They also serve who only sit and write - Anne Rooney

I have been away this week (remember 'away'? Not in your own home). I was at a writers' conference (if any work people are looking) or retreat if we acknowledge the relatively small amount of official conferring that happened. It was wonderful to see writerly friends I've not seen for years, and valuable to mull how the pandemic has affected us and how we have responded. I chaired a session on this, and aside from the varied personal impacts, one thing emerged which perhaps needs saying loudly and clearly. It's something of an addendum to Dawn Finch's post on the value of the creative industries two days ago. 

The pandemic, like a war, has been a curious split of terror/anguish on one side and crushing boredom on the other. The undoubted heroes of the pandemic are the frontline workers who have dealt with the first part, endangering themselves to help others. But for the greater mass of people who do not have covid, or have had it but without needing hospitalisation, part of the problem has been coping — including coping with feeling that we are not contributing much. Don't underestimate the value of staying in and not catching covid; that's a very valuable contribution. Coping is hard, and has included mental heatlh struggles for very many of us. How would we have got through the interminable lockdowns without Netflix, box sets, TV, music, books, magazines and newspapers (online or off), YouTube, blogs... add your creative fix of choice. The creative industries gave you all those. They brought meaning, comfort, and distraction in that dragging, drawn-out struggle. They are not only worth £13 million an hour to the UK economy; they also saved our sanity and perhaps some lives in the drear desert of lockdown. They gave us imaginative and emotional connections, and tools to survive. And they gave us something to talk about on Zoom or by phone to our separated loved ones — something that went beyond the daily figures and fears. To fellow writers who worried that 'all' they could do was write — we spun a vital lifeline for some readers, and are still making the lifelines that can be thrown to people in the coming post-pandemic turmoil. And to anyone who doubts the value of creative work — next pandemic, you can try doing it without your books, your TV or your tablet/laptop, without your music collection or your radio, and see how that goes.

Anne Rooney

Out now: Salariya 2020

 

Framed by an Island - Joan Lennon

February 2020: I was at the Fair Isle Studio for a month-long writing retreat.  It was wonderful, wild, overwhelming, challenging and fabulous.  

I read and wrote and wrestled with a recalcitrant stove.  I laid down the bones of a book-length series of narrative poems, telling the stories of three different women living in three different times in the past and the future, and their experiences of the Isle. It was all still taking shape at the end of the month.  Then I flew home from Fair Isle, on a beautiful clear day, and straight into the arms of the pandemic.  Like many, for a long time after, I couldn’t write or read.  (Of course I am hugely privileged and of course so many others had and are having a much much worse time of it.  I know this full well - I'm not a monster.  But I'm interested in myself.  And if you take writing and reading out of the equation, it's not completely clear what myself is.  More than hugs or pubs or going to the cinema, I wanted those things back.)  

My memories of February became first blurry, then implausible, then began to disappear. 

Other non-pandemic stuff got in the way too, but then, slowly, slowly, I started writing again, non-fiction first, and then poetry, and then back to fiction.  The Fair Isle poems finally came to life, and I started working with Anne Sinclair who is translating them into the Fair Isle dialect.  And then ...

Out of the blue, I got an email to say there had been a cancellation at the Fair Isle Studio for 2 weeks in June and would I be interested?

Would I!

And so I'm back in the little blue house, getting strong in the northern summer light.  And the stronger I get, the more access I have to writing and reading and being me.  It's been a pandemic framed by an island.  And now, as the saying goes - onwards!

Fair Isle is insanely photogenic in all weathers.  While I am here, I'll be busily posting photos on Instagram and Facebook.  

Joan Lennon Instagram

Joan Lennon Facebook

How about a back-up school? - Anne Rooney

We've all had enough of online school and there can be few people who really love the patchwork of home learning of recent months. No doubt some children have had good materials and experiences, but some have had bad. While the circumstances of individual children vary hugely, the quality of material available should have been even and high, but it wasn't. I've corrected spellings in sheets about spelling before passing them to the child. The child has noticed the presenter getting the maths wrong in a maths video. Some of the images in the questions are too small to see (and we're looking on a laptop, not a phone). And there are those videos that feature a woman holding a hand to her ear to encourage viewing pupils to give a spoken response, which she then pretends to have heard. They are both creepy and misleading. These six-year-olds have spent half an hour on Teams video where their teacher can hear them and now you expect them to know that you can't on your video? Think this through!

