Edinburgh

 It's August so it must be time for Edinburgh International Book Festival!

This year we went for four days and tried to pack in as much as possible (along with seeing the sights of Edinburgh and catching a variety of shows at the Fringe Festival)

Having won tickets to the event Protest! with Phil Jupitus, Hollie McNish, Hannah Silva and Elvis McGonagall we went along to see what performance poetry was about.

Phil Jupitus was the "anchor" that brought them all together and he told us a little of performance poetry in the UK and how he got into it. I was intrigued that bands on tour used to have a supporting poet rather than, as now, a supporting band. But these poets were generally delivering protest poems - protest being the 'thing' to be into throughout the 60s and 70s. Phil Jupitus, who 'supported' the likes of The Style Council, gave us some of his poetry from then and also some of his more recent work.

Elvis McGonagall then followed and had the audience laughing along to some of his older poetry as well his more modern stuff. His style was extremely different  and entertained in a different but just as compelling.

Hannah Silva's work was extremely different and frankly I was sceptical at first. Using a foot operated sound machine she recorded, played back and edited her own voice to create poetry - and there can be no other name for it - that really blew me away. It was poetry that can only be listened to, not read, and it left a mark on me like no other poetry ever has. It was fantastic and a completely new experience.

Last, and certainly not least!, was Hollie McNish. Her poetry, although more conventional, was fast, modern, highly topical and still very entertaining.

All these poets left me wondering.. If I had attempted to read their work would I have got as much from it?

Meanwhile Maryom headed to the other side of town to see author/illustrator Jackie Morris at The Golden Hare bookshop in the Grassmarket. This was a joint story-telling and painting session, with Jackie reading her own Song of the Golden Hare and children colouring in their versions of the book's illustrations. Lots of Jackie's books were there on display - even early copies of Something About a Bear (published in October '14 by Frances Lincoln) and Cat Walk (September '14 by Graffeg) both of which will be launched at Solva Woollen Mill in Pembrokeshire. Jackie also talked about her current project involving feathers which are being sent to her from all over the world - see here for how to join in.

We find that the book festival is a great place for meeting friends and authors whose work you have appreciated and this year The Mole came face-to-face with Kirkland Ciccone whose book Conjuring The Infinite won Catalyst Book Award this year. Kirkland does quite a few school visits and is known for his spotted shirt - something that helped me find him amongst the throng of festival goers. Sitting in the bookshop cafe, drinking tea and enjoying a scone, he explained a little about his much awaited second book, The Endless Empress, and told me that the genre of young adult fiction fantasy is not one he is likely to desert in the near future and if Conjuring The Infinite is anything to go by then he certainly shouldn't. Good luck Kirkland!

Maryom had hoped to catch James Mayhew's Big Draw event on the Sunday - but it was just too popular with children and parents queuing to get in. She managed to meet up afterwards though for a very brief chat. James was at the Book Festival as Illustrator-in-residence to celebrate 25 years of his Katie books which introduce art to children by stepping through the picture frame.

Monday was time for another brief meeting - this time with Linda Strachan, author of several YA novels (Don't Judge Me, Spider, Dead Boy Talking)  and the Hamish McHaggis series for younger readers. Unfortunately Linda's Bookfest events took place after we'd left but it was lovely to catch up and hear a little insider gossip about her up-coming projects.


On Monday evening Maryom made her way to the joint Michele Forbes/Donal Ryan event, which she'd been looking forward to since the holiday was booked. Michele Forbes was a bit of an unknown quantity but Donal Ryan's novels have made a huge impact on her. Both writers are from Ireland - Michele Forbes' debut novel, Ghost Moth, is set in Belfast, alternating between the 1960s and 1940s; Donal Ryan's two novels are set in a small country town around the time of the Celtic Tiger economic boom of the late '90s and the subsequent crash. The writers talked,of course, about their books and the inspirations behind them - it was interesting to discover that Donal Ryan's first published book The Spinning Heart had actually been the second to be written, which explains the plot spoiler within it for The Thing About December. Then there were questions from the audience followed by the all-important chance for a few private words with the authors while books were signed.

