Catch up with me at Myspace at http://www.myspace.com/melvinburgess

 

I thought readers might like to have a look at the recent press release for Bloodsong, published 1st September this year. Many thanks to Mary for writing this - I could never sing my own praises this loud. Yes, I know it's a bit over the top but hey - that's advertising!

melvin burgess

FORGET everything you thought you knew about MELVIN BURGESS

REMEMBER his bone-cracking and heartbreaking saga, BLOODTIDE:

'As mythology collides with sci-fi, you're dragged into a world of treachery and double dealing as savage and bloody as that in any gangland saga. A novel for bravehearts.' Daily Telegraph

'This is the most amazing book. It is brutal, violent and savage, and I was utterly gripped from the beginning to the end.' Five-star review, Amazon.co.uk

'Bloodtide stands alone among young people's novels - or will, until Burgess writes the (I hope) inevitable sequel.' Robert Cormier

AT LAST here is the bold and brilliant follow-up:

BLOODSONG

After the god left him, Sigurd lay very still, not even breathing; he didn't need to. He lay for another day in utter stillness until at last he felt the ground shaking around him and he knew that the dragon was coming. Then he lifted his head, drew in air, bared his teeth at the unseen sky above his head and prepared to die again in a torrent of blood.

BLOODSONG is a compelling tale of love and destruction, reincarnation and revenge. Set in a future Britain, the young hero, Sigurd, is adored by all. Glory and power, love and wealth - it is all within his grasp. But there is a terrible price to pay.Burgess mixes myth, magic and science-fiction in this powerfully imagined and brilliantly told story, which pulses with energy and drama from the opening line to the final, heartbreaking page.

Melvin Burgess is the undisputed Godfather of Young Adult Fiction. His novel, Junk, the definitive tale of teenage heroin addiction, earned him the Guardian Prize and the coveted Carnegie Medal. More recently, his controversial novels Lady: My Life as a Bitch and Doing It have put him in the public eye. Doing It won the LA Times Book Award and was adapted for television in the US in a series starring Kelly Osborne. Much of his work has been adapted for stage and screen and has been widely translated.

Melvin Burgess will be available for interviews and for selected events

BLOODSONG 1st September 2005 ISBN: 1842701797 Andersen Press

All publicity enquiries to Mary Byrne on 020 7729 6359 or mary.byrne@virgin.net.

 

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DRUGS ADVICE

After several controversies about drugs, sparked by my book Junk (Smack in the USA), I'd like to leave these links in in case anyone feels the need for help or advice about drugs.

I can recommend the following sites.

For young people specifically try: http://www.wiredforhealth.gov.uk/ - press the forth button down on the left.

For general drug facts and figures try Drugscope at http://www.drugscope.org.uk/ This is by far the most informative site I've been able to find - invaluable.

For families adversely affected by drugs, try: http://www.adfam.org.uk/

For anyone with specific problems - or who simply wants to find information through chat, there is a free helpline at Frank on 0800 77 66 00. Their website is; www.talktofrank.com

 

 

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NAME AND SHAME!

An extremely bizarre thing happened to me the other day. I was invited to LOWTON HIGH SCHOOL, near Warrington, to speak to Year 10 students. All went well - the students were rather quiet but interested. I did Junk with them - a talk I must have done dozens of times before. First session was at 9am, then I had an hour off. Shortly before the next session, the deputy headmaster came to se eme, took me into a little room off the library and told me that he'd had complaints about both language and content and that they had "decided to terminate the day." So there you are - expelled from school at the age of 50!

I gather that the complainer - not a student, needless to say - was the one of the teachers who attended the session. Did this woman not know what my work was like? Did she bother reading it before inviting me to the school? If she did, how did she fail to understand it so magnificently? My reputation is well know, and so is my approach. There was nothing in my language that would have been out of place in a film for over-fifteens, or early evening radio, come to that. Given that film censorship for young peole is largely ignored by the population in general, it does make you wonder what sort of preposterous moral code schools of this type offer. You would have thought that standards which prevent students from engaging with contemporary literature is something they'd avoid like the plague. Literature is not just GCSE - what use is an education that unable to cope with the word shit (the extent of my swearing in that session)?

I do wish people would do their homework. I'm well aware that there are schools who are anxious about my material, but the controversy is well known. I've no desire to go anmywherel where I'm not welcome. As it is, I wasted a day and the students missed the chance to see a writer - not necessarily me - from whom they may have benefited. To see my letter to the school, see below!

I name and shame! Lowton High School for their mimsey morals, lack of strength in standing up to moral bullies, and their failure to do their homework!

Does your school need naming and shaming? Email me at melvin.burgess@ntlworld.com. I'll be happy to print all well-founded complaints - anonymously, of course!

