ONCE IN A BLUE MOON

There are two full moons this month: the Flower Moon on May 1st and a Blue Moon this coming Sunday, on the 31st. And because I have two moons of my own in mind this month, it seems a good time to mention the children's novels I'll be publishing later this year: Moon's Travelling Circus, and the sequel, The Voyage of the Molly Moon.

As a child growing up in Owl's House, that place on the southern tip of Africa that I remember with such affection, the stories I loved most were always about magic and enchantment. Princesses, goblins and deep, dark forests; witches, mermaids and dragons. (I still have shelves full of them, to share with the  grandchildren and to re-read myself.) 

Old favourites

Somehow though, I never managed to find a really magical story set in the part of the world I lived in. We had folk tales, animal and school stories, safari adventures, and books about ordinary, everyday things - many of which I loved - but no Faraway Trees, or ships that flew. They all seemed to belong to children in other far-off countries, and it didn't seem fair. 

My childhood ocean. Whales and sharks
often spotted, but no sea serpents

Which is why I wrote Moon's Travelling Circus, in which a girl with an African  mother and Irish father finds herself on a magical journey through African time and  space. An ancient amulet, a travelling circus, a sorcerer, a time-traveller, dragons and cats all play their parts. And I enjoyed writing it so much that I wrote a sequel - The Voyage of the Molly Moon - in which the main characters are reunited on a voyage around the northern coast of Ireland in search of something lost long ago. In this one there are sea-witches and a sea monster, mysterious lighthouses, and yes, a ship that flies. 

Sadly, both languished with my agent, who loved but couldn't place them. This is hardly surprising because my children's books are undeniably traditional. There are no major traumas or adult issues in them; in fact there are hardly any adults, apart from retired circus people and hotel proprietors whose guests rarely come in through the doors. But the handful of children who have read these stories have given me some wonderful responses. I still treasure the message from a book-loving great-nephew, beginning 'Great-Aunt Helen, this is the best book I have ever read in my LIFE!'  (And no, he wasn't in line for an inheritance.)

So they'll both be published under the Owl's House Press imprint created by Averill Buchanan, with beautiful cover illustrations by the wonderful Rebecca Elliot. (Detail from The Voyage of the Molly Moon on the left.)

And if you're going to publish two books, why not three for luck? Because Gabriel's Angel (completed last year) is my third adult novel. It's about a girl, a garden, a grieving artist, a grumpy old woman, a second-hand bookshop and a ghost. There are links, as always, to Africa and Ireland, and there is also, inevitably, a cat, but unlike my other two adult novels - The Traveller's Guide to Love and Life Study #2 - this one is not autobiographical. (Note to my family: you'll be quite safe reading it.)

It goes without saying that I'm lucky to be able to do this - and it will almost certainly cost me more than I'll ever make back - but for me the five books now under the Owl's House imprint will be tangible proof of years of work, and will, I hope, give pleasure to the occasional reader who borrows one from a local library, or - once in a blue moon  - actually buys one!

STRANGER THAN FICTION

In my second adult novel, a woman living in Ireland is sent a nude portrait of herself, painted decades earlier in South Africa, with no indication of who, or where, it has come from. Then, a year after that novel (Life Study #2) was published, a portrait painted of me in Cape Town when I was about 18 years old, arrived, with no letter or explanation, in Northern Ireland. 

In this case I knew who the sender was: a friend and neighbour from my years in Zimbabwe who had gone back to Nebraska with her American husband. We'd never seen each other again after we left Zimbabwe, but we'd had occasional online contact, which was how I discovered she'd been diagnosed with cancer. She also wrote to say that she took my first novel, The Traveller's Guide to Love, to all her chemo sessions because it made her laugh. Then her husband asked for my address because there was something she wanted him to send me, and the painting duly arrived.

 

I have no memory of how that painting left South Africa, and by then my friend was in a hospice and could no longer speak. A few days later she died. So I will never know for certain how this particular portrait went half way round the world to end up here in County Down, but it now hangs on the wall, a constant reminder of someone dear to me, and a link to both my past and my books.