But the point isn't the mistakes. This stuff was cobbled together at short notice and multiple times around the country. Why didn't we have a back-up plan for education? It's not as though we didn't know a pandemic was likely in the next few years. Never mind. How about we have a back-up plan now? If there were a a properly funded and expertly produced bank of learning materials that could be accessed by anyone who needed it, that would reduce the burden on teachers in the future and increase the learning of children next time around. Even in non-pandemic times, it would allow children who are off school with illnees or mental health problems to continue their studies if/when they are well enough, and make it easier to fit back into the classroom later. It would help parents who choose to home school. And when there is a disaster — whether a local one like a school flooding or burning down or a national one like a pandemic — everything would be in place for learning to continue. 

I know not every child has the technology to access a resource like this, but schools have been lending equipment and could do that more easily in future if it were built in and planned. People and businesses have donated unused equipment; schools can keep a bank of this and it will be easier in normal times to amass and distribute it more evenly. (Of course, it would be way better if it were properly funded rather than relying on donations, but let's be realistic...)

Good online learning materials are not just a normal classroom lesson videoed on a phone and uploaded. I used to develop online learning materials in the 90s and even with the far more restricted technologies we had then, there were different approaches to how material is delivered to make it engaging. We have many experts who could be gainfully employed making a national bank of materials that cover every school day of every school year. Of course, individual schools teach different things on different days, but while we have a prestrictive, perhaps restrictive, National Curriculum, it is clear what all schools are aiming to achieve in any given term. This wouldn't be something to use if you had two days off with a cold, perhaps, but if you knew you had six weeks at home with a broken leg, of if your school burned to the ground — or if the entire country went into lockdown for several months — it would be truly valuable. We have lots of services we fund in case they are needed. Your house probably won't burn down, but you wouldn't defund the fire service, would you? 

I'd also say, make it universally available. If UK educational materials could be accessed by children in remote areas of other countries, in war zones, on boats — anywhere — it would cost us no more but be a generous bit of overseas aid. Not pushed on anyone — not surreptitious colonialism — just available.

It goes without saying that this must be not-for-profit. Pay a good fee for the materials and for their updating and maintenance. Don't try to make money by sub-licensing or making spin-offs. Just provide something we can fall back on when we need to. What do you think?

Anne Rooney

Latest book, Salariya, 2020 (ebook)/2021 (print)

Zooming into the (near) Future! A few tips for online school visits by Saviour Pirotta

Like many authors up and down the country, I rely on school visits and festivals for a good chunk of my income. Lockdown started almost at the end of my event bonanza surrounding National Book Week back in March. My last appearance was at the fabulous Pink Pig Farm in Brig. I spent a very happy and productive weekend with fellow authors and Mel and Nick, the wonderful owners of the Rabbit Hole bookshop.  We told stories, read from our work, signed books and tucked more than we should have into Pink Pig's state-ot-the-art cooked breakfasts.

    Fast forward a week and my inbox was flooded with emails cancelling bookings in the summer term. Luckily, I was about to sign a new four-book deal with independent publishers Maverick so I knew I could keep my head above water for an extended period of time. Schools were soon asking if I would do online sessions, though, and the agencies I work through started looking into the possibility of supplying them. I was hesitant at first. I hate the sound of my voice and don't really like how I look on screen or in photographs. In actual visits, I forget about these trivialities like this once I get into the pace of things but, on zoom or whatever, there is no way of escaping the vision of my gurning face. 

    As the summer wore on and it looked like actual school visits would not be happening till 2021, I forced myself to 'snap out of it' as Cher said in Moonlight. I've actually done quite a few visits, culminating in six sessions with a school in Shanghai last week and two events of the East Riding Festival of Words. I can't claim to be an expert on the subject, but here's a few tips I picked up which might prove useful to other members of the SAS.

1.   THERE'S MORE THAN ONE PLATFORM

In the media you read and hear mostly about zoom but there are alternatives. The education authorities in the East Riding of Yorkshire, for example, prefer to use Microsoft Teams. It's something to do with privacy issues. I've also done events on Google Hangout Meets and Skype. They're all more or less the same but do check with the schools what platform they are using so you'll have plenty of time install on your computer and get familiar with it.

2. TO RECORD OR NOT TO RECORD.

Some schools insist that you do not record the session and some ask if they can. I always refuse to let the session be recorded, partly because of privacy issues but mostly because I want the repeat business. I treat my sessions as actual in the flesh visits, except that I'm looking at the kids through the window of my mac. Recording the sessions destroys that unique 'in the moment' experience.

