Literature Festival with a difference!

This weekend 9th and 10th July a very special event is taking place.
The Awfully Big Blog Adventure blog  is celebrating its 3rd Birthday and holding the very first ever  ONLINE LITERARY FESTIVAL,  run entirely by children’s authors, and we want YOU to get involved in supporting us!

On 9th and 10th July 2011 40 (yes FORTY) children’s authors from the Scattered Authors’ Society, will be bringing you something new and special every half hour from 9.30am to 7.30pm.


There will be:
• Amazing Blogs
• Stunning Videos
• Exciting Giveaways
• Fascinating Interviews
• Mind-boggling Competitions

Join all the fabulous guests & contributors at the exciting ABBA Online Litfest!
To join in the conversation! Follow @AwfullyBigBlog on Twitter, tweet about us on the day and before, using the special hashtag #ABBAlitfest 
Crime Central's  very own criminal masterminds Anne Cassidy, Gillian Philip, Keren David and Linda Strachan are all taking part, as are some of our favourite contributors.

Look out for Anne Cassidy's blog Post: To Blog or Not To Blog? at 9.30am on SATURDAY morning.
 Gillian Philip will be there At 12.30pm on SATURDAY with a  Competition: Win 'Bloodstone' and 'Firebrand'
At 2.30pm on SUNDAY Fiona Dunbar & Keren David Video: In Conversation
At 5.00pm on SUNDAY Linda Strachan & Cathy MacPhail Video: In Conversation- tutoring creative writing at Arvon

And there are so many more fabulous authors taking part - There's something different every half hour on each day!   See the  Full Programme here.

Naturally, there will be virtual champagne and cake on the day, so come and join in on this fantastically fabulous literary party!  

What do I know about crime fiction? - The Bookette

Becky- The Bookette

 When Linda Strachan asked me to write about what makes a good crime novel I was more than a little apprehensive.

I mean, what do I know about crime fiction?

I thought about this more and more, I’ll be honest I don’t like to let people down. I figured there must be a reason she asked me for an opinion piece.

Am I opinionated? Probably.

The thing is I don’t really think I know anything about crime fiction. That’s because when I think about crime fiction I think of the following:

• Adult fiction  

• The crime bit in Waterstones

• Authors that I have never read including: Jo Nesbo, Karen Rose, Colin Dexter?

But then I thought well Linda can’t want me to have an opinion on these people. This would be just weird. I’m a children’s librarian. So then the penny drops and I realise she wants my opinion on crime in teen or preteen fiction.

I guess I can do that because now I think about it, I really do read such novels. Here are the crime authors I’ve read fairly recently: Keren David, Gillian Philip, Sarah Singleton, Anne Cassidy, Jenny Downham, Andrew Lane, Andy Mulligan and of course Linda Strachan!

You see I was thinking of crime fiction as a thriller, a whodunit, but in actual fact crime is a theme running through many contemporary teen novels. The issue of crime is relevant to teens today in a way that is so far removed from the murder mystery concept.   The issue of gangs and knife crime has been all too relevant to our young people in the last decade.  

Contemporary teen fiction explores many different examples of crime and deviance:

ILLEGAL POACHING in Sarah Singleton’s The Stranger

SHOPLIFTING  in Hilary Freeman’s - Lifted

INCEST in Tabitha Suzuma’s Forbidden

                   

RAPE in Jenny Downham’s You Against Me

PROSTITUTION in Kevin Brooks’ Candy

 
Crime and deviance feed into contemporary teen fiction novels because this is surely the time when teens experience peer pressure to try smoking, drink alcohol and experiment with illegal substances.


But crime is not a theme that is strictly for contemporary fiction, I have noticed a trend towards exploring the theme through paranormal fiction too.

Kimberly Derting’s The Body Finder is your traditional whodunit with a girl who senses corpses.


I’m sure we’ll be seeing crime feed into many more genres in the next few years if it hasn’t happened already.





So what makes a good crime novel? In my mind the same things that make any book a good book -

• A main character that you can relate to

• A significant problem that the main character must overcome

• A plot that twists and turns and is fast paced

• Witty dialogue

• Description which makes you feel as if you are living the story

• Humour

• The author’s own unique way of telling the story

And for me personally,

• A really dramatic opening scene!

Perhaps a novel about copyright theft would be a good place to start teens talking about the morality of illegal downloading. That could be the most relevant crime novel of the next decade. In case anyone is looking for an idea...

I guess Linda was right.............. I am opinionated!

(But in a good way, Becky! ..Ed)

Becky, The Bookette is a Children's Librarian in a London prep school and an excellent reviewer of children's and young adult fiction at thebookette.co.uk

..............

How Do You Lie About Everything? An Interview with Keren David by Anne Cassidy

Anne Cassidy loved Keren David's WHEN I WAS JOE. She decided to interrogate Keren about it. She may bring charges at a later date.

Joe’s story is written in the first person. As a writer, was it hard to get into the mind of a teenage boy?

It was hard at the beginning, but became easier as I came to know Ty/Joe. I had several guiding principles – for example he rarely says what he is thinking, and he often acts impetuously, and I also thought a lot about what it might be like being a boy going through puberty. In the end his voice became very easy – easier than writing as a girl which I’ve just done.

What made you write about knife crime?

I didn’t set out to write about knife crime - the crime that Ty witnessed was going to be very much in the background, with the emphasis much more on the experience of taking on a false identity. But as I was writing there was a horrific spate of knife killings in London, and everything I was reading in the papers seemed to tell me more about Ty and his world. So the book became about knife crime as well - and considerably longer as a result.

The girls in your book, Claire, Ashley and Ellie all seem damaged in some way. Was this an important aspect of your story?

I didn’t really think of it like that, the characters grew with the story. Ellie, in fact, came from a plot-planning exercise at the evening class in Writing for Children that I was taking. We had to get into pairs and weave out characters into a story. My partner had a disabled athlete as her character and I had my witness boy – at the end of the session I asked her if I could nick her character and write the book - she agreed, I’m sure she didn’t think it would ever happen!

I do think that the three girls all represented things about Ty’s mum, Nicki, and his relationships with them were as much about his relationship with her as about the girls themselves.

There are twists and turns in the plot which leave the reader breathless. Did you plan it all out before you started writing?

Thank you! Not really - I had an idea of a start and end point, and I knew the backstory of the murder, but apart from that the twists and turns came as I wrote each chapter. My favourite twist just came to me as I was driving the car home from dropping my son at school - I nearly crashed the car, I was so excited!

Tell us about the sequel

Almost True, which was published in September 2010 carries on Ty’s story. He’s in even more danger, and he discovers a lot of secrets about his past and his family and the crime which he witnessed. I’ve just agreed with my publishers that there will be a third book about Ty, which I’m writing now and should be published in 2012.

Thank you, Keren. You may now leave the interrogation suite!