Quick Reads in Wales - the launch

Last week, I hopped on the train at Norwich and five hours later, I hopped off again in Cardiff - my lovely old stomping ground - in order to attend the launch of the four new titles in the Quick Reads series in Wales.

They are:-

Reset Your Goals - inspiring stories from Olympic hurdler Colin Jackson, Leicester City footballer Matthew Jones and footballer Laura McAllister among others.

Music to Make Friends By - that's the one I wrote and it's all about pop music AND HOW MUCH I LOVE IT

... and in Welsh / Cymraeg

Y Goliau a'r Dagrau - by Tash Harding

and

Wil ac Aeron by Heulwyn Ann Davies

AND THEY ARE AVAILABLE NOW IN PAPERBACK AND TO DOWNLOAD FOR £1.

A QUID.

That is loose change for 100 or so pages!

If you haven't read my book yet, I want to know why!

Anyway, it was well worth the long train journey to Cardiff. Apart from beautiful weather, beautiful views across Cardiff Bay and a beautiful venue (the Norwegian Church), we also ate cupcakes with our books on!  And I got to have my photo taken with a load of super fit Welsh sporting stars and I think some of their athleticism must have rubbed off on me because I've been feeling really chipper and athletic ever since 🌝

But best of all, I got to sit in the sunshine with my old DJ partner Kirsty. Back in the noughties, we were the girl DJs of Cardiff's bar and club scene. We even got to play in the legendary Clwb Ifor Bach!  That's us below - then and now.

A Little Drive to Wales

This lot are from Rhyl.  Sweethearts 💓

Anyone who knows me will know that I love Wales.  North, south, mid, west - I don't care so long as I'm in Wales.

Which is sort of a shame because I live in Norwich which is quite a drive away.

So I was delighted to do a mini tour of Wales for the Welsh Books Council and Hot Key Books to celebrate 'The Nearest Faraway Place' winning a 2018 Tir na n-Og award.

I packed a lot into a few days.  Here's a quick summary:

I drove across Britain, 

said hi to Newtown Library at the start of Libraries Week,

met the smashing kids of Llanidloes, 

marveled at the boys who plotted an entire thriller 

IN JUST FIVE MEASLY MINUTES,

literally looked at 'witch things' with Helen from 
the Welsh Books Council,

went in the oldest WH Smith's IN THE WORLD,  

had a quick trip to Llangollen,

drank a pint of beer that was too strong for me in Wrexham,

met Boo the Staffie,

met loads of very cool kids from Rhosnesni High,

ate a scone the size of my head,

visited Wrexham Football Club and talked about 1970s football with Shoned,

played 'Hunt the Radio Station' in Glyndwr University,

found it, 

recorded a radio interview,

danced on the beach all by myself in Rhyl,

had a very big chat with the bright young people of Rhyl,

drank a pumpkin spice latte with Kat Ellis - writer and Rhyl girl,

   walked almost to Prestatyn,

watched 'The Apprentice',

drove back to Norwich.

It was good!  And I met so many great people and I feel like a have a whole load of new friends.

It was also a bit knackering.  Next week I'm going to Aberystwyth...

Newtown WH Smiths.  Proper old skool.

Shoned from the Welsh Books' Council.  lyfli 💓 (I don't know if that's how you say lovely in Welsh but it looks right.)

Rhyl girl and horror writer Kat Ellis.  Not actually horrific at all.

The Tir na n-Og Award 2018

A few days ago I drove to beautiful Aberystwyth to attend the presentation of the 2018 Tir na n-Og children’s literature Award.  This is an award which celebrates English-language books with an authentic Welsh background.  And guess what?  I won it!!!  

