Continuing along, just like last year, all future posts on Harrogate events will follow in reverse chronological order.
The New Blood Panel maintained a tradition - Val McDermid, a great supporter of new writers chaired the event and got a lot and the best out of a cracking panel of authors: Dreda Say Mitchell; Cathi Unsworth; Clare Sambrook; Allan Guthrie.
Essentially, following the "write about what you know" theme, panel members' disclosures indicated that they are experts in the fields in which they choose to write.
Dreda Say Mitchell's family was from Grenada and she grew up on an East London housing estate. She chooses to write about people who live on the margins of society. Mitchell was successful in the education system she entered in the 60s, but was very aware that others, especially boys were not and continue in that vein. The boys around her grew up to be men that had a high risk of entering the world of crime and she simply had to write about that. This is what led to her interest in crime fiction.
Mitchell's protagonist, "school boy" is a small time drug dealer who knows he has seven days to get out and start afresh. She'd had a friend in a similar position who knew that if he didn't get out of the cycle he was in, it would just be more prison and longer sentences. Mitchell emphasised that it is not easy to get out of criminality. She noted that although she has dark humour running throughout her novel, some situations of violence are also quite brutal. She sought to bring an authentic flavour to her dialogue, something she described as "outlaw language".
Mitchell's route to the published form was an initial attendance at a course run at The Groucho Club by Maggie Hamand. Hamand went on to set up a publishing company, Maia Press, and she asked Mitchell to submit something for an anthology. Following submission, Mitchell received a call to say Hamand wanted to publish the novel.
Mitchell did not think she was writing crime fiction as she wrote, but was advised to market her novel as such. She's pleased to be able to say something about society and to raise questions in the minds of her readers.
Mitchell was in a school that did have many black children. There, she became aware of a "hierarchy" in the English language, where black kids did not feature high on the list and so she chose to give them a voice and to make it realistic. The voice in her novel is "very direct".
So where next? Mitchell is working on a trilogy with the council housing estate as the springboard for the series, rather than one protagonist. Her second novel is music related.
Cathi Unsworth had a career in music journalism and was very happy with it until she was the victim of a failed magazine with some time on her hands. She'd read a Derek Raymond novel and thought that crime fiction was a way of looking at society and its ills. So she started writing, describing her first labour of love (aka novel) as a task that took about ten years. Unsworth wanted to talk about, and hence expose our "nasties under the carpet", particularly violence against women and children.
Once thinking "Reservoir Dogs" to be a cool movie, she now thinks it glamorises violence, making it a "laugh". However, she hilariously said that her protagonist is based on Quentin Tarantino, if he'd been English, and is a cross between Jonathon Ross and a young Michael Portillo.
A friend of Unsworth once asked her if she'd met any psychopaths. Their discussion highlighted that the qualities of a psychopath make them very good in various professions, with Unsworth citing politicians and some in the music industry.
Unsworth believes that crime fiction is the best genre in which to say something about society's cause and effects, and to ask "why can't we be happy and satisfied?"
Unsworth recognised that a part of her voice in fiction was her own experience as a victim of violence. Writing was alchemy for her and she looked into herself for the rage necessary for her novel. But also, she acknowledged that part of her novel is a love letter to parts of London - the parts of London she loves.
Where next? A novel set between the present day and 1977 examining how people were in the past and what they have become. (Unsworth likes "punk" by the way and admires Johnny Rotten because he said it was great to be different.
Clare Sambrook recounted a background I could relate to - I'd guess we are about the same age. She grew up in the shadows of the Moors murders with very protective parents; then in her teens, the Yorkshire Ripper was at large and eventually caught; by the time she arrived at Cambridge university, the Cambridge rapist was no more, but she moved into his shadow. Sambrook lived in a house she described as having "not many consumer goods but loads of books" and in an environment where it was "Pass the 11+, or what else!?" She is curious about how some suffer so much in life but come through it to live such good lives and how others differ. For some, she said, it's a tragedy if they think the nanny is about to quit...
Sambrook has a first novel that she said she'd written about nine times, by the time it was finished. Her inspiration came from Ladbroke Grove, where she lived. Firstly, she was sort of mugged by a youth with a stammer - she couldn't understand what he was saying and kept asking him to repeat himself. Eventually, she got the gist - he was saying something along the lines of "Give us your money". As a result she started to learn karate and then she went on a karate school bus trip. On return, Sambrook woke up to comments from the children about the fact that one child was missing from the bus. To her horror, the adults were too embarrassed to do anything about it and the journey continued. To her multiple horror, and as a journalist, Sambrook heard some great words coming from the children and sat there taking notes. (The child was fine, by the way. He/she had been picked up at the destination by relatives.)
Working patterns between her and her freelance partner meant that they suddenly had four months in which she could take the opportunity to write a novel. "The time is now." She described her first attempt as "pitiful" and re-did it - that nine times, eventually. She believes that someone was looking for the get out clause that is "leave early on a Friday" and grabbed a manuscript from the pile, entitled "Yabadabadoo", thinking it would certainly "be shit". He got a bum deal on his planned night out, but kept on reading and Sambrook got lucky. "Yabadabadoo" became "Hide and Seek".
At the time of writing Hide and Seek, Sambrook read Elmore Leonard for something completely "unrelated" that would not influence her writing. She emphasised that there's no detective story in Hide and Seek; it's about Harry's attempts to re-balance his world.
When it comes to "voice", Sambrook has solidified memories of life as an 8/9 year old as that was when her mother died. She so feared that she would forget her mother that her memories of that time became "seared" in her mind and are alive with her today. But the voice of Harry is not her own voice from her childhood. Sambrook did extensive research amongst the youth of Ladbroke Grove for her novel.
What next? Sambrook is writing a second novel, slowly, she said. Watch her space.
Allan Guthrie grew up in Orkney where crime was not rife. Not rife at all. Even recently, he noted that the local rag's major crime story related to the moving of a plant pot, with the local chief of police making the announcement. (Perhaps a little tongue in cheek on the details there, but who knows?) Guthrie then moved to the city of Manchester for music school. He was a bookseller at a chain store for some years and thought he'd "give it a shot" after being introduced to crime fiction there. As a result, and it was a long time becoming a result, his first published novel Two Way Split made the shelves. It was actually his third novel that was published. Guthrie was on the point of giving up and considering another career, as he'd amassed "several hundred rejections" for his first three novels. But then he entered the debut dagger and was shortlisted...
Guthrie has a psychotic pianist turned armed robber as his protagonist, based on an old Post Office robbery. As an individual, he said he finds it difficult to take society's figures of authority seriously and that he chooses not to write about them. He writes from the point of view of victims or criminals and is interested in abnormal psychology.
Guthrie said his "voice" comes from rage and that it helps him to get angry at the computer screen when he's writing. With a style of "hard boiled", his prose his pared down.
What next? No series characters for Guthrie; he has the reappearance of cameos in the future. One of the main characters comes through in the third novel from the first, with "ultra violence" and something "Jacobean" about the proceedings.
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When questions opened there was one about the impact of public exposure on becoming a published author. Guthrie: "the more you do it the better it gets". Unsworth - previously to her first public reading for her novel, her last had been at the school assembly. Sambrook - she's been shouted at for loose ends.
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This was a great panel hour with the authors making enthusiastic and open contributions. I'm sure many, who couldn't be there will love to learn of their backgrounds and experience. Some were already resident on my periphery of new authors/books to buy, others were not. It's a testament to their input that I bought so many books after the event, and had them signed, and that I look forward to reading all of them. Author personalities were so strong in this panel that I simply had to buy the books. My thanks to all for a wonderful hour.
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