Deciding to arrive in Hay early on the day of the award ceremony,
I Berlingo-ed
my way to Gloucester on Thursday afternoon, had an overnight
stop, and continued on to South Wales straight after breakfast.
In recent years the Award has been held in London, on a Saturday,
at the Roof Gardens, Kensington. Moving the day to a Friday,
and changing to a very much less accessible venue was always
going to be controversial. I was keen to find out how the transfer
worked in practice, and glad of a reason to visit the Hay Festival
for the first time.
Rick
Riordan, outright winner of this year's Award,
could not attend the presentation and so his Puffin editor
received it on his
behalf. It was an incredible afternoon for Puffin, with
their books winning all three of the age catgories. Riordan,
an American, will be visiting the UK next month. In the
meantime, he had recorded his thanks by video.
The sun shone (almost too strongly, especially inside the airless
marquees) for both days, so the weather was in favour of a golden
impression. Although I had only booked press tickets for children's
events, I wondered whether any of the adult authors appearing
at the Festival might tempt me to fill some of my empty slots
of time. I eavesdropped outside one or two tents while adults
events were in progress, but the dreary droning and the rather
bored expressions on the crowd as they flocked back out into
the sunlight were hardly inspiring.
My first event was Mini Grey. I'm a huge fan of her work, and
was rooting for Traction Man Is Here to win the Red
House picture book category. Grey gave the kind of presentation
that must work
well
on school visits. She told the audience why she was called Mini
(born in a Mini), and showed scans from a couple of the
Ladybird books that she loved as a child. The connection between
the illustrations in these books and her own current work was
immediately apparent. When talking about Biscuit Bear,
she displayed photos of different biscuits and encouraged the
audience to identify them. The presentation also included an
animated version of Egg Drop, with moving background music. Grey
- seven months pregnant - appeared genuinely moved by her own
work.
After that, I took the shuttle bus into Hay, wandered around
for a while, took a few photographs, and had a coffee. But I
was keen to soak up the atmosphere of the festival site, so I
went back there for lunch - a tuna & lime sandwich in some rather
dry granary bread - and tried vainly to get my pda phone linked
up to the wireless network in the press tent. Although I hadn't
requested a general press pass for photography, I was allowed
into a session in which Celia Rees and John Boyne were in conversation
with the books editor of The Guardian. I was struck, in particular,
by how intelligently and cogently Celia Rees discussed her recent
novel, The Wish House. It's a book I haven't read yet,
but in that brief time she persuaded me I must put that right.
Questioned about
the
age
of his hero (9) and the assumed age of his audience, Boyne appeared
less sure about himself, saying that yes, probably the book's
readers would be a 'little older than nine'.
Wendy Cooling chaired a panel discussion (sponsored by Red House)
with Sherry Ashworth, Cathy Cassidy and Kevin Brooks. Cooling
is an
effusive
enthusiast,
and made life easy for her panellists by chatting at length to
introduce and prompt them. These were three distinctively different
writers, but the session worked extremely well with each of
them telling the audience interesting things about the way they
work. Ashworth, talking about her novel Paralysed, revealed
that she had been thinking of the Kinks' song 'David Watts' while
writing it - and proceded to sing a line or two from the
song.
Brooks, in response to Cooling's observation that he has a very
economic style, told the audience that this is something he had
learned in his many years as a struggling-to-be-published author
- not to write too much 'waffly rubbish', and to use the odd
piece of figurative writing as garnish.
Cathy Cassidy told us that one of her worst experiences at school
was being told off for writing an 8-page story and "wasting her
jotter". She was a daydreamer at school and said, "The way I
like to work is to have a controlled dream." Brooks agreed, and
said being paid to daydream was not a bad way to make a living.
Ashworth felt herself to be more of a 'control freak'.
Cooling managed to identify love interest as a common factor
in these three authors' writing. Ashworth, comparing herself
to Mrs Bennett - "always dead interested in my daughter's boyfriends"
- said, "I'm not going to write a novel without a love interest."
The younger half of Zizou Corder was in the audience and at
question time told Brooks that she had found Kissing The
Rain "so unfinished". The three authors had already discussed
endings, with Ashworth preferring a fully resolved conclusion,
and Cassidy and Brooks preferring things to be left in the air.
Brooks handled the implied criticism of this young reader's observation
by saying, "I don't know what happened. I think there's going
to be a film. Maybe they'll tell us all how it ended."
Another young 'questioner', referring to the unpublished manuscripts
that all three authors confessed to having in their drawers offered
the following addvice. "What I do if I've got lots of stories that
aren't good enough is pick out little bits from each and make one
good story."
