http://www.suepurkiss.com en-gb suepurkiss.com 2010-5-12T00:00:00Z suepurkiss.com http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#65131 Have just returned from a visit to Kettering Buccleuch Academy. This is a part of the country I hardly know at all though I did visit Oakham years ago and its very very pretty. I went by train via Birmingham and once wed passed Leicester it all got very charming rolling fields and woods villages nestling round church spires and fields of luminous rape. Im never quite sure what I think about rape fields. They look strangely unnatural yet theres something appealing about the vivid splash they make. You have to blink to check whether the suns come out or not. I was invited to the school by Lesley Palmer Jones who is on a mission to get her students years 7 8 and 9 reading. Earlier in the year she asked them what they thought would help and apparently the overwhelming view was that theyd like to meet authors. Thank you students of KBA Theyve already had Melvin Burgess Sarah Singleton and now me and theyve got Gillian Cross coming up. It was a great day with lovely students. Its been a ... 2010-5-12T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#61849 Yesterday I visited Heathfield School near Taunton. It was a really enjoyable day I came away buzzing. Its a lovely school with a relaxed happy feel to it when I parked the car I couldnt see where Reception was and asked a passing student. She was delightful just so courteous and this set the scene for the whole day. The librarian Di Osborne is terrific very enthusiastic and with all sorts of ideas for encouraging reading. I was particularly taken by Eric I think it stands for Encouraging reading In Class at any rate what happens is that all students spend a little time on private reading at the beginning of the day. The library felt as if it was at the heart of the school with people dropping in all through the day and lots of interesting displays including a beautiful one for my book Warrior King with a lovely big painting of a wintry Level landscape and a series of questions to point your way into the book. And one of the unexpected pleasures of this visit was that it pointed me... 2010-3-31T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#57542 When I was writing Warrior King which is about Alfred the Great and his daughter there were a number of times when odd things happened. I probably mentioned some of them on the page about Warrior King but never mind never mind. There is a point to this. The first was when I went to Athelney to see if I could find any books about Alfred. I didnt but I did find myself leaning on a gate looking at the mound which used to be an island next to an old man who said Youll be looking for Alfred then The second was several months later when Id gone on a trip with my daughters school. I heard one of the teachers asking a pupil to tell her father that was to be an open day at Athelney the following Saturday and anyone could go round the dig which the BBCs Time Team had filmed. I went and was rapt when an archeologist explained that they had found a dagger made in a very high grade steel that only a King could have afforded and it dated from Alfreds time. They had also found burnt stones where h... 2010-2-2T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#53682 Had a really lovely morning today. I was just about to set off for the Willows and Wetlands Centre to deliver more copies of The Willow Man and Warrior King when I had a call from the librarian at Monkton Heathfield School near Taunton to say that she had just read Warrior King and loved it and so would like me to go in and talk to year eight classes about it. She mentioned that a lot of the children come from Burrow Bridge which is close to Athelney where the book is set so that they would know the area. I wonder if they will know about the connection with Alfred I expect so though its not advertised much apart from the King Alfred pub near Burrow Mump. Burrow Mump is a small but very visible hill rather like Glastonbury Tor. The Willows And Wetlands Centre is near Athelney. They have been growing willow there and weaving baskets furniture and all kinds of things for many years. As you drive in there is a giant teacup and saucer on one side and a figure of a girl dancing on the othe... 2009-11-30T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#32370 2008-11-14T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#32362 We travelled north from Warsaw by train. There are fast trains in Poland but on this route we were on one of the slower older cross country trains. Which do have the advantage of being a lot cheaper than British trains It was a very hot day and you couldnt open the windows very far. There wasnt much leg room so it wasnt the most comfortable of journeys. But I kept thinking of the journey Dad would have had from northern France. It took several days and they were in trucks they didnt have the luxury of seats of any kind let alone comfortable ones. At that time he would have been 21 younger than my son now. We know now that the war was to last for another five years and that the Allies would win. But they knew no such thing. They only knew that the last theyd seen of the British Expeditionary Force it was in tatters desperately trying to make it to the coast in the hope of escape. The Germans were advancing inexorably with far superior fire power Dad was from the industrial Midlands. H... 2008-11-14T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#32159 Ive kept a diary all my life but it must be one of the most intermittent ones ever written I can go years without writing anything. And sadly it looks as if Im just as erratic with blogs am shocked to see Ive written nothing since July. Oh well its a dreary wet November morning another one so Ill mend my ways and do some catching up. Im at various stages with a number of writing projects but the one which Im furthest from writing has actually been near the front of my mind for probably the longest time. My father was a prisoner of war for almost the whole of the the Second World War. He was one of the 30 000 or so who were not rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940 but were stranded in the aftermath of a chaotic retreat. He spent the rest of the war as a guest of the German Reich in various prison camps in what is now once again Poland but was then an unwilling part of Germany. Like many veterans he didnt talk much about his experiences. Often as he watched Remembrance Day... 2008-11-10T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#27642 Went to the library on Tuesday. Now this is a bad confession to make in the National Year Of Reading especially as Im on the Somerset steering group for the NYR and am therefore heavily committed to encouraging people to use libraries but I havent used a library for ages. When I was a child we didnt have many books and lived in a shoebox all went to work down the mines when we were three years old etc etc all the kinds of things that happened in Ilkeston all those years ago and I used school libraries and the town library to the hilt. I even got a part time job at the town library which meant I could take out an unlimited number of books and not have to worry about fines. It was the most impressive building in the market place the Carnegie Free Library it easily outshone the Town Hall and the two pubs. Though the Scala Cinema just off the square would have run it a close second its often used in TV series nowadays because its so well preserved. Anyway yes. I used to use the librar... 