Posts Tagged ‘writers’

Get Over It!

Posted in Uncategorized on 09/15/2009 09:53 am by siobhan

Get Over It!

I’ve been reading in the press that some writers have been spitting their dummies out over new laws that will mean they have to be CRB checked before giving talks or workshops in schools. Phillip Pullman has called it “outrageous, demeaning and insulting” and Anne Fine has said it is “demeaning and unhealthy.” Both are now refusing to go back into British schools if they are made to suffer this “indignity”.

As writer in residence for several London schools and someone who has regularly been police checked before running writing workshops for children for various London councils, three words spring to mind:

GET. OVER. YOURSELVES.

Phillip and Anne my loves, no-one is accusing you of being paedophiles. But why should you be exempt from the checks that other adults face when wanting to work with children just because you know how to string a sentence together?

As a parent as well as a writer I’m glad and reassured that such proceedures are in place and besides it’s hardly as if having a CRB check is any great hassle. You aren’t dragged kicking and screaming to an interrogation room to endure hours of lie detector tests, water-boarding and listening to Englebert Humperdinck’s greatest hits on a loop.

You fill out a simple form and the school or local authority in question send it off and pay the £64 charge (in all my years of being CRB checked I have never once had to pay).

But this is all clearly too much for the delicate sensibilities of Anne Fine.

“All of us are constantly invited to do tours abroad.” She said last week. “If we can no longer enthuse British children about reading then I’m happy to go to more sensible places like Australia, New Zealand, america, France and Italy.”

Anne Fine is a superb author and as someone who knows only too well how much kids can get from an author visit I find it appalling that she is putting her own pride before the needs of British kids.

The truth is that some kids are only really made aware of the magic of reading and writing when they have an author come to their school. Authors have a freedom that curriculum-bound teachers do not. We can get kids to write about what really matters to them, we can show them that anyone can write and that reading and writing can be fun.

The children are what matter here – not the ridiculous egos of authors.

 

Writers’ Gusset

Posted in Uncategorized on 08/27/2009 09:52 am by siobhan

Writers’ Gusset

A new website called Newscasters’ Closet has been launched in America, offering people the chance to buy the used clothes of their favourite newsreaders.

Now, I’m a big fan of Channel 4′s Jon Snow but I have to admit that not once in all my years of watching him grilling hapless politicians have I ever found myself thinking, gosh I wish there was some way I could get my hands on that technicolour tie / luminous green and pink sock combo.

But clearly I have been missing something and so, keen to cash in on this hot new trend, I have decided to launch my own alternative site called Writers’ Gusset.

At Writers’ Gusset you will be able to buy the genuine undergarments of your favourite scribes in order to intimately recreate the conditions under which they wrote their literary masterpieces.

Just imagine – you could become the proud owner of the very y-fronts that helped Stephen King create Carrie.  Or the reinforced control pants behind  Ann Widdecombe’s various tomes.

But why focus on writers’ underwear, I hear you cry.

Well, it is a little known fact that the humble underpant plays a crucial role in the writer’s creative process. When wrestling with issues like awkward plot twists and character development the last thing you need is to also be wrestling with a wedgie. Unless of course you are writing Misery Lit, in which case a thong two sizes too small could be just what the publisher ordered.

I am actually giving a talk on this very subject at the Accrington Stanley Writers’ Convention next month, entitled ‘Long Johns and the Emergence of 19th Century Novel’.

To get the ball rolling so to speak I would like to present you with the first pair of undergarments on offer at Writers’ Gusset:-

Writer's Gusset

Writer's Gusset

I wore these pants throughout the entire writing of my first novel, Sweet FA. The book was a comedy – hence the natty watermelon design and it took about a year to write - hence the comfortable cut.

If you would like to intimately recreate the conditions under which I wrote my first novel then please send your bids on a postcard. The lowest unique bid ‘wins’. Good luck!