3. WILL YOU HOST?

Most of the schools organise and schedule the event themselves but a few asked that I set it up myself. If they go for the second options, it is very easy to set up. You just schedule a meeting and the platform gives you an event id which you send to the school. Come the hour and the moment, the school logs in and you just click on the accept the invite button. Easy peasy.

4 IS THAT THE TIME?

If you are doing an international event, make sure you check what time you need to log in. My Shanghai events were schedulted for 12.15 their time. Which meant I had to get up at the crack of dawn to be ready for 6.15am our time. Checking everything was set up at 5.30am I realised I might disturb my elderly neighbour whose bedroom shares a party wall with my office. I hastily decamped to the kitchen where I could howl, crack jokes and generally create a rumpus without waking up the neighbours.  

5 CHECK THE BACKGROUND

My hasty retreat to the kitchen necessitated a quick tidy up. Make sure you check the background before going live. This is the perfect opportunity to display artefacts relevant to your subject and show off your new books. I do this using the photobooth app on my laptop but obviously, you can use any camera that will show you what the audience is going to see.

6 IT TAKES TIME...

...as in, this is new territory for most of us so it will take a while to find out what works for you. I love doing writing workshops in actual visits but I couldn't get them to work online.  Ditto with storytelling. I need to be in the same room with the audience for the latter to work as I pick up on the kids's vibes to help steer my delivery. This is nigh on impossible if the kids are just a fuzzy image on a screen. I now read a couple of chapters from the book I'm promoting, talk about the background to the story and how and why I wrote it, and finish off with time for a Q&A.

7 SEEING IS BELIEVING

Larger festivals often host a prep session before the event. Most of the authors participating join in with these and they're a good way to find out how others approach their events. One or two organisers said the audience would not be visible during the entire session and that any questions would be put forward through the chat function on the app. I found not seeing the audience hard going but answering questions that appear in the chat box quite easy. Make sure that you discuss your preferences with the event organiser so that you can relax and concentrate on giving your best performance.

I hope I haven't been teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, as the saying goes. Good luck with your online sessions. Although I just can't wait to start visiting schools again, I plan to keep online sessions to reach places I can't access otherwise. It's a brave new world out there. Let's meet it with confidence.

Saviour's latest Early Reader, Samira's Wish, is out now with WackyBee books. His third instalment in the Wolfsong Series, The Mysterious Island will be published on the 21st January 2021.  Follow Saviour on twitter @spirotta and on Instagram @saviour2858.

    

Crumbling pyramids - Anne Rooney

Rubble of the crumbled pyramid of Userkaf, founder of the Fifth Dynasty, Egypt

 

I was going to write about eyes in picture book illustration today, but instead I'll respond to Keren's post yesterday about her struggles working from home. We are all experiencing the pandemic in different circumstances, but what seems consistent among writers is the inability to write. Concentration is, as Keren, says gone. 

Keren has described the difficulty of finding time and space to write when there are too many demands on her time and too many people expecting things of her. For me, there have been too few demands on my time and too few people expecting things of me. It's hard to be locked in with four people you can't escape, however much you love them, for months. It's also hard to be locked in alone for months. I would have expected to be good at lockdown: I already technically lived alone (as of October last year) and I already worked from home — though in fact most days I chose to work in Cambridge University Library, and had my grand-daughter, MB, here about three nights a week as her parents both work shifts. With the library closed and MB locked down 2 km away, I had plenty of time and space. Deserts of time and space. A chance, it seemed, to catch up and then catch my breath, and then work on projects I really wanted to work on. 

But no. Projects were cancelled or suspended, so there was little work that needed doing. And it turns out those demands on time and attention — other people, and even chores like shopping for food — provide the structure in which creativity and concentration flourish. Even if normal life is a struggle, it's a known struggle, with its own patterns of difficulty and paths to resolution. Novelty is exhausting. It didn't help that I was already in state of reduced concentration as my mother died at the end of last year and MB and family had only just moved out. I still hadn't adjusted to daily solitude when it became absolute. I'm not sure it would have made much difference if the pandemic had come a year later, though: it's the disruption of the systems we have come to operate within that is the problem. We can concentrate on writing when we don''t have to re-invent the mechanisms of everyday life on an ongoing basis. 

Concentration, I think, has been destroyed by doubt and by the emotional energy it now takes to get through the day. There is the constant, overwhelming worry — about the virus, about relatives and friends who might be suffering mentally or physically, about crashing businesses and future prospects, about the world  and all its other problems — then there is the effort taken to manage things that we had systems for. We have to concentrate on getting food, on parcelling out space in the house or negotiating its emptiness, on managing problems that would normally be minor, such as getting a washing machine fixed or replaced, or seeing the doctor about a worrying symptom. 

