise them for what they are. It's the children's world and it's often a private one. In Manolito Gafotas the kids know very well that you don't say 'ni puñetera idea' (no bloody idea) in front of the teachers. They say NPI instead, and there are a million other things that children say and do that are hidden from the adults around them. 

The Manolito books are not currently available in English, though you can get second-hand copies and you can read the first book on the Internet Archive if you sign up. But unfortunately the translation is so Americanised that I find it almost impossible to read. Using slang in a children's book is always going to run the risk of making the text sound dated in the future. It seems as if Elvira Lindo avoids this by using a kind of generalised slang rather than the 'slang of the moment' and by adding in very idiosyncratic  'Manolito-isms'. Certainly the books have remained in print in Spain and have been incredibly popular for more than 30 years. The US translation just doesn't really work, and that's a shame. That line about Manolito's grandfather, 'Mi abuelo mola . . .' is translated: 'My grandpa's cool; he's so cool, he's a whole lotta cool.' Manolito often refers to men and women as 'tío' or 'tía', words which, although they really mean 'uncle' and 'aunt' are used extremely commonly in Spain, maybe a bit like we use 'guy', but there is no direct equivalent in English. What certainly doesn't work is to replace them with 'dude' and 'broad'. This all just shows how tricky translation is. But I suspect that the real reason there haven't been further attempts to translate Manolito is just that difficulty of coping with the sensitive issues of the kind that led to the rewriting of Roald Dahl and the Enid Blyton.

Although there is one William story, William and the Nasties, that hasn't been included in collections since 1986, and about which Crompton herself was said to have been uncomfortable, in general the William stories don't seem to have been subject to pressure to rewrite for a modern audience. The censorship of the stories during Franco's rule is interesting though, and I shall find out more about that. Otherwise, publishers here don't seem too bothered about, for instance, William and his mates kidnapping babies and their prams from outside shops. But perhaps that's because babies don't get left outside shops in their prams any more.

The interview with Elvira Lindo is from La Marea 20/11/2024

Richmal Ashbee wrote the introduction to Mary Cadogan's Just William Through the Ages

Revolution! by Joan Lennon 2 Aug 4:30 PM (4 days ago)

"So, what are you writing these days?" they ask.

"A book for 8 to 12 year-olds about revolutions," I answer.

"STILL?!?!?" they reply.

Yup, it took a while. But now, after all this time, it's finally here.

I was introduced to non-fiction writing for this age group a few years back when I co-wrote two books with Joan Haig: Talking History (150 Years of Speakers and Speeches) pub. 2022, and Great Minds (2500 Years of Thinkers and Philosophy) pub. 2023. 

I was smitten. Revolution! followed. (Eventually.)

Here's a bit of a blurb:

What does it take to change the world?

Sometimes it’s toppling systems and finding new ways to govern that give people a better chance.

Sometimes it’s challenging long-held beliefs and finding the courage to think differently.

Sometimes it’s coming up with ingenious inventions that transform our everyday lives.

The world we know today has been shaped by exceptional events, ideas and inventions. Revolution! tells the stories of ordinary people who made the extraordinary happen.

Our parents before we knew them - by Sue Purkiss 31 Jul 9:00 PM (6 days ago)

 By now, my new book, An Ordinary War, should be available on Amazon, and fear not, I'll be writing all about it in a post later this month. It is inspired by my father's experiences as a prisoner of war for five years, after being captured on the way to Dunkirk.

But today, I'm writing not about him, but about my mother.

We've recently had a room refurbished. It's in the oldest part of the house, and dates from several hundred years ago, when this was a one-up one-down cottage or farmhouse. Since we moved in, over forty years ago, this room has had very little done to it. The walls were covered with ancient woodchip, which had been patched up and was now, in places, unattached to the crumbling plaster. The not-so-old chipboard floor was crumbling into large holes in places, so you had to be careful not to turn your ankle - only the carpet was holding it together.

So, finally, its day has come. It's been replastered and refloored, it's got smart new skirting boards and lights - even fancy new sockets with USB points. we've painted it in pretty colours, and once the carpet's down, it'll be ready to go. 

At the moment it's an empty space. But soon, other furniture will go into it, including a carved oak chest from another bedroom. I was explaining this a couple of weeks ago to my daughter and son-in-law, and we went to look at the chest. As we discussed this and various other furniture moves, Katie noticed an old embroidered fire screen which came from my parents' house. We hadn't used it for its original purpose because we had a mesh and wrought iron one from my parents-in-laws' house, which was really more practical.

Katie was admiring the embroidered screen - as you can see, it is very pretty. Then she had a brilliant idea. Why not make it into a picture, she said, and hang it in the 'new' room? So she and Chris took it away, and brought it back a week later, all ready to hang. He'd cut off the legs, and sanded and oiled the frame. And as he'd done so, he'd noticed an inscription, scartched into the frame. It said, CPL L Clarke 1943. This was my mother, Lily Clarke. During the war, she was a nurse with the WAAF, the Women's Auxiliary Air Force: the women's branch of the RAF.

I hadn't been sure who had embroidered the firescreen. I'd rather thought it was Auntie Ada, an old friend of Mum's, who had been a sort of a mother substitute to Mum (whose own mother had been somewhat deficient in the nurturing department), and who I knew to have given Mum lots of embroidered tablecloths and the like. But clearly, Mum had made it herself. And she'd done it during the war. 

