Happy New Year - Keren David

 It’s Jewish new year today – a time when we reflect on the year that’s gone past and look ahead to the one to come. And what a year it has been!  

A year of lockdown and working from home. A year with no (or very few)  in-person school visits, and closed bookshops. A year of Zooming into classrooms. 

A year starved of human contact, a year of worry and strain and fear.

A year in which the importance and value of the natural world became ever more obvious. A year to reflect on climate change and how we can change and do better for our planet.

A year when our pets became essential mental health workers. 

A year of Zoom and Teams and strained connections. A year of working with colleagues I'd not even met. 

 A year of gratitude for the work of scientists and doctors and nurses. A year of vaccinations. A year of waiting and relief. 

A year  -  alas -  of conspiracy theories and fear-mongering, of panic and ignorance.

A year of inequality and unfairness, but also a year of charity and community.

A year in which writing was difficult. A year in which reading was essential. A year of box sets and bingeing TV. 

A year to reconsider priorities and ask questions about the state of publishing and the power structures within it. A year to listen to minority voices.

A year in which I spoke up about racism that affects me and mine. A year in which I faced my fears, and magnified the voices of those who survived the Shoah (the Holocaust).  A year in which Jewish kids in schools suffered antisemitism from their peers -  and were handed my book to help them through it. A year of sorrow, and pride, and carrying on regardless. 

A year in which human contact -  meeting friends for a coffee – was sweet and precious and full of joy

A year in which I was very grateful not to be home-schooling.

A year to remember. A year to move on from. A year in which we lost so many.

 A year out from normal life. A year in our houses.

A year like no other.  What will next year bring? 

Wishing all of you a sweet, happy and healthy new year.
   
( At Jewish New year we dip apple in honey for a sweet and healthy new year. The traditional food is honey cake, and you can find recipes galore here. Keren David's latest book is What We're Scared Of, published by Scholastic) 

On failing my A levels by Keren David

A few years ago I wrote a blog post about failing my A levels. It got a huge response  -  people thanking me for 'giving them hope'  -  and so I'm going to return to the same subject, as results are imminent. 

My A levels were  -  gulp -  40 years ago this summer. I needed the barest minimum grades  -  two Es -  to read English at University College London. I did not get them. I still  -  40 years later -  cannot believe it. 

The shock and pain of opening that envelope, of seeing the result, is something that I have carried with me throughout my life.  It turned out (the school got a recount) that I had failed one subject by two percent. Just a few more marks and my whole life would have been different. 

The consequences were huge. Instead of going to university, I applied for and got a job as a messenger girl on a newspaper. I retook the A levels, scraping through one in the autumn (not something that is available now). I reapplied to university. UCL turned me down, but Goldsmith's offered me an interview. They started off by suggesting that as I had a good job, I should stay there. But then we talked about books, and poetry, specifically T S Eliot's The Wasteland, and they sent me out of the room and recalled me to offer an unconditional place to read English. 

I was back on track. But I wasn't. I turned the place down. 

Why? Well, partly because my employers offered me a graduate-length apprenticeship as a reporter. I was being offered a shortcut into a fiercely competitive profession. That was why -  I told myself and anyone else who asked -  I decided to give university a miss.

But actually, I've come to realise over the last four decades, there was more to it than a pragmatic decision to train as a journalist. My faith in the education system had been utterly shaken. I no longer trusted exams and essays as a way of proving my worth. 
 
What's more, my younger brother had declared his intention of studying English at university, and he was applying to Cambridge. I did not want to feel second best. I already felt second best -  through no one's fault -  because he has a physical disability, and therefore throughout our lives, his achievements were always celebrated  (quite rightly) for the extra effort he has had to put it (and also because some people, depressingly, assume that physical disability means lack of intellectual capacity.)  At some level -  not especially consciously -  I decided to leave the academic study of English literature to him, and veer off onto an area -  journalism -  that I could make my own.

The good news is that I have had an excellent career in journalism. Bad A levels and no degree were no drawback. By 25 I was working for national newspapers, at 27 I was on the newsdesk of The Independent. Even though I took a career break to have children, I am still working as a journalist today. 

And no A levels were needed to write books either. I have written 12 YA books. Some of them have won prizes. They have been translated into other languages. So, in many ways I have not been held back by failing my A levels and then turning down a place at university.  

But actually, whenever I considered changing track, retraining, I came up against the obstacle of a lack of degree. And what's more, I dragged around the experience of failure as well. I started to put it to rest when I did half an Open University degree when my kids were small (and got 93% in one end of year exam!) but then life intervened, and when I was ready to start again the fees had tripled and I could no longer afford it. 

I encouraged my children to go to university -  even though one of them (we didn't know it, but she had undiagnosed dyspraxia) similarly struggled with A levels. She persevered -  showing incredible tenacity and resilience -  and has a degree in politics and sociology from Leicester University.  She has that degree forever -  no one can take it away from her. If she decides to change careers at 30, 40, 50 or 60 she has that first degree that I lack -  and which limited my choices. 

 A levels are not fit for purpose. They weren't 40 years ago, and they aren't now. They don't measure your worth or your intelligence or your ability to benefit from a university education. The ludicrous grade boundaries, in which tiny percentage points can change the trajectory of your life, are cruel and wrong.  They fail to take into account the whole picture, which can include everything from family background to poor teaching, to the way an exam paper is constructed.  They discriminate against many neuro-diverse people. They are narrow and unfair and reductive and limit opportunity. And the BTECs which offer many people an alternative are being downgraded by the government, just as they slash funding for arts subjects in higher education too. 

If you - or someone you love -  gets disappointing results this summer, please do not despair. A levels should never ever feel like the end of anything. There are so many more important things in life. Just take a deep breath, pick yourself up, and think hard about what you want to do. And why. And how you will achieve it. Believe me, it is possible. 