I am lucky that I have had some commissioned work over the last months, though far less than usual. I thought I would be able to start new things on spec but I have neither the focus nor the confidence to do it. I have frittered away lockdown doing the garden and reading too much stuff on news sites and Facebook. No grand opus. Of the books I'd hope to write, one needs physical access to a library, so that's out. One needs selling to a publisher before I go further with it, but publishers are not very active. The one I could be working up into a decent outline, I'm not happy with. There is no spark to it, no vitality because there is no spark or vitality in me at the moment. It would be a dead book, a pandemic-scarred book. I'd rather leave it untouched and unsullied until it can be written better.

All the writers I have spoken to have found focus has gone and it makes writing impossible, or almost so. We just have to accept that these are strange times and that the way daily life demands our concentration means there is none left for creativity. It's not even the same as the personal difficulties and trauma that can spark creativity, because our focus is not spent on a big challenge, such as dealing with heartbreak or surviving cancer; for most of us, it is eroded by concentrating on getting food into the house, cleaning everything that comes in, marshalling masks and gloves and sanitiser for trips to the shop,  managing dwindling money supplies or caring for distant but shielding relatives. These gnaw away at our energy and concentration even if we seem to have too little to do rather than too much. Renegotiating the fabric of life leaves no space or energy for creativity.

We could look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs and see where it all goes wrong. This, if you're not familiar with it, is a (partially discredited) psychological model of motivation devised by Abraham Maslow in 1943. He proposed that people need to have basic needs met before they can achieve 'self-actualization'. 

 

Self-actualization is essentially becoming the person you want to become, focusing on the things that are important to you. That can be creative endeavour, such as writing or music or painting, or sporting achievement or being a great parent or a successful CEO, or a committed activist. We each define it for ourselves.  Maslow argued that we can't do this if certain needs (eg for food and safety) are not met. Most people in the world are never in a position to achieve self-actualization. He divided the foundational needs into 'basic' (the bottom two layers) and 'psychological'. It's a bit dodgy, as many great artists and activists have achieved much while living in danger of starvation or persecution, but for many of us, it's fairly true. Another valid criticism is that Maslow derived his pyramid of needs working from the historical biographies of people he considered self-actualized and, unsurprisingly for a male Jewish American in 1943, they were mostly white and male. But criticisms aside, if we look at it now, it seems that for many of us the pyramid has collapsed.

Speaking personally, I'd say only the bottom layer is anywhere near intact, and for a lot of people even that isn't secure any more. For all of us it is shaky. The very air is a virus-laden threat; food can be hard to come by, especially if you can't get out and can't get a delivery slot; our sleep may be shot to bits; if you can't pay your rent, shelter is not secure. Reproduction is probably not a good option right now, either. 

The next layer, safety needs, has crumbled entirely for the whole population — indeed, for the population of the entire world. Love and belonging are hard to maintain if you are completely separated from some people and/or forced into too much proximity with others, not allowed the space to be different or heal disputes. Esteem slides away because we aren't achieving and because it rests heavily on reflection of other's approval which we aren't getting because we aren't interacting with others, and everyone else is also too busy struggling with their own collapsed pyramid. Of course, we are supporting each other remotely as well as we can. But not being able to meet up with a friend or neighbour to give or receive a hug, a cup of coffee, a reassuring pep-talk, leaves only the thinnest strand of support here.

Self-actualization is lost somewhere in the rubble of the other layers — unless you happen to be an ICU worker, and then you probably don't have time to read this blog. This is why we can't concentrate, why we aren't writing, so we should stop beating ourselves up about it.

Perhaps we need to build a new pyramid, as this pandemic is not going away any time soon, whatever jollying-along politicians might say. Building a pyramid, as any Ancient Egyptian could tell you, is long and arduous process.

Source unknown, sorry; if it's your copyright get in touch and I'll add a credit or remove it

 

Anne Rooney

Occasional blog: The Shipwrecked Rhino

Currently writing: You Wouldn't Want to be in a Pandemic! (Salariya, 2020)

Recalibrate - Heather Dyer

It’s just after dawn and I’m sitting in my easy chair in front of the patio doors. My dog is on my lap, and I’m cradling a cup of coffee. Outside, the sparrows are going about their business.  At this time of day, living out here, it's easy to believe that nothing has changed.

