Happy Book Week!

It's Book Week Scotland and how great to find EXODUS in The Guardian's Top Ten Scottish children's book quotes among brilliant company, such as JK Rowling, Robert Louis Stevenson, JM Barrie and Debi Gliori. It's almost impossible to pick a favourite quote, but if I absolutely had to it would be this one:

'To try to be brave is to be brave.'

That's from a beautiful classic - George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind.

At the end of the week, I'm off to the Tarbert Book Festival. Tarbert is really beautiful and it's also next door to Carradale, the setting for one of my early books, SOUNDTRACK, so I'll be doing a reading from that, as well as taking my young audience on...

'... an exciting journey through some of the biggest ideas of our time (climate change, the future of humanity, the wonders of the universe and mind-bending new science). I'll be exploring and debating these hugely topical and powerful ideas through my own books for young readers - the award-winning EXODUS trilogy, my graphic novel EARTH-PLANET, UNIVERSE on the world's first environmentalist, Scotland's John Muir, and the book I've just written, A GIRL MADE OF STARS.' (Oban Times)

Happy Book Week, wherever you are!

A Girl Made of Stars

THE STORY OF A BOOK

What do you write after an epic trilogy about the end of the world as we know it? Write something small, I told myself. That’s what to do. You’ve done big and what story is bigger than a drowned Earth?

I never should have asked myself that. It’s just the kind of question my imagination loves and before I knew it I was staring at the answer, right above my head - and all around me, stretching far beyond the Earth.

The universe, that’s what. 

I floated in the idea. I was hooked.

My plans for a small story were out the window and my head was in the stars.

Life doesn’t always let you do what you want when you want. Several big life crises, other projects and one major neck injury all got in the way of my book... 

But I wrote my first graphic novel, EARTH-PLANET UNIVERSE, the story of the world's first ecologist, Scot John Muir, for Scottish Book Trust. 20,000 copies went into schools across Scotland. I also mentored for SBT's New Writers and Young Writers Awards, which I loved. Here's an interview with me about the graphic novel below, illustrated by William Goldsmith.

Earth-Planet Universe, The Story of John Muir (my kindred spirit)

Two things I’ve learned about writing. 

Always write the book you'd want to read, the one that doesn’t yet exist. Also, what you do on the page is only part of the work. Some of the most important writing happens off the page. So when I couldn’t type, I thought about my story. I dreamed it up and let it fizzle and ferment inside me. I read and read and fired myself up with energy and ideas. I lived scenes in my mind and when I finally got to write them they felt as real as my own memories. 

At long last, the stars aligned for me and I could write again. It felt like the story I’d been waiting all my life to write.

The Book I’ve Always Wanted To Write

Some writers have rituals or need to work in the same place. Philip Pullman has a particular kind of notebook. Some can write anywhere, on trains and planes, like Jacqueline Wilson. I’m in between. I like bit of city cafe buzz, a bit of routine at my desk. I love writing in the special notebooks my daughter buys me at Christmas and birthdays. 

What really makes my imagination come alive is travelling, being somewhere vivid and new. That feeling of moving across the Earth or writing in a place that feeds into the book I’m working on. It feeds something in me too.

So when we had to take my student daughter (in a car packed so tight we could barely close the doors) to the University of Nantes and my friend offered her house (two hours away) as a writing pad, my husband and I grabbed our own gap year in France.

The amazing skies and sunsets and stars of the Loire countryside blazed through me as I wrote A Girl Made of Stars.

Winds swept across the vineyards and seemed to whirl ideas inside me.

My writing desk under the cherry tree

Then the world burst in on our idyll.

There were terrorist killings close by in Tours, in Nantes and Paris. 




France felt precarious, broken-hearted. 

It all seeped in strange ways into the world of the book.  

Writing THE END felt like finishing a marathon. 

I emailed the manuscript to my agent and waited. 

I couldn’t settle. 

What if she didn’t like the book I’d put my heart and soul into? What if it wasn’t good enough? Was the story too crazy, too wild? 

We went back to France for a week. There was a mad cat there who needed babysitting, but that’s another story. Maybe even a book...

