Sweating with Wolves

The wolves come...

Friday 13th may be unlucky for some, but not for me.

On Friday July 13th I went into London, to Tiverton Primary School in Tottenham, to see the second performance of a musical play based on my book, The Wolf's Footprint.

It was an exhaustingly hot day -- and I got lost. As I  wandered around, interrupted several people as they were going about their business, to ask the way to Tiverton School. Every single one of these randomly selected people was as friendly and helpful as could be. Several pulled out smart-phones and entered the name of the school, so they could show me where it was and guide me on my way. Thanks to them, I found Tiverton in time for the afternoon session.

So thank you, kindly people of Haringey and Tottenham and especially those -- you know who you are -- who were stopped by a hot and dishevelled writer asking, "Do you know where Tiverton School is?"

At the school I spent the afternoon talking with two great classes about -- oh, how a writer works, the writing of Bremen Town Musicians, ghosts, wolves, fairy-tales. I had a great time. I only hope the children had half as good a time as I did.

Then I got to relax in the staff-room and chat to violinist Anna Jenkins and drummer Sebastien Hankin until it was time for the evening performance.

The play was first performed in 2014 and you can read about it here.

The performance this year, with a different cast, was every bit as good.  I knew how the story was going to turn out, but I was still on the edge of my seat the whole time.

Wicked courtiers try to dissuade the king from helping his starving people -- in song!

The music moves from the sad and poignant to the boisterous and joyful. How the children danced so energetically -- with encores! -- in that heat, I don't know, but they did. The oldest cast members were no more than twelve but they performed with a confidence and engagement that was a delight.

When Resham Mirza, the admirable head-teacher, tweeted that she had watched the show 'with pride,
joy and admiration' I could only echo her. As the head of this wonderful school she has good reason to be proud. As the Head Governer of the school told me, as we sat in the front row, Resham not only nutures all kinds of artistic expression at the school, but they have great academic results too.

And, of course, there is Kate Stilitz, who wrote the music and lyrics and directed, drawing such wonderful performances from her young cast. Follow the link for a look at Kate's website, where you can see something of the many song-cycles and musical pieces she has written for children to perform. More than one of her pieces has been performed at the Royal Festival or Albert Hall.

The villagers celebrate the arrival of food.

 Kate also supplied the trumpeter, Ruben, as he's her son! Grow your own, that's the way.

 Tiverton School website

Kate Stilitz's website

Find it on Amazon

Mysterious Purchaser, Somewhere In The UK...

I wasn't going to put up a blog this week - pressure of work and all that. I'm trying to prepare a series of workshops I have to give in schools at the end of February and beginning of March.

And then, there's no pubowrimo to report on this week - partly because of the workshops, but also because, living on top of the steepest hills for miles around, we were snowed in. A more courageous driver could have made it out to a decent, writer-tolerant pub - but after pirouetting my car like an ice-dancer on our steep hills a few times in recent years, I decided to pass.

I changed my mind about blogging when I logged on to CreateSpace, Amazon's Print-On-Demand Paperback site. I was intending to upload the 'interior' of 'Overheard In A Graveyard', one of my ghost story collections. But before I could do anything useful like that I was transfixed by the fact that this month's sales of my book The Wolf's Footprint, had jumped up from 5 to 23 since the last time I worked on the site, a couple

Nightcomers - already a paperback

of days ago.

The reason I put 'The Wolf's Footprint' out, first as an ebook, and then as a paperback, was because so many teachers emailed me, asking where they could find copies of the book. One teacher asked if I could supply 16 copies. I couldn't - I never owned 16 copies at one time myself.

So I can only imagine that the reason for this sudden, even if modest, spike in sales is that, somewhere in the UK, a teacher, or a school, has lashed out and bought 18 copies of the book at one go.

Mysterious bulk purchaser, whoever, wherever you are, thank you very much! Please accept a writer's gratitude. I hope the book

serves your purpose, and the story and illustrations are enjoyed.

Mysterious Purchaser, you've made my weekend.

The paperback edition of The Wolf's Footprint can be found here, with greyscale illustrations..

A paperback edition with COLOUR illustrations can be found here.

And the ebook edition can be found here.



And I can't resist saying, have a look at this - http://thezazzledimp.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/copywriters.html 

You can put words in famous writers' mouths. I love Lovecraft saying, 'Boo!'