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.

Hooray for School Librarians!

The School Libraries Association has put Being a Girl on the shortlist for their Information Book Award.

Getting a book on a shortlist is always lovely.   It's a big smiley thumbs-up.  And as an ex-teacher, I'm really chuffed to get a big smiley thumbs-up from our school librarians.  Have no doubt about it, they do a tricky and much needed job!  All those kids who wander in and out of the library are in the care of the librarian and so are all those books on the shelves.  And some of those kids are 11-year-olds who want to read Horrid Henry and some of them are 11-year-olds who want to read Stephen King. And then there are the sixth-formers with beards who want to know about Marxism or Monet...   And the school librarian has to look after all of them and help everyone find the books they are ready for and which won't freak them out and put them off reading for life.  Strategically, it's enough to melt my head!  And that's without factoring in those fantastic books which can't be let loose on the shelves but have to live in the Four-Letter-Bomb Cupboard instead.  Yes, Curious Incident, I'm talking about you!

So, anyway, a thumbs-up for Being a Girl has made me happy.  Because it means that in spite of the unavoidable and inevitably tricky content - like... oh... I dunno...

and... maybe...

.... - the responsible librarians liked it!

Phew!!!  And Thank you xxx

To read about the Information Book Award and to see the whole shortlist, please click here. There are some absolutely cracking titles on there!

Finally because I'm in a good mood and because SOPHIE SOMEONE is out in paperback on May 5th, I'm going to give away a signed SOPHIE and a signed BEING A GIRL.  To be in with a chance of winning, just email me on hayleylong@hayleylong.org before the end of April with this secret password:  Hi Hayley, Go on then - I'll 'ave'm.

The winner will be chosen at random by my house rabbit.

My Totes Lush Morning in Ingatestone!

Well, do you know what?  Just the other morning I had one of the loveliest experiences that anyone can possibly ever have in Ingatestone!

I'll be honest, those aren't words I ever expected to write.  Not that there's anything wrong with Ingatestone.  Oh no no.  Quite the opposite - it's a lovely little place with lovely people in it.  But until last Wednesday, my only experience of Ingatestone was speeding straight through without stopping on the train from Norwich to London.  Or the other way round.

But now that's no longer the case.  Now, I associate Ingatestone with the wonderful Essex Book Award and with What's Up With Jody Barton?  and... er... winning!

:-)

But even more than those things, I'll associate it with the fab kids I met that day.  Literally hundreds of them!  From all over Essex.  And all wearing such snappy dapper uniforms that I felt like a right old Scruffy McGuffy.  And I'll remember the interesting and intelligent questions they asked me and the big smiles they had on their faces.  And I'll remember that little bloke on the front row who looked utterly horrified when I told them that famous quotation from Atticus Finch in 'To Kill a Mockingbird' which goes:  'You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.'

- Urrggh.  That's disgusting!  (he said.)

-  Not literally.  (I said.)  If you tried actually doing that, you'd get into a serious heap of trouble and wind up in prison.

Anyway, that young bloke sort of put his finger on one of the things  I really like about writing for young people.

And even though I'd never heard of the Essex Book Award before I won it, I definitely have now.  And I'll be looking out with interest every single year to see which lucky authors have made it on to their shortlist.  Because it's a shortlist well worth being on.  Thirty- three high schools took part in reading and voting for those books on the 7th annual shortlist.  That they chose What's Up With Jody Barton? as their winner makes me very happy indeed.

So, from now on, whenever I'm sitting on the train and speeding straight through Ingatestone, I'll think of all those lovely kids from Essex and their hardworking teachers and librarians and the Essex Library Service and smile.

Lots of love to you all. x

p.s  After a slight 'unclaimed prize' kerfuffle, I can now happily reveal that the winner of the WUWJB? audio book is MOST DEFINITELY...... LILY BONIFACE of Surrey.
 

On Writing and Libraries

I’m a little quiet just at the moment.  Not in a down, depressed and nothing to say kind of way.

Oh no! 

I’m quiet in an ohmigodohmigod, I must keep writing because I need to meet my deadline kind of way. 

And that is a marvy, cheery and totes lush feeling to have.  And also a bit of a leery-sceery one too.

[Apologies for the 40 year old person speaking in a totally teen-tastic and worryingly word-up way but… um… I’m very much a method writer, you see, and it’s proper hard to shake.]Because writing is pretty much what makes me tick.  I don’t know why.  It’s a fairly odd and mysterious business.  I don’t even know exactly how those novels appear.  Other than with a lot of thought-control and hours and hours of frowning at a screen and a very critical eye.  But once that ‘special idea’ has registered, the words start coming.  And this is such a relief that I’m more than happy to sit up until three in the morning and just roll with it.  I’ve been doing a lot of that lately.  In fact, I’m doing it now.  For some reason, my brain works better at night.  My house is all silent, my mug is full of rocket-fuel and my head is totally, totally focussed - something I struggle to achieve during the day - when there’s light coming through the window and a bunny hopping about outside and a shop around the corner which sells Pringles and Diagnosis Murder on the telly.   

