Annual General Meeting 2024

Thank you to everyone that attended the SLA Annual General Meeting.

We were delighted to be joined by author Frances Hardinge and she kindly offered to answer some questions in writing as we were inundated! Her answers are below. The minutes of the Annual General Meeting are available for members here. FRances has also kindly given a written version of her speech as some members requested; you can read it here. Thank you Frances! 

• When I recommend you as a new author to a teen reader, which book of yours would you suggest they read first? 
  That very much depends on the teen reader! Most of my books are standalone, so they don't have to be read in a particular order. (The only sequel I have written is Twilight Robbery, which is a sequel to Fly by Night.) All of them are weird, dark fantasy-mystery-adventures, but they're quite different in feel, and different readers seem to connect with different books. The last few novels (The Lie Tree, A Skinful of Shadows, Deeplight and Unraveller) are probably a bit 'older' and darker than the others. If the reader likes a touch of humour and a lot of whimsy, then they might want to try Fly by Night and Twilight Robbery. If they like historical settings, there's Cuckoo Song, The Lie Tree or A Skinful of Shadows. If they don't get on with longer books, then perhaps Island of Whispers or Forest of a Thousand Eyes, both of which are much shorter in terms of text and have Emily Gravett's beautiful illustrations. All my stories have elements of creepiness, but the creepiest are probably Cuckoo Song and Deeplight. Those who prefer their settings as weird as possible might like A Face Like Glass or Gullstruck Island. Lovers of folklore might want to start with Cuckoo Song or Unraveller.
  
  
• I loved Fly by Night and just finished Unravelled, do you base your feisty female leads on anyone? I find those characters so great to read.
  Thank you, that's very kind! So glad you like my horde of witchlings. 
  
  My female characters usually have a nugget of me or my younger self. Mosca (Fly by Night) and Faith (The Lie Tree) have my voracious curiosity, and my hunger for words and knowledge. Neverfell from A Face Like Glass channels my spontaneous side and my optimism about people. When I was young I was very quiet and bottled up a lot of my feelings, and a number of my characters do the same, including Nettle from Unraveller. I also had much more buried anger back then than I think people around me realised, and that is definitely reflected in my characters!
  
  I should mention that one of my teenage female characters was created with help. When I wrote Selphin in Deeplight, I did so with the kind assistance and advice of the Young People's Advisory Board of the National Deaf Children's Society. In particular, I owe a big debt to a young girl named Ella, who acted as my specialist advisor and was brilliant! The character of Selphin belongs to them too.

• Thank you Frances, such a fascinating talk! I know that your career in writing began after entering a short story competition - we have some incredible pupil writers, but they lack the confidence to share their independent work created at home to an audience or in public. Is there any advice you would give to them?
  First of all, I completely understand where your pupil writers are coming from. Showing other people your writing is really frightening, particularly if you're doing things properly and writing from the heart. If you're really channelling your own feelings, imagination and personality into your work, rather than writing by numbers, then it feels a bit like showing people the inside of your head. Nobody wants to have their brain rejected or laughed at. For what it's worth, I still get galloping stage fright whenever one of my books is about to be published. What if people don't like the inside of my head?
  
  In my case, I wrote my first full length novel when I was thirteen, and showed it to absolutely nobody. (In fact, I still haven't shown it to anyone.) I only started sending short stories off to magazines when I was sixteen. Back then, I found it easier to send my stories off to strangers, rather than showing them to people I knew. It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I got some short stories published and won a couple of short story competitions. Before that, there were a lot of rejections.
  
  Here are some reasons why aspiring writers shouldn't worry about rejections:

1. Rejections are completely normal. Nearly all professional writers have received a stack of them at one time or another. It comes with the territory. So if you get a rejection... that just means you're part of our gang!
2. One of the best pieces of advice I have been given as a writer is 'treat your rejections like trophies'. Rejections aren't signs of failure, they're proof that you're taking your craft seriously, and that you have the guts and determination to send off your work. The writers who finally get published tend to be the stubborn ones.
3. There are lots of reasons why a story might get turned down, which have nothing to do with its quality. It might not have been that particular editor's cup of tea. Or perhaps it wasn't quite the right genre. Or maybe it was too similar to something they were already publishing. Or perhaps their list was already full. Don't take it too personally - move on and send it somewhere else!