Football's coming home...by Keren David

 I'm writing this rather later than I had planned, thanks to the England Denmark match going into extra time...and then needing to recover/celebrate afterwards.

Football never used to mean that much to me. But then my son -  aged six -  joined a team, and my life as a football mum began. It lasted a full decade -  he quit just before GCSEs. In that time I learned to appreciate the beautiful game, and particularly the drama of the youth games, where it's perfectly plausible that you might lose 20-0, parents behave incredibly badly, and characters are formed, friendships are forged, and lives changed.

One of my books (Salvage) came about because of a conversation I had with another mother on the touchline. She was a social worker, working with adopted children, Had I thought of writing a book about reunited siblings? Well yes...funnily enough.... 

Another book (The Liar's Handbook) is set around a youth football team, as River come to terms with having a stepfather -  Jason, who steps up as assistant manager of the team -  and discovers a father and half brother he never knew he had. 

If you're looking for great football books for young readers, you can't do better than Mal Peet's Keeper books -  stunning writing.  Then there's Jonny Zucker's Striker Boy, which is inspiring and entertaining.
 For girl players, try Helena Pielichaty's Girls FC series. And Eve Ainsworth has a new series out starting with Kicking Off, which tells the story of England's first women's team, the Dick, Kerr Girls team. 

And of course, Marcus Rashford, part of England's squad has just published his own first book You Are a Champion: How to Be the Best You Can Be -  a bit of inspiration for everyone. 

Let's hope the England's team luck carries on until Sunday's final! 

Where I've gone from here, by Keren David

 Where do we go from here, asked Dawn Finch yesterday, and it was a good question. For those of us who write contemporary fiction -  do we include the pandemic in our thinking? Or do we jump from 2019 straight to some vague time in the future when things are normal again. Will there be a normal again?  As Dawn put it: Write your story. Let the story unfold just as it should. If it is a Pandemic story then there is a good chance that there may be even more of an appetite for them the further down the line we get. If it is not a Pandemic novel, don’t feel as if you have to change your whole plot to incorporate virus references. Just write the thing and if you need to add references later to ground the novel in a certain period, so be it.

Well, I have started writing a new book -  and it is very much not a pandemic story. It's in some ways an anti pandemic story. It's about parties and celebrations and shopping and social events. It's -  I hope -  fun and funny, and full of life -  yes, there are serious aspects, but they aren't about illness or epidemics or isolation. It's a blessed relief to be thinking about a world that can party again. 

And yet.

As I started to write, I realised that the framing of the story would somehow be easier if it were a post pandemic story. If the main character hadn't seen family members for months on end. If she were emerging from a period of lockdown...especially lockdown biscuit-munching. My story is 100% not about the pandemic, but somehow it had woven itself into the story anyway. That tends to be the case, I find with contemporary fiction. It sucks in the world around me, whether I like it or not.

So, the book I am writing is a post pandemic book. I have permission from my editor to touch on lockdown, without dwelling on it too much. So far it has made the writing easier. It has brought my main character Miri into focus, made her more real, given her a context. 

And of course, if it doesn't work...well, 2019 wasn't all that long ago. 

The Writing Hour

My normal writing place is a cafe -  pretty much any cafe. 

I that it's time limited -  you can't sit there all day, in fairness to the owner. So you have to get on and write. I like that people will bring me tea, that there are things and people to look, but no actual distractions that I need to worry about. It's quite possible to avoid the internet too, if you never ask for the password. It's a neutral space. It works for me.

Except, of course, that hasn't been possible for months and months now. 

Instead I have home - now my workplace for the day job too. It's incredibly difficult to focus and feel creative, I find, with my work diary at my side and my husband in the house. Writing needs a certain kind of concentration, that mysterious 'in the zone' and it's very hard to find it at home.

Until now. Because I heard about something called the London Writers' Hour. People were raving about it. Apparently you log onto a Zoom meeting (I KNOW). Hundreds of other writers log on too (I KNOW! But bear with me). There are welcomes from the organisers (who are charming and lovely), and people 'set their intentions' in the chat - that is, they write a message saying what they plan to work on. And then someone reads something inspiring, and we're off. Fifty minutes on a Zoom meeting of silent working time. You can switch off your camera, or keep it on. You can minimise the meeting, or keep it open to scroll through the faces of other people working occasionally (I find this distracting). At the end of 50 minutes there's a brief chat about how people found it. And that's it. Available every day at 8am, 1pm, and 4pm.  (Oh and don't worry about the London bit, people log in from all over the world) 

Your eyes may be rolling. Mine were. But guys, it works. It really does. The act of coming together, the setting of intentions - it creates a focus. Seeing others working away on all sorts of writing -  poetry, PhDs,  fiction and non fiction helps me take my own writing seriously and reminds me that it has an important place in my life. It's fun to spot friends among the hundreds of faces and names. And the inspirational readings are great! Here are some  from last week: 

"Just know that everyone’s writing is terrible. Until it’s not. No one’s stuff is right immediately. You gotta work it. Refine it. Shape it. Spend time with it. It’s a relationship. Between you and what comes from you. Not easy. Gonna be terrible before it’s not. And that’s okay.”

– Ava DuVernay

“If you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.”

– Steven King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

I admit that I find the 50 minutes hard sometimes, and I've never managed a whole week of writers' hours. The day job is overwhelming right now and I have lockdown fatigue. I am looking forward to cafes opening again. But I am grateful  -  very grateful -  to the writers' hour and I will continue logging in. If you want to too, you can sign up at https://writershour.com/   And there are ways to support the scheme by becoming a patron as well.

Happy writing! 

The elephant in the Zoom by Keren David

 I’m at the planning stage of a few new books, and I’m coming up against a problem.  Yes. That problem. The pandemic.

For those of us who write contemporary fiction, it’s a real issue. Do we mention it? Do we pretend it never happened? Do we jump from life in 2019 to life in an imagined 2022, with a big blurry don't-mention-the-virus gap in between?