Photo by Chris Davies

She was stationed on various bases in Lincolnshire, and she got to know a farmer and his wife, Mr and Mrs Thorpe. I think Mrs Thorpe was another substitute mother figure: she and Frank were very kind to Mum, and they stayed in touch after the war. (In fact oddly, with a nice little touch of circularity, the old carved chest, which we'd gone to look at when Katie spotted the firescreen, was left to Mum by the Thorpes.) Perhaps Mum worked on the firescreen when she was staying with the Thorpes: I couldn't really imagine her doing it in the hurly burly of an airforce base, with constant emergencies and admissions to the hospital.

Dad didn't talk much about his experiences as a POW, and Mum didn't talk much about her experiences in the WAAF. She reminisced occasionally about the different bases she'd been on, and she had a few photos - and she stayed in touch with one of the nurses she'd served with, who in fact was one of my godmothers. But you never got a sense of what day-to-day life was like, what it felt like to be in that situation. Probably, sadly, I just didn't ask the right questions.

But this little detail - her name scratched proudly onto the frame of this picture which she'd embroidered so painstakingly - somehow has drawn her closer to me. Our relationship wasn't always easy. Probably thanks largely to her own mother, she didn't find it easy to show affection. She poured it into the things she made for myself and my sister: dresses she sewed, cardigans she knitted - once, even, beautiful tweed suits that she went on an evening course to learn how to tailor. She loved making things and growing things. 

Now, when I look at the picture, I will imagine her working on it as the war raged and planes circled above the flat Lincolnshire countryside - and it will remind me of her.

A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN by Sheena Wilkinson 28 Jul 8:00 PM (9 days ago)

I've written on here before about the shift from living alone (for 24 years) to living with a husband, step child and two dogs, and the impact that has had on my writing from a purely practical point of view.

view from the desk (if I turn round)

When I first moved into this house, the only place for me to work was the dining room. I wrote  at the  table, and when we needed something bigger than the kitchen table to eat at --  if we had more than two people for dinner -- I could magically twitch my nose, shove all my writing paraphernalia into a cupboard, whip out a tablecloth and -- ta-da! -- the room became a dining room again. 

the old set up

It worked for a while. I was proud of my ability to compromise. It made sense to have a dual-purpose room. It was, spoilt, first-world and middle-class of me to complain that I didn't really have my own writing space. We wouldn't be staying here forever, and I looked forward to moving into a house where I could prioritise a room of my own once again. I would be happy with a tiny box, just so long as it didn't have to be anything BUT a study. And we don't entertain much, so the occasions when I had to transform the room back into a dining room were infrequent. 

too many chairs but nowhere to sit!

And yet. The room never felt right. The table was too big and invariably ended up in a mess, which I hated because I like order. There was an armchair but I never sat in it because the room was so dominated by the table that it never felt like somewhere to relax. And when we did use it as a dining room I felt that all my shoved-into-a-cupboard writing was judging me. As for that move -- well, it's still on the horizon, but we know now that, for various reasons, we are here for the duration.

my lovely new desk

I now have a proper room of my own. It felt selfish, in a way, to claim this whole space, which is much bigger than I need, but in fact, rendering the room single-purpose has actually made it more flexible. I now have a comfy place to sit and read. When my husband is watching the racing on TV I have somewhere to go that isn't the kitchen. I can entertain my friends here, or knit and listen to podcasts, or simply read. 

somewhere to sit and read

Has it improved my writing? Well, only time will tell, but it certainly hasn't hurt it. 

tiny bookcase -- £15 in a charity shop

REMEMBERING A SERIOUS GAME By Penny Dolan 24 Jul 10:18 AM (13 days ago)

The academic year might be over but schools are, behind the gates, still working.
Computers & IT systems need attention, Classrooms, corridors and spaces must be cleaned, cupboards tidied, stationery re-ordered, art & craft materials topped up and library stock and book-boxes sorted out for the year ahead. All the essential practical tasks.

A witch subplot in hindsight – by Rowena House 20 Jul 3:30 PM (17 days ago)

One theme that seems to have been consistent in my ABBA posts over the past few years is how slow progress has been on Book 2, which are famously tough to write, my seventeenth-century witch trial work-in-progress proving that general point.

But...

As my characters and I approach the last two months of this being a PhD work-in-progress, I can also see how their stories came on in leaps and bounds in the past twelve months, including a scramble to finish Draft 3 of the main plot last month, hence the lack of an ABBA post from me in June. Apologies.

What changed? 

One simple answer is the end of the PhD. Who doesn’t work better with a deadline?

But the story hasn't simply ended; it has changed fundamentally from the first draft, completed in April last year when I thought the main plot was the entire story, just one with a massive hole in the middle where a woman’s story should have been, my main protagonist being a male pamphleteer. 

The feminist subplot told from a woman viewpoint arrived in a rush in June 2025 for reasons I’m analysing for the critical commentary on the novel at the moment. Some of these reasons have to do with grief, which I’m not ready to write about just yet, but as I analyse the process, I’m seeing parallels with The Goose Road, my children's debut, written with the massive benefit of the collective effort of Bath Spa’s MA in writing for young people, for which I still can’t thank everyone involved  enough. Doing this one without such support has definitely made it far harder.

The first big hurdle with The Goose Road that other people couldn't help me with was the enormity of the First World War as a subject and a feeling that I needed permission to write about it. With Book Two, the ‘witches’ story wasn’t mine to tell, either. 

Taking Wilfred Owen’s war poems with me to key WW1 locations in France gave me that sense of permission in 2014; I was honouring the past, not invading it.

