Thirty years ago, when I taught in London, I came across a short story called Bud’s Luck. It was about a quiet, dreamy schoolboy who finds a magic coin that keeps coming back to him. He uses it to clear all the local slot machines of sweets and chewing gum – stockpiling more than he can ever eat. But when Bud shares his ‘winnings’ with his classmates, his luck becomes a curse. Word gets around that Bud has been spotted emptying machines and every evening a different gang show up to bully him and steal the coin. The next day he’s beaten up again because the coin disappeared into the machine and didn’t work. And when the boys find the magic coin resting snuggly in Bud’s pocket, it sets off another beating.

In desperation Bud drops the coin down a drain, leaves it on a railway line and flings it in a river, but every morning the coin returns and he has to set off, alone but quietly resigned, to face school and his angry classmates… Continue reading STORIES LEAD TO STORIES →

‘Once you accept a symbiosis between all things then creativity is somehow easier. We don’t see a tree as separate from the earth or the sky. It needs them all as much as we need it’.

After UK art and stage school my interviewee, Mark Crane, went to the USA to study on-screen make-up under Bert Roth from ABC TV. Mark has worked on film special effects for Labyrinth, Superman IV, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Judge Dredd and Nightbreed. He has provided camerawork and visual effects for art projects in The New Forest, Florence and the Venice Biennale. He has also starred as Medvedenko in The Seagull and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, and written and directed several original stage shows. His innovative film, Jason, based on the Argonautica, will premiere at Berkhamsted Live on Feb 24th. I asked Mark about his creative methods and influences, which range from blockbuster to arthouse. Continue reading MARK CRANE – EXPLORING BETWEEN THE PANELS OF OUR LIVES →

I interviewed Ruth F Hunt, disability advocate, journalist and novelist. Ruth is the author of a highly-successful first novel, The Single Feather, writes a column for The Morning Star and regularly exhibits her paintings.

Leslie: What has your life been like so far? How have your disabilities changed who you are?

Ruth: When I was 18 I was involved in a car accident, and even after the full extent of my injuries were revealed, I still didn’t comprehend just how much they were going to determine the rest of my life. My initial injuries were spinal cord damage, and below my waist, various broken bones, fractures, and crush injuries. Continue reading RUTH F HUNT – THE AUTHOR AS PHOENIX →

I remember reading Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons and imagining the book’s setting as a vaguely-defined territory inside me. I’d never heard of The Lake District so I invented the location as I read, ignoring the references to farmers and charcoal burners and other aspects of Lakeland life. I was entranced by the children’s freedom, so I set their adventures in the only place that felt the same – around sand dunes beside the sea. In my mind, the Walker children were desert island castaways and a lake the size of Windermere could only be equalled by the sea. Continue reading A BOOK IS AN ADVENTURE →

I asked Kimberly Black, the director of Hemel Hempstead’s Spirit of the Old Town Ghost Walks to guest blog about her creative process. Kimberly has appeared at Sadlers Wells as the Nun in Comedy: A Tragedy in one Act, and in touring musicals, including Styles and Drewe’s version of Kipling’s Just So Stories, where she played the Kolokolo Bird. But for an experienced and versatile actress and singer, switching to the role of director was a big jump.

Kimberly writes:

‘The Spirit of the Old Town Ghost Walks were born out of rejections I received for the play I had been writing about the people who used to live in Hemel. After a short period of feeling a bit lost with the whole thing I spoke to Chris Leverett from The Enchanted Oak and we decided to make my play into a ghost walk. Continue reading THE CREATIVE SPIRIT BEHIND HEMEL HEMPSTEAD’S OLD TOWN GHOST WALKS →

Our attitudes to disability touch us personally. Quoting the disability rights slogan ‘Nothing about us without us’ Emma Claire Sweeney guest blogs about her sister Lou, looking at the whole person, not the label. Emma, who has a Creative Writing MA from UEA and writes for The Guardian, The Independent and The Times, also reflects on her own struggle to find words that truthfully represent Lou’s experience…

‘Some of my most prominent memories of my grammar school days in Birkenhead relate to my sister, Lou, even though she attended the special school across the other side of town. After a swimming lesson in the early nineties, for example, an older boy referred to Lou as a ‘spaz’. I still remember the sudden strength I acquired when I pinned him against the wall, seeing it as my role to speak up on her behalf. Continue reading Speaking Up →

I met crime novelist and counsellor Amanda Thow on a University of East Anglia/Guardian creative writing course. I asked Amanda about what detective fiction does for the reader and the relationship between this genre and her wide-ranging life-experiences.

Leslie: What do you enjoy about crime fiction?

Amanda: I like being challenged by a puzzle; I always try to work out who has `dunnit’ and it gives me great satisfaction if I get it right. For me it’s an escape from my stressful life and probably a release from the darkness and violence in me that finds no other outlet, except as both a reader and writer of crime fiction. I remember you once saying, Leslie, that I wrote violent action scenes in a compelling – slightly scary – way.

Leslie: I did say that, and it’s true! Continue reading A CRIME NOVELIST TELLS ALL →

I interviewed Izzy Robertson, healer and author of three novels published by Magic Oxygen, asking what goes into her creative process.

Leslie: What are the key experiences you’ve had in writing for young adults?

Izzy: An interesting question in that I never set out to write for young adults. The characters presented themselves, along with the story and so I wrote. I hadn’t envisaged any specific audience (or possibly any audience!). It was only when Dreaming The Moon came out that an audience had to be specified, more for the blurb that goes to the retailers than anything else. I think we’ve become very used to pigeonholing everything now, dividing things into genres and subsections, which is fine to a point but we possibly risk missing out. I happily read ‘children’s’, ‘young adult’ and ‘adult’ fiction; a good story is a good story, wherever it may be found. My book has been read by people ranging from 11 to 93 and I’ve had some really positive feedback from all ages, thank goodness! Continue reading Is The YA Novel for Adults? →