I really don’t know. And it is bothering me, because it is hard to imagine myself into the head of my characters without thinking how they would have reacted to a year of home-schooling, the possibility of older adults dying, and all the other important things that arise from everything that has happened.

If this was a war – surely we’d be including it in our books?  How can we ignore things like Zoom and home-schooling and masks in the classroom? For those of us who write YA all those cancelled exams change the whole architecture of the teenage years. 

I don’t know the answer to any of this. But as I work on my outlines, as I put my stories together, I’m thinking -  is this then, or now, or sometime in the future?  Are all my books going to be forever 2019?  What  do I do about the elephant in the Zoom? 

Reasons to be cheerful by Keren David

 It's February, dark, cold, miserable, in the pandemic era. We're locked down, the virus is mutating, and spring...and vaccinations feel a long way off.  It's so easy to feel depressed and anxious. So I set myself the challenge of finding 10 things to be cheerful about. Here...in no particular order....

1) Zoom meetings. I know, I know. But they are accessible to everyone -  great for the housebound whose lockdown won't end when everyone else's will. I was on a panel event the other week which attracted 100 people  -  I can tell you that would not have happened in a bookshop, however convivial. And for the timid, school visits are much less frightening if you can't actually see the kids. I know real life will resume one day. But I hope we don't forget the people for whom Zoom has opened new doors.

2) Books. Many people are reading more , because their lives have slowed down. Children are reading more -  and parents are reading with their children. Hopefully they will carry on making time for books when life gets busy again. This has to be a good thing, doesn't it?  My most recent read was 'We Played With Fire' by Catherine Barter -  a stunningly good YA book about two real sisters who talked to ghosts or did they). Next I'm looking forward to Magpie by Eve Ainsworth. 

3) Duolingo. I lived in the Netherlands for eight years and failed to master Dutch. But for the last 60 days I've been learning Dutch with Duolingo -  a free app, which has the admirable aim of offering educational opportunities for all.  The best thing about it is that it's like throwing a fire blanket over anxious thoughts -  a few lessons of  word order, or conjunctions, late at night, and I am ready to sleep. (What's more, Duolingo Dutch throws up brilliant sentences such as  Zij zijn zijn zoons, which means They are his sons. 

4) Property websites. Hours and hours of escapism, planning the next stage of my life, in various parts of the world. Will it be Brighton? Will it be Manchester? Will it be Amsterdam again (armed with my new Dutch vocabulary). Probably none of them, but a girl can dream, and Rightmove and Zoopla help me do that. 

5) Art. I stumbled across this lovely video by Edmund de Waal, and now I am planning to make my own polyfilla pictures...although I might use photographs rather than poetry. Or book titles...Meanwhile various talented friends are making fabulous art in lockdown, which I am enjoying very much  via Instagram. And although I cannot visit museums and galleries, there is a lot of art available to view online. 

6)  Other people's good news. I'm not giving away any secrets. But in the last week or so I've heard of an engagement, and a book deal and an offer to do a PhD among my dear friends and these wonderful events are about a million times more exciting and comforting and full of hope and joy than they would have been anyway.

7) Flowers. I dream of being able to afford one of those schemes where a new bouquet arrives every week. But even just a few blooms are very cheering -  and so are the green shoots of  the spring bulbs poking through the snow in my garden.

8) Food.  Specifically this mushroom soup, which I made for lunch, which is delicious and somehow very comforting as well. 

9)  Television  I don't think I've ever appreciated television so much in my life. In fact, I don't think I've ever watched so much television in my life. But the quality and quantity available is quite outstanding. To mention just a few; It's a Sin was a masterpiece -  devastating, brilliant, important. Similarly I May Destroy You was breath-takingly good. Schitt's Creek  -  so funny and heart-warming that I've watched all six series three times. And Lupin - very entertaining. Plus I caught up with The Bridge and Borgen which I've been meaning to watch for years, and both were amazing. What next, people? 

10) Writing  All my writing in the last few months has been journalism  -  partly for the day job, and partly to promote my new book . And I've written some pieces that meant a lot to me and that I'm proud of.  But this week I hope to tentatively dip my toe into creative writing again. And you know what...I'm looking forward to it. 

My 'issue' book, by Keren David

 I have written an 'issue' book, and it is being published on January 21.

Normally, I'd do anything rather than describe it as such. I'd talk about 'themes' and 'ideas' and insist that story, characters and plot matter far more than anything else, no matter how weighty the topics discussed.  I know, you see, that 'issue' books are often mentioned in a less than respectful tone. I know that many in the world of children's literature prefer books which are escapist and imaginative, in which information about our world is prettily disguised in fairy costumes, universal truths are spoken by talking dogs and there's a hopeful, happy ending in which the shy, bookish child finds a trusty friend. 

Not this time. Not this subject. Not this week.  I have written an issue book, and although I have furnished it with (I hope) engaging characters and an exciting plot, I do not care about those half as much as I care about the issue I am writing about. 

My book is about antisemitism -  my 'issue'. It's about an ancient hatred that murdered my great-grandfather and all his family, including a little girl that my grandmother told me about when I was a child. They'd visited my great-grandfather in Warsaw, in the 1930s, and they were begged to take the girl home with them to Wales. They refused: 'How could we take her?' She had no papers to come to Britain,' my grandmother explained, still haunted decades later by the sure knowledge of that child's fate. 

This is a picture of my great-grandfather, with his first wife, and his two daughters (taken in about 1913, we think).By 1940 the women had all died, and he was an old man. His sons lived in Wales  and he had married again and had a new family. Step-children and step-grandchildren and maybe even step-great-grandchildren.  They all died, murdered for being Jewish. I used to think their stories were far away in the past. Now it feels horribly close.  His name was Abraham Buznic. I can only hope that he died before he reached Auschwitz. 