Now, I wonder if it was the understanding that I think I've acquired from years of researching, writing, and thinking about witch trials that gave me permission to enter the witch suspects’ dungeon this time around.

 

 

For example, last year, when writing about finishing the first (partial) draft of Book Two, I noted:

‘The biggest creative eye-opener of finishing the full draft was an entirely unexpected release of pent-up creative thoughts which arrived in a rush AFTER I spent a week tweaking the resolution. Years of fiddling with single-sentence commercial pitches fell away, replaced by a solid plot one-liner (15 words). 

'More importantly, a character one-liner arrived out of the blue, too, which, with hindsight, I can see is the heart of the story, the universal wood hidden within the story trees. The specific character journey on which I had been fixated turned out to be a metaphor for something simpler.’

That one-liner: a young man overcomes group-think and regains his humanity. The driving force behind his change of heart: writing about flawed prosecutions forced him to think critically.

Really, that’s my story, too. 

Writing about a specific set of witch trials forced me to think critically about the how of witchcraft belief rather than dismiss it as archaic nonsense. Applying social psychology theories to my pamphleteer explained his belief system, to my satisfaction at least.

The link with the here and now therefore became the slender nature of the gap between seventeenth century mindsets and the irrationalities of our times, which seem to me to be no more than a variation on a theme. A notion which seems to have been the key to unlocking herstory (versus history). 

 

Next month, I’m booked into a remote Dartmoor inn for four nights to re-read her story to see if that creative rush still makes sense. I’m hoping her subplot won’t need more than a line edit/proof read. But then again, maybe I’m forcing myself into that position by not giving myself enough time to do much else with it. Like ruin it! We’ll see. I’ll be back from the moor in time for the next ABBA blog and will let you know how that plan worked out.


Rowena House Author on Facebook

rowena.houseauthor on Instagram 

 

Link Ed In by Steve Way 16 Jul 7:30 PM (21 days ago)

 The great language teacher Michel Thomas often said that you learn a lot more about your own language when learning another. Although only semi-fluent in French, I am able to teach beginners (as my dad used to say, ‘In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’) and often tell them that ‘most posh English comes from French’. Despite that I still feel uncomfortable saying ‘Je demande’ even though in French that merely means ‘I ask’ rather than that I’m being argumentative!

As an adjunct to Michel’s statement you could perhaps add learning more about your own language when you teach it. In my case, teaching mainly Spanish speakers, it’s made me more acutely aware of how unintuitive the pronunciation of English words is. Previously, though the habit of familiarity, it had never occurred to me that the pronunciation of the mass of words ending in -ed are never in fact pronounced as ‘Ed’, as in the abbreviation of Edward. Understandably, until I make my best effort to explain, my students ask-Ed or answer-Ed (also sounding the w) etc. Given that my teaching colleagues and I are only explaining this to a fraction of Spanish speakers, adopted English words ending in -ed also end up dedicated to Ed. Our most frequent discussions revolve around the professionals’ social media platform ‘LinkedIn’. Spanish speakers refer to it as ‘Link Ed In’.* One of my students responded to my explanation of this error by saying, “Ok Steve, I get it. It should be pronounced ‘Link-t In’ but I’ll have to carry on calling it ‘Link Ed In’ with my friends, otherwise they won’t know what I’m talking about!”

A different English term that has been changed in pronunciation by Spanish speakers is ‘WiFi’. They pronounce it as ‘wiffy’. I first discovered this from a student who was excited about going to a conference in London. “I’ll have to do some work while I’m in England,” he told me. “So when I get to the hotel, I’ll have to ask them if they’ve got a really strong wiffy!” In order to maintain cordial diplomatic relations between our two countries, I gently suggested that he didn’t do that.

Even though we state some acronyms as though they are words, such as ‘NASA’, Spanish speakers do so far more frequently. When I asked one student where he had been on holiday, he seemed to say that he had been to ‘Ossa’. Being desperately ignorant when it comes to geography, I wondered if he was referring to an eastern European city. Fortunately all became clear as he continued speaking, “Yes, we visited New York and then we went to Boston…” “Ah!” I declared. “You mean the U.S.A.” emphasising each letter. On other occasions some students talk about an important executive at the company by referring to them as the ‘See-oh’. You’ve probably deduced they were speaking about their C.E.O.

Something else interesting I’ve seen from teaching English is that it seems that the various schemes and courses used for teaching the language have certain idiosyncratic commonalities. It seems that all of them suggest that we all use one particular phrase, more or less in unison, when it begins raining. On the – increasingly rare – occasions when it’s raining on the plain or elsewhere in Spain, every student announces that, “it’s raining cats and dogs,” in the proud manner of a toddler exclaiming, “look, no stabilisers!” Now I know the phrase exists… but when did you last hear anyone using it? Also – astonishingly – the word ‘astonish’ is normally unknown to my students until I introduce them to it, which seems to indicate that for some reason this word has been excluded from all the standard courses. (I do tend to go off piste with my teaching, which is why I’ve discovered this.)

