2017 Interview
Interview with the Authors
Pupils from Elgin High School tweeted questions to the authors shortlisted for this year's award. Check out their responses below!
Q1 Robbie asks: Do you have writing heroes?
Ross Welford: Mainly heroines: Enid Blyton, Astrid Lindgren, JK Rowling
Lisa Williamson: Judy Blume, Roald Dahl, Kate Atkinson and the Bronte sisters are my writing heroes.
Alan Gibbons: Absolutely. Among adults, there are the Brontes, John Steinbeck, Raymond Chandler, Richard Wright, Stephen King, Maya Angelou, Bali Rai, Malorie Blackman, Alex Wheatle, Robert Louis Stephenson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ralph Ellison, Robert Cormier, Robert Swindells and Robert Westall.
CJ Skuse: Hi gang! My writing heroes-Kevin Brooks, Melvin Burgess, Gillian White, David Renwick, Victoria Wood, French and Saunders and the Brontes.
James Clammer: I sure do. Almost everyone who starts writing a book and finishes it is a hero. But my ‘real’ heroes are the authors who tries and failed, tried and failed, and kept going until finally they got there. It takes an awful lot of work. My favourites tend to be ‘outsider’ types who followed their own ideas about the world and pushed on even when everyone else was ignoring them. James Joyce is a real hero of mine – even if he did take fourteen years to write a book that not a single other person could understand!
Another favourite is the New Zealand writer Janet Frame. When she was growing up, the people around her believed she had mental health issues and put her into what was then known as an asylum. In fact, she was scheduled for a lobotomy – a terrible old operation that involves slicing away the front of the brain. The day before the lobotomy was due to take place, her book of short stories won a national award and the lobotomy was cancelled. She went on to be a world famous writer. It literally saved her life. That’s the power that words and stories have.
Q2 Lewis asks: What do you do if you get writer’s block?
Ross Welford: Never had it! I do, however, frequently "get stuck" at which point I worry that I'll never write again! And then I do.
Lisa Williamson: If I have writers block, I go for a walk or run (or swim!) or to the cinema.Anything but sit & stare at my computer screen!
Alan Gibbons: Stop writing! Do something different. Go for a walk, listen to music, have a meal with friends and family, anything to take your mind off writing.
CJ Skuse: Writer’s block for me is writer’s doubt – I never think what I write is any good at all so I tend to feel the fear and do it anyway.
James Clammer: Tricky question. I have to figure out if I’m genuinely ‘blocked’, or whether I’m just being lazy. Many many adults are lazy, which is one of the things they never tell you when you’re growing up. If it’s laziness, I try to work through it until I get some sort of flow going. If nothing’s coming at all – well, maybe I don’t actually have anything I want to say on that particular day. That’s fine, too. There’s no law that says when or how, or even if, you should express yourself. The thing is to relax, to keep looking, keep watching, keep listening, keep thinking, and keep reading. Something may be going on deep down in the leaf mould of your mind that you don’t even know about. In fact, such is the amazingness of the brain, that it almost certainly is.
Q3 Cameron asks: What makes you keep writing, even when it gets difficult?
Ross Welford: a contract from a publisher is a very strong incentive to sit down and get on with the darn thing.
Lisa Williamson: I keep writing because there's no better feeling than holding a finished book in your hands!
Alan Gibbons: I suppose it is the hope that one day I will write something really special. Plus I have to earn a living.
CJ Skuse: Why I keep writing – it helps me make sense of bad things that happen and a world I don’t understand. When I don’t write I get very sad.
James Clammer: Well, you start off trying to write a story and you don’t really know where the heck it’s going. Perhaps you know the ending, very vaguely. But then, as you work on it (in theory) some of the strands and some of the situations and some of the characters start to come together. You start to see the shape of the story – because every story needs a shape, and that’s one of the hardest things of all to grasp, let alone do. So if you get to that stage, you have to try your best to finish it, really, because otherwise it would be a sort of betrayal of yourself, if you see what I mean. Then, at the end, you do have this tremendous feeling of satisfaction that you started something, it was difficult, you kept going, and you carried it off.
That’s the idea. It doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes you try, and succeed; other times you try, and fail. But failure itself is important. So long as you tried in the first place, even failure can be a sort of victory, sometimes. Life’s weird!
Q4 Elisabeth asks: Do you have any other jobs?
Ross Welford: I am now a full-time author which for me means writing and visiting schools etc. (The school visits are much easier!)
Lisa Williamson: Alongside my writing, I do a bit of acting, mostly in daft TV commercials. It's good fun but my passion lies with writing.
Alan Gibbons: I am a full time writer, but book sales alone wouldn’t earn me a living so I do a lot of lecturing in schools and colleges.
CJ Skuse: Yes I have two other jobs – I read manuscripts for a children’s book publisher and lecture creative writing at a West Country university.
James Clammer: The short answer is that right now, I’ve managed to carve out a little period of time where writing is pretty much all I’m doing. But that will be over soon. I’ve done all sorts of jobs – factory work, warehouses, offices. I’ve been a plumber and a postal worker and loads of other things. It’s good to get out there and see some of the world and the jobs that people do. After a few years though you can have enough of it – or I did, at least. Unfortunately there’s this little thing called MONEY that keeps getting in the way. Unless you hit the big time you’re always going to be thinking or worrying about it. And this used to bug me to death when I really started reading. Novel after novel, book after book, and no-one ever talked about money or work. So pretty soon you get the idea that money and work aren’t a fit subject to be written about, that it might even be a little shameful, and that, really, you need to be rich and have time on your hands to be a writer at all – which is total nonsense. You can write about anything, any human experience, and if you truly want to do it, you’ll find a way.
One of my favourite writers is the Glaswegian James Kelman. He writes about the realities of work and money in a really interesting way. Lots of bad language, I’m afraid – don’t know if I should even be recommending it…
Q5 Mrs McLean asks: What is your favourite Children’s Classic Book?
Ross Welford: If by "classic" you mean "old" then I don't like many, but I love The Call Of The Wild and Black Beauty.
Lisa Williamson: My favourite classic children's book is The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton. I love the magic and all the food descriptions!
Alan Gibbons: Can I have a few? The greatest picture book is Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. The greatest adventure book is Treasure Island. The most heartwarming book is Danny the Champion of the World. The greatest Young Adult book is The Chocolate War. I love The Borrowers, The Owl Who was Afraid of the Dark, The Gruffalo and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt too.
Many thanks to the pupils and librarians of Elgin High School for conducting this interview, and many thanks to the authors for their fantastic responses!
Check out the authors' Twitter pages by following the links below (links open in a new window):
James Clammer
Ross Welford
Lisa Williamson
Alan Gibbons
CJ Skuse
Sarah Crossan