Steven Camden's Blog - Posts Tagged "steven-camden"
Steven Camden: Q&A
1. Can you tell us about yourself?
My name is Steven. I’m from Birmingham, but I live in London now. I came here for a girl. A lot of people that I see regularly down here know me as Polarbear, which always makes friends back home chuckle. My life revolves around stories; writing them, speaking them, performing them, helping other people write them and tell them and free styling them over dinner or on long journeys with our two boys.
2. Tell us about the title of your novel.
A cassette tape for me was about leaving a mark. My equivalent of scratching my name into a cave wall or pressing my hand in wet cement. Tape is to me as vinyl was to my parents and the idea of parenthood and what is passed down are central to the story.
3. Have you always wanted to write a novel?
I’ve always wanted to tell stories. I grew up in a house full of amazing storytellers and the magic of being given a world and feeling able to step into it was something I always dreamed I’d be able to do. To be honest, when I was a boy the idea of a novel always felt like something far away. I had no examples close enough to home or that felt of my world growing up to believe that I could do it, so I never really considered it a possibility. Then as I got into my teens and was reading more and more I started having fantasies about writing and I guess from then, the idea of an actual book became the dream.
4. Does it matter that tape is a form of media today's kids won't recognise?
I’m fascinated by things I don’t recognise, and I was at thirteen. All the teenagers I know recognise tape cassettes, even if they aren’t exactly familiar with them first hand. I’d like to think that the form of the recorded message in the story is less important than the impact it has and that if anything, the fact that a tape is the medium almost adds to the mystery and the idea of a time that has past still carrying weight today.
5. One of the themes is the nature of unconventional family set-ups - were there specific thing you wanted to say?
I didn’t set out to say specific things about family dynamics. I got to know my characters and followed their lead in terms of their home life and situations. Something I did want to comment on or explore was the idea of the space that is left when somebody goes, be it through death or choosing to leave. What that space does to those people left with it and if and how it gets filled. My family life and the family lives of people close to me growing up weren’t really ‘typical’, so I guess as you pour yourself into the people you create, the life that you know inevitably filters through.
6. What kind of books did you enjoy as a teenager?
I read all sorts. Not because I was devouring every bound collection of paper I laid my eyes on, but because the people and places that fed me my books were a wide and wonderful bunch.
I remember my uncle giving me ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ and loving it. I read The Lord of The Flies with my nan and loved that. I remember finding a copy of Misery by Stephen King and The Rats by James Herbert in a drawer at Butlins and they both sucked me in completely. I got The Watchmen from my cousin and thought my world had changed and used to steal my girlfriend’s Judy Blume and later her copy of Jurassic Park. I guess what I’m saying is my diet of books as a teenager was like a buffet made my someone who things the word buffet is French for jumble sale.
7. From where did you take the inspiration for the lead characters?
My first best friend at primary school left to move back to Ireland when we were eight and I was gutted. We lost touch and I never saw him again. Ryan is what I imagine him to be like aged thirteen.
Ameliah is the girl I would’ve fancied in year 10. The opposite of the shouty girl on the bus and the kind of person that notices things that make you tilt your head and sigh on a regular basis. I had a massive crush on Lisa ‘Lefteye’ Lopez from TLC and in my head she looks like Left Eye with big hair.
8. Death is another running theme - how did you approach writing about this subject?
I didn’t set out to write about death. I set out to write about what happens after it. I write stories to figure things out and for me a lot of TAPE is about my own ideas of parenthood, my relationships with my parents and the ones I have with my own children.
When it became clear to me that the death of close family was so prevalent to both main characters, then all I tried to make sure of was that amidst the confusion and anger and sadness and guilt, there was an underlying sense that if a mark has been made, it never means a full stop.
9. Are you writing a second novel?
I really am writing a second novel and I’m more than a bit excited about it. If TAPE was written for me aged thirteen (which it was), then this new one is for me aged sixteen. It’s hopefully different in lots of ways and similar in others, but it definitely feels older. I have a working title but I’m scared that if I type it here I’ll jinx it, or some guy with a hook for a hand will come out of the mirror and kill me. I’m so chuffed that I get to do this and in particular with the brilliant people I’ve met at Harper Collins and when I hold a proper copy in my hand for the first time, the thirteen year old me, years away in the past is going to get the best deja vu he’s ever had.