*Could that be misconstrued as ‘Link Ed in to a WhatsApp group?’ or does that could as splitting your social media sites rather than infinitives?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recently published

 

The original idea behind Reluctant Writers Resource was to provide an 'idea-a-week' to support creative writing lessons during the 38 weeks of the school year. However the concept mushroomed and the resource now provides considerably more than 38 weeks worth of ideas. The resource is divided into four sections. The 'Get the Pen Moving' section provides short, snappy ideas to help stir up the creative juices and support writers by getting words on the page, ideas include 'Nutty New Year Resolutions' and 'Silly Rules' (including those for teachers, which children seem to love writing!) The 'Standard ideas' section provides accessible, punchy ideas like 'Crazy Superheroes (and a few villains)' and 'Very Short Stories' and is followed by the 'Advanced ideas' section, providing more extended and sophisticated pieces as writers gain more confidence, including 'Letters to Aunt Agatha' (an agony aunt who receives bizarre letters from her readers) and 'Fairy-sized Fairy Tales', comically foreshortened versions of popular tales. The final section contains examples of 'Structured Stories' ranging from a series of short stories following a very distinct format to a piece (Hank Bullman rides into Certain City) clearly requiring a sequel. (What happens when he rides into Uncertain City?) Writers are encouraged to become co-authors of the structured stories and authors of increasing confidence to compose the Hank Bullman sequel.

Hardback ISBN: 979-8242528680

Paperback ISBN: 979-8241950987

Kindle ASIN: B0GF8RQ7WX    (The 0 is a zero)

Monkey and Me, by Emily Gravett, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart 14 Jul 3:30 PM (23 days ago)

 

    This isn't a new book, but it's new to me in board book form. Clever Emily Gravett, both author and illustrator, gives us a fun game that children can join-in with -

    Monkey and me,

    Monkey and me,

    Monkey and me,

    We went to see,

    We went to see some ... Turn the page

And we go from the child and her toy monkey acting out animal actions that let us guess what they are going to see this time. 

    Great fun! And we slow down at the end to leave the book and your child audience feeling suitably sleepy to make this a perfect bedtime read -

    Highly recommended. Tested on a one year old who immediately wanted to read it again.

Is post-literacy really coming? Anne Rooney 13 Jul 12:19 AM (25 days ago)

Around 2,500 years ago, Socrates (according to Plato) bemoaned the advent of literacy as corrosive to our memories: “[reading] will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.” He was right, but literacy, on the whole, was a good thing for society. (And we wouldn't have known what Socrate thought without it.) Literacy has been a source of power for two millennia. In societies where only a few can read, they dominate  as they control the flow of information (and misinformation). Today, audio and video communication have given that power to everyone with a smart phone. Democratising the power to spread misinformation is of doubtful value, but at least we can now all find three ways to put on our eyeliner or clear a blocked drain without the aggro of having to read. 

So far, children still have to learn to read and write, though the reading they are set becomes ever briefer and less challenging. For decades we have seen children complain that they don't need to learn arithmetic as they can use a calculator. How long before they say they don't need to read and write because everything either is or can be audio/visual? And what does that mean for children's writers and children's books? 

Picture books are rooted in oral tradition. They use word play, often rhyme, alliteration, repetition and musicality just as oral storytellers and poets have done for millennia. And to the recipient (the child) they are orally delivered, read by an adult or older sibling. Picture books are already giving children the tools they need to live in an oral culture. As authors and parents, we hope the pleasure they get from hearing picture books will prompt them to want to learn to read, to be able to repeat that pleasure whenever they want, without the assistance of a reading adult.

Many adults read very little, taking audio books, movies, TV, online video and music as their principal sources of both entertainment and information. But somone has to write all those still, at least for now. AI can produce derivative slop, but nothing wholly original, so it will all get increasingly samey as it feeds on itself (this is 'model collapse' in AI jargon). It's unlikely everyone will be content with slop so there should be some market for thoughtful creativity still. And no one can write who does not read.

But the outcome of writing is not just articulating what you think, it's working out what you think. Socrates could, no doubt, work out his thoughts using spoken language, but I don't think we could do that now — precisely because the ability to record things, either in writing or digitally, has eroded those skills we once had.  The human brain hasn't changed in 2,500 years, though. We could still develop those skills from infancy if we lived in an environment where it was necessary. And perhaps our descendants will again, after the apocalpyse when they can't read or write or have any access to digital repositories of information. For now, though, it's important to nurture the skills and pleasures of reading and writing. In the worst-case scenario, those children who grow up reading and writing when others don't will be those with power and knowledge. It's our books they will have been reading. What they read will show them how to think and suggest what they should think. We need to make our books count because the future of the world depends on them. — literally. No pressure, then.

And maybe it's time to re-read Ong's Orality and Literacy (1982)...

Anne Rooney 

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Coming soon: Science Museum Space Annual 2027, published August 2026 

 

 

 

 

USING FOLKLORE IN MODERN CHILDREN'S STORIES by Sharon Tregenza 9 Jul 1:41 AM (29 days ago)

 I think folklore is an absolute gift to children's authors. The more I dip into it, the more wonderful stories come to light sparking ideas galore for new books.  Where else can you find so many ghosts, witches, giants and mermaids. 

Dragging these tales into the modern world is an interesting exercise in itself. Think of a giant struggling with an iphone, a mermaid having to deal with plastic pollution and a witch going viral with her TikTok dance. 

Old myths and legends feel fresh when they're transported into modern life. It also works well for creating a strong sense of place - mysterious caves, dangerous cliffs and creepy woods. All luscious stuff. 

Members' News July 6 Jul 10:00 PM (last month)

Congratulations to all Scattered Authors with books out this month. There's lots for younger children here, nicely timed for summer reading.

Animagicals: Noah's Bear, by Paula Harrison, illustrated by Erwin Madrid

Book two in Paula's magical series published by Nosy Crow, follows the adventures of children who can turn into animals.

