SIGNS OF THINGS TO COME

Professor Gloom never fails to surprise me. In between the hours spent deciphering the mysteries of the universe (and those of bridge and golf) he reads murder mysteries and Georgette Heyer historical romances. These I am accustomed to, but last week's book was Just Another Dead Boy by Kelly McCaughrain. It's a Romeo and Juliet-style Young Adult novel full of 'that heady cocktail of hormones, life force and jaded ennui' so typical of youth. And so untypical of septuagenarians. Apart from the ennui, that is.

Now, Kelly is an exceptional writer, who regards Gloom as her own tame astrophysicist when she needs scientific advice, but I wouldn't have expected him to give her book more than a passing glance. Instead of which, he was hooked. He even came along to a Belfast Book Festival event, chaired by Children's Writing Fellow Shirley Anne McMillan, which featured four YA writers with new books: Kelly, Sue Divin (Runaway Road) Jenny Ireland (French Kisses) - all of them award-winning writers - and Stephen Daly, whose first novel The Last Death Poet I also enjoyed - to my own great surprise.

The book festival took place at the Crescent Art Centre (which never fails to deliver extremely well-run programmes of events) and Belfast's much-loved No Alibis bookshop ran a pop-up bookstore in the foyer. Of course, the island of Ireland has always been famous for literary talent, but Northern Ireland punches above it's weight, and there were an encouraging number of local authors on display. Lucy Caldwell, Jan Carson, Louise Kennedy, Bernie McGill: they're all wonderful short story writers as well as novelists. But it's the YA writers who seem to be stealing the show right now, and there are others like Sheena Wilkinson and Angeline King whose books I've also enjoyed - again, to my surprise.

The book I've most enjoyed recently though, is Donal Ryan's wonderful 'Heart, be at Peace', and I have Maggie O'Farrell's 'Land' waiting. I also recently discovered someone entirely new: Sofka Zinovieff. I'd heard her interviewed on BBC Radio 3's Private Passions, Michael Berkeley's music programme that regularly throws up memorable guests, and I was so engaged by her (and her Greek connections) that I got hold of her novel Putney. It turned out to be an engrossing, and in many ways surprising, read. I'm very much looking forward to reading The House on Paradise Street next.

I'm also looking forward to Gabriel's Moon. Like me, William Boyd is in his seventies, and has African connections. And it just so happens that the title of the  adult novel I'm publishing this year is Gabriel's Angel. And my two new middle-grade children's books are Moon's Travelling Circus and The Voyage of the Molly Moon, so all these Gabriels and Moons I take to be a promising sign. (Probably of the sort of straws that writers clutch at.)

If only...

Being a writer is bad enough; having to plug your own books is  a nightmare. Especially if, like me, you loath the whole marketing /publicity business. But this time I've had a brilliant idea, because the one thing I always enjoy is having all my friends round for a party. They're warned each time, on pain of death, not to bring any gifts, and they never pay the slightest attention. But this year  marks our 11th wedding anniversary. It will also be my 78th birthday and Gloom's 79th, so what I plan to do is throw a great big launch /anniversary/ birthday party at home, and instead of bringing the usual wine, flowers, chocolates, etc, every guest will be obliged to buy a book. Or possibly two.

But to get back to Gloom's surprising enjoyment of a YA novel (and mine). I've always been ambivalent about the whole YA category: in my day you went straight from Enid Blyton to Agatha Christie, Sci Fi or Mills and Boon, depending on your tastes. But now I think the publishers might be on to an even better thing than they realised. Let me explain: I've never in my whole life had a stye in my eye, but in the last month I've had two nasty, oozing little lumps in rapid succession. My optician confirms that it's age related - much like adolescent acne. So it seems pretty obvious that both Gloom and I are now entering second adolescence, and it's therefore only a matter of time before second childhood kicks in. 

It'll be Winnie the Who? and The Grumpalo next.

OWL'S HOUSE PRESS

I have a great affection for The Secret Bookshelf in Carrickfergus, not just because of my admiration for the owners, Jo and Chris, and the way they've turned this little bookshop into what it is - Best Indie Bookstore (Ireland) 2024 and 2026 - but because it's by the sea. A bookshop by the sea is my idea of heaven. What's more, I always come away with something unexpected. Jan Carson and Horowitz were safe bets, but I've never read anything by T J Klune. The House in the Cerulean Sea caught my eye because of the title. A combination of house and sea - much like bookshop and sea - is hard for me to resist. 

Even more unexpected was The Last Death Poet by Stephen Daly. A book billed as a Young Adult LGBTQ+ novel with a supernatural twist is about as likely to attract me as J D Vance's upcoming memoir about his conversion to Catholicism. Some of my best friends write YA novels (very well, as it happens) but I'm ambivalent about the category and I really don't like the supernatural. Still, I'd met Stephen Daly and I liked him very much. Plus he's local, and the book is set in Belfast, so I bought it. I fully expected to skip through it, or give up after a chapter or two, instead of which I'm half-way through, and I'm hooked. And if you can hook a 77-year-old pedant with limited patience for modern trends, then good for you!

It's also a relief to find that a book which has been widely praised is actually well-written. There's so much rubbish out there, and so many good books that never see the light of day, because getting traditionally published is becoming harder and harder. Which is why, like so many others, I've  turned to self-publishing. Either way, it's a bumpy road, with rather more downs than ups. There's nothing quite as exciting as that first book launch, or seeing your novel in bookshop windows, but then there's the library reading with a turn-out of four, including your husband. Although to be fair, your granny might also have been there. She's been dead for decades, of course, but there was a familiar sighing noise, and a faint smell of wintergreen. (This is what reading Stephen Daly does for you.)

Fortunately, I do have an up of my own to report, and it's connected to a small, rented house called Owl's House in the village of Fish Hoek, near the southern tip of Africa, where I lived for a time as a child. (See detail in autobiographic-art on the right.) On one side of the valley was the Indian Ocean, on the other the Atlantic, and of all the houses I've lived in, this is the one that I remember with the greatest affection and nostalgia. It had a verandah where swallows nested in the summer, a garden where I played with my brother, and a shadowy pond full of frogs and tadpoles. Inside, like all our houses, it was full of books, and it was where I first discovered the world of my imagination.

I've lived in many different flats and houses since then, and every so often I find myself back in some town or country and am tempted to revisit the places I once knew. I've thought about doing this in Northern Ireland, a country I first came to in 1970, but Professor Gloom thinks this is a bad idea. He's probably right. Although, once in Zimbabwe, a man rang our doorbell and explained that his wife, who was with him, had lived in our house many years before. The man's name was Dan Jacobson and he seemed quite surprised when I told him how delighted I was to meet him, a fellow South African whose writing I admired. They stayed for tea and later he sent a signed copy of his autobiographical Time and Time Again, which I still have. 

But to get back to the up I mentioned earlier: with the help of my wonderful editor and publishing director (thank you, Averill Buchanan!) I have a new creative venture. My two previously published adult novels, The Traveller's Guide to Love and Life Study #2, along with two middle-grade children's fantasies, Moon's Travelling Circus and The Voyage of the Molly Moon, are all going to be brought together under the roof of my own imprint. And they'll be joined by my third adult novel, which will be published later this year. 

No doubt there'll be plenty of downs to come, but for the time being it gives me great pleasure to unveil the logo. This, as you can see, is a delightful little owl, because the imprint itself is called Owl's House Press - as a grateful tribute to that long-ago, far-off house where my love of words first began.