So here I am typing while the world sleeps and I can’t tell you anything much about what I’m working on right now but I can tell you this.  I’m really into it.  And I’m writing stuff which is making me do a little secret smirk now and again.  Even though it’s blatantly bad form to smirk at your own jokes.  But, hey, I’m being truthful.  And then yesterday, I had one of those weird moments where I made myself smirk and then, half a page later, realised that I’d made myself feel so sad for somebody who doesn’t actually exist that my eyes were leaking.  And if laughing at your own jokes is bad – moving yourself to tears is just plain wrong.

Except that it’s not really me that’s doing it, is it?  Because anyone who writes fiction will know what I mean when I say the weird creative pixies take over and the characters start writing themselves.

Having said that, it’s still brain-knackering, so I wish they’d hurry up and finish the job.

Before I shuffle off for a rocket-fuel refill, I just want to say a few words about Kensal Rise Library.  It closed today.  It was in a lovely old Victorian building and has been providing a local service to the people in that part of NW10 since Mark Twain opened it in 1900.  I read with a real sense of sadness that the local community came out to protest and shouted ‘Save Kensal Rise Library’ as workmen nailed boards over the door and windows.  For a couple of years in the late 1990s, I’d have been one of those people in the crowd.  I lived just around the corner in Buchanan Gardens and often went to that little library – largely to use a computer as I didn’t have my own.  Back then, with a student loan to pay off, rent and bills to find, a Zones 1-4 monthly travelcard to purchase and a newly qualified teacher’s salary, a computer was beyond my means.  Kensal Rise Library helped me out.  Sadly, it won’t be helping anyone else out.  Many more libraries in Brent are scheduled to close.  This is terrible, awful and shocking.  Our Prime Minister says a lot about this thing called the Big Society.  What I want to know is this:

How can we have a happy, fair and functioning Big Society if we take away the institutions which are the life-blood of our lovely little communities?

Support Your Local Library

Ok, I’m about to get a bit deep and political again. Last time, it was because I was horrified by the idea that universities will soon no longer be equal in terms of the fees they can charge and, this time, it’s because I’m even more shocked by the public spending cuts which are threatening the existence of Britain’s libraries. In Suffolk alone, two-thirds of community libraries are currently under the threat of closure.

THIS IS AWFUL!

The Manic Street Preacher’s once famously sang, ‘Libraries gave us power.’ And they should know. They grew up in the small town of Blackwood, South Wales - an area well-known for its links to coal-mining. And, historically, these mining towns have a lot to teach us about how crucial libraries are in any truly democratic society. In the days when governmental measures to help the poor extended only about as far as shoving those who were starving into a workhouse, the provision of a decent education and access to books was never really high on the agenda. So the miners - who were receiving very low wages as it was - contributed to a communal fund in order that they could build their own Miners’ Institutes. These were basically privately funded libraries, and they gave the men who spent everyday underground doing a dangerous and dirty job the opportunity to access art and literature and also the legal knowledge and power to improve their position. It meant too that their children were provided with a room full of ideas of what they might want to do with their lives other than go underground.

During the late 19th century, the famous Scottish-American multi-millionaire Andrew Carnegie, did his bit for the people of Britain by coughing up loads of money to build hundreds of local libraries which would provide everyone, regardless of their background, with the opportunity to access books. His libraries are still being used today. Have a look at the one near you. If it looks old and it has the name Carnegie written over the door, it’s one of Andrew’s. I used to live around the corner from a lovely old Carnegie library in Canton, Cardiff. Andrew Carnegie said, ‘There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library.’ And if Canton Public Library is anything to go by, he was right. That place is full of all-sorts. Old people. Young people. Smart people. Scruffy people. Every time I ever went in, there were always all-sorts of people making all sorts of uses of it.

Because, it’s not just about borrowing books. It’s about access to the internet for those who haven’t got broadband at home. It’s about a quiet place to sit and type your CV or do your homework if you don’t have a room of your own. It’s about somewhere to read through the job sections of all the daily papers. It’s about providing people with the space they need and the information they need to pursue their dreams. And it’s also a safe, warm place to be.

Personally, I’d like to think some part of my council tax covers this. I think that’s all worth keeping. Because even though I no longer use libraries as often as I once did, a lot of people will always rely on them and I’d hate the thought that one day, that library might just not be there. Once they’re gone; we won’t get them back.

That was all deep. If you need some light relief, please click on this link which my friend Lloyd Robson sent to me the other day. He’s a mighty fine Cardiff poet and he’s also a man who likes muppets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BVSvjOY4g4

I LOVE this clip.

Hello to everyone who has emailed me or sent me a facebook or twitter message. You all make me smile.