And in between all this there was also time for soaking up the sun in a deckchair or two...










.....catching sight of Nicholas Parsons, Chris Brookmyre and Tom Rob Smith signing books after their events, and spotting Phil Jupitus again, browsing in the bookshop.

Edinburgh Book Festival - Author event - Linda Strachan

This year's Edinburgh International Book Festival was our busiest ever, with tickets for four events - all for authors whose work we love. First up was Linda Strachan's in the Baillie Gifford Imagination Lab. We've met Linda before on several occasions when she's been wonderfully welcoming but have never managed to time our visit to Edinburgh right to catch one of her events, so we thought it was time we redressed that issue.

Linda is the author of many books aimed at both younger children and teens - and this event was aimed at the older end of her audience, specifically about her latest teen novel Don't Judge Me - a tale of arson, suspicion and judging people too quickly. If you aren't aware of it check out our reviews here - the Mole's and Maryom's

Accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation, Linda started by telling how she became a writer. She's NOT one of those people who, from an early age, dreamed of being an author. In fact as a child she believed her friend was far better at telling stories and at school she was labelled as lacking in imagination! She only came to writing much later, through a series of drawings that formed themselves into a story.

Linda talked about the thoughts and inspirations behind Don't Judge Me. The inspiration for Don't Judge Me came because we are always making assumptions about people, often those we only pass in the street, on little or no information - a series of adverts had been running showing how that happens.

In order to most accurately describe the setting of the fire she spoke to the Fire Service and was then concerned that it would explain to people how it's done but the spokesperson assured her that if people want to know then they can Google it anyway.  Surrounded by images and news items relating to the two threads, Linda set to work in her writing shed.

Her other teen books are Spider - a very powerful story about car theft and joy riding and how it wrecks so much more than property, but lives as well - and Dead Boy Talking - a similarly powerful story about knives and the outcome of carrying them.

Linda is currently working on a project with ROSPA who liked the approach in the teen books, the non preachy approach and showing what can happen rather than just saying don't do it!!  ROSPA have asked her to work on stories around accidents in the home environment generally and some aspects of fire safety are included.

I always find authors' research methods fascinating and Linda certainly doesn't believe in doing it from the safety of her desk but by getting out there on fire service training days or joining emergency ambulance crews on their rounds.

If you'd like to catch Linda for yourself, she'll be appearing at Bloody Scotland 2013  on September 14th and you can find more about Linda and her books on her website.

Don't Judge Me by Linda Strachan

review by Maryom

We all make snap judgements - about our friends, people we meet and other people's motives.
But what if we're wrong? And what if a life depends on getting it right?
Take 4 teens, an arsonist, an unreliable witness and four different motives. With life and death on the line - Don't Judge Me.


Linda Strachan certainly knows how to open a story with a bang - Spider started with crazy joy-riding; Dead Boy Talking with a teenager lying bleeding in an alley - and she's done it again here; a block of flats on fire and a baby having to be thrown to safety!
Now, I know The Mole has already reviewed Don't Judge Me  - though I'm still not sure how he got to read it first - but, as I'm off to see Linda Strachan at Edinburgh Book Festival, I thought it was high time I read this too.

It's a brilliant mix of whodunnit - as the reader sifts through the evidence to pick the culprit - and social commentary - challenging stereotypes and our inclination to label people at first glance.Against the background of the police enquiry, with an unreliable witness making snap judgements about who was responsible, the story unfolds from the points of view of the four teenage suspects. The reader is quickly and easily pulled into the story and soon learns that appearances aren't quite what they seem to be. 
Don't Judge Me is a great book for teens - either as a 'whodunnit' or a more thought-provoking read.

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars

Publisher - Strident Publishing

Genre - Teenage/YA, crime

Buy Don't Judge Me from Amazon 

Don't Judge Me by Linda Strachan

Review by The Mole

A group of teenagers out on the street of an evening and there is a fire in a flat. It's arson and someone is critically ill. Did one of the teenagers do it and if so which? There is no shortage of motives but surely there is only 1 person responsible?