One night I was staring up at the big skies I’d missed so much back in Glasgow when my phone buzzed. It was an email from Sarah Davies, my agent. But it wouldn't download! Often when the wind blew hard across the vineyards, the wifi went AWOL. So all I had for ten agonising minutes was this…. 

Was that a good eeeeeeeeeeee or bad? I sweated... It turned out to be the best eeeeeeeeeeee ever. Sarah loved the book. 

There was still work to do. Hard editing, revising. I was determined to make this the very best book I could. Some nights at 4am, the sky was lightening and I was still writing, not quite sure what planet I was on, what universe I was in…

The fate of my story is now in the hands of the writing gods. 

I’ve done all I can for now. I hope you get to read it one day because writing it was a blast and took me on a journey into the unknown, to places I never thought I could imagine.

Writing this book was the time of my life. 

The BIG YA Edinburgh Book Hunt!

Welcome to the YA Edinburgh Book Hunt! Want to win a pile of fab books?! Here’s how...

We are a group of YA authors appearing at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival and we’re giving away signed copies of our books. You can win them ALL by joining this book hunt. Just read this blog, find the highlighted number and do the task below. Then follow the link to the next blog. Once you’ve visited them all, just add the numbers together, email the result to ya.edinburgh.book.hunt@gmail.com A winner will be chosen at random. Entries welcome from around the world. The book hunt closes midnight UK time 26th August 2013.

 A boy and girl, oceans apart, fight for a future in a flooded world 

I’m giving away signed copies of my futuristic trilogy - EXODUS, ZENITH & AURORA - all THREE books! Plus some snazzy bookmarks.

I’ve done lots of events over the years at Edinburgh and it’s always great fun so, if you can, join me with fellow book hunt authors Teri Terry and Claire Merle for a big dystopian debate!

Click here for more info on the trilogy

See here for tickets and details for our event: 21^st August at 6p.m. 

Dangerous, dark, dystopian... come and tell us why you love stories about the future. Do you want to be thrilled, challenged, scared, inspired? Or just escape reality for a while? How far do you think YA writers can go? Should there be limits on what we write?  Demention blog authors Julie Bertagna (the Exodus trilogy), Claire Merle (The Fall) and Teri Terry (Slated) would love to meet you.

Or tell us what you think below!

The Task: Follow @JulieBertagna on Twitter and tweet this:

Enter to win LOTS of signed YA books on the #YAEdinburghBookHunt! See @JulieBertagna or http://spark-gap.blogspot.co.uk #YA #giveaway

*If you’re not on Twitter, you can still win by leaving a comment below. Tell your friends about it and you can share the books if you win!

*You can also find me on Facebook, check out my website www.juliebertagna.com and follow my PINTEREST boards on the Exodus trilogy and the exciting new book I’m writing. 

*The next blog to visit in the book hunt is.... the fab Teri Terry

You can win my signed trilogy (above) AND these signed books by exciting authors Teri Terry, Claire Merle, Sara Grant and Sharon Jones. Happy hunting! 

Big Stories in Big Tents - it's Edinburgh Book Festival Time...

It's raining cats and dogs so it must be almost time for the EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL!... that time of year when thousands of people gather in great big tents to listen to and debate with the authors of the world as the rain thunders atmospherically on the canvas. Okay, sometimes it's sunny...but luckily my trilogy about a flooded world is spookily perfect reading material when it's not!

I'm doing DARK, DANGEROUS & DYSTOPIAN debates with my fellow Demention blog authors Claire Merle and Teri Terry. Our schools event is sold out but come and meet us for the evening slot (Thursday August 21st at 6pm - BOOK HERE). We’d love you to join in. Here’s a taster of what we’re all about...and watch out for our AMAZING BOOK GIVEAWAY in my next post!

Here's what we'll be talking about... but what do YOU think?

Why are stories about the future so popular just now - in a time when the world often seems complicated and scary? Or is that the very reason why?... because they take risks, exploring all kinds of possible futures in challenging ways? But should there be boundaries in YA fiction? Should authors protect their readers? Just how far dare we go? And lastly, can a book change the future...if it changes the way people think about the world?

Follow me on TWITTER @JulieBertagna, FACEBOOK and on PINTEREST I've just begun mucking around with images for the Exodus trilogy and the exciting new book in progress.