I'm a very slow writer: I've only written 6 books - 3 for children and 3 for adults - and by any reasonable reckoning (and certainly in monetary terms) I am deeply unsuccessful. But there are other books I've made, hand-written and illustrated, for people in my life who have meant a great deal to me: to commemorate births and weddings (my own second marriage is recorded in Professor Gloom Meets His Match) and once for a dog. But it was one I wrote in 1988 that started it off - which brings me to the next strange link between fiction and truth ...

My third novel, as yet unpublished, begins in Zimbabwe (where I lived and worked for 18 years) and ends with a young African visitor picking up a children's book in London and wondering whether the author could possibly be the childhood friend her mother had so often told her about. 

Now, in 1985 in Harare, I made one of the closest friends of my life. Her name was Linda Buchfink. She and her husband, Gary, had come out from Canada on a 3-year contract; their two children were the same ages as ours, and all of us got on so well that we spent a great deal of time together. We shared holidays and weekend trips, meals and books and bottles of wine; and in 1987 we all went to the races to celebrate my son's 9th birthday. (It was his request and I thought that if we gave each of the four children a sum of money which - when they inevitably lost it - it would be a good life lesson about the dangers of betting. In the event, they won.) 

When their contract was up, the Buchfinks went back to Canada, and we were bereft. But before they left we gave them a book about their time in Zimbabwe. It was called The Buchfinks in Africa. I wrote it, our two older children helped me illustrate it, and my then husband designed the cover and wrote it out in beautiful calligraphy. And we all cried.

But Linda and I never lost touch. For the next few years we wrote regularly to each other, sent cards and photographs and family updates, and looked forward to the day when we would visit them in Canada. Then, in January 1994, they flew up in a helicopter to go skiing, hit the side of a mountain, and were all killed. 

Friends and neighbours kindly let me know that copies of our book had been made for all the family, and sent letters and information about their funeral and memorials, but after that we somehow lost touch. A few years later I left Zimbabwe myself, returning to Northern Ireland with my youngest child. But I'd kept all my friend's letters and photos, as well as a smudged black and white photocopy of the book we'd made, and in all the years since, she and her family have never been far from my mind. 

Then, just before Christmas, my daughter (who has a public profile) received an email from a woman in Canada asking if she was any relation to the Nicholl family who had been in Zimbabwe in the 1980s, and whom she'd been trying to contact for a very long time. Many emails, text messages and an hour-long telephone conversation later, I not only find myself in touch with two of Linda's best friends, but for the first time in more than 30 years I can see our book again in colour! 

So there you are: not just two totally unexpected connections to the past, but a reminder that what you write can be rewarded in ways you could never have imagined. It is 32 years this week since our friends died, but as the last lines of that first book read, 'The sun that sets over Africa is the same sun that rises over Canada... and good friends are never very far away if you keep them safe in your hearts.' 

LIFE STUDY #2

It seems I have an affinity with the number 9. 29 years ago my first children's book, The Animal Bus, was published. 19 years later I produced The Traveller's Guide to Love, and now - only 9 years on - a new adult novel, Life Study #2, has seen the light of day. According to Prof Gloom, this geometric progression should see my next book published in 2028 or 29. (Or else 29 is the total number of people likely to buy it.)

Of course this doesn't take into account Moon's Travelling Circus, a children's book  privately published in 2016, or the dozen or so hand-made books I've made for my family over the years, or even the odd bit of journalism. Whichever way you look at it, I'm painfully slow. And old. Also, each book is different from the last, so I'm hardly a publisher's dream - which is why this new novel has been self-published.

Works of heart, if not art...

It's been a very strange experience. Even with encouragement from family and  friends, it still felt somehow fraudulent to publish it myself, but it was either that or let years of work sink without trace. And given the chances of getting a book traditionally published these days, I count myself lucky that at least it happened to me twice, with all the fun of launches, readings, interviews, etc.

Self-publication was a bit like giving birth with no-one there to welcome the baby. It wasn't that friends and family didn't offer, I just couldn't face the embarrassment of plugging my own book. And yet, when I look at fellow writers - even those published by major houses - the amount they're expected to do these days amazes me: arrange their own launches (and even provide the wine) and then waste months of good writing time dashing from one appearance to another...and all for a pittance. 