There are many children's books about the Holocaust (and one famous one that shamefully buries its truth in a 'fable'), but my book is about modern day antisemitism as well. About hate that flows through the open sewer that social media can become. About nasty girls making snotty, hurtful remarks about their classmates. About tropes and fantasy and denial, conspiracy theories and lies. And bricks through windows, assaults in the street and  attempts to murder Jews in Jewish places.   

When I was thinking about the book, I wondered if I could find enough to write about. I sat and made a list of all the ways that antisemitism could affect my characters and their friends. I didn't lack examples. I ended up leaving things out. 
 
For two chapters towards the end of the book, I commit the ultimate crime against fiction of handing over to a real person, telling her absolute truth. Mala Tribich, who is now 90,  shared her story with me, a story of hiding, of surviving again and again against all the odds, of the terrible murders of her mother and little sister, of what it was like to be a child slave labourer, and to arrive in Belsen, where bodies lay in piles all around and the air smelled of rotting flesh. 

I'm possibly not selling my book very well, so let me assure you, there are plenty of laughs as well, because comedy is a time-honoured way that Jews deal with the trauma of generations of persecution. And Mala and I would break off our conversations and talk about haircuts and clothes, families and friends, because everyday life is the best antidote to hatred and murder. It's no accident that the traditional Jewish toast is 'l'chaim' -  'to life'. 

It was not easy, writing this issue book. It was not easy because antisemitism is not an issue to me, it is my greatest fear, the monster in the forest in my worst nightmares, the subject that for most of my life I have tried to avoid thinking about. To write this book-  What We're Scared Of - I asked myself again and again, what are we scared of? And I tried to answer it, as best I could. 

People sometimes try and separate different sorts of antisemitism.  There's 'left' antisemitism, and  'right' antisemitism. There's 'mild' antisemitism and 'serious' antisemitism and then there's anti Zionism, which some people love to assure me is not antisemitism at all. But for me -  and for many Jewish people -  there is really very little to choose from in the toxic chocolate box of hate. The flavours may be different but the poison is the same. 

Among the mob that charged through the Capitol yesterday was a man wearing a shirt that read 'Camp Auschwitz' . Another was a podcaster infamous for Holocaust denial. America's alt right hates Jews alongside Black people. (Of course, you can be Black and Jewish). It's absolutely no surprise to see Jew haters among the fascists that assaulted American democracy this week. 'The Jews will not replace us' the white supremacists chanted at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. Neo-Nazis are on the rise across the world, and the shocking scenes at the Capitol were part of that narrative. But there are other sorts of fascists as well as white supremacists, and frankly, I am scared of all of them. 

Normally, I hold back from the hard sell when it comes to my books. I have proper British reserve, I don't like to push myself forward (Actually, forget British reserve, I have a  cringing, choking fear that you're going to think I'm pushy and greedy and money-grubbing, because that's what internalised racism does to you) But this time I am forcing myself. This time I am giving you a link, (HERE, or, if you are not in the UK HERE ) and I am asking you to please, buy or borrow my book. Read it yourself, give it to young people, give it to old people, tell people about it.  Review it, teach it in your classrooms, hand sell it in your shops. The 'issue' is pressing and important, and urgent and terrifying.  The book may help people understand why antisemitism is frightening and wrong. It's tragic that I need to say that, but I do. 

My hope is that this 'issue' book will help young Jews feel proud and strong. That it will create allies in the fight against hate. That it will help people think about fear and the part it plays in fueling prejudice, anger and anxiety. That it will combat racism of all sorts, against all groups. And then I will feel that I have done something to  -  as Mala puts it - 'not be a bystander'. 

Perhaps next time I will write a book about an enchanted prince and his talking bear. Perhaps I will clothe my imaginings in fantastical garb. But this time, I could not. I wrote an issue book, and all I want from you is that you read it. 

What has the past ever done for us? Anne Rooney

For a long time, I have wanted to write a book about the shameful roots of the UK's success — indeed the whole edifice of western culture. Of course, no publisher wants such a book for children; it undermines the national curriculum view of Britain and it has only a UK market. No one wants (or wanted, until this week) to admit that much of the wealth of Europe rests on slavery. (Though remember that Western Europe was already dominant and rich before slavery; the USA's wealth has slavery as its bedrock. We need to look further back, at other abuses, too, to understand Europe. We have a long history of criminal treatment of others.) No one wants to know that the entire American space mission and much of its technological success is built on whisking Nazi scientists away from Germany at the end of the Second World War and giving them immunity in exchange for their ideas and expertise. No one wants to know about the atrocities committed in Imperial India or colonial Africa, or how Europeans, possibly deliberately, infected indigenous Americans with diseases that would wipe them out, and certainly did nothing to prevent it, because it was a quick and easy way of freeing land from its troublesome owners.

Keren David said here yesterday that she didn't learn about slavery in school. I did, though I grew up in white rural England. And not only slavery. In ways that weren't apparent at the time, I was lucky to go to a large comprehensive (one of the first) with a very mixed intake. (Socially but not ethnically mixed; there were few pupils who were not white.) Even luckier, there was no national curriculum and the headmaster and his wife, who also taught there, were both historians. 

Our history began with anthropology, and how modern humans first emerged in Africa. The first picture in my history exercise book, drawn when I was eleven, was of a naked black man standing behind a rock and throwing a spear at an animal he wanted to eat. We did not do the Stone Age as white people wearing furs and living in caves. (I would now take issue with the idea that men were always the hunters, but no matter.) History didn't start with Romans; it started in Africa, with prehistory. Then we did Mesopotamia before we did Egypt, before we did a tiny bit on the Greeks and then quite a lot on Romans because it's easier to inspire a bunch of 12-year-olds to make a model gladiatorial sword or Colesseum than to get them to write a tragedy or establish a democracy — though we did have a democratic school council.