Dear Headmistress,

My name is Melvin Burgess - the author who visited your school this Monday and, as you doubtless heard, was asked to leave after my first session. The book I was presenting to the students was Junk. This book won the Carnegie Medal in 1997 - our most prestigious children's literary award - as well as the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. It was been made into a film by BBC Education, translated into nearly thirty languages, is used extensively in schools and has been welcomed by almost every drugs educational agency in the country. The talk I was delivering has been given in literally dozens of schools without any problems before this. It was done in the tone and manner in which the book is written, but does not include any language which children would not hear on daytime radio, for instance, or which would be unacceptable in a 15 film.

If, as the school told me, my language was inappropriate to children of this age, why are they reading my books in the first place? There was a great deal of controversy about this book when it first came out, and I realise that there will always be some people who will disagree with my work. Every school has one or two parents who will kick up a fuss at all sorts of perceived moral transgressions - but these people are really in a very small minority and it is ludicrous to let them dictate the literary tone of a whole institution. Most parents are well aware of the kind of material their kids have access to these days and that the material in my books - and my talks - is by no means strong in this context. Given that this book has been endorsed by the Library Association, the BBC, endless schools, broadsheet newspapers and drug educators, it is in no way difficult to defend. There again, if the school did not want this sort of material presented to students there, why on earth invite me? My views and my work are well known, and there was nothing in my talk in any way different from the book as a whole.

Your head of English passed on a message through your librarian, Mrs Potter - and I do think that if the matter was so important to her, she should have dealt with it herself - that she wanted me to talk about the writing process. I replied that I was happy to include that, but that I am not a teacher and that in the main my talk would be about the books, where they come from, what they are about. I really think you should ask this woman to do her homework a little better in future. My role in literature is well known - to ask me to come along and then boot me out for doing what I am manifestly good at is simply ludicrous.

I enjoyed my visit to the school - I thought there was a good rapport between the students and teachers, but as I'm sure you are aware, the reading culture in the school is not what it could be. This is something which can make a big different to a school, and it is exactly in that area that I have been able to contribute in the past - after my visits, students of this age are usually more eager to discover books than they were before. As it is, not only have I wasted a day, but the students have been denied the chance to meet an author - not necessarily me - from whom they could have benefited. This is a situation which could have been easily avoided by the most passing acquaintance with my work and its social context. The ability of this book to get kids reading is well known, which is doubtless why Mrs Potter wanted me there; but so is it's controversial aspect, and your Head of English should have been aware of that before she agreed. I enclose my invoice and a copy of an email I found waiting for me when I got home on my PC. It's this sort of response that makes it, as they say, worthwhile; I could send you dozens like it. My approach may be more casual than is always comfortable in a school setting, but it does appeal directly to young people with great success. Educators are always complaining that young people, and boys in particular don't read. I wonder why? Perhaps a little mild embarrassment to the staff is a small price to pay if it helps teenagers realise that books exist outside of the curriculum and that their own lives can be part of literary culture, too.

Yours sincerely,

 

... and finally, many thanks to the reader who sent me this email, which was waiting for me on my PC when I came back from this badly planned day ...

Dear Melvin

i would like to say how much i really really enjoy your writing and think it is such a breath of fresh air!

in the summer before i went on holiday me and my mum stood in a book shop in horsham for about an hour trying to find some actual good books, and i turned everything down, it all looked either to confusing and grown up or to immature, predictable and obviously teenagery. but i picked up 'doing it' (much to my mums dislike) and saw it was by you and knew i had to get it. a few months before i had read 'junk' and was blown away by it! it was fantastic! and sooo different! it seriously was the best book i ever read. i cant say enough how good it was, i leant it to one of my friends and she thinks it was amazing to and i know lots of people who have read it.

like i said, i have also read 'doing it' and that was fantastic to! it was so nice to read something i wanted to read, something i was interested in, something i could relate to! THANK YOU! although i didnt understand the ending of 'doing it' with the twist about that girl friend being let down by deno? Anyway thank you for your amazing writing! dont stop writing! infact write more!

oh and there should defiantly be a screen play writen of junk. i know there has already been one on tv a few years ago but wouldnt a big film version of junk be amazing? and sooo many teenagers would go and see it, simply becasue i reckon all teenagers in some way or another can relate to it! you really go and talk to someone about turning it into a film.

thanx again

 

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Doing It is spreading itself nicely around the world. See this rather sexy cover for the paperback; very nice, although the girl looks as if she could do with a a few meals. Given that the book isn't about anorexic models-girls, it would have been nice to have someone with slightly more realistic thighs on the front - unfortunately the photoshoot only involved one girl.

This book is being marketed by Penguin as an adult book - the first time this has happened with one of mine. The theory is that it will appeal to people over twenty. Well, I hope it does. I'm happy anyway, because I think most teenage readers prefer to look on the adult shelves rather than the teen shelves, which, let's face it, are usually for younger readers.

Here's the USA cover - again, very good but why do they make the girls so skinny? These ones are stylised, but if I were female, I think if I weighted anything over about two stone I'd feel like a fatty, the way they are portrayed. I have to say though - they have made a lovely edition of the book - really beautiful, nice to hold, nice to look at. It was a pleasure working with the nice people at Henry Holt, who were all very enthusiastic and I know worked hard on it.

 

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