 |
John Singleton |
|
THE BASICS
Born: Cardigan in 1943
Jobs: Teacher
Lives: Dover, Kent
First Book for Young Adults: Star, 2003
THE BOOK
Star is the story of Jez, a disaffected teenage boy with no family of his own and a record of petty arson and twocking (taking[cars] without the owner’s consent), who is living in a care home run by a monstrous warden known as Big Mother. Through his friendship with an imaginary dog called Star and with Mags, a girl in his class, Jez’s life undergoes a radical change.
WHAT HE SAYS…
“Alongside the dry academic writing demanded by my university studies I practised the secret art of stories and poems. I wrote a sonnet or two, some rhyming satires. I took up teaching, was sold on free expression and wrote with the kids: stories, poems, scripts, newspapers, the lot. Emboldened, I wrote a two volume children’s fantasy and sci fi novel – apprentice pieces. They gathered dust but they paved the way.”
On ideas: “I often start with a single sensory image. Recently an exhibition of photographs of a child’s disfigured face triggered an idea. A story set in a ward of terminally ill children. This transposed into a story about a boy, Leigh, struggling with his feelings of jealousy and rejection in the face of the attention his very sick sister, Skinny B, attracts from both parents. I saw railway graffiti. It sprung another idea. Leigh has a schoolmate, Skaz. I’ll make him a graffiti artist. So once the ball starts to roll everything is drawn into the narrative by its gravitational pull.”
WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT JOHN SINGLETON…
‘What could have been a bleak and off-putting book is transformed by the quality of the author’s writing into a compelling read’
Nicolette Jones writing about Star in The Bookseller
“Growing up ‘in care’ is tough, I’ve been there, you can be surrounded by people and still be very lonely. This book shows how one can create a world within that world, it’s a hopeful, lyrical journey, it’s magic that’s rooted in reality. This is a powerful collection of words arranged in just the right order…For some, this book could be seen as a ‘how to survive’ manual, because this sensitively told story is about the strength of the imagination and the possibilities that lay within the self’
Benjamin Zephaniah
PLACE & DATE OF BIRTH:
Cardigan 1943
FAVOURITE BOOK:
James Ellroy White Jazz or Russell Hoban Riddley Walker or Cormac McCarthy All the Pretty Horses or Barry Lopez Arctic Dreams or Thomas Hardy Far From the Madding Crowd
FAVOURITE SONG:
‘Vissi d’Arte, Vissi d’Amore’ from Tosca
FAVOURITE FILM:
Ivan the Terrible by Sergei Eisenstein
MOST TREASURED POSSESSION:
‘All That Jazz’ from Chicago or a painting of the Inchcape Rock by my son, Paul, aged nine years.
When did you start writing?
When my sixth form English teacher brought one of his own poems into a lesson. I was gobsmacked. He’d actually written it himself! Amazing! I’d always thought you had to be dead to write, like Hardy or Shakespeare. It kind of gave me permission to practise. Alongside the dry academic writing demanded by my university studies, I practised the secret art of stories and poems. I wrote a sonnet or two, some rhyming satires. I took up teaching, was sold on free expression and wrote with the kids: stories, poems, scripts, newspapers, the lot. Emboldened, I wrote a two volume children’s fantasy and sci fi novel – apprentice pieces. They gather dust but they paved the way.
Where do you get your ideas and inspiration from?
I often start with a single sensory image. Recently, an exhibition photograph of a child’s disfigured face triggered an idea. A story set in a ward of terminally ill children. This transposed into a story about a boy, Leigh, struggling with his feelings of jealousy and rejection in the face of the attention his very sick sister, Skinny B, attracts from both his parents. I saw railside graffiti. It sprung another idea. Leigh has a schoolmate, Skaz. I’ll make him a graffiti artist. So once the ball starts to roll everything is drawn into the narrative by its gravitational pull.
Can you give your top 3 tips to becoming a successful author
1. Enjoy writing, love words.
2. Know your readers.
3. Get a good agent.
Favourite memory
Walking on Borth beach with my wife and two sons Christmas Day, 1998.
Favourite place in the world and why?
Ynys Las on the Dovey Estuary. It’s vast and diminishes us. It’s elemental and ancient and abiding. The estuarine broads are ramparted by green and purple hills, Silurian sedimentary, and north and south of the wide mouth giant sand dunes range. It’s the most life-enhancing place I know because of the dunlins and the cormorants and the oystercatchers, because of the wild glaucous seas, because of the sapphired skies, because of the rinsing light, because of the Dovey pools bruising darker and darker in the dusk.
Also, The Barking Dog Diner East 94th and Second, Manhattan, where they serve the best breakfasts anywhere.
What are your hobbies?
Reading, writing, visiting art galleries, writing letters, studying architecture, playing badminton, drinking coffee in Costa Coffee.
If you hadn’t been a writer what do you think you would have been?
Something in the visual arts. A designer of some kind – posters, book covers. I’d love to have directed films, made films, animations like the Czech animator Jan Svankmajer. I love the work of Frank Gehry, the Canadian architect, so maybe an architect.