I am so very, very chuffed.  On the night, up in the National Library of Wales, I was also excited and a bit nervous and then sort of so overwhelmed that I couldn’t eat any of the fancy snacks that had been laid on because my stomach was all full of butterflies.  I did manage a glass of wine though. It would have been rude not to!  And I won’t ever forget that night halfway up the hill in Aberystwyth because I also met some wonderful people and made some lovely, lovely new friends.  So I want to use this blog post to wave hello to Eloise Williams and Wendy White and Sharon Tregenza and Valeriane Leblond.  We were all on the shortlist together.  This one:

Santa's Greatest Gift by Tudur Dylan Jones and illustrated by Valeriane Leblond

King of the Sky by Nicola Davies

St. David's Day is Cancelled by Wendy White

The Jewelled Jaguar by Sharon Tregenza

Gaslight by Eloise Williams

Valeriane, Wendy, Sharon, Eloise and I sat together on a stage in front a lot of people and answered questions and... although that sounded like a scary prospect, it was a real laugh.  I’ve looked online and found this picture which I’ve borrowed from Simon Fisher aka Daddy Bookworm to show you what we looked like: 

Hello Simon and family, I’m waving to you all too and thank you so much for all the support that you have given me and other writers.  You can check out their website here.  And I also want to wave to Paul Jeorrett who asked us questions and made us laugh and somehow inspired me to tell a few hundred people about the eating habits of Irma, my beloved pet bunny.  And I want to wave to Helen Jones and Eirlys at the Welsh Books Council who are LUSH and who are doing stirling work promoting reading and books for children in Wales in both the Welsh and English languages.  I was very impressed to learn that Eirlys was in the BBC drama of ‘The Owl Service’ which scared the sh*t out of me when I was about 12.  Now I’ll have to watch it all over again to see if I can spot her.  

And I want to wave to my friend Gwen who let me stay in her house.  Gwen has a cat called Bara Brith (Welsh teacake) who just happened to turn up inside the pages of ‘The Nearest Faraway Place.’  Here she is:

Just to be clear, that's Bara Brith - not Gwen.

And also, I want to wave to everyone in real life or on any social media who said ‘Congratulations’ or ‘Well done’ or ‘Llongyfarchiadau’ or anything else sweet and friendly to me.

Thank you so much.

Diolch yn fawr.

And Emma Matthewson, I kicked the bar for you ;)

Wales, I love you, don’t I?  I'll end this post with some pictures.

Down the other end is a bar that needs kicking.  It's an Aber thing. It's a lucky thing. 

Aberystwyth Castle.  Seen better days. 

Special bench.  Love conquers All.  Griff and Hari sat here.

Special sticker :)

For my fancy cabinet

My Seven Reasons to be Cheerful about 2016

2016.  What a year.  There have been times during the last twelve months when I’ve felt like shoving the whole of 2016 into the Chamber of Horrors and throwing away the key.  But three hundred and sixty-five days are a lot of days.  Not all of them made me want to scream.  In order not to let the shit things overshadow everything else, I’ve made myself sit down and think about the bits I liked.

1.  The Comeback Kids

In 2016, my cousin Julie and my friend Helen totally owned the words SPEEDY RECOVERY.  They both bounced back from major operations on giant space-hoppers.  Phew.  Hooray :) 

2.  The Olympics and the Paralympics

Ellie Robinson - totally rhyming small with cool.

This summer, I learned that nothing helps a frazzled head more than sitting in front of the telly and watching people win stuff.  I watched Max Whitlock do roly-polys.  I watched nice smiley Nicola Adams thump people in the face.  I watched divers in skimpy speedos stand under a shower and then dry themselves with a tea-towel.  I watched the two Ellies walk around the edges of swimming pools in massive coats.  The only bit I didn’t watch was the Tae Kwondo.  It’s that thing where two people shuffle about on a mat and then kick each other in the head.  I couldn’t watch that.  Maybe it’s one of those sports that are much more fun if you are actually doing it. 

3.  Belly at Norwich Waterfront

I can't remember if I took this photo or my friend Jayne did.

In 1993, the American indie-pop band Belly released the album ‘Star’.  I loved that album then and I still love it now.  And Tanya Donelly - Belly’s singer and founder – has been one of my favourite all-time Americans ever since.  So when she announced that she was putting her band back together again and doing a UK tour, I was quick to get my ticket.  It was a night of pure joy.  Tanya D is probably the coolest woman in the world.  And if she isn’t, it’s because Gail Greenwood is. [She is Belly’s bass player.] 