Strachan has done it again - a story that brings real teenagers to the page, caught in situations that they really find themselves, showing decision making, reasoning and judgements that they actually make.

As I read this I witnessed the teenagers judging their peers and found myself party to those judgements. The thing was the only evidence we saw was even less than circumstantial. And when we finally learn what really happened - and everything falls into place - we suddenly understand the thinking of the teenagers and that our judgements were unfair.

Another excellent story of contemporary issues affecting the young adults of today.

Publisher - Strident
Genre - YA, crime fiction

Buy Don't Judge Me from Amazon

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2012

This year we timed our annual holiday so as to spend a week in Edinburgh to take in events at the festival as well as meet people and step outside a bit and enjoy fringe events too.

The first week was to be our week and we set aside just 3 days to attend the festival but what we didn't realise is that the festival is actually addictive and that we quickly changed that to 6 days, so if you plan on attending the festival at all then be warned!

We met and made a lot of friends and attended events and book signings and here are but a few.

i) Alan Bissett - Maryom chatted about Pack Men and how it is not just for male football fans. We also saw Alan at the Festival Cafe (a BBC Scotland radio show) where he talked about and performed a brief excerpt from his one man fringe show for arachnophobes - extremely funny, catch him if you can.

ii) Barry Hutchinson - We talked with Barry and other Scottish authors about the difficulties caused by branding books as 'Scottish' and how buyers in England avoid such books for some reason perhaps in the belief that they are "all haggis and tartan".

iii) Linda Strachan - We chatted about many things and had a sneak preview of the cover for Don't Judge Me, her next teen novel to be published by Strident in Autumn.

iv) Keren David and Cat Clarke talked about motivations for writing, methods of writing and other things and read from their latest books and The Mole discussed with Cat Clarke the character with which she identifies and although we disagreed on choice her father was in agreement with The Mole.

v) Keith Charters  - We chatted at length on many subjects surrounding publishing and many NOT publishing related.

vi) Matt Cartney - We chatted about several things... but more on this meeting in a later post.

vii) Edward Wilson talked of his route to writing spy thrillers and read from his  book.

viii) James Mayhew - We saw him story telling and painting in a way that he does so well.

ix) S J Watson signed Maryom's copy of Before I Go To Sleep and chatted about it and the publicity campaign surrounding it.

And one of the great things is that at the festival you can meet so many people by chance..while in the yurt, apparently Neil Gaiman walked past and we missed him, we brushed passed and chatted with Nicola Morgan in the bookshop and we met and chatted with Victoria Campbell as well as brushing past an Archbishop.

The problem is that you cannot do everything you want to do and we missed many people. There were also so many authors and friends we would like to have met in the second week, but sadly due to the GCSE results day in England then it had to be the first week only.

The Mole's Christmas reading suggestions...

The problem with a list like this is that any you leave out you seem to be 'knocking' in some way, but that is not the case, it's just the list has to be the one's that made the biggest impact on me.

Maryom has made her choice, which is HERE

Starting with children's and getting older as we go

The Fearsome BeastieA book to share with younger readers that is just good fun.

Ralph is not a spy Laugh out load moments with lots of activities too for young apprentice spies.

Lee On the Dark Side of the Moon

Just simple fun for younger readers with lots of laughs.

The Sons of Rissouli Boys own adventure stuff that they won't put down. Peace and quiet on Christmas afternoon?











Moving on to teenagers and beyond...

The Kiss of Death
A bit daft putting this one in really because it's out of print but if you can find a copy...

Philip Ardagh's Book of Howlers, Blunders and Random Mistakery

If you can bear to have your Christmas interrupted by someone piping up "Did you know...?" then include this one - otherwise get it for yourself and ruin everyone else's peace and quiet!

Spider

This is a very powerful story of speed, adrenaline and fallout - see if they can put it down.

Star of Sakova

I have read some fantasy this year but this one sort of 'sticks' with me more than the rest.









And now to just the adults readers...

