On Friday I was very lucky to have the opportunity to interview author Laini Taylor about her Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy. The vid is currently posted on Fantasy.Lit, so please check it out. Laini was very generous with her time and enthusiastic about her trilogy, with plenty to say about her inspiration, the creative process, and the upcoming film adaptation.
Eventually I’ll post it here as well, but I want the site to have exclusivity for a few weeks.
On Saturday I attended two panels, the first called The Truth About Writing KidLit with Gavin Bishop, Melinda Szymanik and Tania Roxborogh, and the second The Changeover: Thirty Years On with Stuart McKenzie, Elizabeth Know and Karen Healy.
The first dealt with the discussion on whether or not children’s literature should be ranked alongside adults in terms of quality and respect (yes!) and gave each of the three writers a chance to share the difficulties in writing for children – basically you have to say more but with less words.
The seminar on The Changeover was special – although this book by Margaret Mahy wasn’t a formative book of my childhood (though it was actually published the year I was born), it is a hugely important one in regards to how the supernatural can be used to accentuate characterization and theme. If you haven’t already, please read it.
Plus I found out that a film adaptation is in the works, which was news to me!
An amusing thing happened immediately prior: a woman approached me and said: “hi” only to blink and realize I wasn’t who she thought I was, covering her mistake with: “I’m glad you’re here!” before fleeing. Turns out she was Karen Healy, a speaker at the second panel.
And on Sunday I attended Supernaturally with Laini Taylor and Elizabeth Knox, moderated by my friend Helen Lowe, which was filled with insight, compliments, and the inevitable Twilight discussion. Now this I can share with you:
The rest on this playlist.
And yes, if you watch both this and my Laini Taylor interview you’ll notice that the presence of beverage holders threaten to overthrow both recordings – first a disposable coffee cup and then a water jug. Let’s pretend they have thematic significance as symbols of creativity and replenishment (there’s only so much I can do with a Tablet).
And finally I attended Beyond the Veil: Historical Ghost Stories, with Diane Setterfield, Rosetta Allan and Coral Atkinson, admittedly because I wanted to hear Diane Setterfield, author of The Thirteenth Tale (though I’m certainly going to track down the published work of the others).
I even summoned up the courage to ask her what she thought of the BBC adaptation of her novel (she liked it, and said it was the closest she’d ever get to seeing inside the mind of a reader considering it was a creative endeavour that was more-or-less completely outside her control).
There were a lot of familiar faces there; I ran into my MA supervisor and my old high school English teacher, and was pleasantly gratified that both of them recognised me. I chatted to a few nice people and came home feeling re-galvanised in regards to my own creative efforts – which is naturally the main point of any such festival.
Which also means I’ve entered my most recent manuscript for the Tessa Duder Award, a New Zealand based competition for YA books. I don’t hold out much hope for actually winning, but at this stage it’s all about just getting your work out there.
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