Archive for the ‘appearances’ Category

Posted on December 21, 2011 - by MG

When MG met LJ

Sometimes I don’t blog everything interesting that happens to me right away; I save it up for a rainy day. Back in Nov 2009 I was on BBC TV’s Click – a show devoted to all things techie and presented by a fab fellow geek girl, the multi-talented LJ Rich. I made a little video of our meeting, the clip itself and then a chance meeting with a certain children’s TV presenter…

LJ asked me to go on the show to talk about the emerging phenomenon of self-publishing, mainly fueled by the print-on-demand revolution. You can see what  I thought two years ago. My how things have changed, in only two years. Note how little we talk about ebooks! That’s where the action is nowadays.

Maybe I should go on Click again to update LJ on my opinion now… because as some beady-eyed members of the Joshua Files Facebook group may have spotted, I myself will be testing the waters in the brave new world of publishing and putting out an indie-published techno-thriller for older readers, set in the fictional world of The Joshua Files around May 2012…

LJ meanwhile has been developing her talents as a musician. Her latest album features her own gorgeous arrangements of traditional Christmas music, performed by LJ herself. Very tasteful and classically inspired, with a touch of gospel. I think my favourite is “I Saw Three Ships”. Perfect background music for a Christmas drinks party or the long drive to visit family, I’d say.

You can preview or download here at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ljrich3

Posted on October 10, 2011 - by MG

Hurray for Oxford! (Kennington Literary Festival and Murakami love)

Well, I’m back on the blog. An extended holiday packed with houseguests and road-tripping gobbled up July and August, and the edit of Joshua Files 5 gulped down my September.

(Big announcement about Joshua 5 over on themgharris.com, btw)

Rewriting, as any author will tell you, is mentally exhausting. You have the editor’s notes that point out all the flaws in your manuscript, all that’s needed is to fix things. Sometimes this means breaking your plot and putting it together in a better configuration. I received my editor’s notes whilst on holiday in Spain. During  a long swim, I mentally put together the new, improved plot. Luckily, it still seemed to work when I returned to my computer.

So after emailing the second draft of Joshua 5 to my editor, I’m now free to write about two exciting upcoming events I’m involved in. Two events which demonstrate the awesomeness of Oxford.

The first, next Saturday, is the 2nd Kennington Literary Festival. In aid of the wonderful little Kennington Village Library, this event is pure ‘localism’. You can come along and meet Oxford authors including Bill Heine, Brian Aldiss, Korky Paul and also – me!

Here’s the article in The Oxford Times:  Literary line-up to aid village library

You can download the full brochure for the Kennington Literary Festival 2011. Or later today you can go pick one up from Starbucks in Summertown or the Jericho Cafe, where I will be dropping some leaflets.

BBC Oxford’s Jane Markham interviewed me about Joshua Files, time-travel fiction and the Kennington Festival – you can listen on the interviews page.

My event is on SATURDAY 15TH OCTOBER 2.20pm-3pm. Free for under 16s! Send your teenagers along to hear some Joshua secrets, tea and biccies in the village hall afterwards.

Meanwhile fellow Oxford author Dan Holloway and I seem to have successfully lobbied Blackwell’s, Oxford to organise an event to celebrate the launch of our beloved Haruki Murakami’s new book, IQ84. Read more about our plans here: We Love Murakami. I’ll be making Cosmopolitans and Coolman Martinis, still deciding on which mocktails… Dan might be making Wind-Up Bird spaghetti. Any volunteers to make rude phone calls to him while the pasta cooks?

So much excitement! And Swindon Youth Literature Festival coming up in November!

Meanwhile I will now work on Surprise New Project – an adult techno-thriller set in the Joshua Files universe. More on this soonish! And Ultra Secret New Project, about which I am still keeping mum…

Posted on May 31, 2011 - by MG

The Dark Parallel Reverse Diaries: Sneak Preview Schools Tour

So we come to the final post of the Dark Parallel Reverse Diaries wherein by a time paradox I revisit the early days of the launch of the fourth Joshua book and jump back to weeks before all the last few entries. In fact in chronological order this post fits between Author Visits 2011. C’mon in, sit a spell and Return to Eggli Mountain.

Weeks before the launch of Dark Parallel, I’d managed to get my hands on a bunch of ARCs (Advance Review Copies) as well as a very small number of finished copies. With these in my suitcase, I set off across the land, well across Oxfordshire and Berkshire. Kids were pretty excited to have a chance to win one of these rare ARCs and early copies of the fourth book. Winners won their copies by winning a badge-guessing contest about authors, or a quiz about Joshua Files, or by designing an alternative cover of on of the Booked-Up listed titles.

I showed the new trailer for Dark Parallel to audiences of hundreds, and was relieved to see that the young actor playing Josh still looks good when his face is blown up to cinema-screen size! Kids were also treated to some of the behind-the-scenes footage from the brief filming session.

