Childrens Express journalists were asked by Belfast Festival at Queens to review novels by authors Siobhan Parkinson and Marita Conlon McKenna, both of whom are appearing in the BT Talks at the Belfast Festival. Five young journalists made the journey to Dublin on a sun-struck Septembers day. Equipped with enthusiasm, interview questions and tape-recorders they cross-examined the authors to find out what made them tick.
Siobhan Parkinson, who was sitting on the steps outside her office in Parnell Square looks nothing like the cover on the back of her books. Her hair is short and curly, not long and straight and she looks younger in real life.
Just looking at her you would never have guessed that she is an important person who has earned the title of one of Irelands leading writers for children. She comes across as friendly with an impish sense of humour.
As a child she was a reader and as a child she decided that she wanted to be a writer. Ive always had that kind of longing to write.
I started writing and getting published about eight years ago. It just happened that somebody took a book of mine and published it. This is my first year to be doing it full-time. I got this residency here which means that they pay me a salary just to be here and to write, Parkinson said.
Parkinsons books are aimed at ten to 14 year olds. They have been translated into French, German and Italian.
When she puts pen to paper, Parkinson does not sift through ideas that are specific to young people. When I write I dont really think about the people who are going to be reading it, it probably sounds sort of arrogant, but I just write the way it comes and I suppose at some level my brain must be thinking theres no point in putting X in because it wont be interesting to young people but I dont really consciously think like that, it just comes out that way, Parkinson added.
She writes something every-day, but not always fiction.
When she is writing books she prefers to write straight onto the computer. I type very quickly because if Im writing long hand I cant always write quickly enough for myself and end up scribbling and then I cant read my writing.
As a child, Parkinson said she had a vivid imagination and as an author she is always attempting to recapture that essence.
Writing is an attempt to retrieve it, you know, in that sense, maybe it is an escape from reality but I dont think that the imagination comes as easily to adults as it does to children. And I think that is the difference between a writer and a regular person, the writer is somebody who has found some way into that imaginative world through language, she said
The Journalists Final Impressions
Daniel: I think the way she answered was very appropriate to the line of questioning. I think that we got some good and interesting quotes, especially the quotes about activating the reader's imagination. Her advice for young readers is especially poignant in that she said young writers should write every day just to get practice and just to know the feel of the language.
Amy: When she said that her favourite book when she was about eleven or ten, was A Little Princess, I instantly related with that because that's my favourite book too. I thought the book that I read Sisters No Way was really good and it would be one of my favourites. It was just really interesting the way it was written and that it was up to the readers really the way they read it.
Daniel: I think that the books that I read were very good examples of children's literature and at 14, I wouldn't usually read books for children, but the ones I read, I could take away something from. I think especially the Moon King because it's a different issue I hadn't really come across before in my normal reading, an issue which I had no real views about. And also with the sort of negative protagonist in it that, I think for a children's book is very brave to have a hero in the book, but I think it ultimately helped the flow and the style of the book.
Amy: Paul said to me also that Breaking the Wishbone was quite negative and she said that also when she was saying that children now, you have to put in those issues, the real life issues, but she didn't put them in deliberately to deal with an issue, she just put it in, cause it felt like it should be in there. She definitely made it clear that she let everything flow, she didn't, very rarely did she guide the book.