We did Saxons and Vikings, of course, and the Middle Ages and then all the usual Tudor stuff. I don't remember how those parts were presented as they have been overlaid by what I have done since, though there was a fair bit of plague death and emancipation of serfs. But then we did slavery, beginning with the terrible conditions in slave ships, and we did the Industrial Revolution with a major focus on abuse of the urban poor. We learned about England's part in the shipping of slaves. We did no American history except the plantations. We did abolition. I think we mostly stopped there, because the GCE curriculum started at 1848 so we would get enough of modern Europe. Britain didn't feature heavily in GCE, but it was all revolutions and wars: unification of Italy and Germany, Franco-Prussian war. A little bit about colonialism in Africa, but only as it fed into European conflicts. The First World War, the Treaty of Versailles, and a tiny look ahead at the Weimar Republic and the rise of fascism, but only as consequences of Versailles. A fair amount on Russia, the overthrow of the monarchy, the Bolsheviks, the rise of Communism. No mention of 1918 flu. No mention of the USA, Australia, India, the Far East — except a lesson the Boxer Rebellion and the Opium Wars because that could be called European. This was a curriculum set by an exam board, no longer by an enthusiast who wanted his pupils to understand where they came from. (We did Florence Nightingale and the Crimean, the great London fogs, and the cholera epidemics, but i think that was in biology.)

My father was disappointed that I couldn't give the dates of key battles, that I didn't know all the kings and queens of England in order and that I knew more about the slaughter of North American Indians (bad thing to know) than the glories of Empire dominating Indian Indians (good thing to know). He felt it unpatriotic to highlight the bad things in our history, and this, I fear, is at the root also of how history is usually taught in this country (and probably many others).

If you mix history with patriotism, it seems, you have to miss things out. Your own glories are writ large. The defeat of the Nazis was no doubt a great and essential achievement, but we are not allowed to examine it too closely. We aren't allowed to point to the fire-bombing of Dresden or the starvation of post-war German civilians in Berlin and ask if we can learn something useful about avoiding so many civilian casualties in future (especially when the war was actually over). Why do people now talk of the 70-year peace in Europe, supposedly achieved by crushing the Nazis? Why do we have to have an unmitigated story of success? What peace? Why did Europe stand by and let Srebenica happen?  Where were those peace-proclaimers looking when Greece was ruled by the Generals? During the Portuguese revolution? While Ceaușescu, Tito and Hoxha killed their own nationals in vast numbers?  *While we killed our own citizens in Northern Ireland, ffs?* Our prosperity and our teaching of history are rooted in ignoring the people who aren't like 'us' — 'us' being privately-educated, rich, white men — and drawng a veil over our more shameful acts. Actually, it's even worse than that: sometimes, it's not even recognising the shameful acts for what they were, but glorifying them.

The picture at the top of this post hangs in the Houses of Parliament. It shows Elizabeth I delivering a commission to Raleigh in 1584 to go and steal the lands of the indigenous North Americans and slaughter or subjugate the inhabitants: 'to discover unknown lands, to take possession of them in the Queen's name, and to hold them for 6 years'. The painting is, like, Colston's statue recently toppled in Bristol, a product of empire and imperial pride, this one produced in 1925, 30 years after the statue. This is the sort of thing our MPs see on the walls, reinforcing — at best, not challenging — the idea that this was a Good Thing. It is in the series of works that, according to parliament's website, shows how our nation was built. Not even a hint of 'maybe it wasn't a good idea?' We now venerate the abolitionists (yes, they had their limitations, but still an improvement) and the suffragists, yet dare not, somehow, ask why they were needed and what that says about the events we glorify in 'building our nation'.

I don't claim any credit for knowing about slavery as a child. It was ENTIRELY down to good teaching. At the time, of course, I had no inkling how lucky I was, or that I had an amazing teacher, doing his best in a definitely very right-wing region to chip away at the carapace of complacency. I have recounted my patchwork of historical education only to show that if we can cover some of this, which is more important than the Battle of Trafalgar or some other white-men-kill-each-other history, maybe future children will look at such statues and paintings and ask why the hell we are venerating this shit? I was lucky — or was I privileged? I am very uncomfortable with the word 'privilege' as it's currently used, as it's lazy. I think it was a privilege to be taught by a humane, erudite, compassionate history teacher. If I had gone to a public school, I would have learned the invasion of America as a success story, not a violation that spawned further atrocities. In common parlance that would be considered 'privileged', yet I would consider it deprived — or deceived, lied to, misled, intellectually abused... We need to redefne privilege in a way that doesn't validate the views of the so-called privileged.

I'm not sure whether patriotism and honest history are really at odds. I would not say I am patriotic: I feel primarily European, so I'm not qualified to comment on nationalistic patriotism. But if patriotism is a kind of biggified local interest, it must surely benefit from forensic examination of its past, including — especially — the mistakes. We mustn't sweep them under the carpet. Or into the sea. Personally, I think the statue should be hauled out and left to moulder on the quay with a new plaque owning up to its disgraceful history. Or, as an archaeologist friend suggested yesterday, put in a museum, lying down, with its triumphant desecration intact and with a proper explanation. Out of sight is out of mind, all too soon. In sight, as we see with the painting of Gloriana's commission, is very much in mind.

If you feel that history should be taught more in this vein in the UK, there is a petition here you might like to sign.

Anne Rooney

Latest book (as far as I can tell, but who knows, these days?)
HarperColllins, May 2020:

So you want to write, by Sophia Bennett

Back to school time.

I always love this time of year. The occasional smell of burning leaves, the autumn colours, the trip to WH Smith to fill up your pencil case with new rubbers and gel tip pens you probably won't use ...

Except, now I'm the teacher. I teach at St George's Hospital, where I'm the Royal Literary Fund Fellow. Funded by Winnie the Pooh, my job is to help medical students who haven't written an essay in years suddenly tackle a research proposal of 2,000 words, or a final year dissertation.

