Altered: a podcast

We thought Andrew Crofts might not be the only one wanting to find out more about the 'sizeable corpse' from the opening page of JW Hicks's 'Altered' (which won second prize in our First Page competition earlier this month). We were pretty curious ourselves.

So our latest podcast gives you a chance to hear the author read the whole first chapter of her dystopic novel.

http://wordswithjam.podomatic.com/

And if that leaves you wanting to know more about this talented author, you can read an interview with her at http://jjmarsh.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/interview-with-jw-hicks/

(And don't forget you can still listen to the full collection of WWJ podcasts. Become a follower to be notified of new episodes as they are uploaded.)

Immune: a podcast

Touching, unpredictable and with echoes of 'The Road' or 'I Am Legend', Mig Living's story, Immune, is part of "Zombie Chronicles", a collection of zombie love stories.

Mig Living is a writer living in Austria. Before that he lived in Japan. Before that the United States. He blogs at metamorphosism.com. He also enjoys playing the cello, theremin and singing saw, and composing.

The story inspired a musician to compose a piece triggered by the imagery, the atmosphere and the sounds.

Schmuckfenster: Vintage synthesizers combined with contemporary technology. Eclectic music programmed with passion and wit.
www.soundcloud.com/schmuckfenster



You can listen to the podcast at http://wordswithjam.podomatic.com/, or you can find us on itunes. And don't forget all our other podcasts are still available to listen to.

The Enid Blyton Story, by Gillian E Hamer

Following on from our Children's/YA theme in the June 2011 issue, a piece on Enid Blyton ...

Ask many of today’s writers who their childhood writing heroes were and I’d like to bet the majority will name Enid Blyton in their top three. Whether it was my personal favourite, The Famous Five, or The Secret Seven, Mallory Towers … or even the wonderful Noddy books … there was something in this author’s work that captivated children for generations in a way no one has been able to replicate until the recent phenomena of JK Rowling and Harry Potter.

But in the style of many authors of her day, very little is known about the vehemently private person. She was born in Beckenham, South London, on August 11th 1897, the eldest of three children, to Thomas and Theresa Blyton. Enid had a lonely and relatively unhappy childhood, as her parents separated in 1910 when she was aged only thirteen.

Enid showed creative talents from an early age. From her earliest childhood she had been schooled in the belief that she would eventually be a musician. However, she had also developed a love of poetry, and had started to send stories, articles and poems to various periodicals. Although a talented pianist, her writing successes convinced Enid to give up her budding musical career, and in 1916 she enrolled on a teacher-training course in attempt to develop her literary skills further.

She trained successfully as a governess and had several posts around the Surrey area, before opening her own infants’ school. Throughout her years in teaching she continued to achieve success with her children’s writing. When the literary commitments increased, Enid decided to devote herself entirely to writing.

Her first book, Child Whispers, a collection of verse, was published in 1922. This short, twenty four-page work was quickly followed by Real Fairies: Poems (1923), Responsive Singing Games (1923), The Enid Blyton Book of Fairies (1924), Songs of Gladness (1924) and The Zoo Book (1924). Enid produced work of publishable quality at an amazing rate. She could write 10,000 – 12,000 words a day when on a project. She later confessed that she could write a complete Noddy book in two days, and a Famous Five book in only four!

Between 1922 and 1937 her growing output of books, mainly for younger children, included stories, plays, poems, nature books, folk and classic tales retold, bible stories and school readers. Her first longer books for older children, Mr. Galliano’s Circus and The Secret Island were published in 1938.

Over the next six years almost all of her major series were begun, including Noddy and The Secret Seven. The Secret Seven series was written about a group of real life children who started their own secret seven society. One of the children’s fathers was a publishing agent who knew Enid, and asked her to write a story about their escapades. This she did with The Secrets of the Old Mill.

By the outbreak of World War II, Enid Blyton had become a household name. As such Enid’s publishers managed to bypass the war time publishing restrictions and get her work into print by ruling them in the field of juvenile literature. In 1940 eleven books were published under her own name, and two under her pseudonym name of Mary Pollack.

Along with continuing to produce novels at an alarming rate, Enid set up her own magazine named after herself in 1953. The main object of the magazine was to help young spastic children and a special centre in London. It gave regular news for sponsored clubs, and set up The Famous Five Club along the way. There must be many people, myself included, who had a ‘secret club’ during their own childhood – based on the adventures of Anne, Dick, Julian, George and Timmy the dog!

In 1949 Blyton published Little Noddy Goes to Toyland, the first tale of a little toy man who ended up in all kinds of scrapes and seeks help from his Toyland friends. Its sales more than exceeded expectations. Other Noddy books of various types and sizes followed in rapid succession. The series also produced a play, a film and many years later a popular television series. ‘Noddy’ became a household name and the subject of music hall jokes and sketches.

