Meg Rosoff's Blog, page 18

Don't take candy from strangers. No really. I mean it. Hello?

I was in Norwich today.  My daughter set off about the same time to meet a friend in Hyde Park.  I sent her a text from the train. It said: Have fun sweetheart. Don't take any candy from strangers. See you later. xxxx Mum I'm not a particularly protective mother. And weirdly (for a Jew) [...]

When The Hangover Strikes….

I was reminded of this fantastic song ('I turn on the tap but the water's too loud') by Squeeze while listening to David Lasserson's version for jazz viola (click listen now, then scoot to 8.58 on this link if you can get it). And then, with magical synchronicity, I woke up with a bastard of [...]

Everyone's a critic.

It's Carnegie time again. Time to torture poor innocent children with books of so-called literary merit. Here's a less than enthusiastic review from one of my teen-shadowers. Definitive proof that you can't please all of the people all of the time. "Another year in the Carnegie Medal and once again another Meg Rosoff book. So [...]

Oxymorons of the world unite.

Garden & Gun Magazine.  Who'd of thought it? You plant some beautiful Nepeta to attract pussy cats, then you shoot the bastards.  You put out thistle seed for the birds, catch 'em in nets and eat 'em for lunch.  Shy deer tiptoe into your wildflower meadow…kaboom!!! I've been away from America for twenty-two years now [...]

Storytelling saves lives.

Ray Hewitt may think I changed his life.  But actually it's the other way round. Here's what happened. I wrote a blog called My Friend Kills People sometime before Christmas. More or less by accident, I found a response to the blog in my spam filter that didn't….look….quite….like spam. I clicked back to the respondent's [...]

Patternicity

I ran into a woman I know at Waitrose yesterday.  'What are you doing here?' I asked. 'I've never seen you here before.' 'But I'm always here on a Monday afternoon,' she said. I just stared at her.  'What, you always do your shopping on the same day?  How is that possible?  What if you [...]

Dreams

It's been ages since I've had one of these dreams. It's the one where you have to get somewhere and you miss first one train, then another, then when you finally manage to get on the next train, you only travel for half an hour before it catches fire and everyone has to get off, [...]

What'd you do today?

Ever notice how, if you're a writer, everyone thinks you don't actually have a job? 'So, what'd you do today?' they ask, like your average day consists of a bit of shoe shopping followed by lunch at the Wolseley, an hour or two at the nail bar, Countdown, and a nap. Or, 'wanna meet for [...]

Cairo (bet you thought I was going to say China)

Given the state of the news, I can't help thinking of the visit I made to Cairo courtesy of the British Council about two years ago. I was there for the Cairo book festival with fellow authors Anthony Horowitz, Margaret Drabble and David Almond. After a meeting with Mrs Mubarak, who talked about the importance [...]

Multiculturalism. The next generation.

1.  At the Bookworm bookshop in Sanlitun district, Americans and Brits worked side by side with local Beijingers and I played 'do you know' with a transplanted East Londoner while my German translator discussed foreign rights with an expat from Berlin. Somewhat confusingly, the Italian member of the team, Giulia Fabris, turned out to be [...]