Q&A with YA Author Alex Smith discussion

Hi Alex - I am fascinated by the trailer for your book. Can you tell us a little more about it and what reaction you're getting to it?

Hi Alex! I can’t wait to read your new book - It looks creepily delightful!

Can you tell me more about your writing process behind this book? The emotions, the planning and how The Secret Garden inspired you?

PS: The trailer is stunning!

For those who haven't seen it yet - http://youtu.be/sERXgtkW1Fw

Hi Alex.In what ways does does writing a book for children differ from writing for adults?

I loved The Secret garden as a child too, but it took three reads of Devilskein & Dearlove before I realised why it was familiar, and then it all fell ito place. But as people keep saying to me, there are no demons in TSG. (I could argue the point on that one!) I was intrigued (sp?) by how you updated Mary Lennox's orphaned state into something so much more brutal for Erin Dearlove,how do you think children's literature generally has changed over the 100ish years between the two books?

Hi Maire – well, In my mind as I was writing the novel, I saw the story unfold in pictures, like a Studio Ghibli animated film. When Cherry Potts the owner of Arachne Press said she wanted to make a book trailer, I thought that sounded like fine plan, but I had no idea that between Cherry and the brilliant animator Nick Page (son of Greg, the voice of Devilskein in the trailer) they would so absolutely capture the sort of style and pictures I had in my head. They made the trailer – Cherry developed the script from the novel, she organised the wonderful actors , the music, she did the mood-boards (a kind of pre-animation version of the trailer) - I just sent some photos of Long Street and an image of a man with tattoos on his face, the sort of look I had envisaged for Devilskein. It’s a dream trailer. I love it. And everyone who has seen it has been excited.
Book trailers are contentious, but Cherry had a very practical reason for making this one: I am in South Africa, so she wanted to create something exciting to make up for the fact that I wouldn’t be in the UK around the time of the launch. I’ve also read that while book trailers may not work for all genres, they seem to have been particularly successful with books in the YA genre.

Hi Annabel!
I’m so glad you like the trailer and that it leaves you thinking that the book will be ‘creepily delightful’, that sounds like a perfect description. I started writing when I was pregnant (very emotional) because I was worried that I’d never have time to write another novel in my life after my son was born, and I think that in the early stages of the writing I was very aware of wanting to create something that my son would one day enjoy reading. This wish made me reflect upon books I had loved as a child and a teenager and also why I had loved them. And one of those was ‘The Secret Garden’, it’s a story, that always lingers in the back of my mind for a combination of reasons, it’s about finding hope in bleak circumstances, creating beauty out of ruin, working to restore the loveliness of order after chaos has ripped through one’s life and it’s about friendship. In gardens and gardening all these things happen all the time and there is magic about life growing from seeds. Enchantment. I wanted to write something that would be enchanting in some way, and yet honest in others; so in this novel there is a deliberate attempt at balance; dark and light, Devilskein & Dearlove. I tend to write and plot later (even thought I know I teach my writing students to do the opposite!), which gets me in trouble at times, and that’s why editors are wonderful and brilliant and essential.

If I can add to that, while I was reading the 1st draft I'd already thought of Ed Boxall for the cover and because of his style, when I wanted to do the trailer, animation was the obvious way to go. Just luck that I asked Greg to do Devilskein and he mentioned Nick...

Ah the secret is out! I was going to ask if you'd plotted based on TSG, or just gone for it. Did you re-read TSG first?

It is a brilliant trailer

By the way you seem to have to refresh the page to see what people are saying...

We should definitely try for a skype conference some time,that's more real time, and we MIGHT be able to see each other, and speak!

Alix wrote: "Hi Alex.In what ways does does writing a book for children differ from writing for adults?"



Hi Alix
Well, I recently read an article about C.S.Lewis who said : ‘Where the children’s story is simply the right form for what the author has to say, then of course readers who want to hear that, will read the story or re-read it, at any age… I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story.’