You'll find lots more about us all on Demention, our websites, etc. But here's a taster...

THE EXODUS TRILOGY

A boy and girl, oceans apart, fates entwined, fight for a future in a flooded world. 

An SOS from islanders at the mercy of rising seas on the other side of the world sparked Exodus, Zenith and Aurora. I kept thinking, what if that happens to us? How would we cope in a climate-changed world? So I began an apocalyptic tale of young survivors on a storm-ravaged Earth.

I set my story 100 years in the future - then climate change kicked in for real, affecting millions. The floods, tornadoes and storms are unnervingly close to my imagined world. Published in over 20 countries, I love that they’ve made lots of shortlists and won awards (even Green awards in the UK & US) but the most brilliant thing for me is that young readers across the world write and tell me how the books have made them think about the future - though some teachers and librarians in the USA have blasted them as too dangerous... 

Watch this brilliant EXODUS TRAILER made by teenagers for a school competition in the USA!

And here are just some of the nice things people have said about the Exodus trilogy... 

'A book you will remember for the rest of your life' Guardian 
'Breathtaking' Bookseller 
'Awesome' Herald 
'So vivid...magnificent epic' Scotland on Sunday 
'the most exciting book I've read all year' Mail 
'Terrific storytelling power' lovereading 
'A book that is to be treasured' Times Ed 
'Julie Bertagna’s award-winning Exodus is a brilliantly imagined story of love and survival in a climate-changed world. Zenith and Aurora complete this highly-acclaimed, classic dystopian trilogy' Manchester Book Festival

GO FOR GOLD

Seems like a good day to repost this! GO FOR GOLD - why every writer needs a Mr Lendl in their corner. Not just for writers - it's for anyone who ever dared to dream. As Judy Murray, mother of our new Wimbledon Champion just said, "It just goes to show there's nothing wrong with dreaming, there's nothing wrong with believing, anything is possible."

Dream on. Keep believing. Build your dream, one step at a time.

(And grab a Mr Lendl if you can!)

http://dementionblog.blogspot.gr/2012/09/going-for-gold-why-every-writer-needs.html

Julie x

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.

AURORA

The End. It's done, at last. AURORA, that is.

I'm still fiddling and editing but I feel a bit like the cleaner sweeping the stage after an epic play. The characters have exited the stage and walked off into their futures - or not, having shuffled off their mortal coils, some of them. Well, 'shuffle' is a bit of an understatement for what happens to some of them but that's all I'm saying for now.

I miss them. I'm busy writing other things and planning the next book, yet I catch myself thinking about them all, wondering what they're doing now. Then I remember they're not real, and they're not doing anything at all 'now'. They're only imagined presences in an invented world of 2115 - but I've lived with this lot so long, they feel quite real to me.

It always surprises me that they feel real to other people. That is the magic of a book - my dream can become yours too. So I loved this animatic of THE WEAVE from Exodus on youtube, where Mara meets Fox. (The Weave is a crucial part of the story in Aurora too.) It's amazingly close to what I imagined. Thanks to the young students at Ravensbourne College who created it.

I Read The News Today...

...with a sickening sense of foreboding. Two teenage girls, just 14 and 15, held hands and jumped together to their death last night from a high bridge not too far from my home. There was a girl I was thinking of, hoping it wasn’t her. All I can do is mark her short life here. RIP Georgia with the puppy-soft eyes.

Once upon a time there was a world...

On a brief skive from the last great heave on AURORA, I clicked on a Guardian podcast on 'climate change books' and heard the lovely Sarah Crown from the Guardian books blog saying very nice things about Exodus and Zenith (about 23 mins in). It was a little gift from the ether. Moments before, I'd hit a Friday afternoon slump, telling myself I'd get somebody to slap me if I ever had the urge to write an epic trilogy ever again. I really just needed a Kitkat.

The podcast is worth a listen as there are a number of good books discussed - some of my own favourites like Cormac MCarthy's The Road, poetry from Don Paterson and Sean O'Brien, Earth From The Air. Sarah finishes with a great quote from Philip Pullman about 'Thou shalt not' reaching the head, but what touches the heart is 'once upon a time' - the very words, as it happens, that Exodus opens with and Aurora ends on.