2008-7-30T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#27415 Frome Festival took place recently and one of the events had writers in residence working in shops and cafes in Frome for four hours writing anything they wanted to on the theme of Fellowship and Community. I was lucky enough to be asked to judge this. There was a great variety of work including poetry nonfiction short stories and even a song lyric and I really enjoyed reading it all. The winner a story set at the Glastonbury Festival was easy to pick but it was difficult to choose among the rest they were all so good. This week there was an event at the Garden Cafe to hand out the prizes and listen to the writing. It was fascinating to hear the extra dimension which performance added to the pieces the song writer not only sang his song he got us all joining in the chorus and the poems really came to life. Tremendous congratulations to all the participants and to Sally Gander who organised the event. It was great to be a part of it and a huge treat to be given some flowers great g... 2008-7-24T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#25678 Warrior King came out in April and there was a launch for it at the beginning of May at Waterstones in Wells. Lots of people came and it was great many thanks to Amalie at Watertones and Tim from Walker Books who supplied the wine. We had cakes not burnt ones in honour of Alfred even though they didnt really and truly go with the wine. I read the bit from the book where Alfred and Fleda arrive in Somerset because that seemed appropriate. The week after I went to Norton Hill School near Midsommer Norton to talk about The Willow Man. Particularly enjoyed a session with a Year 8 group whod read the book in class and had apparently really enjoyed it. We talked about the structure of a story and how at the centre of it there must be a heroheroine who has a problem they must overcome. This is advice Ive just realised I ned to follow more closely in my own writing but thats another story. Then there has been a small series of talks to school children in libraries about Warrior King this ... 2008-6-17T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#21561 In February I went to Broadlands School in Keynsham near Bristol. Jo Blair the head of English there ASKED me in to talk to year sevens about The Willow Man. I explained to them where the ideas behind the book came from and read some bits and then they asked questions. Jo had used a really excellent resource to introduce the book to those who hadnt read it as a way of getting them to think about the kinds of questions they might ask and shes given me permission to publish it on the site click here to see it. It was a really enjoyable morning and we agreed that I would go back to do some creative writing workshops and also to talk to students about my new book Warrior King. At the beginning of March I went to Haygrove School in Bridgwater again to talk about The Willow Man at the invitation of Jill Thompson the librarian. Bridgwater is the home of the real Willow Man and Jill had organised a number of events that week to do with willow and the local area including a visit to The We... 2008-3-19T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#19330 I knew it had been a long time since I added a newsletter I think it makes more sense to stop pretending this is a proper blog and call it newsletters instead but almost four months Im covered in shame. So first school visits. To pick out a few from last year last February I went to Berrow School a primary school in Somerset. I was lucky enough to be asked to open their new library as well as to do workshops with three groups of children. I talked to them about the Willow Man and about other magical monsters like Ted Hughes Iron Man and the Green Knight from the middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The children came up with their own ideas for a magical monster then they went on to design book covers for the stories theyd thought up. It was an excellent day with enthusiastic teachers and children who were full of brilliant ideas. Id intended to talk to them about the library in Ilkeston in Derbyshire where I come from. Its a very imposing building in the market pla... 2008-1-30T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#14644 Woke up early this morning and finished The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson. I had to finish it over breakfast I almost read it walking down the stairs because I was completely gripped by the story but now I feel quite cross with myself because I was enjoying reading it so much and now Im outside its world. I remember feeling like that the first time I finished reading Lord of the Rings when I was about 13 or 14 just desolate because I was back in this boring world of school bus journeys and homework and because there were quite definitely no hobbits in Ilkeston. Anyway The Secret Countess. This is a warm and wonderful book with the most fantastic array of characters. The countess of the title is Anna a refugee from the Russian revolution. Her family has lost all its money and to help make ends meet she takes a job as a maid at Mersham House. the obvious thing here would be to make her putupon and silently suffering but Eva Ibbotson doesnt do that. Anna actually enjoys being a maid... 2007-9-19T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#14551 It will be immediately obvious to the millions of you who have been following my blog that so far theres not been very much to follow. I think it will be an evolving blog for the time being at least it will also be an irregular one. I have been thinking a bit about what it will be about and Ive decided that it will centre on books and writing which will come as no surprise to anyone whos looked anywhere else on my website. My Very Good Intention is to write a little bit about all of the childrens books I read. I recently met Adele Geras at a writers retreatconference type thing organised by the SAS not the Special Armed Services but the Scattered Authors Society. We do sometimes have wild fantasies of ourselves crawling through grass wearing balaclavas but so far as I know only two or three of us have ever actually done this. Anyway Adele mentioned that she keeps a note of every book she reads and I think she said her husband has been doing this ever since he was about 11. I was extr... 2007-9-16T00:00:00Z http://www.suepurkiss.com/page10.htm#14016 Welcome to my brand new blog The first entry is about an event in Bridgwater last Friday. I was lucky enough to be asked by the librarian Tricia to introduce a willow workshop which she had organised together with Ben from the Blake Museum which is just across the park from the library. We started off in the library where I told the children about how I came to write The Willow Man and about going to see Serena de la Hey who created the giant figure beside the M5 which the book is named after. I talked a bit about willow and how you can make amazing things from a few withies thin pliable pieces of young willow. Then Ben explained what was going to happen next. He was going to show the children how to make creatures out of willow. Tricia had some books ready for them to look at for ideas and then we would walk across the park to the museum looking at the river on the way and watching out for insects and creatures which might give us more ideas. It was a beautiful day so the children ... 2007-8-27T00:00:00Z