The 1950’s were a more difficult decade for Blyton, as her work came under constant attack by critics and librarians. Many libraries imposed sanctions on her work because of what they considered its limited vocabulary. They labelled her characters as ‘mean and class biased’, with the main target for the anti-Blyton brigade being Noddy who they called ‘the most egocentric, joyless, snivelling and pious anti-hero in the history of British fiction.’ Luckily the majority of the readership did not agree. Noddy was loved from countries as far afield as France (known as Oui Oui) to China (known as No-di or little brother). By the end of the 1950’s Blyton was one of the four most read authors in the world.

Rumours were also spread that Blyton did not write all her own work – probably due to the speed with which she produced her novels. Her furious reaction to the debate sparked a heated public debate on the extent with which children’s reading should be controlled. And she refuted the allegations of sexism and outdated attitudes, by pointing out her books overwhelming popularity despite continued boycotting of her work.

The ‘banning’ did not last long and has probably been exaggerated. In recent years Blyton’s ability to encourage children’s reading has been widely recognised. Today well over 300 Blyton titles were still in print and have been translated into over 40 languages, selling over 400 million copies to date throughout the world. In total she wrote over 700 books and 10,000 short stories all aimed for the children’s market.

Enid continued to write until the mid-1960’s but due to a mental illness, she became confused and found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on her writing, and she passed away peacefully in her sleep on November 25th 1968 in a Hampstead nursing home.

The legacy that she left behind is one that has captivated children of all ages for generations. Even now more than forty years after her death more than 10 million of her books are sold every year. Psychologist Michael Woods once commented on one of the reasons for her success as ‘She was a child, she thought as a child and she wrote as a child.’

Don't Forget Your Wellies by Dan Holloway

It’s festival time, season of indeterminate noodles, oxygen bars and trenchfoot. Now I’ve got nothing against such gatherings. I’ve been to my fair share (even written about one particularly muddy one). But what I’m talking about is decidedly more, er, indoors.

This coming week sees the start of Hay Festival (where mud is decidedly on the cards), which is the spiritual home of all things bookish. So what better time to talk about why it’s a really good idea for writers to make it a resolution to go to at least one event at one festival this year. Of course, the fact that I have a words and music show, The New Libertines, that will be performed at Stoke Newington Literary Festival on June 4th and Oxfringe on June 13th is by the by.

OK, before I start, in the light of the piece I’ve written alongside Cat for this month’s Words With Jam about the event NOT The Oxford Literary Festival, I should come clean. There are lots of things about literary festivals I’m not keen on. The big ones especially. The line-ups are pretty much all the same – whoever’s got a new book or a new TV series out does a talk about it, some of them even in conversation with Melvyn Bragg. They sign copies and move on to the next one. Local authors and experimental writing rarely get a look in. And they are corporate beyond belief with their impromptu Blackwell’s store and their official festival whisky.

But the fact remains that every writer should go to a big festival at least once, even if it’s just for one event. Though if you can afford it, I would recommend going for the day, because the milling around between events and soaking up the atmosphere is not only invigorating (and good for celeb-spotting) but an important part of starting to breathe the air, feeling what it’s like to be a writer (taking a cue from Rebecca’s excellent piece a few days ago). Which is reason one.

The second reason is similar – depending on your viewpoint you will get to see either what the future might hold or what might be expected of you. This is especially important if you fall into the latter camp – if you see the publicity side of things as a real drawback of wanting to be a writer. Find an author you really like. Go and listen to them speak. Analyse how you feel – excited, interested, a little nervous in a good way at seeing them in the flesh (yes, quite possibly cold and wet and wondering when you can have a hot cup of Bovril but we’ll forget that for the moment). Then store that away in your memory banks, and remind yourself that when it’s you up there, that’s exactly how your audience will be feeling – it’s the first part of seeing audiences not as something intimidating but as a really exciting friend.

Third, even if they’re going on to say the same thing ten more times in ten more places, this is still plain and simple a great chance to see one of your heroes. I run Not The Oxford Literary Festival, a counterculture gathering during the Oxford literary Festival set up directly in opposition to its overpriced facelessness. But last year I still went along to see Patti Smith read from Just Kids, got her to sign the book, got goosebumps from being that close to one of my greatest idols.

Fourth, if and when you feel less overwhelmed by the surroundings and less like oh-my-golly-I’m-only-little-me (which may be after you’ve been to a few events, after a few glasses of Official Festival Whisky, or the moment you pitch up at the car park if you’re a shameless self-publicist), festivals are great places to meet people. I don’t just mean people who might give you a contract – yes, the literary world is full of tales of writers who met their agent at a festival bar, and yes about 5% of these may be true and not just the hazy recollections of heavy duty beer goggles, but there are far more tales of agents running for cover and telling their friends never to have anything to do with that pushy little oik over there. I mean people who love what you love. And, of course, in this day and age, people you know off twitter. It’s a place for starting and cementing friendships.

