Evie Wyld is Booktrust's third online writer in residence.
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Rant
Posted Friday March 26th 2010
by Evie WyldI’m an author who also works in a bookshop. When my first novel was published last year, knowing how much of a difference it makes when I love a book we’re stocking and in spite of huge nervousness, I took a copy in to 20 independent bookshops, so that they might have a chance to read it. The response varied enormously. Some bookshops were very interested, asked me questions and said lovely things about the cover. Others acted as if I’d just suggested we all take our clothes off and have a cuddle. I say this, to provide context; I know it can be awkward, even a little demeaning to go into a bookshop when you’re a writer, but here’s a tip: if you’ve had or are about to have a book published and you’re doing the rounds of independent bookshops, don’t be rude to the sales staff (especially when they’ve just been allowed to write a blog). Begin with a breezy introduction, perhaps something like ‘I’ve written a book about what my cat gets up to at night while I’m asleep - would you be interested in having a look at it to sell in your shop?‘ not ‘I…
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Na de Brand, een Nog Kleine Stem
Posted Monday March 22nd 2010
by Evie WyldAccording to a recent BML report, people are paying less and less for books. This is bad because until you’re famous enough to charge thousands of pounds to go and speak in front of an audience, the way that authors make enough money to keep writing is by people spending money on the books they’ve already written. The less the bookseller makes, the less they’ll want to pay the publisher and the less the publisher will be able to pay authors.
This is especially scary as I’ve only just got my head round the fact someone is paying me for my writing at all,
This week a cheque arrived in the post. Cheques are always exciting, but especially so this time as this was from the Dutch language deal for my first novel (which Babelfish reckons will be called Na de Brand, een Nog Kleine Stem).
But the moment you get paid is also a strange one. It takes away immediately the memory of how difficult the thing was to write, and you just think, my god, if I could churn out three or four times as much as I do, I’d have it made.
This week, for example, I…
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Introducing the third online writer in residence... Evie Wyld
Posted Monday March 15th 2010
by Evie WyldWhen I tell people I’m writer in residence for Booktrust, the first thing they ask is where I’ll have to go. It’s a fair question and the first thing I thought when I heard about the role. But it turns out I’m not squeezed in between the desks and computers at Booktrust’s offices in Clapham Junction, making a bed on the conference table and keeping shampoo in filing cabinets. It’s an online residency. I am to be the resident writer at my computer, wherever in space and time that happens to be. It’s pretty much The Matrix. I’m inside your computer, upload me.
Thinking about what it means to be writer in residence made me question what it means to be a writer at all. Last night at an event for The Writers’ Club, someone asked me and the other writers I was on the panel with if we had become the sort of writer we always wanted to be?
Most of us said we imagined ourselves slimmer or richer or with a pipe and drinking whisky, but then it made me think of when I first thought of being a writer and what I thought that meant.
Moving house…
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The Eve of Wyld
Posted Monday March 15th 2010
by Nii Ayikwei ParkesAlas, my time as Booktrust online writer in residence comes to an end – this is my last blog for Booktrust in this capacity although I will continue to be a spokesperson for Bookstart, the national book-giving programme that encourages all parents and carers to enjoy books with their children from as early an age as possible. I bet you’re wondering what happens next. Well, for me, it’s a return to the joys of my new novel, provisionally titled, Quarter to Always, final edits for my children’s book, The Parade, which I spoke about in an earlier blog and my first full collection of poems, The Makings of You; for you, it’s the dawn of a new Evie, the eve of Wyld.
Yes, I pass on this delightful task of writer sharing and undressing in public to my – to borrow from music parlance – label mate, Evie Wyld, whose first novel, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, has had so much praise that the column inches now exceed the length of the book itself. It is well-deserved praise, of course, and Evie’s already won the John Llewellyn Rhys award and is – like me – shortlisted for the…
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'Constellation' - an exclusive poem by Nii Ayikwei Parkes
Posted Friday March 12th 2010
by Nii Ayikwei ParkesI leave you with this, a poem I have been playing with on and off for the last year and a bit, which I hope I’ve finally nailed; something that speaks of perseverance and high aspirations, both needed for those that dream of writing. It’s called ‘Constellation’ and I hope its small voice remains with you after the fire of my blogging has long burned out. Peace, love and mangoes from Accra.
Constellation
In his father’s house they dance on sand,
they turn their noses up at concrete
and when asked why they will speak
of the star-flecked night before he left:His father has thrown him a party
and he is dancing with the colourful
abandon and sweat of transition. His
uncle – the peacekeeper who returned
from a tour of duty with a sturdy stick
where his left leg, his footballing leg,had been – taps him on the shoulder
and tells him to go out into the world
with the kind of fire and fearless light only
a child knows, to never give up, to reach
for the stars. Then the uncle performs
his party trick, whirling on the leghe still has – his fugu…
