Meg Rosoff's Blog, page 16

Genius fails exam.

I love this child much too much for words.

Every parent should read this.

This e-mail came in response to my last post.   "I don't know what that girl was going through that would have pushed her that far, but as a 15 year old I can certainly try to give you all some sort of insight into the mind of a depressed teenager. Of course, you don't [...]

Suicidal.

I heard yesterday that a 14-year-old North London girl hanged herself in the night from a tree in her back garden. Her father discovered her in the morning and cut her down. There's an English expression that I don't normally use, but this information left me feeling gutted. Like a fish. Poor child. Poor parents. [...]

Things I'm not buying this week.

I'm not buying that books are dead. Or that kids today are illiterate.  Or that the Kindle and e-book will destroy reading (or publishing). I don't buy that closing libraries is a good thing. I particularly don't buy that having fewer librarians is cost effective. I don't buy that the arts are a luxury. I [...]

What I saw in the graveyard this morning.

I walk my dogs in the Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington on the mornings I can be bothered to walk the mile to get there. It's the most heavenly (if you'll excuse the expression) place — overgrown, wild, filled with flowers, birds, rare trees and stories. Sometimes I get names for characters there. Sometimes [...]

A few minor musings on literary festivals.

I think I'm as well qualified as the next writer to muse on literary festivals, having spent an inordinate amount of time at them lately. The thing is, I've recently had a bit of a revelation.  Which is, why go halfway around the world (or all the way to Hay on Wye) to a literary [...]

Revealed: Amazing glimpse inside the brain of a writer. Part 2.

As far as I know, I'm not officially dyslexic. However I'm incredibly bad with names (and faces). This is obviously because I'm so incredibly creative, with whole galaxies inside my brain of such extraordinary brilliance that the banal everyday world in which other poor souls live looks like McDonalds to my El Bulli. Either that [...]

The economic downturn. Coming soon to a wardrobe near you.

Sorry, but i had to post this. I get a lot of catalog e-mails from sites I might have visited ages ago, particularly American ones from those halcyon days when the pound was very strong against the dollar. Sometimes I unsubscribe, most of the time I don't bother. And this site has some nice jewellery. [...]

You've heard of battery chickens, meet factory books.

James Frey (author of A Million Little Pieces, the controversial non-memoir) is at it again. A massive best seller, I Am Number Four, was created in his teen book factory, Full Fathom Five. It has already earned him a whole lot of money and a good number of enemies, neither of which seems to ruffle his teflon feathers. [...]

Olympic pole dancing. Because you're worth it.

Why is it that the minute you get back to home sweet home, you inevitably encounter a news item so stunningly moronic that you have to check the date three times to make sure it's not April fools day? "Many of us have decided that its about time pole fitness is recognized as a competitive [...]