FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

If you would like to ask any questions that have not been answered below, please feel free to contact me!

Do you have an uncle called Alonzo with a huge beard?

No.  Sorry!  I do have more than one uncle, but none of them are named Alonzo and (at least at the time that I last saw them) none of them has even a stubbly little beard, much less one big enough to house a collection of small people!


Who are the other members of Alonzo's family and what are they like?
 
Alonzo's family are something of a motley crew, with their various personality quirks, physical oddities and bizarre pets.  They range across three generations, from Alonzo's nieces and nephews, via his sister-in-law, up to her parents (the children's grandparents). As you can imagine, they're all somewhat strange, but very good-hearted - you'd have to be to drag round a beard that size for so long, just to avoid making a few tiny people homeless!


What other things are you working on at the moment?

My current work includes a YA novel (a modern fantasy action adventure), an anthology of comic verse, a non-fiction project for 9-12+ and another book for 8-11 year-olds which I am in the process of editing. 

I have also recently begun offering two writing workshops - Writing Children's Fiction: The Basics (for adults) and A Creative Writing Workshop for Children (for children, obviously!), both of which I devised and ran successfully for the first time last year - as well as a third workshop, Making English Enjoyable, which is designed for children who, for whatever reason, are not enjoying English lessons at school.


Do you have any tips on becoming a writer?

My main tip - and it's likely that if you really want to be a writer you're already doing this - is simply to read.  Read as much and as widely as you can.  Not only will you (hopefully!) enjoy doing so but you will also learn a great deal from it - what works and what doesn't, what you like and what you don't, new words and new ways of working with them.

And then just write.  Write as much as you can, as often as you can, and about anything you like.  Some of the work that you produce you'll be able to use, some you won't, but it will all help you to become a better writer in the end. 

When you have completed a piece of work and done all the polishing that you can, get yourself a copy of The Writer's Handbook or The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, choose an agent or publisher (or two, or three!) who is interested in the kind of writing that you do, send your work in to them in the manner that they prefer, then cross your fingers and wait…  But don't, whatever you do, let the waiting stop you from diving straight back into a whole new lot of reading and writing for the next project!

If you would still like to learn a bit more about writing then you may be interested in taking one of the workshops that I mentioned above.  There is one for adults who want to write for children, one for children who already enjoy writing and one for children who aren't really enjoying English at school.  Take a look and see if any of them might be for you!


What books do you enjoy reading? 

As I mentioned on the About Me page, some of my favourite genres include fantasy, crime, thrillers or mysteries, children's literature, autobiography/true life and poetry, although I'll give almost anything a try as long as something about it interests me.  Among my favourite fiction authors at the moment are Terry Brooks, Khaled Hosseini, Raymond E Feist, Tamora Pierce, Mercedes Lackey, P J Tracy, David Eddings, Lynn Flewelling and Philip Pullman.  When I was younger I was a big fan of Brian Jacques, Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, Dick King-Smith and Colin Dann. 

I have a huge attachment to the poetry of the First World War (Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon et al), which grabbed hold of me when I first studied it shortly before my GCSE's and has never really let me go.  Other books that have stayed with me long after reading them include Brian Keenan's An Evil Cradling - a moving account of the four and a half years that he spent as a hostage in Beirut - Alice Sebold's poignant novel The Lovely Bones and Waris Dirie's extraordinary autobiography Desert Flower.  From the world of children's or young adult's books, I have to mention Suzanne Phillips' Burn - a powerful and disturbing look at the consequences of bullying and alienation - Alice Hoffman's Incantation, Julie Bertagna's Exodus, David Clement-Davies' Fire Bringer and, last, but by no means least, a book that has haunted me since the moment I closed the cover on the final page many years ago, Ouida Sebestyen's The Girl in the Box    


Do you have any favourite television shows or films? 

Yes, loads!  A lot of the television shows that I like come from similar genres to my favourite books.  I enjoy various thrillers and police/crime dramas, such as Sherlock, Poirot, Blue Bloods, NCIS, Spooks, Rookie Blue and Castle, while fantasy favourites include Merlin, Supernatural, Dr Who, Being Human, Haven and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I'm also a big fan of comedies like Father Ted, Malcolm in the Middle and Scrubs and topical quizzes like Have I Got News for You and Mock the Week.  Other programmes that I enjoy, but which don't quite fit into any of the above categories, include The West Wing, Hustle, Downton Abbey, Sons of Anarchy and Strictly Come Dancing!  

Film favourites include Slumdog Millionaire, Gran Torino, The Dark Knight, Enchanted, Tears of the Sun, Gladiator, The Green Mile, The Bourne Ultimatum (and the previous two Bourne films), Children of Men, Enemy of the State, The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Stand By Me, the Die Hard quartet, The Lost Boys, Ransom, Miss Potter and The Shining.  All in all, something of an eclectic mix!  :-)