After a full week of visits, I was off to Switzerland for the two-day visit to College Du Leman, Geneva. (This is where the weekend of relaxing at the Eggli Mountain blog post fits in…)

Visiting CDL was a hugely fun experience, although a bit daunting – five sessions each with around 200 students. And one session en francais! I’d had massive help from the French publishers of Joshua, who had translated a transcript of the talk I’d prepared. But as I looked over the notes in the hotel the night before, I realised that I hadn’t spoken French for any length of time for 25 years. Even reading it aloud – was I going to be comprehensible? Well I won’t lie – I practiced a bit, and crossed my fingers that the kids would be able to understand my lazy English accent.

It was fascinating to observe the differences between schools in England, the English-language side of CDL and the French-speaking side. In England, especially in state schools, students were expected to be quiet whilst waiting to hear the talk, and were occasionally reminded. Afterwards they were allowed to show their excitement, queuing for autographs and photos.

In the English-speaking strand of CDL the corridors looked like US high-schools with casual hanging around lockers. Once in the hall, the students chatted quietly but weren’t expected to be silent while waiting. The French-speaking strand of CDL, a classical Lycee type education, were used to much stricter teaching conditions, absolute silence in class, for example. But for a more entertaining session like an author visit, these same kids kicked back and relaxed, and the teachers were fine with that.

In fact the French-speaking grades 5&6 were the most energetic and excited group I had ever visited! They clapped along with the music in the videos, they whooped and cheered, they clamoured to ask questions at the end.

Three different styles of behaviour management, but all worked out pretty well with the kids seeming happy and relaxed. It was a pleasure to meet everyone and I’m delighted that quite a few young people added me on Facebook in the following days and weeks.

Thanks so much to all the wonderful school librarians and teachers who invited me into school, as well as to Krysia Rodak and all the brilliant Parent Faculty Association of College Du Leman for such a wonderful visit to Geneva!

Posted on May 5, 2011 - by MG

The Dark Parallel Reverse Diaries – Melbourne, Australia!

Yeah! First time showing DARK PARALLEL in Australia, Melbourne to be precise, St John’s Primary School, Clifton Hill. My good pal, Professor Magda Plebanski (already known to this parish…) is a resident of those parts and kindly arranged for me to visit the school during my brief but lovely stay with Magda and her family.

(Photo kindly taken by Little Daughter on my BlackBerry!)

The reason for such a wonderful opportunity to spend time in Australia was the wedding of my baby sister Adriana to Shay. That’s two of my sisters married to Australian men!

As luck would have it, Adriana and Shay also live in Melbourne, which gave me the extra excuse for a long-overdue catch-up with Magda.

(Also known to this parish in another, more secret capacity…as the alter ego of Dr Magda Poborsky. Leave a comment if you understand the cryptic reference…I like to keep tabs on the ARGers…)

Adriana and Shay were married in a Persian ceremony at a Victoria State heritage property, the Boyd-Baker House.

It was my first time meeting Shay, who is a lovely guy, just what you would love in a brother-in-law. Also my first time meeting my sister Grace’s partner, Lance, a former WWF wrestler of the Von Erich wrestling family!

Honestly, the people you meet in the Caribbean, you wouldn’t believe it.

The weird thing was that I was meeting all these Mexican family and friends (Magda) in Australia! Adriana’s childhood friends joined Shay’s friends and family (many from Iran) to dance the night away. I went to bed early but may or may not have walked back through the woods in full moonlight – the ‘Super’ moon to get cake at 3.30am….

And it was pretty strange, to be having that experience, so far away from where we all started out.

Australia! It’s a heck of a long way away but you can’t forget it!

Posted on April 28, 2011 - by MG

The Dark Parallel Reverse Diaries – launch party!

Usually a diary is told in chronological order but I am suffering from something that I’m pretty sure Josh himself experiences: blog drift! The events of my life are moving so rapidly that I need a whole mess of catch-up to be able to document anything of interest!

I say ‘events moving so rapidly’ but mainly it’s down to one thing: naughty me, I still haven’t finished Joshua 5! My deadline is mid-May. My stretch-deadline is end of May. Cue a bunch of writerly excuses worthy of Ed Reardon himself. But basically, that’s the deal. If I’m going to avoid a late delivery then I need to write, write, write like the wind!

But, my dear blog readers, all blessed six of you, you all still want to hear about DARK PARALLEL, don’t you?

So watch out for the Dark Parallel Reverse Diaries! They start with the launch party and end with the very first time I showed off a shiny new copy of Dark Parallel in a school. College Du Leman, your photos will soon be here…

You can find photos of the Dark Parallel launch party on Flickr. Thanks to everyone who attended, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! The focus this year was on the friends and readers who helped me to make the live action sequence that appears in the Dark Parallel book trailer. We watched the ‘making of Dark Parallel’ film and oh, we did chortle. We also ate cake. There was an after-party at the pub, we sat outdoors!

April is a great month in which to release a book. Thanks to all at Scholastic for another great job with a shiny new book!