If your pupil writers don't feel ready to submit their writing for publication yet, but would like to get some feedback in a safe space, then I'm a big fan of small writers' groups. The groups that I have found most helpful are small gatherings of two, three or four friends who are all interested in writing. It doesn't suit everyone, but I find it much easier to show my work to a little handful of people I know and trust in a friendly setting where we're all in the same boat. It's great to get feedback, and find out which bits of my latest chapter are working and which aren't. Also, the group meetings act like a deadline, which nudges me into writing faster!

Finally, if you write something and people don't like it, that's OK. Writing is all about experimenting and trying new things, and not all of them will work. However, experimentation is how you find out what does work. It's the route to discovering your own original voice and style. Not everything you write will be publishable, but all of it will teach you something about how to write. No writing is ever wasted.

• What draws you to be interested in, and to write about, liminal spaces like the Underbelly and (from the sounds of it) the wall in your new book?
  The liminal spaces are haunted places, and always have been. They're the cracks where our fears and dark imaginings sprout like dandelions. The fae of folklore have always frequented them. The places and times that are neither one thing or another are treacherous, dangerous. As midnight tolls, as the sun sets, as we skirt the forest, or stand on the crossroads that is on the way to everywhere and nowhere, the world is briefly borderless and soft. Things can push their way in.
  
  I'm always fascinated by the places that have this strange quality yet fall into our blindspot. The underside of bridges. The bee-humming bramble wastes at the back of industrial parks. Overgrown towpaths flanking canals where weed-trailed supermarket trolleys lurk like great beasts. We don't look at them or think about them, but they are all around us.
  
  Deeplight is one of my favourite books of all time. The thing that really draws me into it is the relationship between Hark and Jelt. What inspired you to create such a fraught friendship? - Answered on the night, but in case you want to add anything
  I think I've probably given as much of an answer to this as I can! 

• Can you tell us a bit about your new book with Emily Gravett?
  Forest of a Thousand Eyes is a fantasy adventure set in an alternative world. Imagine a vast plain, scattered with towns, cities and villages, the inhabitants of which realised that they were facing a terrible threat. A voracious and terrifying Forest, growing with unnatural speed, was sweeping across the plain and overwhelming everything in its path. It almost seemed to have a mind and will of its own. To hold it back, they built a huge Wall, with habitable cavities so that it could be manned and defended.
  
  The plan failed. The Forest broke through, creating breaches in the Wall, and reached the rest of the plain. There it spread, swallowing every settlement in its path. 
  
  This happened long ago. For many years, the only place where people have been able to survive is inside the Wall. On either side of it stretches the sinister, relentless and treacherous Forest. The Wall has cracked and crumbled in many places, so those who live in it are broken up into small, isolated communities. Nobody tries to walk along the Wall's length. That would mean scrambling down crumbling clefts, dangerously close to the tree canopy, or struggling through stretches that the strangling vines have overrun. It would mean braving countless dangerous creatures and plants, and above all the silent malice of the Forest.
  
  Nobody would risk such a journey... until my heroine has to do exactly that. [You can find more about the book here)

• Do you have a favourite OMG moment from being an author? 
  So many!
  
  I still remember the delightful, sunny meal where it became clear that yes, the lovely editor opposite me was actually offering me a book contract. When I left in a daze, for the first time I understood what people meant about 'walking on air'. I also remember the evening I first saw my own book in a shop window (and kept my companions waiting while I photographed it repeatedly). 
  
  Winning the Costa Book of the Year Award was a life-changing moment. There is film footage of me with an electrified-goldfish expression of complete shock.
  
  However, I also remember the first time I received a message from somebody who told me that one of my books had helped them through a difficult time. That felt like more than a prize, more than a medal. I felt as though I'd justified my existence.
  
  I've been lucky enough to attend literary festivals all over the world, and meet loads of fantastic authors. Quite often I have moments of unreality, where I can't quite believe that this is my actual life, and that I'm allowed to have this. But I also have an OMG moment every time I see somebody cosplaying as one of my characters for World Book Day, or see artwork or fan fic inspired by my stories. I will never, ever get used to that, and it will always fill me with utter joy!

Huge thanks again to Frances for answering our questions and speaking to us at the AGM! If you have any questions please feel free to contact us here.