But of course, everything has changed. Offices are empty. Hospitals are chaotic. Flights have been grounded, and the pandas in Hong Kong are mating. And the projects I was so invested in two weeks ago feel irrelevant. But I still feel an urgency to write, to produce, to make something out of all of this….

Then, scrolling through my emails, I discover an article called, ‘Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure’.

Professor Aisha Ahmad has lived through several crises, and her reflections are wise, calm and kind. First, she says, establish your physical security and get your team in place. Then, she says, we must, ‘abandon the performative and embrace the authentic.’ She says we must focus on real internal change.

Yes! This is the creative process. We mustn’t try to keep treading along the previous tracks. We must stop and recognize new directions, new patterns. The world has shifted, so our thinking needs to shift.

On the other side of this shift, says Ahmad, ‘your wonderful, creative, resilient brain will be waiting for you. […] New ideas will emerge that would not have come to mind had you stayed in denial. Continue to embrace your mental shift. Have faith in the process. Support your team.’

Aisha Ahmad has written another article on Productivity and Happiness Under Sustained Disaster Conditions, which follows on from the first.

Heather also blogs at https://thecreativestateofmind.wordpress.com/blog/  

Heather Dyer is a consultant in writing for children. She provides writing and publishing advice through The Literary Consultancy, The Writers' Advice Centre for Children's Books, and privately. If you’re ready for feedback on your work-in-progress contact Heather at heatherdyerbooks@gmail.com. 

Heather’s children’s novel The Girl with the Broken Wing was one of Richard and Judy’s book club picks, and The Boy in the Biscuit Tin was nominated for a Galaxy Best British Children’s Book award. Heather also teaches creative writing for the University of the Creative Arts, and facilitates workshops in creative thinking techniques for creatives and academics.

Dystopia in a dystopian world by Holly Race

On a recent Zoom meeting with someone who works in television drama, I found myself discussing the mood of the nation, and realised that the book I am writing doesn't fit in at all.

There was a definite sense that the dark, gritty crime shows and thrillers that have been keeping us hooked for years were not necessarily what people wanted to see right now; that people would be looking for more uplifting stories. And who can blame them? In a time when so many are frightened and lonely, sometimes ill or angry, we just want to cuddle up with the hot water bottles of literature and TV and film. I can relate - I signed up to Disney+ with the intention of watching The Mandelorian and have instead imbibed the endlessly optimistic Diary of a Future President. I've resorted to comfort reading the stories of my childhood - Carbonel, Charlotte's Web and The Snow Spider.

'But where does that leave me and my semi-dystopian novel featuring an angry heroine?!' I wailed to the TV person.

And then I thought about that fact that some of the most powerful moments in my favourite books are those glimmers of light in the darkest moments. The salute of District 12 in response to Katniss volunteering as tribute; Isabelle's silent, relieved acceptance - her hand placed over another's - in Jennifer Donnelly's Stepsister; the warming hug of a little girl in Philip Pullman's exquisite Clockwork.

As Anne wrote below in 'Hope in a Scary World', there are moments of light in this crisis - and humans have the incredible ability to generate such moments. It's a yin and yang. We create buoys for ourselves proportionate to the strength of the current trying to drag us under. Feeling powerless and lonely? Go into the street and clap. Worried about running out of food? Start growing fruits and herbs on the windowsill.

Closer to home, one friend sent me a handwritten letter, and in return I sent him a DVD of a film we'd meant to watch together at my home. Instead we watched it apart but at the same time, connected by Whatsapp and Frances O'Connor's brilliant interpretation of the much-maligned Fanny in Mansfield Park. Neighbouring friends have set up a socially distanced cake run, to spread a little sugary love (while our stocks of flour last).

Humans are brilliant, aren't they?

So I went to work. My first book is being published in June, and I'm deep in the middle of drafting the second in the trilogy now. It's a darker book anyway - I don't think it will be a huge spoiler to say that the villain's forces are growing stronger. It's all too easy for me, in my own moments of anxiety and depression, to lean in to my heroine's anger and fear.

But with all of those fresh memories of our ability to find light in the darkest of times, I have been trying to allow my characters to do the same. Those flashes of light may only be momentary, but they're enough to illuminate the path forward - whether that's a shared moment of connection with a love interest or friend, saving a frenemy from certain death in a battle, or the simple act of sharing their last cup of self-raising.

Holly Race worked for many years as a script editor in film and television, before becoming a writer.

