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Posted on October 13, 2010 - by

Festivals and Prizes (part 2 of 2)

Festivals and Prizes (part 2 of 2)

With Duncan Wright and Kevin Sheehan, winners of the School Librarian of the Year Award 2010

From festivals – to prizes!

Last week was off to a cracking start when I was lucky enough to be the guest speaker at the School Librarian of the Year Awards for 2010.

If you watch this video from Teacher’s TV you’ll see my shock and delight that I was able to announce TWO winners. And that’s from a very strong shortlist! It was a joy to be able to see the work that all the honour list of librarians has put into the ‘Learning Resource Centres’ in their schools. I quite envied the kids at Kevin Sheehan’s school in Offerton, Stockport, who got to enjoy, amongst many other activities, a Doctor Who theme day.

Then it was on to St. Gregory the Great School, Oxford, where a House competition was run to find the best school poet for National Poetry Day. Four talented young poets stood up to represent their houses before a packed hall at lunchtime. The brilliant Raymond Pelakamoyo won for Benedict House with a poem about Home that brough the house down. (You can watch the video of Raymond Pelakamoyo below or on Youtube)

Then…back home to hear two exciting announcements – the fabulous news that fellow Redhammer client, author Michelle Paver had won the Guardian Children’s Book Prize. And that one of my favourite authors, Mario Vargas Llosa, novelist and former Peruvian presidential candidate had finally won the greatest prize in Literature, the Nobel Prize.

Huzzah and thank goodness! For those of us who carry resentment that Jorge Luis Borges and Graham Greene were never given their due recognition by the Nobel Committee, Mario Vargas Llosa was another thorn in our side. Now he’s won! Now he is officially the literary equal of his former friend and subject of his doctoral thesis (until he punched him in the face in Mexico City), Gabriel Garcia Marquez!

MG fangirls Mario Vargas Llosa at Oxford Literary Festival 2009

I’ll confess that I have yet to finish the two books that are considered to be Vargas Llosa’s greatest contributions to the American Novel.

  • The Green House
  • The Feast of the Goat

And I haven’t yet read Conversations in the Cathedral, which Vargas Llosa told an audience at the 2009 Oxford Literary festival, was his own favourite. Or The War at the End of the World.

But! I have read and loved The Time of the Hero, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Captain Pantoja and the Special Service, Who Killed Palomino Molero, The Storyteller, The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta and The Bad Girl.

Readers who know their onions are now nodding and thinking, yes, she’s a lightweight, only read the shorter, more entertaining novels. That’s what makes Vargas Llosa such a genius and such a worthy winner! Unlike most Nobel winners he can write dense politico historical epics, comedy, thrillers and murder mysteries. As the guy who announced the Nobel said, Vargas Llosa is a STORYTELLER.

He can write ANYTHING and make it awesome.

If you haven’t read anything by him, start with Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. And yet again, thanks to Alan Hoyle, former boyfriend of my mother’s for giving me this book for honeymoon reading over 20 years ago and introducing me to your literary hero and now mine.

Three cheers for Vargitas and Peru!



Posted on September 24, 2010 - by

Decoding Joshua, with Chris Maslanka

Decoding Joshua, with Chris Maslanka

A few months back, my good friend Bill Heine (he of the shark house and BBC Radio Oxford) had lunch. Bill double-booked me with another friend of his, Chris Maslanka, a top puzzlist who writes the puzzles for the Guardian and The Oxford Times.

Oxford being so tiny, the degrees of separation are usually 2. It wasn’t much of a surprise to Chris and I to learn that we were connected through St Catherine’s College, also my own wonderful literary agent. And Bill.

Bill has turned interviewing me into a sport – you can listen to some of our previous encounters on my interviews page.

Joshua Files in Guardian puzzle page

Anyway, thanks to Bill I made a new friend. Chris and his evil twin, Mikhail, proved to be great allies when I needed a way to visualise some of the puzzles in the first three books of “The Joshua Files”. Code-cracking workshops are now part of my school-visit repertoire…it’s surprising what you learn to do as a children’s author!

‘Mikhail’ Maslanka provides the solutions to all the puzzles in extended videos on the Joshua Files puzzles page at themgharris.com

And in this week’s Guardian puzzles, you can find the first in an exclusive series of Joshua-themed puzzles!

