Full details of the festival here:
http://www.therowanartsproject.com/maytonstreetfestival2012

I’ve just heard that my novel Unique came second out of ten teenage novels in Le Prix des Lecteurs du Mans et de la Sarthe. I daren’t ask how many votes separated first from second! However, the real prize was the tremendous buzz I got from going to Le Mans and meeting the French students.

There were many memorable moments during my trip, not least of which was my very first session with a class of 13-15 year-olds in a rural school. As I waited nervously in a classroom, I noted that a rather noisy hiatus was occurring outside in the corridor. The teacher was organising who should sit where, calling back students who had already entered the room, re-directing them and directing the re-arrangement of chairs and tables. I myself was re-arranged and asked to sit at the apex of the horseshoe of tables and chairs. I then gathered that I was to play the part of a Judge in a trial at the European Court.

Unique is a story about Dominic, who discovers that he is the first ever cloned human being. In the novel, there is a global prohibition on human cloning, transgression of which is punishable by the death penalty. Two of my characters – Dr Imogen Holt, who cloned Dominic, and Dominic’s father, Michael Gordon – have therefore taken a huge risk in doing what they do.

The students of this school had developed a ‘what-if’ from the story – that is to say, they had imagined what would happen if the European Court had put Dr Imogen Holt and Dominic’s parents on trial. The result was the courtroom scene at which I was the Judge. I sat enthralled for almost two hours as the students presented defence and prosecution arguments, some of which were emotionally charged and delivered with great passion and commitment. Characters were called as witnesses to tell their side of the story which, again, they did with moving intensity. Soon, I forgot that it is a thousand years since I studied French, and I found myself comprehending the range of complex arguments. I was quite overwhelmed – almost tearful, in fact – not only by the drama of the moment, but by the fact that these students had become so personally involved in the story and had reacted to it in such a thought-provoking way.

In fact, they provoked my thoughts so much that I think I’ll write the sequel that they so sincerely requested! So, although I didn’t win, I’m tremendously heartened by the experience. I gave the students something to think about and they gave me something to think about in return. What more could I ask for?

In the 5-6^th century B.C., the Greeks of Magna Graecia built a line of impressive temples just outside the city of Akragas (modern Agrigento) inSicily. The largest of all is the temple to Olympian Zeus, and its upper floor was supported by thirty-eight enormous telamones, each over 25 feet tall. Telamones are the male equivalent of caryatids, those draped female figures who masquerade as columns and hold up roofs, the most famous being the caryatids which support the Parthenon.

Telamon is mentioned in Homer’s Iliad as the father of the Greek hero, the greater Ajax. His name means ‘support’ or ‘bearer’ and this is what he does in the temple ofOlympian Zeus. The telemones (plural) were made in sections and it appears that, after two and a half thousand years of weathering, they were not at first recognized for what they were when they lay scattered on the ground after the temple was destroyed by a massive earthquake in 1401.

However, once recognized, one was removed to the museum at Agrigento and erected in a specially built room. You can see the height by the woman standing by his feet. Note how small the feet are compared with his huge head and arms – an optical trick to make the figure appear in proportion when viewed from the ground. Recently, another telamon has been recognized and reassembled on the ground beside the fallen temple.

I’m writing about telamones because I want to share my awe. I just stood, jaw-dropped, staring at it like a Liliputian on first sighting Gulliver. I felt that such a gigantic figure, so battered but still recognizable, must have a story. Who was he? Why was he doomed to support the temple for all eternity? Would it be dangerous to rescue him? I wanted to know.

I have sometimes tried to write picture books about kids’ rage or anger, but WTWTA always says it better.  And the ‘it’ that it says, is so grounded and wise. I bought my copy when I first started writing for children, and for me, it is still a masterclass in picture book writing. (I wonder what books other people feel this way about?) Anyway,  I take off my scribbler’s hat to Maurice Sendak. He may have gone into the night of his very own room, but what he leaves behind is still hot.

Marion Rose

I was running a two-day session at St Agnes RC Primary in Cricklewood and decided to give the year 3 and 4 pupils a special task. Handing them two giant, collapsible frameworks made from cardboard, I gave them a very brief set of instructions before sending them away to start work.

When I caught up with them at the end of day two for the showing assembly, I was quite moved when the pop-ups were revealed. Not only had they managed to work together as teams to produce two pieces that held together very well visually, but they also amazed me by how they had successfully combined a variety of materials and came up with a great many innovative ideas to enhance the pop-ups. And both pieces still folded flat!

Read more about the sessions at N4 Sketchpad

JOHN O’LEARY

My own take on it is the socialisation process. Girls are taught to ‘be a good girl’, ‘nice girls don’t say things like that’, etc. I think this leads many females to seek approval. How can we be fiercely funny, unafraid to offend, when our basic, socially conditioned drive is to protect the feelings of others?!

Little boys. ‘He is so cheeky,’ parents say lovingly – where they may reprimand their daughter for doing the same thing. ‘Go on, get out there, tell them what you really think’.

Is it possible to break down years of social conditioning, not be afraid to offend, and chance that desire for approval to get the laughs?

John O’Leary

Two of us from IWFC ran a stall selling and signing our books. But we both have other, different memories of this place. They involve many visits with toddlers to favorite animals, well before the posh coffee machine was installed. I came with an entire class the day my son left nursery school. And years later, to visit him as a teenage volunteer on dung-digging duty.

Freightliners is currently under threat having lost its grant in the recent cuts. As the Easter bonnets appeared and a new generation of parents beamed in the rain, I found it hard to quantify how much would be lost if this place were to fold.

Marion Rose

I know that at some point the spine fell off that great book and it was discarded. Years later I regret that moment of hasty de-cluttering and wish I still had the book that filled so many of my school day evenings, spineless or not. I now have several stand alone dictionaries and thesauruses but I rarely use them! today I noticed that I almost entirely use online reference tools often having several tabs open at a time as I search for mouth-watering words with the yearned for rhyme, meter or stress. These free online resources are wonderful and so immediate offering up options for synonyms, antonyms, near rhymes and even a button to hear the word being spoken! However I do feel a small pang of sorrow for my poor books – gathering dust on the shelves, every year growing less up to date without their entries for “retweet” or “OMG”. What I miss most is the random flicking that you can do with a physical book – I would regularly turn to random pages looking for words I hadn’t come across before. I’m sure there are more high tech ways of having a similar experience today, word of the day emails and the like but its not the same as pressing your thumb against the pages and watching them blur until a spread falls open to reveal its delights. No doubt I am being a bit rose-tinted about all of this and I certainly won’t be giving up my online reference tools – but I think I may remember to press my thumb to the pages of the physical ones every now and then and see what treasures pop out.

www.joseph-coelho.com

Great news! – well for me anyway.  Claws United and Rover City are scheduled for a rematch next year when The Big Match is re-launched.

Everything will stay the same apart from a possible re-design of the cover and a change to the super static-electriciy game at the back which will now become a super blow-football game. The book was conceived as a type of football handbook, using natural enemies (or are they?), cats and dogs, on the opposing sides. It covers areas such as the fans, souvenirs, football skills and rules, and takes much of it’s inspiration North London where I live.

Look out for the book in April 2012.

And to see more background material, go to my facebook page here.

This blogpost also appears in n4sketchpad.wordpress.com