Noah loves changing into a bear! He’s sure it’s the animal he’s destined to be. So why do his friends at Wild Haven School say he should choose something else? A mysterious magic brings a terrible storm to the land of Animagia, putting every animal in danger. Noah is determined to help. Can he stay true to himself and prove how great he can be as a bear?

Details here

Tales of the Wild: Animal Families by Alice Harman, illustrated by Becca Hall

How to Build a Human by Moria Butterfield, illustrated by Clare Elsom

Another in the Builderbot series, published by Ladybird, 2nd July.

Meet the Builderbots – the best building crew in the universe! They can build just about anything.... but can they build a human?

Take a fascinating tour through the incredible body, and discover all the things that make a human – from the weird to the wonderful!

Leaving the House by Sally Nicholls, illustrated by Ellie Snowdon

Frogs and Toads by Paul May 3 Jul 9:00 PM (last month)

On my allotment in Friern Barnet I have an old cast-iron bath. When Friern Hospital closed in 1993 an Italian named Mario laid claim to the bath, and transported it a few hundred metres to the allotment site. The hospital was originally known as Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum and at one time had more than 2000 inmates and hundreds of staff.

There are many Italians who have allotment plots near mine. Many of them arrived after WW2 when the British government was recruiting staff for places like Friern Hospital. Others, like Mario, followed family members or friends who were already here. Mario came from Naples in the early 1960s to work on the hospital's farm. Yes, a farm! On its 75 acres the hospital had extensive workshops, kitchens, recreation grounds, a gasworks and a brewery. It had its own water supply, chapel and cemetery, and even its own railway station. Where once there was farmland, now there is a huge retail park stretching down to the North Circular Road. The hospital also had the longest corridor in Britain and quite a few cast-iron baths, one of which ended up on my allotment.

Source: Wellcome Collection

I took on the allotment in 2016. Half of it was then planted with grapevines which I quickly discovered had been planted by Mario. Apparently at one time the whole plot had been covered with vines. Mario had taken cuttings from a vine belonging to a neighbour of his with the intention of using the grapes to make wine, only to discover that these particular grapes were useless for winemaking. At one time he had cultivated three adjacent plots but now he only had the one next to mine, from which he dispensed horticultural advice to anyone who'd listen, and where he kept a vast collection of stuff that he'd salvaged from skips because it might come in handy one day. He had also salvaged the bath, which was now partly a water store and partly a seat. Mario sat down often because he was really very ill, but he continued coming to the allotment, digging and grumbling and dispensing unasked-for advice despite the efforts of his family to stop him. Looking at his plot, which, despite all the junk he'd collected, was very picturesque, a friend said to me that it could have been anywhere in rural Europe. 

Mario

It was to try to preserve something of that atmosphere that I took over Mario's plot, in addition to my own, after he died in 2019. I cleared all the junk and turned the bath into a pond. I'd already moved the bath once, from my plot to Mario's, but now I had it back again. I moved it to a new location and planted yellow flag iris and marsh marigold. I made a mound so that wildlife could get to the water, but recently I decided that it would be better if the bath was sunk into the ground, so I started clearing it out in order to move it. That was when I found the frogs. They keep themselves to themselves, those frogs. I never see them out and about, but there were at least four in the bath. Hopefully they've all survived their move to a new location.

I like to think that the frogs are like Arnold Lobel's famous Frog. I love the Frog and Toad books and I was delighted to discover, in a children's bookshop in Bologna, that they have been translated into Italian. It's very good fun reading a book like this, one that I could almost recite with my eyes closed, in another language. Toad sounds great in Italian: "Questa casa è un distastro. Ho un sacco di lavore di fare." It's almost better than the English.

And there's a great story for gardeners where Toad's seeds don't seem to be growing and he shouts at them so loudly that Frog tells him he's scaring them and he needs to leave them alone. Mario didn't need to be told how to grow things and he would no doubt have offered slightly scornful advice to Toad. Like most of my allotment neighbours who come from Kurdistan and Italy, Macedonia and Albania, for Mario growing his own food was just something you did, not a lifestyle choice. Perhaps that was why Mario was so keen to offer advice to those he thought were bungling part-timers. The trouble was, there was only one proper way to do things, and that was HIS way. He also ordered me not to cut the grassy path where the oregano was growing. He'd brought it all the way from the hills above Naples, but he really didn't need to worry about losing it because it has seeded itself everywhere. I also have a very fine white-flowered variety of oregano that was brought by another elderly Italian, Giacomo, from his home in Sicily. Giacomo has also since died. 

Most of the Italians are now in their 80s. Half a dozen have died in the ten years since I came to the allotments. But for at least two of them their memory is preserved in the plants that they brought with them from their childhood homes, and that are now flourishing in North London. And the memory of London's most famous lunatic asylum is preserved in a pond in a bath. The asylum was once a byword or perhaps a synonym for lunacy, and even gets a mention in a children's book. "Three cheers for the Hempress of Colney 'atch," jeer the Londoners in The Magician's Nephew when Jadis, escaped from Narnia, proclaims herself Empress.

Oregano from Naples

Oregano from Sicily

The bath in its new location

* There is a famous philosophical article inspired by the Frog and Toad story Cookies entitled Frog and Toad Lose Control by Jeanette Kennett and Michael Smith which is only available via subscription to JSTOR, but there are also numerous discussions of the story online, and if you search hard enough you might even be able to find the mentioned article republished somewhere. I know I did manage to read it once.

