Hope's The Thing With Feathers

A couple of weeks ago I was delighted to appear at Deptcon, Ireland's biggest YA convention. It was a thrill for me to meet other writers and particularly to meet so many young adult readers. I have written another piece about it which will be appearing on the Headstuff blog in a few days so I won't repeat myself. There is something that I did want to say which I didn't get time to go into when I was being interviewed, and it's a thought that has been tugging at me since the convention.

The panel I was on at Depton. From right to left: me, Tom Pollock, Bethany Rutter, Deirdre Sullivan

Hope is a big theme for me when I'm writing. I often end up writing dark or serious storylines and I learned from one of my writing mentors, Damian Gorman, that it's important to balance this out with light. I have found over the years that I actually really enjoy writing humour. It doesn't naturally occur to me to include it, but I love it and so I try to incorporate some light hearted scenes in my books. But hope runs a bit deeper than this. It is a thing which inspires me but it doesn't necessarily come from within me. People ask me all the time why I write for young adults and one of the reasons is that today's young adults are by and large really incredible people. I don't need to tell you this, you can just pick up a newspaper and read about Extinction Rebellion or the young people I work with at Shimna Integrated College.

I tend to think of these young people as relentlessly hopeful, but I don't mean that they're being naive. Hope to me is not a feeling- it goes beyond that. It is a kind of rebellion in itself. It says 'Things are really awful and yet, I will continue to continue.' You can do that, even when you don't feel it. You can do it out of anger, it doesn't have to be pretty. That is something I have learned from young people, and it is something I want to write about over and over again. There isn't anything magical about survival or hope; it's not a thing that you need to work up or find at the end of a rainbow. It is just a matter of continuing. Deciding to hope can be the bravest thing, and the most mundane thing, all at the same time.

My son is a musician and when he does covers it makes me listen to the songs in a different way. This summer at a local festival he covered The 1975's 'Always Wanna Die Sometimes'. It contains these lines which I felt like I had suddenly heard for the first time when I heard him singing it:

You win, you lose, you sing the blues 

There's no point in buying concrete shoes, 

I refuse...... 

I can hardly speak 

And when I try, it's nothing but a squeak 

On the video, living room for small 

If you can't survive, just try

I will sign off with a song that my friend Julie Lee sings based on Emily Dickinson's poem. Hope you love it as much as I do.