So covid finally got me. Slowly coming out of it now, and having arrived at the enhanced snot-production and structural integrity of a wet noodle stage, it's ABBA post time and I find myself idealess. Then, wandering through the most recent issue of The Author, I came across Lucy Mangan's phrase 'the books that make you a writer.'
This is a big topic, but I'm going to treat it like a small one, and cite one book only - and then turn it over to you and head back to bed.
Rosemary Sutcliff The Mark of the Horse Lord illustrated by Charles Keeping, which I read when it came out in 1965:
How about you? Which book(s) made you a writer?
Joan Lennon website.
Joan Lennon Instagram.
2 comments:
You've got me thinking, and I haven't yet got an answer or answers, but thank you for setting me off down that track, Joan! Good health to you.
These are the books which contributed to my writing self and voice in the 1980s and 1990s:
WILLY AND THE SQUARE WORLD - Jeffrey Archer
SNUGGLEPOT AND CUDDLEPIE - and all the work of May Gibbs
THE TURBULENT TERM OF TYKE TILER - Gene Kemp
"Square World" was this speculative fiction story based in a child's world and an essential friend in Randolph. It showed me a Hero's Journey in a way which was accessible. Jeffrey Archer was also one of my first tastes of literary villainy. And we cannot escape nor minimise the Cambridge factor. Nor overstate or exaggerate it.
"Snugglepot and Cuddlepie" made me realise that I wanted to be published and that I could be - and that creative control was important.
"The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler" showed me characters like me and/or that I could relate to [for example Danny and their speech and language and Tyke and Mr Merchant and Miss Honeywell and the whole Tiler family and Price family]; it had a necessary touch of subversion and it helped me find my genre.
#growingupgeopolitical
#themakingofme
#thereisnoroyalroad
#traumatolerancehumandevelopment
#anawfullybigblogadventure
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