The Liberation of Celia Kahn

A well told story of growing up.

Hot Dogs under the Dakota

Another one I keep coming back to as I found the story most intriguing.

Night Watcher

We found that we didn't get on with e-books but of the few I have managed to read that way this one was certainly worth reading.

Return to the Olive Farm

And last, but certainly not least, Carol Drinkwater's experiences certainly made me start to question much about the 'organic' labels.









To all those books that I have read and not included - apologies but I had to choose just 10... (Ssshhhh... she hasn't counted them!)

Linda Strachan Interview

Today we welcome Linda Strachan who we met at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. We have reviewed both Spider and Dead Boy Talking and really enjoyed both although they are very different in styles.

Spider... It is really a most powerful story telling of joy riding and it's side effects. The speed and feeling of invincibility, the confusion of passenger noise and then the calm of the after effects and the emergency services. It carries a great feeling of either experience or research. Can you tell us how you came to be able to portray so much so vividly?
I have no experience of joyriding but I did spend quite a few years around car enthusiasts when I was an older teenager, going to car rallies and driving around in fast cars.When I was writing Spider I wanted the crash, and the aftermath, to feel very real, so I did a lot of research - going out with an ambulance crew on a Saturday night-shift - attending a crash simulation day at the local fire training school where they had to extract trainee firemen from mangled cars.I wanted to know what happened after a crash so that I could understand what it sounded like and felt like being inside a car, when they took the roof off to get people out. I wanted to make it feel real. I also went to speak to a teenager who had been involved in stealing cars and joyriding. He helped me to get the voice for Spider.

And then there was Dead Boy Talking... again told so very vividly... Was this research or experience or just from observation?
I have no experience of being stabbed but with Dead Boy Talking I did what I always try to do and that is to put myself inside my character's head. I try to be that person, to see what they see, feel what they feel. Sometimes that can be very uncomfortable, I have a vivid imagination!I wasn't sure if I had managed to portray the real feeling of being stabbed, so I was delighted when one of the first people to read it told me that they knew what it felt like, from personal experience, and could assure me it was almost too painful to read. I had nailed it!

What was your inspiration for these stories - where did it come from?
I suppose Spider and Dead Boy Talking both came about because having sons of my own I always feel for the families when I read in the papers about teenagers who are killed driving on the roads, or by being stabbed. It seems such a waste of their lives, their potential. Joyriding happens everywhere and many teenagers (mostly, but not only, boys) love cars and speed, and think they are invincible. It will never happen to them. I wanted to explore not only what transpires when, in a moment, everything goes wrong; but also what is going on in their lives to lead them to this point and what happens afterwards. We are often driven by circumstances to make bad decisions in the rush of the moment, but more so when we are young. The choices we make at times like this are not necessarily choices we would make in calm or different circumstances, and often one thing will lead to another until it becomes a spiral of dangerous choices and bad decisions. So I find I am putting my characters in this kind of situation and following what happens to them.I was trying to decide what I was going to write after Spider when the title and the first line of Dead Boy Talking came to me. I was on a train and thinking about the news stories of young boys who have been stabbed and I wondered what it would be like to be sitting in the dark, all alone frightened and bleeding.I could hear a boy's voice in my head saying. 'In 25 minutes I will be dead.' I still have the notebook where I wrote it and the first page has almost not changed at all. Gradually I began to find out more about Josh, what was going on in his life and how he got to that point.When I am writing I usually don't know what is going to happen to the characters in the end. I prefer to find out as the characters do, to live the story with them. So I didn't know what was going to happen to Spider at the end of the book, or whether Josh would live or die.

We hear rumours of a third teen crime novel is in the offing? Can you tell us a little about it?
Yes, I am writing a third teen novel which should be out next year (2012). I don't have a title for it, which is fairly usual for me (Dead Boy Talking was the exception!) It is about Arson or Fire setting as it is known north of the border. But it is much more than that, it is - a 'who dun it? and a look at our perceptions of other people and how wrong we can be when we make snap judgements, about both friends and strangers.