I also (because, as we all know, very very few writers these days can afford to write full-time, and also, it turns out, because I really love it) teach writing for children at City University. This is not 'writing' for-children-at-City (that would be weird), but 'writing for children' for adults who choose to attend a short 10-week course at City, because they think they have a children's book or two inside them, and they're not sure how to get it out.

I've done both for a while now, and while a medical dissertation and a gripping chapter book for seven year-olds may not seem to have a lot in common, here are a few tips I've learned that help if you are stuck, whatever kind of writing you are trying to do.

1. Don't try too hard to make your writing look 'difficult'. This is especially true of new students trying to impress their professor with their medical knowledge, by using as many long words, sentences and paragraphs as they can think of.
2. If in doubt, start on chapter two. Or section 2, if it's an essay. I suggest that at first, my medical students leave out that all-important introduction. It's a nightmare! I get them to try writing the bit they know well first, and go from there. They can go back to the introduction later, when they have a structure and know what they're introducing. And if it's a book, students may just find they don't need that missed-out Chapter 1 at all. You started with the action. Somehow you fitted in more of the backstory than you expected to, without going overboard with it. The reader is gripped. You just saved yourself a month of worry. You're welcome. 
   
3. Read your work aloud. 
4. Read your work aloud. 
5. Read your work aloud. 
6. READ YOUR WORK ALOUD! If they do only one thing, it should be this. Best of all, at City I ask them to get someone else to read it for them. (Not my idea - Keren David taught it to me.) Instantly, they hear what jars, what doesn't make sense, what takes too long, what's boring, what's really-quite-good-actually, what works. Medical students get so much from it too. They see where their argument has gone a bit flabby, and where they used words whose meaning they weren't entirely sure of (see point 1) and didn't entirely get away with it. 
7. Don't try to say too much at the beginning. Grip the reader. Let me know what direction I'm heading in. (See point 1 and point 2). I don't want detail yet. I want to trust you as a writer. Tell me what this is about. Let me hear your voice. Give me an intriguing image or two. Get me on your side. Then you can bamboozle me with facts and backstory.
8. Ah, voice. As Joan Lennon recently said on this blog, it's the thing that matters. I liken voice to the late Terry Wogan. (Not to the medical students who, bless them, would have no idea who I'm talking about. I am about 104.) Remember - do you remember? - when his dark honey voice reached you from the radio? He sounded so confident, so pleased about what he was going to tell you, and he was going to tell it to only you. It was as if he'd put his arm around your shoulder and was walking beside you. A great voice sounds incredibly easy, as if the writer simply couldn't do it any other way, and it is SO BLOOMIN' DIFFICULT. I struggle with it every single time. It takes me longer than anything. But without it, I might as well not bother because it's what makes the reader want to know my story. 
   
9. If a sentence can be short, great. 
10. Read. I know we all know this. All the best medical students I see have one thing in common: they read in their spare time, or they certainly used to until recently. Many of them didn't discover reading for pleasure until their teens, but then they read voraciously. They're embarrassed about doing it now ('It's only novels', 'It's only biographies', 'It's only things I like from magazines') because they think they have to be studying medicine 24/7, but simply by reading, they've absorbed by osmosis most of the things I have to tell their friends. And my City students delight me with how much reading they do between classes, on top of their regular jobs and looking after their families. They learn. They grow. You can see it in their writing. 
    
    
    
    
    
    Reading for pleasure is the most important thing. It's why I cling on to every school librarian, teacher and bookseller I meet. I know we all work so hard to keep libraries open and support our indie booksellers, because we know what a fabulous job they do - not only making our work available, but opening up the world of the imagination to a new generation. If you have ever encouraged a child or a young adult to find a book they love, you have my undying appreciation. Thank you! You're educating new writers more than I ever could. 

Sophia Bennett

www.sophiabennett.com

Blog - You read it here

Twitter - @sophiabennett

Facebook - SophiaBennettAuthor

Ghost Story by Keren David

I'm going to tell you a ghost story. 

Back in February, a letter arrived at our house. It was addressed to Emily Florence Oakley, and it came from a cemetery. I knew that's where it came from because the cemetery's name was stamped on the back of the envelope. 

I opened the letter. Our house had been rented out for a long time, ten years previously, and I assumed that Emily was a former tenant. It sounded like she was a young person. Why was a cemetery writing to her, I wondered. If I found out, then maybe I could track her down.

The letter was about a grave, owned by Emily. It soon became clear that Emily wasn't a young person at all. Emily must be dead. Because the grave she owned (Her parent? Her husband? Her child?) was dated 1899. The cemetery was seeking her permission to reuse this grave. It would be opened, and any remains would be reburied deeper in the ground. The stone would be taken down. This was necessary because the cemetery was all full up. It needed more land to bury more people.

This meant, I realised that someone was sitting in a cemetery, sending letters to dead people. This was his or her job.

My friend Valerie is an expert at family research. She soon discovered that Emily was not living in my house in 1901 (the date of the nearest census). She was living around the corner, a widow with two very small children. Valerie looked further. Emily's husband had been called Thomas, he'd died in 1899. Should she order his death certificate?

The death certificate took a few days to come through. I was convinced that our house had only been built in 1900. So, even if it were Thomas's grave, Emily must have come to live in our house later on, I reckoned. She must have kept in touch with the cemetery, given them her address. After all, Valerie had discovered, she'd lived into her nineties, and had never remarried. Her children, Helen and Claud didn't seem to have had any children of their own. Helen had never married.  Their little family, shattered so early (Claud was born after his father's death), had it seemed faded out of history. All except for this letter.

I was wrong -  of course. The house, the terrace, had been built in 1899. Emily and Thomas must have been the first people to ever live in it. And then, in December, Thomas became ill, first with influenza and then with bronchitis, and he died. In our bedroom, presumably.