4.  Wales at Euro 2016

Wales v England?  My loyalties were always going to be torn.  Or so I thought.  Actually, there was no conflict of emotion at all.  When Gareth Bale scored against England from a free-kick, I jumped in the air and cheered.  What a team!  And it wasn’t just ninja-assassin Gareth, was it?  There was also the bloke who looked like Edward VII and the bloke who looked like the actor Toby Jones and the bloke who looked like Jesus.  I was sad when Wales didn’t get to the final - but didn’t they do brilliantly anyway!

Joe Allen - a Welsh footballer who looks like Jesus

5.  Hahaha!  But what’s the point?

I completed my MA in American Literature by writing 20,000 words on comedy and nihilism and got a distinction.  Hooray!  :)

6.  Yet more Telly

The year began with ‘War and Peace’ which was EPIC and TREMENDOUS and it ended with ‘To Walk Invisible’ which was two uninterrupted hours about the Brontës.  Total bliss.  In the middle was the final series of ‘Hinterland’ – finest Welsh noir.  Can you pass the peanuts, please?

7.  This Planet is Capable of Being Lush

This summer, I went to Sark.  What a beautiful place!  Sark has got no cars, no phone signal, no light pollution, no noise pollution, nothing much to spend your money on - and it’s where I’d be living RIGHT NOW if I could convince my husband that selling everything we have and becoming artists is a good idea.  But I can’t.

Never mind. 

A little after this, I went to Birmingham to visit my friends Jayne and Sue who live on a canal boat.  I thought I knew what Birmingham was all about but it turns out that I know nothing.  Birmingham has more miles of canal than Venice apparently.  And these canals are a blissed-out world of total peace and quiet that are ignored by almost everyone.  What a life my friends have!  While I was there, I was treated to a glimpse of it.  We travelled really, really slowly.  We saw a kingfisher.  We went through a tunnel that was nearly two and a half miles long and was freezing cold, pitch dark and shit scary.  I beat everyone at Backgammon.  I barely washed.  I loved every second of my canal boat adventure.

A very happy dog who lives on a boat.  Jayne Morgan took this picture.

So then - taking all this into account - what do I think of 2016 now? 

I think my 2016 has been better than I realised.  In places, it’s even been great.  And writing this has made me appreciate just how very lucky I am.  For lots of people, 2016 hasn’t been anything close to alright and that isn’t OK.  I’m clinging to the hope that 2017 will be better.  Come on, 2017!  My fingers are crossed.

About a man called Dr John Davies

John is the only one wearing a suit. I won't tell you which one I am.

I don’t usually blog about anything very much other than my books and other people’s books and sometimes characters in books and, maybe, now and then, libraries.  But today, I’m going to write a few words about a historian called Dr John Davies.  He died, just yesterday, aged 76, and the news of this has made me sad.  I knew John Davies was an important figure in Welsh culture and, over the years, I’d got used to spotting him on any TV programme where the services of a Welsh historian were needed.  And, always, he’d be on my telly wearing a khaki sleeveless jacket-thing with millions of pockets in it and speaking in this beautiful and unmistakable way he had which was quite unlike any other voice my ears have ever heard. 

But the reason I shall remember John Davies has nothing really to do with his voice or Welsh history or culture – although I like those things too – or about his many books or his impressive academic achievements.  It’s because of a brief but colossally important conversation we had when I was eighteen years old.  I was a student then at Aberystwyth University and John Davies was the warden of Neuadd Pantycelyn – which, if you’re English like me, means Pantycelyn Hall.  I wasn’t living in Pantycelyn.  It was the Welsh hall for Welsh students who spoke Welsh so what the heck would I be living in there for?  Nope, I lived further up the hill in a student hall of residence called Penbryn.  Think of a shoebox and the smell of disinfectant and you’ve pretty much got it.  But for some weird reason, all my friends lived down in Pantycelyn.  To this day, I don’t really remember how that situation happened.  I know it had something to do with Freshers’ Week.  I know it involved a conversation about the choices available on the Jukebox in the bar at the Central Hotel – but beyond that, exactly how I came to be part of the Welsh-hall crowd has always been an interesting mystery.