Her debut novel, Midnight's Twins, is published by Hot Key Books on 11th June 2020. She also selectively undertakes freelance script editing and story consultant work.

www.hollyrace.com

www.patreon.com/hollyracewriting

Zoom Chat for Writers on Saturday April 25th - Heather Dyer

If you're anything like me, in a few short weeks your writing and publishing plans have shifted focus.

What about you? Do the things you're working on two weeks ago no longer feel relevant? Have you suddenly started something new? Or is it difficult to concentrate at all? 

If you write for children, I'd like to invite you to a short Zoom chat at noon on Saturday 25th April. The (loose) focus of the chat will be: Taking Stock: writing in uncertain times. 

CONFESSION: I have an ulterior motive - as well as connecting with other writers, this is an opportunity for me to practice using Zoom. I'm doing my first Zoom writing workshop next month!

But this will be an informal, private chat - just an opportunity for a group of writers to share our thoughts and take stock. It's also an opportunity to meet new people, see how Zoom can be used to chat and teach online, and try a couple of very short divergent thinking exercises designed to generate new insights on your current work-in-progress (no sharing required). 

So, if you have time to join me, drop me a line by email. I'll then send you a link to download Zoom (it only takes a minute) and give you the password to join the meeting. Bring a cuppa, pen and paper, and an open mind. I'll accept the first eight people who contact me, and if more are interested I'll arrange a second meeting. I look forward to hearing from you - and thanks for helping me out! 

Heather (heatherdyerbooks@gmail.com)

Heather Dyer is a consultant in writing for children. She provides writing and publishing advice through The Literary Consultancy, The Writers' Advice Centre for Children's Books, and privately. If you’re ready for feedback on your work-in-progress contact Heather at heatherdyerbooks@gmail.com. 

Heather’s children’s novel The Girl with the Broken Wing was one of Richard and Judy’s book club picks, and The Boy in the Biscuit Tin was nominated for a Galaxy Best British Children’s Book award. Heather also teaches creative writing for the University of the Creative Arts, and facilitates workshops in creative thinking techniques for creatives and academics.

One plague or another... Anne Rooney

As Dawn said a few days ago, we all went into this lockdown with fine plans of writing new things. In my case, revamping an outline for a non-fiction book I'm keen to sell and doing some work on adult book that I'm not yet trying to sell as I don't have a clear vision of its shape. And improving my very poor German. Plus working on the few commissioned books that have not been put on hold. But aside from meeting deadlines, that's not what has happened. A good deal of gardening has happened. And a sudden desire to revive a novel I wrote some time ago and my then-agent couldn't sell because 'we don't want historical right now.' Historical in this case is the plague in Venice in 1576.

I found myself drawn back to the book with some enthusiasm for the first time in years. I know I can't be bothered with trawling it around publishers or agents again (I've parted company with my last agent) so it will rot in a drawer. I thought I might self-publish it as something to do. But then I got into an argument with a whole bunch of people on a publisher's website and now I'm not sure. They were denouncing the publication of a book set during a fictional pandemic as 'opportunistic' and 'profiteering' and 'making money out of people's misery'. Are they right? I don't think so. No one is being forced to buy this book set in a pandemic. Profiteering, surely, is making money by price-gouging essentials, such as soap or masks? If you don't want to read a story set in a pandemic, just don't. Personally, I am enjoying revisiting plague narratives now and recognising aspects of the lives described that were previously alien to my experience. Even revisiting a book I wrote myself, I am quite pleased to see that I correctly captured the feelings of self-isolation. (It's not really a book about plague, but plague is the backdrop and isolation and restricted movement are key aspects of it.)

If we believe that people want characters they can identify with rather than a homogenous white, straight, middle-class cast, don't we believe they also want situations they can identify with? And that might include living through a pandemic?

When I was first writing this novel I did worry that I was exploiting the misery of people long dead, and I lit a candle for the plague dead every time I visited Venice for research. But the thought that to publish it would be exploiting victims of the current pandemic had never occurred to me. What do you think? If someone publishes a book set in a plague/pandemic, is that reprehensible? And does it make a difference whether, as in the case of the dispute, the book is about a covid-like disease or something else? (The author of the disputed book wrote the book 15 years ago, so the disease is not a direct reference to covid-19.) Are you reading pandemic literature? I've been revisiting some and ordering some new dystopian fiction. I'm finding it helpful seeing this new aspect of life reflected in fiction. What about you?

Anne Rooney
Out now: How to be an Eco-Hero
Hachette, 2020