Suddenly our house wasn't just ours. Suddenly it was a space where things had happened to many people through time, birth and death, tragedy and joy, and our lives felt closer than time would allow. 

Because, like Emily and Thomas, our time in the house had been dogged by bad luck. Terrible bad luck. We moved in, in 1995, aged in our early thirties -  like Emily and Thomas. We had a daughter, they must have moved in with their little girl. Emily became pregnant, with a boy. So did I. But then her husband died, and she had to leave her home and move out, to go and work as a housekeeper in a boarding house.

The house where Emily moved to

And me? My baby boy, Daniel was stillborn, and my husband was made redundant. And I too had to move out of the house, unexpectedly and traumatically, because the only job he could find was in Amsterdam. There, in November 1999, our third child was born. His due date was mid- December  -  one hundred years after the untimely death of Thomas Oakley. And the letter from the cemetery had arrived almost exactly 20 years after we lost Daniel.

Unlike Emily, we came back to our house. And I love it very much. But there's always been something about it that's made me wary, that makes me feel prone to bad luck. I was brought up in a culture that half believes in the evil eye, out to get you if you become boastful or complacent. I don't really believe in ghosts, but once I knew his story I did feel that Thomas needed to be honoured and remembered. That whatever remained of his life and energy was not quiet.

So, I went to the cemetery and met the splendidly named Vincent Cruikshank whose job it is to send letters to the dead. Vincent is young and tall, and wore striped black and grey trousers and a long black coat, which gave him a Dickensian air. He told me about how much he loves his job. He finds the history of the place fascinating. He especially likes it when people come who are researching family or other history.
 He's sent out hundreds of letters to the dead. And many come back, marked politely 'Not known at this address.'

We looked up Emily's name in the records, and we found the receipt for the stone she bought for her 30-year-old husband. Then we walked through the avenues of dead Londoners, to find the grave. The cemetery is open 24 hours a day, and people come to visit at all hours. Some graves are covered with flowers and pictures. It's as vibrant and lively as a cemetery can be.

Thomas's grave was in an overgrown corner, near the busy road. We pushed through brambles and stumbled over roots. And when we found the stone, it was completely covered with ivy. We scraped it back, looking for his name, but the stone was completely blank. A hundred and nineteen years had wiped it clean.

Thomas's grave

Wiped clean by the years

What would happen, I asked if Thomas's bones were found? Could I be there when they were reburied? Vincent explained that this was unlikely. If the ground is wet (and it was) then bones dissolve like flesh or clothes. Nothing of Thomas was left, except the records in the cemetery's big, leather books. 

In our little garden - Thomas and Emily's garden too -  I have planted an oak-leaved hydrangea in their memory -  oak-leaved, because their name was Oakley.  I like to think that Thomas will appreciate being remembered. The plant, despite the heatwave, has flourished. It's now twice the size than in this picture.

You should write about this, people tell me, put it in a book. But I can't. For the past six years I'd been writing a book. It's about doomed lovers, a mystery, a grave. It's about the pull that past has on the present, the ties that link us through years, through generations.
 
Stranger was published the month after I first visited Thomas's grave.

And the names of the main characters, names I'd pulled from my imagination?

They are Emmy and Tom.

Working Life by Keren David

Don't give up the day job is the standard advice given out to new writers, but in my case I didn't actually have a day job to give up  so I just - sorry...must just checkout what's happening in Russia v Croatia....

 I tried very hard to make a living career out of a combination of writing, teaching and school visits -  GOAL! - and one year managed to earn £27,000 which felt like quite a lot, but (as my husband pointed out) wasn't really...

And then just over two years ago, I was offered a job. A day job. A four days a week job. And even though I loved every bit of my writing life (apart from the money aspect) I was very happy to accept. 

The job was an interesting one, doing something I love (journalism) and I reckoned I'd be able to carry on writing books and doing some promotional....Sorry, but it's just so hot....Gareth Southgate is a hero, isn't he? Nice. Resilient. A  proper role model....

So how's it gone? Well, since I took the job I have had  two books out. Stranger, which came out in April was mostly written when I took the job, but then went though a tortuous editing process. True Sisters is out in August, it's a short book for Barrington Stoke, and I mostly wrote it in bursts of energy, closeted away in a friendly cafe and... - Oh my God! Penalties! 

Before that I wrote The Liar's Handbook, which came out in 2017. Another short book -  containing quite a bit about football actually - and HOW DID HE MISS? written during our holiday in Portugal summer of 2016.I wrote 2,000 words average a day. Yes, I know. Yes, it still felt like a holiday. Just about. 

I've also been working on the musical -  we did a workshop production in Preston earlier this year (or was it last year? Possibly. Probably. I have no idea) And I've managed to carry on doing some school visits and events. I'm going to be at YALC and Edinburgh. CROATIA WIN! We're playing Croatia! Wow! Hang on, I must message my son who's in Split....At least I think he's in Split....

At work, I write and edit, go to meetings, make decisions, talk to people, answer the phone and deal with constant interruptions. I'm doing one thing and then someone comes to talk to me, and then the phone rings...It's hard to keep one thought - yes, I'm coming! I know! We should have left ten minutes ago....

So, two years into juggling a day job and book writing, I'd say it's just about working. All the balls are in the air. I love all of it, even the bits I moan about. I am very lucky indeed to have this job and still maintain a creative life.

It's just that my concentration isn't - All right! I'm coming! Posting the blog right now! 

About 'Stories From The Edge' by Savita Kalhan

The first books I read as a child were collections and treasuries of fairy stories, folk tales, myths and legends from across the world. They were short stories, perfectly formed, each very different and enthralling, and I loved them. Somewhere along the line, I began reading chapter books, and then quickly moved onto novels. I think the same is true for lots of kids, but not all. 