But I was and they were halfway down the hill in Pantycelyn – where I discovered all the best parties were and the rooms had sloping ceilings and bags of character and there was a parapet running around the attic rooms which you could happily climb on to and break every health and safety rule under the sun - and I was at the top of the hill in my horrible room in Penbryn.

And that separation aside, I was having a hard time.  There were things I was having to deal with – things which had nothing to do with Aberystwyth or my degree or being a student – which I wasn’t actually dealing with very well at all.  And the truth is that during the whole of my first year at university I was pretty much living on the edge of something – I don’t know what exactly but I was definitely on an edge.  My personal organisation had gone up the spout, my ability to concentrate had gone on strike and I kept genuinely forgetting that food is a necessary part of staying OK.

And being stuck in that horrible hall by myself wasn’t helping much.

So at some point near the end of my first year, I asked Dr Davies if I could move into a room in Pantycelyn.  And then – as if it weren’t obvious - I’d said, ‘I don’t speak Welsh though.’

I remember John Davies looking horrified and saying, ‘What? Whatever next?’  And then he’d laughed and said, ‘Of course you can move in.  If you must.’

I’m sure that this conversation made absolutely no impression on John Davies. But it meant an awful lot to me.  And I’m sure he had lots of other conversations with other young people that meant an equally huge amount to them too.  So, while I admire his brains and his work on TV, it’s this Dr John Davies, I remember.  Hall warden of Pantycelyn.  The grownup who came into the lolfa – that’s the lounge, if you please – in the early hours of the morning to tell us to keep the noise down or came into the lolfa in the early hours of the morning to find his youngest son or came into the lolfa in the early hours of the morning to set up his chessboard and patiently play chess with which ever drunk student fancied a game or came into the lolfa in the early hours of the morning just to make sure that we were safe.

My thoughts are with his wife and with Anna, Beca, Guto and Ianto.

The Hay Festival

This is just a quick post to tell you that I shall be at The Hay Festival on Thursday 30th May.

WHOOP!

For anyone like me - who LOVES books - this is a bit like going to Heaven.*

Not only is Hay-on-Wye a beautiful little town in the Brecon Beacons but almost EVERY shop is a book shop.  In fact, there are so many books, that whenever I've been there, I've got a bit overwhelmed and entered a state of Choice Paralysis because there are just WAY TOO MANY books to choose from.  There's also a fantastic record shop called Tom's Record Shop which sells some nice heavy vinyl.  Then, on top of that is the festival.  It's the highlight of the Book Calendar and to be invited to appear at it is very exciting.  I was last there way back in 2005(?) and I was honoured to be sharing the Green Room with none other than Jacqueline Wilson.  I didn't talk to her though.  I was far too nervous and I'm socially awkward ;-)

This year, I will be sharing a panel with the amazing Malorie Blackman - you know her, Noughts and Crosses etc - and the equally amazing Melvin Burgess - you know him, Junk etc.  They're a couple of YA heavy weights.**  We'll be talking about Young Adult fiction and answering any questions that you may have.

Visit the Hay site to find out more details by clicking here.






I can't wait :-)

In the meantime, don't forget there is still time to enter the What's Up With Jody Barton? audio book giveaway - just see the previous blog post.

Speak again soon, Hx

* But without the inconvenience of being dead.
** I shall be adding some lightness.

Snowdon

When I was nine I walked up to the summit of Snowdon with my dad and my brother.  The whole experience must have made quite a big impression on me because I can still remember an awful lot about that day even though it is now thirty years later.  I can remember that I was proudly wearing my own pair of brown walking boots with crazy laces and I can remember that the day was long and hot and that we stopped to splash around in one of the three lakes which our path passed and I can remember too that we were all practically on our hands and knees crawling up the final ‘zig-zag’ towards the mountain’s summit.  And then when we got to the top, it was completely misty and we couldn’t see anything.  And I sat on a rock and ate my packed lunch and discovered, only after I’d bitten into it, that there was a maggot in my apple – and this had freaked me out so much that I’d chucked it over the side and into the mist and immediately been told off by my dad for potentially braining some poor unfortunate walker further down the mountain.

