Jon Blake's Blog - Posts Tagged "usa"
Last Free Cat in the USA
"The Last Free Cat" is due to be published on September 1st in the USA. This is really important to me, since the book was not greatly promoted in the UK and has only now begun to get the recognition which, with all due modesty, I have always believed it deserved. I read all the reviews on Goodreads and am profoundly grateful that readers have taken the trouble to write them. The book was written with a passion, not only for cats but for justice, and I cannot overstate how crucial it is for me to find that it has touched or inspired people.
I haven't written another book like "The Last Free Cat", but here are some I would like to humbly recommend to those who liked it:
"Oshie" - a short book for juniors whose hero has cerebral palsy.
"The True Beautiful Game" - a novella for teenagers about a snooker-mad boy meeting his long-lost father.
"Geoffrey's First" - a novel for older teens about the coming-of-age of an arrogant misfit.
"The King of Rock and Roll" - an empowering fantasy for juniors.
You may struggle to find some of these due to the short shelf life of books these days, but I am considering converting the best of my backlist to ebooks shortly.
I haven't written another book like "The Last Free Cat", but here are some I would like to humbly recommend to those who liked it:
"Oshie" - a short book for juniors whose hero has cerebral palsy.
"The True Beautiful Game" - a novella for teenagers about a snooker-mad boy meeting his long-lost father.
"Geoffrey's First" - a novel for older teens about the coming-of-age of an arrogant misfit.
"The King of Rock and Roll" - an empowering fantasy for juniors.
You may struggle to find some of these due to the short shelf life of books these days, but I am considering converting the best of my backlist to ebooks shortly.
I do not live in England
I've just had to correct a Google Books profile of me which asserted, without apparent evidence, that I live in England. There have also been a few reviews of The Last Free Cat, similarly, that claim my YA novel is set in England. And funny enough, we did a house swap with a US expat in Bavaria last year, and saw on her calendar the word ENGLAND! over the dates she was to be in our house.
All of this perhaps stems from the illusion, particularly common in the USA, that the names "England" and "Britain" are interchangeable. This is not the case. England is one nation in a group of nations which make up the nation of Great Britain, the others being (contentiously) Northern Ireland, (possibly not for much longer) Scotland, and the country in which I live, Wales. Wales has only partial sovereignity through a devolved national assembly; while the Welsh are highly unlikely to vote for total independence, no-one questions the fact that Wales is a bona fide nation, with, besides anything else, its own language, increasingly popular as the medium by which children in Wales are educated.
I am emphatically not a Welsh nationalist. I came to live in South Wales over a quarter century ago largely because of the area's internationalist and socialist traditions, which sadly have withered with the destruction of the coal and steel industries. But I certainly do love living in Cardiff, and am annoyed as anyone when Wales is marginalised or patronised.
The landscape of The Last Free Cat almost entirely derives from Wales. But I rarely use specific places in my stories, which perhaps explains why I am less well known here than literary figures who have sold a lot less books. Then again, I'd never call myself a Welsh writer. Anyone who reads '69ers' will be well aware of my origins. But just to make it doubly clear, I do not live in England now!
All of this perhaps stems from the illusion, particularly common in the USA, that the names "England" and "Britain" are interchangeable. This is not the case. England is one nation in a group of nations which make up the nation of Great Britain, the others being (contentiously) Northern Ireland, (possibly not for much longer) Scotland, and the country in which I live, Wales. Wales has only partial sovereignity through a devolved national assembly; while the Welsh are highly unlikely to vote for total independence, no-one questions the fact that Wales is a bona fide nation, with, besides anything else, its own language, increasingly popular as the medium by which children in Wales are educated.
I am emphatically not a Welsh nationalist. I came to live in South Wales over a quarter century ago largely because of the area's internationalist and socialist traditions, which sadly have withered with the destruction of the coal and steel industries. But I certainly do love living in Cardiff, and am annoyed as anyone when Wales is marginalised or patronised.
The landscape of The Last Free Cat almost entirely derives from Wales. But I rarely use specific places in my stories, which perhaps explains why I am less well known here than literary figures who have sold a lot less books. Then again, I'd never call myself a Welsh writer. Anyone who reads '69ers' will be well aware of my origins. But just to make it doubly clear, I do not live in England now!