Fair Isle Filling the Well - Joan Lennon 2 Jul 4:30 PM (last month)

Like Penny's post a few days ago JULY - and NO DAY WITHOUT A LINE, I too have been filling the well, though I was taken in the opposite direction and as far from the delights of cities as it's easy to get.

Time on Fair Isle has become an essential part of my year. The big skies and the sea that change by the moment, the weather and the birds and the flowers and the people - photos give just the barest flavour of how vivid a place and an experience it is - images and sensations to feed me and my writing until I can return - next year! 

Joan Lennon website

Joan Lennon Instagram

JULY - and NO DAY WITHOUT A LINE by Penny Dolan 30 Jun 10:55 PM (last month)

There’s little writing angst with this first of July post, as I am still in a ‘What I did in my Holidays’ kind of mood - so do grab a cup of tea or coffee or whatever and read on.

Star by Star Keeps Shining -- Sheena Wilkinson 28 Jun 8:00 PM (last month)

It hasn't been the jolliest of years, publishing-wise. In 2025 I had two books out within three months -- True Friends at Fernside, and Miss McVey Takes Charge, so it's probably natural that this year should be a time of building things up again. I've always wanted to be a writer contracted to publish a book a year -- that would fit my natural book-producing rhythm very nicely, but so far that's eluded me, and my publishing career looks more like this: 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015 (2); 2017 (2); 2020; 2023; 2024; 2025 (2). (I THINK that adds up to 12!) I suppose, written down, it looks regular enough, but every single one of those books represents a one-book deal, so I have always lived with uncertainty. 

The Polar Bear and the Butterfly 25 Jun 10:16 PM (last month)

 APOLOGY

I missed my day for the blog yesterday. Completely forgot about, as I'm currently deep in revisions of a new story. So by way of apology, here's a short chapter from that story. I hope to resume normal service next month.

(Syl is escorting five wolves through a strange English landscape and has just struggled across a river with them.)

The Polar Bear and the Butterfly

Secret Rooms - Sue Purkiss 22 Jun 9:00 PM (last month)

 The other day I saw a mention somewhere of the Grandmother's secret room, as featured in The Princess and the Goblin, a 19th century children's book by George MacDonald.

It's a strange book in some ways, but I remember being enchanted by it when I read it as a child. It's about a princess, Irene, who lives with her nurse, Lootie, in an isolated castle in the countryside. Nearby under the mountain there are mines, which are worked by local people (including a brave  and enterprising lad called Curdie) and by a race of goblins, who hate humans. Irene does not know about the goblins - and actually, now, it seems rather odd that her father, the King, should have chosen a castle so near them as a home for his daughter. But still, there we are - I suppose kings aren't always sensible. 

Irene climbs the stairs...

One day, Irene decides to explore the castle. At the top of several staircases, she finds a room in which a beautful old lady, also called Irene, sits spinning. The lady tells the princess that she is her several-times-great grandmother. She's a magical lady, who clearly intends to protect Irene from the dangers that surround her. She can only be found if she wants to be. As well as the workroom, she has a bedroom...

What was Irene's surprise to see the loveliest room she had ever seen in her life! It was large and lofty, and dome-shaped. From the centre hung a lamp as round as a ball, shining as if with the brightest moonlight, which made everything visible in the room, though not so clearly that the princess could tell what many of the things were. A large oval bed stood in the middle, with a coverlid of rose colour, and velvet curtains of a lovely pale blue. The walls were also blue - spangled all over with what looked like stars of silver.

The Grandmother. (Both illustrations are Arthur Hughes' original ones.) The Grandmother's appearance changes every time Irene sees her: sometimes she looks old, other times quite young.

I forgot the details of the rest of the story, but that image of a secret room, which could only be found when its owner wished it, intrigued me and has stayed with me. I dug out the book - falling apart, but with Arthur Hughes' beautiful original illustrations - and as I revisited the Grandmother's secret room, it made me think of another 'secret' and certainly unexpected room, which I saw last year in real life.

I live in Somerset now, but I'm from Derbyshire. Last year I was holidaying with family in the Peak District, and on the way back, my son decided he wanted to show his family the place where my parents had lived - Stanley, between Ilkeston and Derby. 

The house is an end terrace, down a little unadopted road. My guess is that the houses were originally built for miners at the nearby pit, but it is only a guess. Dad bought it in 1968. It was a big thing for him: we had lived in council houses up till then, and I don't think anyone, on either side of the family, had actually owned their own house before. So he was immensely proud of it. It looked out onto fields at the back, Mum made a beautiful little garden, and they were very happy there.

Our old house.

So, there we were, outside the house, me taking a photograph, when the current owner popped his head out of an upstairs window, and, understandable curious, asked if he could help us. I explained, and he invited me in for a look round.

Like Dad over fifty years before, Andy was very proud of what he and his wife had done with the house. Apparently, the people who'd bought it after Dad died in 2004 had let the house and garden go, and it had been in a terrible state when they moved in. So they had completely renovated it - it was amazing to see what they had done: it was lovely. But the very best bit was this.

At the top of the stairs was a door which led, in our day, to a cupboard where Mum and Dad stored suitcases and suchlike. Andy paused. "I think you're going to like this," he said. He opened the door.

And there, instead of a cupboard, was a staircase. And at the top was a light and spacious room. To say I was astonished would be a huge understatement. In our day, there had been an attic, yes, but the only entrance to it was through a small trapdoor. I had never seen inside it, and I'd had no idea that there was all this space up there.