A civilised book launch

Anyway, given a first-rate guide and consultant (mine was the sainted Averill Buchanan - whom I cannot recommend highly enough) self-publishing can be a whole lot less stressful - especially if you're not expecting to make any money. Then, if you open a bottle of Cap Classique (South African champagne - but you can drink French if you absolutely have to) and share it with someone you love, it's not a bad way to launch a book. And this is one of those times when I'm deeply grateful to social media, because a single posting on Facebook has resulted in so many encouraging messages that I might even do it again one day.

But not just yet.

   

DAYS OF WINE AND CORONA

Strange times. Nearly four weeks of isolation and inactivity - apart from a daily walk - but lots of time for other things: for playing card games and doing jigsaws; for sitting in the garden and watching old episodes of Star Wars in the middle of the afternoon; for listening to music and to podcasts. (And if you only listen to one, Elizabeth Day's 'How to Fail' episode with Alain de Botton is the best dose of clarity and consolation I've heard all week.)

Childhood favourites

The first few days of captivity I spent (inexpertly) recording Moon's Travelling Circus, the middle grade novel that didn't ever find a publisher, and which I now plan to make available to any child who might enjoy the adventures of a magical circus travelling through African time and space. It made me feel vaguely useful - one of the harder things about being classed as vulnerable is that you feel so useless. Anyway, I enjoyed doing it so much that I've gone back to writing the sequel.

The daily conversations and online interaction with distant family and friends is hugely cheering - as was a SCWBI meet-up with writer friends, and an online wine tasting with my son. (We may have found ourselves short of paracetamol and disinfectant, but we were never going to get caught out with an empty wine rack...) So, what with all the FaceTimes, Skypes and Zooms, it's more a question of fitting everything in than trying to fill the hours.                                                                               

And then, of course, there are the books. There's the pile of most-recently-bought adult novels, the dozens of others books I've always meant to re-read, and - greatest comfort of all -  the children's classics. Who could be unhappy in the company of William, Pippi, the Moomins and the Borrowers? Nesbit, Farjeon, Lofting, Lynch - I could go on and on - and most of them lovely old illustrated copies I've been collecting all my life.

There are some writers you can read at any age, and some you can't. Sorry, Sally Rooney (she's a good writer, the fault is mine, not hers) but I couldn't really connect with the characters in 'Normal People', so I moved on to Benjamin Black's 'The Silver Swan'. I'm a fan of Black (and his alter ego, John Banville - 'Mrs Osmond' is in the waiting pile) and I have a particularly soft spot for his weary pathologist, Quirke. And having suggested to Gloom that he might enjoy Anthony Powell's wonderfully dense and civilised 12-volume 'Dance to the Music of Time' - he is onto the second already - I'm now planning to re-read them all myself.

But first off the shelves was Patrick Leigh Fermor and 'The Violins of St Jacques'. He is my all-time favourite travel writer and this was his only novel, I think, but it's written in his usual glorious prose and deals, strangely enough, with a great natural disaster. Now I'm reading Maggie O'Farrell's  'The Distance Between Us' and from the first page her characters have grabbed me by the throat. Intriguing, complex, and hard to put down.

A Beardsley Venus

Hilary Mantel's final volume in her Cromwell trilogy, 'The Mirror and the Light', has just been beautifully read on Radio 4 by Anton Lesser, and there was a fascinating TV programme on the deeply peculiar and talented Aubrey Beardsley, which reminded me that somewhere I had a copy of 'Under the Hill', published by the Olympia Press back in the 60s. It was, when I finally located it, a genuine curiosity and every bit as bizarre as I'd remembered - but perhaps not the sort of thing you'd want to read aloud to Aunt Edna.

A long time ago, in another country, I lived through times of great upheaval and fear. Then, my greatest worry was that I would die and leave my children without their mother. Now that I'm old, and have no fear of death, I still worry about my children and my grandchildren. But one of the benefits of this enforced isolation (apart from the random acts of kindness by friends and neighbours: the unexpected present, the newspaper or plate of scones left on the doorstep) has been the chance to catch my breath, to go through books and papers, and rediscover things - like a commonplace book that I kept in that earlier, uncertain time. Quite a few entries deal with death, but I find them as apt, and as comforting, now as I did then. This from Kahlil Gibran:

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and melt into the sun....
....And when the earth shall claim my limbs, then shall I truly dance.

Either way, when this is all over, I intend to dance.