And I wholeheartedly agree with this, so I think that there shouldn’t really be a difference. I don’t like the idea of limiting vocabulary or emotions or experiences or shielding truths, certainly the old Fairy Tales didn’t do that. One lovely book shop buyter who commented on the novel, said she saw the hope present in novel as an essential aspect of any YA novel (that she would recommend), she said that teenagers need to know there is hope. I think adults need that too. So whether writing for adults or young adults, my stories always contain hope and that’s not an intentional theme, it’s just I need that idea of hope reaffirmed too so I suppose that just comes through in the writing. (I can’t survive utter bleakness in a story) But having said all that about not ‘writing down’, violence is something that need not be so overt that it could be overly distressing for a younger reader – in fact Cherry edited out some violent aspects of the novel.

to refresh the page click on the little curved arrow thngy at the right of the box woith the website adddress in

Alex wrote: "Alix wrote: "Hi Alex.In what ways does does writing a book for children differ from writing for adults?"



Hi Alix
Well, I recently read an article about C.S.Lewis who said : ‘Where the children’s..."

Only a light touch edit on that - I work on the basis that if I'm recoiling so will a 12 year old, and I still remember bitterly a couple of books that really freaked me out as a child. Sobbing inconsolably over a book that has frightened me so badly i can't sleep isn't my idea of fun! Not that I was doing that over D&D!

My Internet connection is so slow tonight! Thanks Alix, glad you like the trailer.

Cherry, I think the original - the parents died of smallpox or something?? can't quite remember - was also also pretty shattering, but

their way of dying was appropriate to their time and place. Living in SA, farm murders have been so common that it didn't actually occur to me that for an overseas audience they would be especially horrifying. Seeing it through your eyes, I understood.

Hi Alex,
I am doing a reading from Chapter 3 for the book launch on Wednesday. Haven't finished the book yet, but what I have read is great. Devil skein is a wonderfully odd and threatening character and as the mother of daughters, I am always happy to find a feisty female protagonist.
I have a couple of questions:
How old is Kelwyn - when he is introduced he is described as a 'stocky teen'. I wondered if his voice had broken yet?
How old is Erin?
Can you phonetically write the pronunciation of Riebeek?

Thanks Alex. I so agree about the necessity of hope.I find that unless there is hope in a book I just end up feeling depleted to no good effect.

Hi Alex
The bustle and life on Long Street come across really vividly. Is this somewhere you know and love? (Are the recycling lorries a bugbear?!)

I did read it first. Actually, I was inspired by Neil Gaiman's reworking of The Jungle Book (into The Graveyard Book), to try something like that with a novel I loved, to transform its time and place.

Yes, Alix, like our iconic South African novel, 'Disgrace'. It's without doubt a most deftly written novel, however, it left me utterly depleted.

I really liked that it wasn't at all obvious that TSG was the template, I felt like there was a ghost lodged in the story, or a palimpsest, I got these waves of familiarity tickling the edge of my brain. Gaiman achieves the same, both hs Graveyard inhabitants and your demons are very much their own people

I've just realised I'm commenting rather than replying!

Alex wrote: "I've just realised I'm commenting rather than replying!"
I dont think it matters

Muireann wrote: "Hi Alex
The bustle and life on Long Street come across really vividly. Is this somewhere you know and love? (Are the recycling lorries a bugbear?!)"

Hi Muireann, Long Street is one of the best streets on earth! I've traveled a fair bit and there is not a street I can think of that beats its atmosphere and myriad of delights. Equals maybe, but not beats. I didn't even mention the Pan African Market in the novel. It's worth travelling to Cape Town just to see that market. Recycling not a bugbear, but as a pedestrian I always find lorry fumes irksome.

Hi Malini, Muireann, Alix thanks for joining us - should have said hello sooner.

Malini wrote: "Hi Alex,
I am doing a reading from Chapter 3 for the book launch on Wednesday. Haven't finished the book yet, but what I have read is great. Devil skein is a wonderfully odd and threatening charact..."
Hi Malini! I wish I could be there to see the reading. I'm doing the same bit at a book shop in Long Street that evening, so I'll be thinking of you.

That doesn't matter Alex it's all interesting stuff

Yes, his voice has broken. Erin is 13.
It's ree-beer-k

Alex wrote: "Malini wrote: "Hi Alex,
I am doing a reading from Chapter 3 for the book launch on Wednesday. Haven't finished the book yet, but what I have read is great. Devil skein is a wonderfully odd and thre..."

Shall we try for a skype link on Wednesday? It would probably be 10pm your time, that might be a bit late?

We can certainly try - I'll probably look like a badger by then in my pj's(is it Skype with video?)... No no, I'll make sure I don't look like a badger.

Cherry, to answer your question about the changes in literature, one major change is really in the marketing. There was no such thing as YA 100 years ago.