Fifth and finally for now, try to go to a smaller, less well-known festival. A local one is great because you can meet the bookstore owners you may very soon be asking to stock your self-published book, you can get to be part of the local literary community, you may even get asked to speak next year. The programmes can also be more diverse. You can get to find whole new seams of literature you never knew were there, see people doing things in ways you’d never thought of. They can be truly inspirational. I’m particularly looking forward to Stoke Newington this year. After our show I’m hightailing it across Church Street to see one of my student crushes, Louise Wener from Sleeper, and the whole weekend has an Edgar Alan Poe-ish feel to it, which will make for a marvellous atmosphere.

So, dust off your metaphorical wellies, start googling and browsing programmes, and make this the summer you head to your first festival. And see you all in Stokey!

Dan Holloway is the author of Oxford based thriller The Company of Fellows, the novels Songs from the Other Side of the Wall and The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, and the collection (life:) razorblades included. He is happiest behind a microphone and will be appearing at festivals and fringes across the UK this summer.

Designer Labels by Rebecca Woodhead

You are wearing a label, whether you know it or not, and everyone can see it. What label did you pick? Unpublished Writer? Writer-To-Be? Did you even choose your own, or did you just accept one that someone else handed out? Maybe it no longer fits, but you wear it anyway, because it’s familiar, it doesn’t make you stand out from your peers, and nobody is offended by it. It is safe. The idea of throwing aside a worn out old label and designing your own may be a little fear-inducing, but what if you gave it a go?

For a long while, ‘Author’ seemed out of my emotional price range. Even ‘writer’ stretched the wallet a bit. I wanted to give myself the aroma of that label though, the scent of future success, so I took the word that seemed furthest from my budget – ‘Author’ – and formatted it into an off-the-peg arrangement that I could wear: ‘Author-In-Waiting’.

If you cannot afford a Gucci outfit, you can still own a little of their magic. You can buy their perfume. For a long time before the reality arrives, you can smell of the dream. The same is true of writing dreams. One day, I put aside my ‘Author-In-Waiting’ ensemble and picked up the expensive designer bottle, labelled ‘Writer’. Something changed. Other people started to take me more seriously, because I started to take myself more seriously. Instead of passively waiting for success to come to me, I wore my label and made it happen.

Once you wear a label, your subconscious battles away to make the outside and inside versions of you match. That happens whether or not the label is positive. If you continually label yourself as something ‘in waiting’, you are always waiting. If your label is ‘unpublished’, guess what? You will stay that way. The scary thing about choosing your own label is that it is a public declaration of intent. Once you have done it, you can never go back.

Oscar Wilde said: ‘I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china.’ Wilde’s blue china was an outward symbol of the Aesthetic Movement. For you, the symbol of being a published author might be a physical book. Label yourself, and grab a symbol of that. Call yourself an author, then get your book printed – even if you print only one copy. Put it in a place where you cannot avoid looking at it. Make it your blue china, and work every day to live up to it.

Rebecca Woodhead

Labels are a major theme in my debut novel, Palaces & Calluses, which is available for Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Sony Reader, Nook, Kindle for PC, and in PDF format. PalacesAndCalluses.com

Rebecca Woodhead is an author from the Cotswolds. Her debut novel, Palaces & Calluses, is available from PalacesAndCalluses.com in a variety of formats. She writes for Writing Magazine and Groupon, has appeared in books about Twitter in both the USA and UK, and is one of the 'Top 100 Most Powerful Women on Twitter' in the world, according to Twitter Grader. Her blog is RebeccaWoodhead.com

Apologies

Just a quick post to apologise to anyone who has submitted a short story or article proposal recently. Lots of people seem quite keen for inclusion recently (I wonder why?), but it means we're fairly behind with reading and replying. We promise to get back to you all shortly.

Thanks,
Jane

African Adventures

A long time ago, I promised that if I heard that any of the books I released into the wild with Bookcrossing had an exciting adventure, then I would let you know.

Well, it appears that the very first book I ever released did go on quite a journey.

Back in February 2010, I left a copy of Ian McEwan’s Atonement in Café Africa. Café Africa is a really cool coffee shop in Amersham that was set up as a not-for-profit venture supporting charities locally and in Africa, so it seemed like exactly the sort of place to send my first book on its way. But it was only quite recently that I found out just how right I was.

The book was picked up by Katie, who works at Café Africa when she is home from university. As it happened, Katie was spending April-September 2010 in Tanzania, working as a teacher in central Dodoma and helping with a child sponsorship program, trying to reach out to the poorest families in the village and helping to fund their children into full time education. And she decided to take my book with her.

Part way through her stay, having read the book, she was having a bit of R&R in Dar es Salaam when she met a German woman who was travelling on to Zanzibar the next day and wanted a book to read on the beach. So now we know the book went from Amersham to Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar.

Unfortunately, the woman who took the book to Zanzibar never journalled it, so we have no idea what happened to it next. But Atonement certainly had a good start on its travels!

What’s more, Katie is travelling back to Tanzania this summer and has promised to take another book with her. So watch this space.