And then there is.... Hamish McHaggis. On a recent holiday in Scotland we saw, almost everywhere, books about Hamish and his various adventures. These books are colourful and fun and seem to be designed to appeal to the young audience - a very important audience. We hear that a tenth book in the series is about to be launched. Can you tell us a little about Hamish and his adventures?
Hamish McHaggis is a lot of fun to write and I work very closely with the illustrator, Sally J. Colins which is fairly unusual. With other illustrated books I have written I've never even met the illustrator, but Sally and I work together as soon as I have the story outline. We are working on the 10th book in the series Hamish McHaggis and the Great Glasgow Treasure Hunt, at the moment. It will be published at Easter 2012.

We hear that he does travel abroad - to Japanese and Australian(?) bookshelves - but we don't see him come to England. Why is this? Does he dislike the English, because I cannot see the English disliking him?
The Hamish books have indeed got a far reach. They are very popular in Scotland in schools as well as in homes all over the world. Hamish has been in the USA this summer, attending several Highland Games there. I recently did a tour of schools in New Zealand and they loved Hamish and his adventures.Hamish does have fans in England but, as often happens, the response in bookshops in England is often that it is too 'Scottish' so they don't often want to stock it because they think it will not sell. I hope that will soon change. I have been invited to speak in schools all over England and Hamish has been very well received everywhere.Hamish has not had an adventure outside Scotland yet, but I am hoping we will be seeing him over the border before too long!

We also hear rumours that you may shortly be publishing for adults. Can you tell us a little about that at all yet?
The future – Yes, I have been researching a novel for adults for a number of years and I think I am almost ready to devote the time it needs. It has been a bit of a personal project that has simmered on the back burner for a long time.I can't say too much about it just yet, but it came about when I heard a family story about my Italian great-grandparents and decided it was so fascinating that I wanted to know more. I decided early on that this was going to be a work of fiction, based very loosely on that story. I know who my characters are and I have begun to write it.But at the moment I need to find time in a busy schedule of writing for young children and YA. I also have far too many ideas for stories I want to write for children slightly older than Hamish fans and younger than YA, and a fairly hectic diary of author visits, both here and abroad (I love to travel!) So I am not making any promises about the adult story. Writing for young people is so interesting and often a lot of fun!

Many thanks Linda for taking the time to answer our questions and we look forward to your future books. You can find out more about Linda on her website lindastrachan.co.uk

Edinburgh Book Festival 2011

We had planned a Road Trip around Scotland for our holiday and when we realised that with a bit of tweaking to our holiday plans it would be possible to catch a James Mayhew story-telling event live in Edinburgh, we decided we had to!

As this was taking place at the same time as the Edinburgh International Book Festival, we found that several author and publisher friends would be there on the day so put together arrangements to meet up and say "Hi" to as many as possible. It is a frustration that the timetable of events is not publicly announced for the book festival earlier as that would have given us the ability to re-plan more of our holiday to catch some of the events and maybe meet more people.

The first thing on our itinerary was to go to the National Gallery to see James Mayhew and quite a crowd was gathered to watch as James told the story of Baba Yaga and her house on chicken legs followed by the tale of St George and the Dragon. James was every bit as spell-binding in real life as on the web as he told the stories. He not only tells the tale but illustrates it as he goes - and upside down (the illustration that is, not James). I wish we'd been allowed to video him but the gallery's rules forbid photography of any kind.