The podcast and booklist is HERE.

A few more links I've been too busy to put up before: THE BOOK SMUGGLERS on YA apocalyptic-dystopian fiction. And HERE. Some Glasgow Dystopia. And I loved the look of IN SEARCH OF GIANTS.

Next blog, a moving Once Upon A Time...

As If You Live In The Early Days Of A Better Nation

"Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation" - Alasdair Gray.

On Friday, on The Times online, I spotted the most powerful poetic wake-up call by Philip Pullman to a nation sleepwalking itself into a state of fettered 'freedom'. I decided to grab a newspaper version; I was sure it would have an illustration by the 18th century poet-artist William Blake, as Philip roots his sleepwalking vision in Blake's poetic myth of Albion, the ancient name for Britain. And I was right. And just as well I did buy the paper because a few hours later, when I tried to link the online piece to this blog, it had vanished into the ether, into the mysterious Lost Dimension of 404.

But the blogosphere came to the rescue as bloggers began, en masse, to post the piece that had vanished, because it needs to be read and thought about and debated - by all of us, but especially by the generation who are about to inherit the Earth in what might be the most crucial era in human history. So here it is, with thanks to Longrider.

More debate about the kind of world we want to live in here and here and the Modern Liberty Campaign .

ARCTIC UNICORNS

Beautiful, just beautiful - watch this amazing footage of 'arctic unicorns', the narwhals.

And here they are in ZENITH:

"There is no moon but the sprinkle of starlight picks out a dazzling mosaic of ice that is so fragile it shifts with the movement of the sea. And there is something else. A long, silver point is sticking up out of the thin crust of ice.
Mara screws up her eyes. It looks like a sword.
The silver sword vanishes then re-appears further in front, breaking a path through the icy waves. Another sword rises out of the ocean, surges towards the first and crosses it. Mara gasps as the swords clash then vanish.
Narwhals.
She only saw them once on Wing. Great, shell-encrusted whales, far out in Longhope Bay. Island folk legend said a speck of ground narwhal tusk a day would make you live a hundred years or more, just as the narwhals do.
A narwhal horn always points to the North Star."

Nature's Great Events: The Great Melt is on Wednesday 11 February on BBC One at 2100 GMT

NEW YEAR, NEW ZENITH

A nicely seasonal cover for the US ZENITH, coming soon.

It looks and feels a bit like this here in Scotland right now...

Happy New Year and I hope 2009 is good to you.

*Great interview in CYNSATIONS with my fantastic editor-of-old, Sarah Davies, who now 'grows' writers in her Greenhouse - a nice insight into the world of children's publishing from a publisher-turned-transatlantic agent.

RIP Bunny Bertagna

Grief for a pet is so uncomplicated. Normally stoic in a crisis, I've been a sniffling mess all day. Hoping that I could put the red-eyed look down to it being an eye-watering minus 4 degrees today in Glasgow, the whole city sparkling with frost, I had to take the laptop out and work my way around cafes and museums. Just couldn't face sitting alone at my desk without my little foot-warmer and writing companion, the beloved Bunny Bertagna. Poor little thing was suffering badly and we couldn't let that go on.

As I said in a post last year:

A rabbit is the perfect writing companion. He needs no walkies when you are lost in that hard-won mysterious 'zone' when the hours fly by and writing is a dream. Cast a few carrot chunks about the room and he will amuse himself quietly all afternoon by foraging in corners. Rabbits don't bark or twitter, just make sweet gruntings and look impossibly cute when they want something. They are the ultimate muse: when you read a bit of the book you are working on, they never look bored or less than impressed. And they are the best foot warmer in winter, as you sit at your desk.

What more could a writer want?

So, to possibly the most spoiled house rabbit ever, thank you for a bunny-load of love, fun and foot-warming. We miss you lots.

One City

Our City brings together ten of Scotland's top children's writers, with specially commissioned stories inspired by Edinburgh and introduced by children's-favourite, BBC presenter, Raven.

OCEAN TERMINAL, EDINBURGH
6 November 2008 at 4.30pm

Meet all ten authors of Our City - come along to Ocean terminal, Edinburgh, and get your very own copy of the book signed by all ten authors.