My name is Steven. I’m from Birmingham, but I live in London now. I came here for a girl. A lot of people that I see regularly down here know me as Polarbear, which always makes friends back home chuckle. My life revolves around stories; writing them, speaking them, performing them, helping other people write them and tell them and free styling them over dinner or on long journeys with our two boys.
2. Tell us about the title of your novel.
A cassette tape for me was about leaving a mark. My equivalent of scratching my name into a cave wall or pressing my hand in wet cement. Tape is to me as vinyl was to my parents and the idea of parenthood and what is passed down are central to the story.
3. Have you always wanted to write a novel?
I’ve always wanted to tell stories. I grew up in a house full of amazing storytellers and the magic of being given a world and feeling able to step into it was something I always dreamed I’d be able to do. To be honest, when I was a boy the idea of a novel always felt like something far away. I had no examples close enough to home or that felt of my world growing up to believe that I could do it, so I never really considered it a possibility. Then as I got into my teens and was reading more and more I started having fantasies about writing and I guess from then, the idea of an actual book became the dream.
4. Does it matter that tape is a form of media today's kids won't recognise?
I’m fascinated by things I don’t recognise, and I was at thirteen. All the teenagers I know recognise tape cassettes, even if they aren’t exactly familiar with them first hand. I’d like to think that the form of the recorded message in the story is less important than the impact it has and that if anything, the fact that a tape is the medium almost adds to the mystery and the idea of a time that has past still carrying weight today.
5. One of the themes is the nature of unconventional family set-ups - were there specific thing you wanted to say?
I didn’t set out to say specific things about family dynamics. I got to know my characters and followed their lead in terms of their home life and situations. Something I did want to comment on or explore was the idea of the space that is left when somebody goes, be it through death or choosing to leave. What that space does to those people left with it and if and how it gets filled. My family life and the family lives of people close to me growing up weren’t really ‘typical’, so I guess as you pour yourself into the people you create, the life that you know inevitably filters through.
6. What kind of books did you enjoy as a teenager?
I read all sorts. Not because I was devouring every bound collection of paper I laid my eyes on, but because the people and places that fed me my books were a wide and wonderful bunch.
I remember my uncle giving me ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ and loving it. I read The Lord of The Flies with my nan and loved that. I remember finding a copy of Misery by Stephen King and The Rats by James Herbert in a drawer at Butlins and they both sucked me in completely. I got The Watchmen from my cousin and thought my world had changed and used to steal my girlfriend’s Judy Blume and later her copy of Jurassic Park. I guess what I’m saying is my diet of books as a teenager was like a buffet made my someone who things the word buffet is French for jumble sale.
7. From where did you take the inspiration for the lead characters?
My first best friend at primary school left to move back to Ireland when we were eight and I was gutted. We lost touch and I never saw him again. Ryan is what I imagine him to be like aged thirteen.
Ameliah is the girl I would’ve fancied in year 10. The opposite of the shouty girl on the bus and the kind of person that notices things that make you tilt your head and sigh on a regular basis. I had a massive crush on Lisa ‘Lefteye’ Lopez from TLC and in my head she looks like Left Eye with big hair.
8. Death is another running theme - how did you approach writing about this subject?
I didn’t set out to write about death. I set out to write about what happens after it. I write stories to figure things out and for me a lot of TAPE is about my own ideas of parenthood, my relationships with my parents and the ones I have with my own children.
When it became clear to me that the death of close family was so prevalent to both main characters, then all I tried to make sure of was that amidst the confusion and anger and sadness and guilt, there was an underlying sense that if a mark has been made, it never means a full stop.
9. Are you writing a second novel?
I really am writing a second novel and I’m more than a bit excited about it. If TAPE was written for me aged thirteen (which it was), then this new one is for me aged sixteen. It’s hopefully different in lots of ways and similar in others, but it definitely feels older. I have a working title but I’m scared that if I type it here I’ll jinx it, or some guy with a hook for a hand will come out of the mirror and kill me. I’m so chuffed that I get to do this and in particular with the brilliant people I’ve met at Harper Collins and when I hold a proper copy in my hand for the first time, the thirteen year old me, years away in the past is going to get the best deja vu he’s ever had.
