David Maybury | Blog

Exciting news to brighten up your Monday! The brilliant Patrick Ness has just published a brand-new Chaos Walking extract online which sheds a little light on a ‘certain someone’s’ arrival on a ‘certain planet’ - I’m doing my best to stay in the spirit of Patrick’s anti-spoiler stance here but you’ll soon see what I’m on about when you start reading).

Book 3 can’t come soon enough in my humble opinion! td

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I thoroughly enjoyed David’s live blogging of last year’s Children’s Books Ireland Conference.

I knew we were going to miss it this time around. Though, I have a feeling that this year Dave, as a hip young thing, would have put aside the blog and stuck with Twitter throughout the weekend.

So let me present my attempt at Dave’s twitter summary of the weekend

International illustrations rock as do our own writers. Writing is joy and all kids need to see themselves in books. Eoin colfer is funny. #CBI Conference 09

Very Hungry Caterpillar

Just a few pics from Beijing - ye can follow the rest of the trip here, as well as sporadic twitter updates

In an unexpected and highly original move, I’m stealing, copying, pilfering, ehm… borrowing this post from Neil Gaiman’s blog. It was far too great for him to keep all to himself anyway…

Plenty more about Gahan Wilson over at the New Yorker.

My little brain has been rattling over the last few days. Last weekend saw more children’s lit articles in Irish papers than there had been in the year so far - well not quite, but crikes there were a lot more than usual! There is a definite push on from everyone involved to see more publicity for books and events for children - and a comment from Sarah Webb has got me thinking:

A dozen or so links from the weekend - starting at home for a change. The Irish Times has a review from the man what knows so many things, Robert Dunbar. Dunbar reviews the final posthumous title by Siobhan Dowd - Solace of the Road.

It is, in many respects, her strongest work, exhibiting in rich variety the blend of qualities which characterise her earlier books, A Swift Pure Cry, The London Eye Mystery and Bog Child : a powerful sense of story, a sympathetic insight into life’s unpredictability and a perceptive and compassionate understanding of the young, especially those in need of a little solace along the road.

Alex Meehan interviews Derek Landy in the Sunday Business Post:

I didn’t plan to be a children’s author. If anything I thought I’d be a crime writer as that is the genre I enjoyed reading most, but the idea demanded to be written in a certain way, so that’s how I did it.

Sticking with the home brew, the Irish Independent features a piece on teenage fiction - more specifically the recent news of Darren Shan’s new deal.

I’m so excited — even more so than when the Harry Potter books started to fly off the shelves. Combining elements of horror, romance, darkness and the supernatural, the teen horror/goth-lit genre allows the reader to connect emotionally and has captured imaginations worldwide. The books that fall into this category are truly gripping the nation and although this started off as a teen sensation, we can already see the average reader age spiralling upwards. - David O’Callaghan

Even the Irish Examiner are getting in on the action - with news about ‘One book, One Southhill’

(more…)

Where were you at 11.30am on March 3rd? If, like me, you missed the launch of The Public Lending Remuneration Scheme (PLR) then this might of interest to ye…

In the not so distant past the European Union decided that Irish libraries should be paying authors for the loan of their books. Public Lending Remuneration (PLR) is the mechanism set up to provide those payments… BUT they need writers to register in order to receive the payments.

So if you have written a book and it is stocked by libraries, and subsequently read by someone, then you are due some payment from the Library Council. There are 12.5 million loans of books each year - this ‘aint to be scoffed at.

At the launch today Éilís Ní Dhuibhne said

The part libraries play in disseminating books, often long after they have gone out of print, is crucial. My guess is that libraries will be even more used in the future. That authors will now benefit thanks to the implementation of PLR in Ireland is wonderful. I am immensely grateful to the Irish Writer’s Union and others who have campaigned long and hard for this day.

So log on to plr.ie and get yerself registered!

HarperCollins (or what’s left of them) is getting itself down with the kids. They’ve launched a Bebo campaign in search of slang for inclusion in the prestigious Collins’ English Dictionary.

According to theBookseller - words that are in the mix include: bare (a lot of), fiend (addicted to something) and shifted (to get arrested).

Now I don’t know how its done across the water but in my day shifted meant something entirely different… And while I’m on that subject, does anyone still say meet? Usage: Me friend around the corner wants to meet your sister. Is she around?

Any nominations for our own home grown slang? (If this got you piqued have a look here)

Get yer mind out of the gutter - IBA has nothing to do with your bowel. Tis the Irish Blog Awards and nominations close today. You only have a few hours left to decide who you want to win - so get voting.

There’ll be plenty of mentions about Blog Week closer to the time - including a special book blog event with yours truly and Sinéad Keogh of blogging fame firing the hard hitting questions.