There are lots of teenagers who only read what they have to read for English at school. They often don't have the time or the inclination to read novels for pleasure. I am aware of a few schools where kids are not allowed to bring in their own books to read in school. The school prescribes what they can read for pleasure - in one particular school books are pre-loaded onto kindles and those are the only books the kids are allowed to read. They don't have a choice. Part of the pleasure in reading is surely in being able to have some say over what you read for pleasure - even for kids!

I read lots of short stories - and I enjoy writing them too. Short stories are similar to novels in some ways, but they have their own identity. Edgar Allan Poe, in his essay "The Philosophy of Composition," said that a short story should be read in one sitting, anywhere from a half hour to two hours. Short stories developed from the traditional art of oral story-telling from fables and anecdotes, which are present in every culture, so by definition they have to be short. Modern short stories often focus on a pivotal moment or emotion or mood, whereas in the past they were more rooted in parables and ethics with the stories having a beginning, middle and end, but both usually focus on one main character with one central theme. There is also more experimentation in the prose and style of a short story, which may not work in a novel.

I have always read short stories, and I have wondered why there were so few anthologies for teenagers. Well, I have been involved in a project that brings a new anthology into schools.

Apart from being a member of the amazing Scattered Authors Society, I also belong to a small collective of teen writers. There are eight of us: me, Sara Grant, Dave Cousins, Miriam Halahmy, Keren David, Katie Dale, Paula Rawsthorne and Bryony Pearce, and we all write edgy fiction for teens and young adults. We call ourselves The Edge. We blog together, and often do school and library events together, and last year we decided to write an anthology together.

It has been an interesting process. Our only remits were that the stories should be up to five thousand words and be suitable for teens and young adults. Because we all write edgy fiction, we knew the stories would all have an edge to them - and they do. They range from stories about doping in sport, online grooming, racism, gender, terrorism, grief and loss, love and life, to name some of the themes in the stories.

What we're hoping for is that the stories inspire reading and discussion and debate amongst teens and young adults. To aid teachers and school librarians, we've also written discussion guides with suggested topics for discussion and creative writing exercises.

My short story for the anthology is called Aladdin's Lamp. It's a story about a sixteen year old Indian girl called Priti who doesn't want her best friend to leave India and doesn't want to be married and settled. Her parents have other ideas and so a suitor comes to the house. Priti wishes she had an Aladdin's lamp so that she could wish the suitors to go away, but in the story she finds out that you have to be careful what you wish for...

I will tell you no more so I don't spoil the story for you!

The stories in the anthology are accessible, diverse and thought-provoking, and that's the wonderful thing about an anthology - you can dip into it and find something different each time. I hope our teen readers will dip into the anthology and find something they like, a story, an author, or just some pleasure from reading something different.

“The short story is a very powerful weapon in the hands of a librarian or teacher . . . I guarantee that these stories will leave readers gasping for more. But most importantly they will get teen readers thinking and talking.” — Joy Court, Chair: CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Medals; Reviews Editor: The School Librarian 

Stories from The Edge is out on Kindle, Paperback, and here for Educational and Library sales.

 

Savita's website, on Facebook, and Twitter

Feel the Fear, continued. By Keren David

A couple of days ago Cecilia Busby wrote an excellent post on diversity in children's literature.  I hope she will not mind if I pick up her post and write about the fear involved in writing about a minority group even when you happen to belong to it.

In my up-coming book, This is Not a Love Story, there is a diverse cast. There is an African-American  girl, and a bisexual boy.  The mixing of cultures, the judging and the misunderstanding and the lack of comprehension that can arise is one of the themes of the book.

I was not especially worried about imagining my way into the heads of these characters. For me, they were individuals, with their own histories, as easy to imagine as any other person.  I hope that I have got them right. I do not have great worries about having tried to imagine what it is like to be them.  I want all my books to reflect the diverse world in which I live.

I've posted before about why I decided to write about Jewish teenagers in this book. I was not expecting to find it so difficult. Suddenly I had a load of new fears and worries to deal with, that I'd never had to grapple with before.

Here are some of the questions that I thought about.

 -  How to get the voices right - without my characters explaining words and concepts to themselves that they'd know, but their readers may not.
 -  How to show a range of experiences which all fit into the general heading 'Jewish' -  to go against the impression given in school RE lessons that  Jews 'believe' certain things, and are defined by those beliefs.
 - How to show frustration with tradition, anger within a family, the flaws of a community  without falling into stereotypes, self-deprecation, disrespect and, at the worst, anti-semitism.
 -  How to talk about the Holocaust -  difficult enough in real life, let alone a book. 
 -  How to portray the London Jewish community and some of the kids within it, without generalising too much.
 -  Was there a danger of being labelled as a Jewish writer?
 - Were my thoughts and experiences in any way representative? Did that matter? 
 -  Should I write about Israel, even though it was not very relevant to my characters? Should I write about antisemitism? (The bulk of the book was written before the summer of 2014, otherwise my answers to these questions might have been different)
 - How to do all of this without upsetting a) my mother b) my kids c) the wider Jewish community.

It took forever to find the voices of my narrators, partly because of these questions. In despair, I sent some early chapters to my brother (he has a PhD in English Literature from Oxford University, and occasionally can be helpful) 'Lose the Jewish stuff,' he said.  I persevered, and showed an early draft to my mother. 'Well,' she said, 'You're obviously very disturbed.'  (She relented once she read the final version)  Later drafts were showed to some Jewish friends. They demanded: 'Why are you using words like 'frummer'? No one will understand!'  I carried on, regardless.

There is a lot of talk about anti-semitism around at the moment. I'm curious to see if there's any hostility to my book as a result. Jewish people, unlike many other minority groups, can often hide their difference. Our fear is often about being visible. And so, like Cecilia, I am feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

Oh, and my kids haven't read it yet.


This is Not a Love Story is published by Atom on May 7.