Winners
of the Picture Book category, Jonathan Emmett
& Steve Cox
Then it was time for the award ceremony, held in the Cafe Direct
marquee. One of the best things about the event at the Roof Gardens
had been the pre-lunch author signing, and I was pleased to see
that the Federation organisers had ensured that this tradition
was transferred to the new venue. A very large number of authors
and illustrators were present and spent almost an hour busily
signing prior to the meal and prize announcements. These included
Jacqueline Wilson who had already spent five hours signing in
the bookshop after an event earlier in the week.
Andrew
Cope, winner of the younger fiction category.
Essentially, the format of the Award event was the same as in
the past. Each local federation group had sent two children.
The children, authors and other adults were distributed equally
around each of the tables. However, the nature of the reading
group representation this year was considerably different. Usually
there has been a wide age range, with primary age children present
in equal if not higher numbers to secondary age children. This
time round, because attendance at the venue required, in most
cases, an overnight stay, most of the children present were aged
12 and over, attending with their parents,
and not necessarily the most active or informed readers
in their group.
Many
more fotos from the signings will be available in the gallery.
The lack of younger children is apparent in the prize presentation
photos, and particularly notable in the picture book category.
Speaking about this after the event, at the late night author
party, the
federation organisers are well aware of this and the need to
find a way of continuing to involve younger members of the
reading groups
if the Red House Book Award is to come back to Hay next year.
As far as I could gather, the decision on this has not yet
been made,
and relies on several factors, not least funding. The move to
Hay this year was dependent on significantly increased sponsorship
from
Ted Smart and on money from Surestart. Whether Ted Smart considers
the expense of staging the Award at Hay is worthwhile or not depends,
I suppose, on what degree of increased exposure he feels the
award has achieved from its change of venue.
As to the views of authors and illustrators, these were, like
mine, mixed. The presentation was extremely well staged. It is
a fantastic venue, but one which has significant logistical flaws.
I spoke with one author who had been found somewhere to stay
in Hereford, 10 miles away. The taxi fare to the festival site
was £40. An illustrator from the southeast said that he favoured
a return to London. Certainly it's not just Ted Smart's pocket
that is emptier at the end of this week. £40 taxi fares leave
a hole in anybody's pocket. Like the illustrator, I'm from the
southeast, and attendance at the Roof Gardens was straightforward
and economic. It used to cost me about £15 in rail fare and nothing
else. Covering the Book Awards this year cost ACHUKA well in
excess of £100 and if I hadn't spent a night sleeping
in Berlingo, the expenses bill could have doubled. Much as I
enjoyed attending Hay this year, if the Award stays there in
2007 I shall have to think carefully before committing myself
to attending.
The site security crew were somewhat curious
when a bleary and bearded figure emerged from a blue Berlingo
at 5:30 am. On reflection I should have parked in one of the
charity car parks, where site security would not be such an issue.
Anyway, they didn't arrest me, and I walked in to the middle
of Hay, hopeful that in festival week somewhere might open early
for breakfast. I had to mooch around for quite a while, reading
the paper, and taking photos, before a cafe near the main car
park opened and served me up a splendid veggie brekkie.
Fizzy white wine and hard cramped bedspace don't make for the
freshest of morning heads, but by the time I was on the shuttle
bus heading back to the festival site I was really looking forward
to Saturday's two main events.
Both Eoin Colfer and Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket) drew sell-out
crowds. In both cases their presentations were only peripherally
about their books. Colfer's was supposed to be an introduction
to Fletcher Moon, the hero of his new book, Half Moon Investigations,
but it was really an hour-long stand-up act. The audience rarely
stopped laughing. Of all Colfer's work, I love his short younger
fiction most, because in it his sense of character is more
on display
than in the longer action novels. And what a reader of childhood
character he is! Story after story revealed, in hilarious detail,
his sure eye for the way children - boys in particular - operate.
It's an eye he delveloped as a teacher, and has now honed as
a parent. He is a remarkable man.
As is Mr Handler. Handler's author appearance is a carefully
staged act, from his initial appearance - a portly, full-cheeked
man in suit with an orange tie, carrying a rather floppy briefcase
- through frequent jumpings on and off stage and forays into
the audience, to a climactic song with an accordion. It included
a reading from the first Lemony Snicket book, the copy of which
was apparently stolen from a girl in the front row. The venue
for Handler was even bigger than it had been for Colfer, with
queues forming nearly an hour before the start of the event.
Not all the adults attending were accompanied by children. I
saw one adult totally distraught because she could not find her
ticket. She was attending with another adult, not with a child.
But in the main this was a family audience, and as with nearly
all bestselling children's authors, both Colfer and Handler are
fully aware of the need to appeal to the adults and the
children in almost equal measure. Handler does not sign books
in person, but this did not diminish the queue for the specially
date-stamped and 'signed' copies in the bookshop. It's a trick
that Colfer must wish he'd thought of, I imagined, as I jumped
into Berlingo, hit the road for Gloucester an Oxford, and headed
back to Sussex.
