THE WRITER'S LIFE | BOOK LAUNCH
About two years ago, when I was still homeless, I stayed with a family. Sometimes, the end of one story is just the beginning of another. A Girl, Frank Burnside and Haile Selassie was written when a family member was lost: A dog.
While my little cloud of a housemate was becoming a cloud, I left the family and decamped to the pub (where I ended up living illegally for a year), and wrote a story. With the family's permission, I entered the story in a "Life-changing" short fiction competition: I won first prize and moved a judge to tears. To be honest, it gets me every fucking time.
So this one's for Jake:
The book is the story of Ellie ("Sparks"), aged 9 ¾: A girl dealing with life changes with the help of her talking dog (Frank Burnside), and both of them ever aware of the family cat (Haile Selassie).
"Every one wishes for things. That didn't work for me, so I wish for not things. When I wish for not things and things don't happen, that's wishes coming true." (Ellie). The story was then illustrated by my daughter, who is the same age as Sparks.
A Girl, Frank Burnside and Haile Selassie, available in paperback
About two years ago, when I was still homeless, I stayed with a family. Sometimes, the end of one story is just the beginning of another. A Girl, Frank Burnside and Haile Selassie was written when a family member was lost: A dog.
While my little cloud of a housemate was becoming a cloud, I left the family and decamped to the pub (where I ended up living illegally for a year), and wrote a story. With the family's permission, I entered the story in a "Life-changing" short fiction competition: I won first prize and moved a judge to tears. To be honest, it gets me every fucking time.
So this one's for Jake:
The book is the story of Ellie ("Sparks"), aged 9 ¾: A girl dealing with life changes with the help of her talking dog (Frank Burnside), and both of them ever aware of the family cat (Haile Selassie).
"Every one wishes for things. That didn't work for me, so I wish for not things. When I wish for not things and things don't happen, that's wishes coming true." (Ellie). The story was then illustrated by my daughter, who is the same age as Sparks.
“…The best thing, I thought, was the Voice. I don’t mean the voice of your character (Ellie), although that was brilliantly well done. No, I mean your Authorial Voice. Of all the books I’ve read over the years, whether they were classics or popular fiction, the stories that have stayed in my mind have all been written by authors who had a distinct, individual style …Jane Austen … Charles Dickens… Agatha Christie…the Brontes… Enid Blyton… many others… and there was a heart in their writing that captivated the reader. Well, I found that your story captivated me in much the same way as theirs.” – Amanda Carlisle, Warner Publishing.
It was a story worth writing.
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