In the mean time - have a go at the the Empire movie quiz. Genius.

In Dublin on January 23? Free yourself up for some free art - Free Art Friday.

Sci-Fi London has captured some rare video footage of an OisínMcGannitus in the wild. The McGannitus is surrounded by some creature comforts - including what looks like an original sketch from the cover of Strangled Silence.

Go watch the video.

Derek Landy’s Skullduggery Pleasant won the Bolton Book Awards over the weekend (he wasn’t able to make the ceremony but the omni-present Bookwitch did.)

The shortlist was Colin Bateman, Titanic 2020; Will Gatti, The Geek, the Greek and the Pimpernel; F E Higgins, Black Book of Secrets; Jill Hucklesby, Deeper Than Blue; Derek Landy, Skulduggery Pleasant; Jenny Valentine, Finding Violet Park and Cat Weatherill, Wild Magic. More over on the witches site.

And Chicken Spaghetti has some news on the Boston Globe Horn Book Awards - Shaun Tan’s The Arrival won itself a special commendation. If you haven’t read it yet - get yerself to the bookshop posthaste!

I’d never read Tim Bowler’s books until I met him at the CBI Conference last month (shame on me really, he’s a Carnegie Prize Winner). Last week I managed to catch-up and read his two new novels, Bloodchild and Blade - ‘Playing Dead’.

The unmissable thing about Tim’s work is the natural accent - he creates unique voices in his work and with the distinctive tone the words all just work.

Some of the similarities in the voice of both books irked me at first - the characters are polar opposites - but the two characters are so convincing and individual that I couldn’t help but be absorbed by their stories. Of the two, Bloodchild was my favourite - it is a haunting story - but the Blade series is fast and addictive. I’ve already picked up the second book, Closing In, and I’m itching to get my hands on Breaking Free!

> You can read more about Tim on his site, or read some of the interview with himself and Robert Dunbar here.

…an age-guidance figure is not information. It’s an opinion, but one that seems to have a special authority. There’s nothing wrong with a bookseller, for example, shelving one of my books on the 9-11 shelves; or a reviewer saying that the same book is suitable for 11 and upwards; or a teacher giving it to a child of eight, because she knows him and what he’s capable of reading. People make decisions and express views of that sort all the time. And their views differ, that’s the point. They are based on personal knowledge and opinion.

But when the book itself says 9+, or 11+, that figure has quite a different status. It looks as if the author is assenting to it; it looks as if I’m saying: “I wrote this for 11-year-olds. Everyone else can keep out.”

And I did not.

Philip Pullman on age branding in last Saturday’s Guardian and in Thursday’s Telegraph. The Forbidden Planet blog has a response to the article - and how age branding affects comics. Some interesting comments on the Book Fox blog after publishing Darren Shan’s statement, worth a read indeed!

Previously:
> everyone’s talking about… age branding
> everyone really is talking about age branding…

Conor Kostick’s new book arrived on Friday too. But it came with a big warning on the front so I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to give away. All I’m saying is that Conor is back with a bigger, better and even more thrilling book called Move.

Liam O’Dwyer discovers he can move between parallel universes – when he wants something to go his way, he moves to the universe where it happens. (Remember Sliders?) But there are consequences to each move and they are starting to catch up with Liam and his friends.

As with his two previous books, Epic and Saga, Conor has created a world that is hard not be sucked into… (But not until September according to O’Brien Press)

Speaking of age branding and such - Darren Shan is due on Newstalk around six tonight talking about the very same topic.

Click here to have a listen. (It should launch the Newstalk Listen Live player…)

Meet Yul. He’s a homemade monster. We* made him over the weekend using a ‘Make your own Monster’ kit that we found, in a very excited state, at the No Fixed Abode stall at the Designer Mart in Cows Lane, Temple Bar. (If you have an hour or two to spare on a Saturday I highly recommend heading over - the food, book and design markets have all been relaunched and are bigger and better than before)

The Make your own Monster kit was made by Donna Wilson - you can see more of her creatures, odd objects, cushions, rugs and others on her site. No Fixed Abode has some of Donna’s stuff on sale every Saturday - and an online shop is due up soon! But if you can’t wait that long - go here and create your own virtual monster.

So. That’s Yul.

*We: loosely translated means that I made Yul with some help, supervision, consultation and direction from Deb.

A friend and I are trying to send a stuffed owl around the world - yet another one of those web community experiments that I linked to before.

The owl is currently expected to land in Dublin next week and spend a few days in the capital. After that is unknown - hopefully someone on the west-coast/south before the owl is sent on to the states. Hosts of the owl are being asked to document the owl's stay with them and post it on the blog. Is anyone willing to welcome a stuffed owl into their home for a few days?
The Posted Owl

Apologies for the unrelated tpic and seemingly random post.