This month – thirty years on from that first ascent – I did it again.  A few things had changed.  I was with my husband.  There was no sunshine – only some heavy grey clouds.  My route was different.  Despite me repeatedly saying, ‘I need to go up the Miners’ Track and down the Pig Track because that’s what I did last time,’ we went up the Llanberis Track.  On the day, being slightly ill-prepared, it was the only track we could find.  It’s supposed to be the easiest.  But twenty minutes into the five-mile climb, it started raining.  Cold horizontal rain.  In late July.  This wasn’t how I remembered it.  Where was the boiling hot sun?  Where was the splashing around in a lake?  And, actually, where the heck were the lakes?  We didn’t see any.  In fact, we didn’t see anything!  The heavy grey clouds came down lower – or else we got up a bit higher – and it was all we could do to stay on the path and not go stumbling off around the mountainside inspiring a call to Snowdonia Mountain Rescue and an embarrassing slot on the Wales Today news programme.  Every now and then we’d see these spooky shapes coming towards us in the mist and they’d reveal themselves to be healthy red-faced walkers, kitted out with hiking poles and breathable water-resistant clothing.  We had jeans on.  Dripping soaking jeans.  And I did have a North Face ‘waterproof’ jacket on but I can’t say I was impressed with it.  Our boots were good though.  I didn’t have any crazy laces on this occasion but I did feel that same old ‘Damn it, my boots are mighty fine,’ kind of pride that I’d felt at the age of nine.

Eventually we got to the top, edged our way in the mist towards the brand new Summit of Snowdon Café and realised with disgust that it was filled to bursting with all the lazy people who had ridden up on the steam train.  And so I queued up for the loo, warmed myself up with the hand-dryer and promptly began the five mile descent back to the car.  But as we were walking, something amazing happened.  The cloud lifted.  And we could see for miles and miles across Snowdonia.  And it confirmed the suspicion I’ve had since the age of nine that Wales is quite possibly one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Hello this month to Kazia and also to all the lovely kids at Notre Dame School in Norwich.

Secret Mission in Wrexham

The other weekend, my bloke and I drove 250 miles across country for a fun city break in Wrexham! Well…not so much a city as a modestly-sized town and not so much of a break as a serious research project. We were on a fact-finding mission to gather interesting details to help with the progress of the third Lottie Biggs book – which, I can reveal, will feature the North Wales town of Wrexham at some point towards its close.

The rough guide told me that ‘Wrexham has a curiously boisterous charm.’ I agree. And the people we met were all absolutely lovely too. It’s just a shame that their town was being invaded that day by BNP supporters and the necessary riot police but we took the advice of the nice helpful man in the bank who told us ‘to take care of yerselves, yeah?’ and stayed well out of the way.

From Wrexham, we drove in the rain to Llangollen and discovered, to our delight, the most incredible second hand bookshop in the whole world. It’s above a café and - as far as I could make out – it’s simply called ‘Café and Books.’ You know where you are with a sign like that! As usual though, I got choice paralysis in the book shop and saw so many books I wanted that I couldn’t choose which to get. In the end, I settled for a ridiculously out-of-date travel guide called ‘An Insight to the USSR’, had a ridiculously cheap cup of tea and went away happy.

This month I’m saying hello to my Creative Writing Gang at Paston College, Norfolk, who give me loads of ideas every Wednesday afternoon and also to Georgine in Australia who wrote about ‘Lottie Biggs’ for her English assignment and GOT AN A+. HOORAY!!! GO GEORGINE!!