After this we ambled up to Charlotte Square where the Edinburgh International Book Festival was in full swing, passing street performers for the fringe and collecting flyers for other events as we went. Now, when I first talked about going to Edinburgh International Book Festival as part of our summer road-trip, the teen (14) wasn't too impressed - standing around while I talked to people is NOT her idea of fun - but when one of her friends asked her to collect autographs and writing tips for him, she got a lot more enthusiastic.
We'd arranged to meet with Linda Strachan and Nicola Morgan at the authors' yurt - which proved a little trickier than we'd expected as it's location is kept secret from the general public! Fortunately there were helpful stewards around to send us in the right direction. Both Linda and Nicola are writers of YA fiction (amongst other things) which we've both enjoyed. I've met Linda before, when I was in Edinburgh at Easter, and Nicola was someone I felt I knew from many conversations with her through Twitter - though I would say she wasn't as crabbity in real life as she claims to be! - and she presented me with one of her special 'crabbit old bags' which I will use at future book festivals. (Many thanks, Nicola) Also with them was Emma Barnes (Author of Jessica Haggerthwaite: Witch Dispatcher and How (Not) to Make Bad Children Good).
Nicola, Linda and Emma were the first authors to be cornered by the Teen in her autograph hunt and Teen started to find people who talked to her like she wasn't a child and became rather more involved. We could happily have spent much longer chatting about holiday plans, midges, what reviewers do when they really dislike a book etc but everyone had events to go to.
Leaving the Mole checking out one of the festival's bookshops - where he'd found some of his reviews posted (4) - The Teen and I went on an Author Hunt to see how many autographs we could bag. Now, rather unfairly perhaps, we hadn't had time to go to anyone's event and we hadn't bought their books but just tagged onto the end of the 'author signing' queues but everyone we approached was most welcoming and willing to pass on their writing tips for the Friend. A special mention must go to Simon Puttock who I disrupted full flow when a friend I'd been hoping to meet walked past - sorry, Simon. We also were privileged to catch an impromptu re-run of Jasper Fforde's event, performed along with Philip Ardagh, for some unfortunate New Zealand fans who'd arrived 5 minutes too late for the real thing and not been allowed in - I'm not sure how much resemblance this held to the original but certainly deserved an award for Best Comedy Performed By Children's Authors.

We finished the day by meeting Keith Charters, children's author and, like us, a grow-your-own enthusiast and getting thrown out of Pizza Hut because the staff had homes to go to apparently. While we asked a lot of questions it was also nice to answer questions about our minor contribution in the process. But it was also nice to talk about other things that make people people!

Many thanks to everyone for their time in the day and it's a shame we couldn't have spent more time in Edinburgh!

Spider by Linda Strachan

Powerful!!
Review by The Mole

Spider decides to humour Deanna and go for one last 'run' and show his friends that he still has 'it'.

I am a slow reader and when I was told this had to go back soon I decided to give it a read because at only 134 pages it wouldn't take me over a couple of days to read it. How wrong I was. The story starts with Spider perched on a roof wanting to end his life. It has all gone wrong. There is nothing left. Best to end it. Chapter 2 cuts back to the 'why' and we follow Spider on his last run. The action on the run is graphically explained and tense throughout until the run comes to an abrupt end and we dragged through the consequences and repercussions.

This story is not a lecture about car theft and law breaking. It could so easily be but the author has, instead, taken you through the journey and leaves you with the effects on 3 of its characters and leaves you to assess morality, loyalties and choices entirely for yourself.

I said I was wrong about how long it took... I started it at 8pm, retired about 1 a.m. and got up early to finish it. Cliché time? Let's avoid them and let the record stand - I really got extremely involved with it and couldn't leave it alone!

Maryom read and reviewed Spider and gave it 5 stars.

Publisher - Strident

Genre - teen/YA

Buy Spider from Amazon

Spider by Linda Strachan

Just One Last Time...
review by Maryom

Spider has decided it's time to stop joy-riding. If he's caught again, he'll be sent down. Unfortunately, he can't resist the chance to show off to his girlfriend, Deanna. Just one last time won't do any harm he thinks....
The story is told firstly from Spider's point of view but then from that of the other occupants of the car - Deanna and his mates. It follows them racing round the streets and through the horrifying aftermath.
I read the first chapter of Spider in a taster booklet given to me by Linda Strachan. What hooked me was the opening sequence of speeding through streets, I was amazed how well the author captured that feeling of driving too fast, beyond control, knowing how dangerous it is and not wanting to slow down. It got me inside Spider's mind - I could feel what compelled him to do this - and why he didn't want to give it up. The rest of the book is equally gripping, though for different reasons, as Spider and his friends try to come to terms with the consequences of such reckless fun. I don't really want to say too much in case I give away the plot but any teenager with a need for speed should be MADE to read this - maybe it would help them see the dangers in a way that all the moralizing in the world cannot. With that in mind I was rather disappointed to see that our county library service only had one copy and that I was the first person to borrow it.