There was something very special about this. Knowing how much the house had meant to Dad, I was delighted to see that it was being loved and cared for and brought back to life by a new generation. And that unexpected room - well, it wasn't the kind of magic of Irene's grandmother's room, but there was nevertheless something quite magical about it: an utterly surprising new space.

Occasionally, I have dreams where the house I'm living in suddenly turns out to have extra rooms or outbuildings that I hadn't noticed before. I suppose it's something to do with finding out new possibilities, unexpected avenues. Secret rooms in literature can be pretty nasty places, where unfortunate victims are imprisoned or whatever. But they don't have to be. Sometimes, they can open up a whole new vista.

 

How to divine your future at Midsummer - by Lu Hersey 18 Jun 4:30 PM (last month)

More taxing times with ALCS by Steve Way 16 Jun 7:30 PM (last month)

 

As, appropriately I suppose, the plot regarding repayment of tax paid by ALCS to HMRC thickens, and because many of you kindly read the post and/or commented on it, I thought I would explain the developments since last month’s post.

Firstly, thank you to all of you who commented on the post. Penny Dolan and Rowena House, I appreciated your supportive comments… and you’re right Rowena, if I owed HMRC 20% of something, the boot would definitely be on the other foot and communication between us would be far more rapid! As you mentioned Stroppy Author, it’s more effective to get letters posted to HMRC by family (or in my case friends) in the UK rather than from abroad, when they either seem to get ‘lost’ or considerably delayed. Thank you Nick Garlick for sharing your experiences, I had been considering approaching ALCS to support me in this matter and I’m sorry to hear that you got no help from them.

As I mentioned in last month’s blog, I sent my application form for repayment of tax paid to HMRC by ALCS in January. This was based on me being a taxpayer in France and therefore, under the ‘double tax’ treaty being theoretically eligible to reclaim that tax.

A while after posting the blog I did finally hear from HMRC! It is actually dated from before my last blog but arrived by what’s known around here as ‘snail mail’ a month later. However, to my surprise and frustration, they stated that, ‘We cannot deal with you claim because it is not on the appropriate Double Taxation claim form for France’.

Since I cannot for the life of me understand why the form I sent them is not the or an ‘appropriate’ form I am thinking about sending them the letter below. As fellow ABBA and Scattered Author friends I would be interested to know whether you think it would be a good idea to actually send the letter, or if you think by questioning them in the way I have that they may lock me in The Tower and throw away the key!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing with regard to the letter of 29^th April 2026, which I received from #### ##### stating that I had not sent you the appropriate Double Taxation claim form for France.

I am enquiring about this, not only on my own behalf but because I contribute to a blog (An Awfully Big Blog Adventure) produced and read by many authors, particularly children’s authors, and I am aware that there are other authors like me, living outside the UK, trying to reclaim tax paid to you by ALCS, based on the double tax agreement. I would therefore ask if you could kindly explain why the form I sent you is not the appropriate form as several factors seem to indicate that it should be.

The form I sent you is titled ‘Form DT-Individual’. I have assumed the acronym ‘DT’ refers to the Double Tax Treaty, or am I incorrect in doing so?

Further to this (in bold type) the sub heading of the first page of the form itself (copy enclosed) describes it as an ‘Application for relief at source from United Kingdom (UK) Income Tax and claim to repayment of UK Income Tax’. The form then goes on to state that it is, ‘For use by an individual resident of a country with which the UK has a double taxation treaty that provides for relief from UK Income Tax on… royalties arising in the UK’. I believe that France and many other countries in the UK have a double taxation treaty with the UK, which would seem to further imply that this is an appropriate form to use.

In addition to this, the accompanying notes (copy enclosed) state that one of the purposes of the DT-Individual forms is to apply for ‘relief at source from UK income tax on… royalties… paid from sources in the UK.’

Finally, which I am sure you can understand made me even more certain that I was sending you the appropriate form was that my local tax office in France kindly confirmed my status as a French taxpayer. I assumed that if the form was inappropriate, or unfamiliar to them, that my local tax office would not have ratified my form. As you can no doubt understand I am reticent to send them a second form to sign, having to explain to them also that the original form that seemingly purports to be the correct form is not in fact appropriate. Should it be that there is a special form to use unique to France, despite this not being stated on the one I sent you, surely the officials at my tax office would know this? If this is the case, it would be useful for authors based in other countries if this idiosyncrasy applies elsewhere.

If indeed, for some reason, which as you can see currently eludes me, the ‘Form DT-Individual’, despite apparently strong evidence to the contrary, is indeed incorrect, please could you explain to me which form is indeed the correct and how I access it – I don’t want to send you a second inappropriate form! Also, for the purposes of my fellow authors can you provide a clue as to how they distinguish between the appropriate and  inappropriate form? It would also be intriguing to know which applicants can actually use the form in order to reclaim royalties paid in the UK via the double tax agreement, if any.

I, and I suspect a number of my fellow authors, await your reply with interest.

Yours sincerely,

…

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are any of you good at baking as well as having access to sturdy cake -sized metal files?

Waffles & Julius NO HUGS PLEASE! by Ed Vere, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart 14 Jun 3:30 PM (last month)

Meet the Artist – James McNeill Whistler by Dide Tengiz; review by Lynda Waterhouse 10 Jun 10:00 PM (last month)

 

It is heartening to read that that children’s enjoyment of reading and their daily reading habits have risen for the first time in five years. Good news but let’s not forget that in 2025 it reached a record twenty year low. The report also showed that the disadvantage gap was widening.