Thanks. When I was growing up some of our best family friends were SA expats and their Granny Tilly visited often, from Cape Town, so I am channelling her for the accents!

Alex wrote: "We can certainly try - I'll probably look like a badger by then in my pj's(is it Skype with video?)... No no, I'll make sure I don't look like a badger."

Badgers are good! (Not got sharks on your PJs then?!) We can always NOT turn on the video, so people can just talk to you, ask a few questions?

And on a bit of a tangent, I remember in psychology at university we read about the creation of childhood, how it was a fairly recent phenomenon. ( one manifestation for example, if one looks at say, the paintings of Dutch Masters, children are dressed exactly the same as adults, there appears to be no such thing as children's clothing). That when 'childhood' was created, children were given special protection and rights and then of course a long way down the line it opened up to marketing which has gone wild for children. Where am I going with this as I sip my tea...

One of the things I liked (moving away from badgers...) was the rooms within rooms and all the weird and wonderful things hidden there if you had the right key.
when I was reading the underwater bit, I was pleasantly bewildered, thinking 'where is this book taking me?'but very happy to be led. There was a bit of me that wanted to wander there for ever. were you tempted to keep inventing more 'cabinets'?

Never mind a 100 years Alex, more like 60. There was very little when I was a child and I'm now in my early 70s. The idea of teenagers and marketing to themreally only got going in the late 50s. My very first introductions came from a very goahead children's librarian. Elfrida Vipont was one of the first

So now then came children's books (before probably there was just whatever religious text or oral storytelling mythology that was most common wherever the child lived)

Children and adults shared stories before 'childhood' was created! The creation of 'teen' or more (is it politically correct?) 'YA' is an even newer category than childhood.

And in some ways it is a pity, not from a marketing point of view, it is after all, a marketing tool,, but

Ah, but if you look at Breughel or even delft tiles, there are children playing with kites and hoops, skating and mucking about generally, which rather undermines that argument... though I agree; it is ridiculous how childhood is almost fetishised now. I think growing up in the 60's I had it about right, lots of childhood, next to no marketing, spending all day in the park or in the garden getting muddy following the cat around! A golden age... (sighs)great books too- apart for TSG what were your favourites growing up?

That's so interesting Alix, I'm glad somebody is out there still ... I think I was rambling.

So it seems perhaps the greatest difference between literature 100 years ago (as you said Cherry) and now, is that, nowadays literature is broken up into saleable segments, target markets.

I suppose it is a necessity because there is just so much out there...so there is another difference: volume.

There's that weird cross over period of Ann of Green Gables, and PollyAnna, where the book is definitely telling children (especially girls) how to behave, but somehow manage to be good stories anyway(ish!)
I love Erin the same as I loved Mary Lennox, for being such a fearsome cross patch and not bowing to anyone. Interesting that Frances H Burnett's other children are less so Sarah Crowe in the little princess who is brave but docile and the GHASTLY little lord fauntleroy!

I'm always interested in discussing children's literature, I've read it almost all of my life from the age of about 5. Apart from a brief break in my late teens because I thought I should have grown out of it!

Alex wrote: "I suppose it is a necessity because there is just so much out there...so there is another difference: volume."
Yes, I often think that so called 'classics'are only that because there was nothing much else to choose from at the time. mercifully most of that category have disappeared, and the real geniuses survuve (lewis carrol!) but I remember a whole tranch of incomprehensible 'classics' at primary school the slipper and the rose springs to mind, couldnt stomach it at all!

Cherry wrote: "There's that weird cross over period of Ann of Green Gables, and PollyAnna, where the book is definitely telling children (especially girls) how to behave, but somehow manage to be good stories any..."

What katy Did was another of that ilk. It warned girls about what wuld happen to you if you were feisty. Katy fell from a swing and was bed ridden for years until she learnt to bear up with patience, get rid of her anger and always be kind and patient at which point she was miraculously cured from her paralysis. Second half of book post accident, very dull.

Cherry wrote: "Ah, but if you look at Breughel or even delft tiles, there are children playing with kites and hoops, skating and mucking about generally, which rather undermines that argument... though I agree; i..." That sounds perfect, especially the no marketing thing (I'm sorry! I won't mention marketing again, I know, I know is so important, and yet...gah! it's a bit of a catch 22) ... I'd prefer to think of the muddy cat.