Two Katherines and grey weather

It's grey here in northern England at the moment.  The air tastes of snow and there's what - in Scotland - they call "a lazy wind" - lazy because it goes straight through you instead of going round!  The Mill is very damp, having been uninhabited for a while, and it takes a few days for the heating to get a grip on the thick stone walls.

My trip back home is proving unexpectedly busy.  Before I was even off the train I was being rung up by BBC producers wanting to talk about Catherine Cookson. Not having seen the UK newspapers for a while, I had no idea why and had to Google the subject.   'Catherine Cookson Country' is, apparently, to be abolished.  The inhabitants are shocked and horrified.  The novelist's sales have slumped since her death (inevitably), and she isn't the household name she once was,  but the landscape Catherine Cookson wrote about and made famous is still associated with her, even though the tour buses don't come in their hundreds as they once did. 
Apparently the tourist board in the north east have decided that 'Catherine Cookson Country' is not how they want to market the area at all, that it gives a negative image and they want to advertise their beaches instead.   Catherine would have been furious with rejection. And it does seem to be a curious decision.  The north east of England has some of the most beautiful beaches in Britain, but add in the Catherine Cookson connection and it definitely gives them an edge - beauty and books.    Like the Bronte's Haworth and Du Maurier's Cornwall, Jarrow and South Shields will always be Catherine Cookson's country, even if they take the signs down.

So this morning I'm talking about CC on Radio 4, and then this afternoon I'm 'doing' the Wordsworth Trust's Arts and Books festival talking about Katherine Mansfield and the Dorothy Wordsworth connection.  Let's hope I don't get the two C/Katherine's confused!

Margaret Atwood: "Our Cat Enters Heaven"

The International Conference on the short story has just been taking place in Toronto and generating a lot of interest which, I hope, is another sign that the short story is making a come-back.

Margaret Atwood's satirical story 'Our Cat Enters Heaven' is an offshoot of her recent novel, The Year of the Flood, where God's Gardeners believe that animals are their kinfolk and they all have souls and should be treated accordingly.  Margaret Atwood isn't a particularly fluent reader of her own work, but the story made me smile - a lot!

The Orange Longlist

When the Orange Longlist was announced a few days ago, I realised that I was already reading my way through it. I’d already read The Little Stranger and liked it very much, but I don’t think it’s Sarah Waters’ best book by a long way, so I’m not voting for this title. Wolf Hall is the Big One, but maybe has already had lots and lots of publicity. Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna I found very disappointing indeed and think that if she actually wins the award, it will probably be for her complete works rather than this book.
I’ve just finished The Way Things Look to Me, by Roopa Farooki - which I think is wonderful, but maybe just a little commercial and ‘straight’ to appeal to the judges. Now I’m reading Andrea Levy’s The Long Song, which is everything that Andrea Levy is capable of and more. Lovely, lovely book with a strong, quirky, narrative voice.

Still got quite a few books to go - but I can’t wait to get my X3 reading glasses focussed on The Still Point by Amy Sackville. After a quick scan in the bookshop and a few sample pages, I think she is definitely the one to watch - if not this year, then certainly in the future. She’s very young, born in 1981, and has lots of Time in front of her to write some more amazing books.

Also interesting, is the number of books on the list published by small independent publishers - Amy Sackville is with Portobello Books. They have a very attractive, author friendly, profile. Maybe this is the way things are now going to go.

Bored with Books?

Bored with books? Writing them that is. Fancy a change of career? Apparently the not-so-secret services advertise on the tube these days! Could you describe the last person to get off the train? How good is your observation? Are you inventive and resourceful? Now, I think that a writer would be the perfect fit for this kind of job. We’re observant, we sit on the tube memorising people to turn into characters for stories, and we might just suit the unconventional profile it seems to require.
I looked at MI6's website, as instructed by the ad, and they’re currently recruiting for ‘operational’ staff. Apparently it helps if (apart from having a memory for faces) you speak Arabic, Urdu, Pashtun, Farsi and any other kind of Taliban-speak. No guessing where they’re expected to operate then! But the other language requirement was a bit of a surprise. They also need fluent Chinese speakers. So we’re spying on the Chinese now?
One of my daughter’s friends used to go out with someone who worked for MI6, ostensibly as ‘technical support’ staff. His job was to dream up weird and wonderful ways of getting weapons and fake bombs through airport security and then try them out. When oiled with Guinness he would even tell you how often he succeeded. The statistics were not reassuring. But what an amazing occupation.
And think of the material for the books you might write afterwards! Lots of authors started out as spies. Ian Fleming, John le Carre, T.E. Lawrence, Graham Greene, Rudyard Kipling. Not many women on the list, but someone’s got to be first!