Check out the National Literacy Trust’s report on children and young people’s reading in 2026 here.

https://literacytrust.org.uk/research-services/research-reports/children-and-young-peoples-reading-in-2026/

In the report, nearly half the children (48.7%) said that reading helps them explore their interests. This got me thinking. How are the other 51.3% supported to explore their interests? Online, shared conversations with fellow enthusiasts, collecting e.g.  football stickers or building up a fossil collection? When I’m working with school groups at The Wallace Collection, I often ask them what they collect and, after a moment’s hesitation, I’m given a long list. So far, however, no-one has spoken about building a book collection or collecting comics.

Perhaps it is the right sort of book that is required to explore interests. Yesterday I went to Tate Britain to see the James McNeill Whistler exhibition and I bought Dide Tengiz’s art activity book about the artist.

 Meet the Artist is a series of activity picture books that introduces children to the lives and works of artists. The accompanying activities are designed to encourage children to use art to explore themes, express their own ideas, and develop a lifelong love of art.

It is a good size book, approx. 24cm x 28cm, with the feel of an artist’s sketch book. Some of the activities include an invitation to go on a walk and sketch a street scene, listen to your favourite song and draw how it makes you feel, design patterns or write a poem, or identify places where you felt happy or sad.

Dide’s illustrations capture Whistler’s art whilst maintaining her own unique and beautiful style. Dide says, ‘I love storytelling and creating a sense of place and feeling in my work using colour and observational drawing.’

Check out Dide’s website: https://www.didetengiz.com/

I hope her unpublished silent graphic novel, Slow Things, gets snapped up by a publisher soon. This wordless novel would make a perfect, enjoyable ‘read’. Now that is another theme for a blogpost!

Tate Publishing

ISBN 978-1-917055-12-3

Members' News June 6 Jun 10:00 PM (2 months ago)

Welcome to the June round-up of Scattered Authors news. The weather has already swung from scorching to torrential and the school summer holidays are looming. We have a lovely batch of informative and fun books for young readers this month - clearly the month of non-fiction. Do take a look at them and help celebrate.

BODIE AND THE GHOST SHOWDOWN, Ffion Jones. Illustrated by Kara McHale

Ffion Jones is well-known for writing books supporting kids' mental health. Her latest book from Jessica Kingsley Publishers will be published on June 18th. 

Bodie has a secret fear: being sick. She is haunted by a ghost who whispers warnings and worries, convincing her to avoid buses, sleepovers, and even her favourite basketball games. She misses out on all this fun to keep her "safe" from the scariest thing she can imagine - throwing up!

At first, Bodie listens. The more she obeys, the stronger the ghost becomes. But with the support of her best friend Mina, Bodie learns to challenge his tricks, find her courage, and take back control of her life.

Bodie and the Ghost Showdown is a heartwarming story that gives children 7+ the tools to understand and overcome emetophobia. Blending humour and hope, with relatable characters, it's an empowering read for any child facing anxiety. The book also includes a guide for parents, carers, and professionals offering step-by-step suggestions for supporting kids with emetophobia. With practical tips and discussion prompts, it equips adults to assist children in applying the lessons of the story to real life.

Buy here

LOOK WHAT I FOUND AT THE PARK, Moria Butterfield, illustrated by Jesus Verona

Double Exposure by Paul May 3 Jun 9:00 PM (2 months ago)

I've been using a film camera a lot lately. Although it's handy having a phone in your pocket that you can use to make instant photos when someone dents your car or you need to read the small print on a medicine bottle or a gallery wall, using film feels much more like making something special. These days it feels as if technology is trying to do everything for you, remembering your phone numbers and addresses, curating your Google searches and sorting your emails, and making all your photos look lovely - perfectly exposed and lit with a weird iPhone light.

With an old-fashioned film camera you actually have to do something more than just pressing a virtual button. On my camera I have to think a bit before I shoot, and I have to think a bit more because what I really like doing, especially on a trip to a new city or country, is taking double exposures.

This is not the same as putting a couple of pictures into Photoshop and layering them over each other. That's far too intentional for me. I stick the film in the camera and shoot a whole reel of backgrounds first. These might be patterns, or landscapes or fields of flowers, anything really as long as it's consistent. Then I rewind the film, hopefully without the canister swallowing the leader, and reshoot the whole film, often mainly with people, but in reality not worrying too much, simply trying to bear in mind that if the backgrounds are soft then the second layer will need to be more graphic. For me it's a perfect combination of randomness and planning, which is kind of how I used to write children's books.

A digital photo

The thing is, if you go to a much-photographed place like the Alhambra in Granada you'll probably only go once and the weather and the light might or might not be great for you, and the perfect, atmospheric pictures will already be available in books and on postcards and it seems slightly pointless to take a photo like this, although I did take it, as you see. This was twenty years ago.

But the atmosphere of that visit, and of the place, is recaptured far better for me by the double exposures I took at the same time, even though, not having done it before, I forgot that it would be a good idea to keep the camera the same way round all the time. The added oddness comes from using slide film and then processing it as if it was colour print film - an extra layer of random.

Cross-processed double exposures

When I start writing a story, I love the idea that something is coming into life that wasn't there before, and that even I don't know what it's going to be. Sure, there's a certain amount of planning involved, but I never know exactly what a character is going to say, or where they're going to end up. The end result may be terrible, or it may not, but it's always something new. And that's exactly how I feel about this kind of photography.

Looking Back at Flamingos - Joan Lennon 2 Jun 4:30 PM (2 months ago)

Back in 2011, I was thinking about how good books breed more good books. Fifteen years later, it's still true.