Yes, Spider is a story with a moral - but it's still a gripping, readable and rather frightening novel.

Maryom's review - 5 stars

Publisher - Strident

Genre - teen/YA,

Buy Spider from Amazon

Edinburgh Literary Salon with Linda Strachan

I was very pleasantly surprised when, happening to mention on my FB private profile that I was off to Edinburgh, I was invited along to the Edinburgh Literary Salon by Linda Strachan.

This is a monthly get-together, above the Wash bar, of people with a more-or-less professional interest in books, writing, publishing, etc etc
As we were on holiday something had to be found to entertain the rest of the family but having sent them on a Ghosts and Torture Tour I headed off to meet Linda.
The main theme of April's get-together was collaboration - whether between writers or between disciplines ie writer + illustrator. There was a short presentation from Luke Williams and Natasha Soobramanien, two writers who've just finished working together on a book, The Echo Chamber, and afterwards we were free to mingle, ideally meeting new people. As I knew no one there, this was easy for me. I met Linda- obviously; an animator; a musician in search of a symphony; one of the organisers; and author/illustrator John Fardell among others - all welcoming, interesting people, ready to share ideas with a total outsider.
So what did we talk about?
- Blogging, specifically book reviews and whether they make a difference to sales/publicity
- the development of i-phone/pad apps for toddlers
- Enid Blyton
- the possibility and difficulties of expanding Linda's popular Hamish McHaggis children's book into England and abroad
- adapting novels for film and/or TV
- working from home without being constantly at the family's beck and call
- book festivals, their organisation - and sometimes lack of it
- the unlikelihood of swimming near North Berwick at that time of year,
basically the sort of thing I chat about all day on the web (well, maybe not North Berwick) but rarely face to face.


All in all, an extremely enjoyable evening - and I even got goodies to take away at the end of it - a taster of Linda Strachan's two teen novels - Dead boy Talking and Spider. I've read Dead Boy Talking (see here for review) but not Spider, the story of a teenage joy-rider. Having read the first few chapters I'm hooked and WILL read it - on order from the library right now!




and a leaflet promoting Edinburgh as City of Literature with a map showing places in the city with literary associations - from Robert Burns' lodgings to the cafe in which Harry Potter came to life. Having visited before, I knew of the many things to see and do in Edinburgh - but I've just discovered more!

Dead Boy Talking by Linda Strachan

As life slips away

Reviewed by Maryom

There seems to be a rush of books on knife crime at the moment presumably due to its news topicality. This one brings a story from a different angle - that of a teenage boy, Josh, stabbed and possibly, presumably, bleeding to death. The story of a teenage boy who carried a knife with him 'just in case'. As he lies there, he thinks back over the events that have led him here - 'Was it only yesterday morning when everything started to go wrong?' - not really, as things have been moving towards this point, with a dreadful feeling of inevitability, for months if not years.

I was totally hooked from the very first sentence - "In 25 minutes I will be dead" - but it must have one of the most stunning, shocking opening pages of any book I've read with an amazingly powerful scene as Josh lies there in the alley, not really believing what has happened to him, watching blood pumping out counting down the minutes he has left to live. I could almost FEEL the knife as it slid in and his incredulity that THIS had happened TO HIM.

The book alternates between Josh in the here and now and the events leading to this point as seen by him and others. Listening in on Josh's thoughts is incredibly poignant as he thinks of the plans he had had for the future, of turning his life around, maybe going to art college. Josh realises that his friends have problems too with which they've coped far better than he has. He is at times a rather shallow, self-centred and even self-pitying teenage boy but perhaps a more realistic character for it. A book that will definitely make you stop and think.

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars

Publisher Strident Publishing

Genre - Teenage