From Cardiff to Krakow

The month of October began in Cardiff and ended in the Polish city of Krakow. Cardiff was all about running creative writing workshops, reading bits from Lottie Biggs and meeting lots of Year 10 students, and Krakow was mostly about wandering around a chilly and very beautiful mediaeval city and eating cake in cosy cafés. Both experiences were interesting in their own different ways. Cardiff surprised me with how much it has changed in the two years since I moved from living there and Krakow made my jaw drop because it is so incredibly picturesque. For some reason though, I was more drawn to the grotty graffiti. I think it’s because I’m a scruffy city pigeon at heart. Or maybe it’s because of the fascinating things graffiti tells us about the world. Like the fact that the Polish gave us Copernicus, Chopin and Max Factor and we, in return, gave them the word hooligans.

This month I’m sending my hello to Cardiff - and in particular, to Mrs Sanders’ Year 10 English Class who all wrote me lovely letters after I met them. I really appreciated it. Thank you.

Now to get my head down and write a bit more of Lottie 3…

Rabbit Riches!!!!

Last Friday, clutching a copy of my latest manuscript in my hands, I caught the train to London to talk about some serious WRITER STUFF over a lovely lunch. My lunch meeting was with Emma - the editor I am working with from Pan Macmillan - and Agent Yeelesy who looks after me from Pollinger Literary Agency. Neither Agent Yeelesy nor me had actually ever met Emma before and we were both very happy to discover that she is extremely sweet and lovely and actually even HALF FRENCH!

After Emma left us, Agent Yeelesy and I enjoyed a nice drink in the sunshine. Feeling lucky, I was suddenly overcome by the urge to gamble an entire pound on a scratch card. Everyone knows that scratch cards are for fools and this is probably why I feel comfortable with them. I won five pounds! Immediately, I swapped my winning card for five more scratch cards called RABBIT RICHES and this time, I had two winning cards!!! For one pound each!!! So I’ve kept one and Agent Yeelesy has the other one and hopefully one or other or both of us will swap it for a card which will win us heaps of money so we can run away and live in the sun.

In other rabbit news, Bunny Irma is malting heavily at the moment and it is impossible to pick her up without breathing in clouds of fluff – which is not nice.

Later this week, I’m off to Cardiff to do some writing workshops with the kids there and I’m very much looking forward to seeing my old friends and having a mooch around one of my favourite places on the planet J

This month I’m saying HELLO to my English students at Paston College, Norfolk who all did so marvellously in their A Levels and also a big HI to Clair in Llanishen and SALUT to Anaïs in Belgium.

In WH Smiths I was nineteen....n-n-n-n-n-n-nineteen

And this month’s blog is a good one because it’s holiday time! To celebrate my freedom, I whizzed off to South Wales in my bumpy new car and picked up my friend Lynda for a girly drive around Cymru. En route, I stopped at a service station on the M6 to see if Lottie Biggs was available in the shop and was pleased to see that she had crept into the top 20 of kids’ / teen fiction at number 19. I was so chuffed I took a sneaky photo. 19 is loads better than 20.

Once I’d collected Lynda, we drove over some hills and by some ruined abbeys and reservoirs until we got to Aberystwyth and then we knocked on Gwen’s door and asked to borrow the keys to her caravan. Luckily she said yes because she’s generous and kind and then all three of us drove to the middle of nowhere and ate fish and chips and I drove my car around the world’s scariest uphill sheer-drop hair-pin bend back to the caravan and, thankfully, we all lived to tell the tale.

Then when we’d said bye to Gwen, me and Lynda drove northwards until we were up in the mountains and Lynda took loads of photos of the landscape so that she could paint it and I took loads of photos of sheep because I felt like it and then we drove back to South Wales and ate some more fish and chips and then I drove home back to Norwich.

Then, me and my husband flew off to Budapest and he spoke lots of Hungarian because he’s such a clever-clogs and I read some books and swam around in a lake and then we had a quick visit to Vienna and then we came home.So it’s been good! But before I go, I’d just like to mention Griffri in Aberystwyth who is so completely cool that he read Lottie Biggs IN PUBLIC – even though he’s blatantly a boy. And Meg who sent me a couple of very entertaining emails. And Vanessa from Manchester who chatted to me about the Twilight books while we were both on a bus to Vienna. And Melissa who did such a fab job of looking after Irma bunny while I was gone.

More in a month…