DEMENTION is live! 

Demention is an exciting new space for fans of dystopian and futuristic fiction. If you love The Hunger Games or other edgy, on-the-brink novels then this is the place for you. It's a group blog by myself, Teri Terry and Julienne Durber. There's lots more coming up soon plus guest blogs by other authors. 

We've just launched with some great giveaways and prizes. 

Drop by and join in...

So where was I?

Good question. Where have I been all this time? What have I been doing? 


Last autumn, we escaped to travel around Europe for weeks, after I'd spent some time doing this. I came home re-charged and full of ideas and launched into writing RIVEN, my new book (a kind of cosmic dystopia) only to remember that I'd organised a whole lot of events for AURORA. 


This is the strangest thing about writing books - you're trying to write the next one while still talking about the last one! 


Sometimes I feel I need two heads.

             

I travelled through blizzards, snow and hail, several times, to reach Manchester to do trailblazer events for the Future Manchester science festival and its writing competition, and had a great time sparking inspiration among hundreds of very imaginative young Mancunians. I'll be back for the Manchester Children's Book Festival in July, after judging the competition winner (which won't be easy going by all the exciting ideas I heard...) 


There were more storms, even Superstorms, to struggle through to visit schools across Scotland. Luckily there were also some fairly local events, which didn't involve packing extra warm socks and emergency chocolate, in case the train broke down amid blizzards and floods... 


But I had to watch out for terrorist trampolines at all times.


It made for a great opening line when, out of breath and somewhat bedraggled, I told wide-eyed young audiences I'd battled the elements to reach them and talk about the books I'd written about a future Earth devastated by storms! 


While I was away on one of those stormy visits I discovered I'd caused quite a storm myself with a blog I'd written for The Guardian about the crazy war between some YA authors, readers and young book bloggers - there are still sparks flying. This little blog of mine zipped around the planet, tweeted and retweeted to over half a million people, once US blogs and authors like Maggie Stiefvater picked up on it and began debating it with her readers on her website. My Twitter feed reached boiling point as people all across the world debated and quoted bits from it, like this:


'Whose book is it anyway? The hardest thing a writer has to learn is that once you publish a book, it's no longer truly yours – even though it's got your name on the front and it lives inside you. It belongs to the readers now.' 


So what do you think? Who does a book belong to once it's published? 


Do readers and reviewers have the right to be as nasty, or honest, as they like about a book? Should authors get involved in debates about their books, if they feel an opinion or review is vicious or unfair? Or should they take my advice: 'Don't Google yourself.'

There were some other interesting events, like this online round table with sci-fi mag Strange Horizons, where I got to debate futuristic stories on the theme of climate change with an author who was quite an influence on my Exodus trilogy, Maggie Gee, and the authors of other fascinating books - well worth checking out on the link above.   

Children's Literature in Context by Fiona McCulloch has a whole chapter on the Exodus trilogy - which she dissects so brilliantly I feel as if she's been sneaking about the inside of my head. Perfect for anyone who reads, teaches or writes children's and YA lit, it's a fresh and brilliant discussion of some of the greats of children's literature: Alice In Wonderland, Harry Potter, His Dark Materials by Philip Pulman. So what am I doing in there? Truly, I don't know, but I'm hugely honoured to be among such classy company. 


And then, there was this...

You can read all about my Gap Spring in Paris on this new blog, Paris Pause. More posts still to come...

On the road and in the ether...

AURORA is out! And there's lots going on.

I'll be travelling about in person, talking about the Exodus trilogy to people in various places over the next few weeks, including the West End Festival (which is practically on my own doorstep so I'd better stock up on tea and biscuits, just in case) and the Edinburgh Book Festival. There will be another event there on Aurora on August 13th.

I'll also be travelling all through the ether on a blog tour, talking to Bookwitch and Bookette (who sound as if they should duet), Mary Hoffman and The Book Lantern (who sound as if they should be a fantasy series) and various other sites.

I'll put up links to all this - and more - as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, here is an article I wrote on the current craze for dystopian/apocalyptic fiction ('The New Dystopalypse') in Saturday's Scotsman.

"Have teenagers, fed on an everyday diet of terror - war, recession, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, swine flu - become disaster junkies?"

Well, have you? What do you think?

The Book Lantern

Is teen angst, lust and abuse the new, true love? Or is it love triangles? Just what is it about those bad boys: brooding, Byronic and broke?

Loving the brilliantly spiky, sparky posts on THE BOOK LANTERN.

And thanks to Ceilidh of The Sparkle Project who wrote a great piece about Scottish YA fiction.

Hoping for the Nowhere People

Tonight I'm worrying about people I've never met, hoping that they have survived the tsunami: the people of the tiny island nation of Kiribati in the heart of the south Pacific, whose plight against rising oceans inspired me to write a whole trilogy. Yesterday, I was talking to young people in Scotland about the young people of Kiribati. So tonight, while I have fun with friends, and Japan reels from its nightmare, I'm taking this moment to send my hopes to the all those people so far away.

"To be part of a nation that might be under the sea, gives me a feeling that I am from nowhere." - young i-Kiribati native.

Low-lying islands that were the first in the tsunami's path - Kiribati, tonga, Guam - ordered people to move 30 metres inland and look for refuge well above sea level, the Guardian reports tonight.

But on Kiribati there is nowhere above sea level to run to.

New covers!

EXODUS and ZENITH have just been re-issued with these great new covers and AURORA, the final part of the story, will be published in June.

THE BEAUTIFUL FREEDOM CAGE, Radio 4

There is a bridge in Venice at sunset, a loch in the ancient forests of Scotland of a primeval stillness that makes me shiver, a fishing harbour on a Greek island beside the tiny church of the Mermaid Madonna - these are my heavenly havens, enchanted places where the worries of the world seem very far away.

Last summer, watching a tangerine moon rise up over the Mermaid Madonna church (above), my fantasies about spending a winter there one day, writing a book in that perfect peace, were interrupted by sirens and the dash of police cars through the cafe tables. We couldn't see what was wrong and the locals only shrugged. We shrugged too and carried on eating, relaxing, dreaming...

Half a year later, in the depths of a Scottish winter, a newspaper article revealed what the strange harbour panic had been. Our idyllic Greek fishing harbour is not as 'out of this world' as we thought - all of a sudden, it is right at the heart of the modern world. Skala Sykaminias, so close to Turkey that I often wondered if I could swim across the turquoise strait of sea, has become a crisis point for refugees to enter Europe.

Most of the refugees are young boys from Afghanistan, many still children, fleeing Taliban attacks in their war-ravaged land, enticed by the promise of a new life in Europe by smuggler gangs. Some survive the epic journey, only to find themselves caught at the very end; some drown.

So when asked for a story for Radio 4 to mark the 150th anniversary of JM Barrie's birth, inspired by a Peter Pan chapter, 'Come Away, Come Away', I knew what I had to write. It is a story tinged with the stuff of Peter Pan - brutal pirates, flight, lost boys... and yet it is no fantasy. It's all happening right now in the place I will be going to on holiday again this year. But it will feel different, this time. And the story is not going away. Some stories decide they want to grow into books. We'll see.

Mine is one of three 15 min stories - the others are by Geraldine McCaughrean and Michael Morpurgo broadcast Tuesday 4th and Wed 5th May.

And I never knew till now that JM Barrie and I share the same birthday!

THE BEAUTIFUL FREEDOM CAGE Radio 4 on Thursday 6th May 3.30pm.

All 3 stories available on i-player.