Solution in next week’s paper…

I’ll update this blog entry to include the puzzle after publication.

Btw Mikhail isn’t so much evil as eccentric. Chris is very normal though, a rum-tee-tum sort of fellow.


Posted on February 27, 2010 - by

Castaway!

Castaway!

With lovely Sylvia Vetta in the Summertown Wine Cafe.

I first met Sylvia last year at an event I did for the Oxford Literary Festival Fringe, a writer’s workshop at Blackwells (where most of the lit fest fringe events run). Sylvia is a local journalist and the former owner of The Jam Factory, an antiques centre that had cult status in Oxford for most of my years here, but which closed a few years ago when the neighbourhood was yuppified.

Sylvia writes the monthly ‘Castaway’ article in the Oxford Times limited edition magazine, a glossy special. She interviews local authors, artists, businesspeople, academics etc, through questioning them about their favourite art, antiquarian books and antiques.

And in June, Sylvia’s article will feature me!

(Updated: the Castaway interview is now available on the interviews page.)

I don’t think of myself as an art lover, or collector of antiques etc. Frankly I’m too broke, what with the exorbitant cost of visiting all the foreign lands to research Joshua, as well as my exotically foreign family. (I’m referring to the ones who live in Australia and Switzerland by choice, not the Mexicans…)

Luckily Sylvia allows you any object you desire, since it’s mere fantasy. Even the Elgin Marbles, if I wanted them, hah take that, British Museum! In fact, I did lust after one object in the BM…

When the article is published I’ll let you know. The interview, which we did in the Summertown Wine cafe, is accompanied by images from a photoshoot that is yet to be arranged. I’ve asked to be photographed in an huge leather-upholstered Jakobsen Egg chair in St Catz, reading an Uncle Scrooge McDuck comic.

MG Harris at the Kennington Free Literary festival

If you’re Oxfordshire-based and would like the chance to see me or other local authors talk in a mini literary festival, Sylvia also runs the Kennington Free Literary festival in Kennington, Oxon, on Saturday 24th April. Tickets are free, with a £2 booking charge if you want to guarantee a seat. But even booking is free for children – so come on down to listen to the MG Harris author talk!

Booking form for Kennington Free Literary festival.

Full colour brochure for Kenningtom Free Literary festival.


Posted on August 24, 2009 - by

Open shark house

Open shark house
It’s a landmark of Headington, the cause of tut-tutting as well as mini-thrills on the bus route as you pass the street that houses this extraordinary sculpture by John Buckley. Bill Heine’s shark house!
This weekend Bill opened up the recently refurbished house as an exhibition centre for local artists including renowned children’s illustrator Korky Paul. I’d just bought ‘The Dog Who Could Dig for my nephew and niece’s birthday. What fun to find one of Korky’s original illustrations from that book as well as Winnie the Witch on display!
Well anyway, meanwhile we’re in Switzerland for the birthday week…mine,my brothers, sister-in-law, nephew and niece. I have just suggested cocktails and chocolate fondue for my birthday. Oh. My. Goodness.
MG Harris

Originally uploaded by mgharris

Emailed from my BlackBerry®


Posted on August 21, 2009 - by

My bloggy friends

Oh the pressure of finding a photo for a blog post.

This is a photo of the volcano Popocatepetl, taken from the balcony of my uncle Xavier’s late lamented Tocame bar in Atlixco. It was a fine thing, that bar. Great views of the volcano, too. Known to locals as Don Goyo, the mountain smoulders away, threatening to get pyroclastic on everyone, never actually doing it.

Why a smoking volcano. Well, because while finishing Joshua 4, smoking volcanos were on my mind a fair bit…

Anyway. My blog-buddy and German translator of Joshua, Frank Boehmert recently mentioned on his blog that I don’t update as much as I used to. He rightly guessed that business and Twitter are why I’m not so active here any longer.

It’s also because I’ve started spending free moments (when I’m not busy with Twitter and Facebook) reading other blogs. Here’s some recent faves:

Meanwhile I’m off to Switzerland for the birthday week, from Sunday. Mountains and walks, and birthday cake almost every day! A great environment in which to complete the polish on Joshua 4 in time to hand it over to Editor Polly by September.

ZERO MOMENT is coming along very nicely. I’ve seen a colour mockup of the cover and Polly and I have been working on the jacket copy. Will post both on themgharris.com as soon as blurb is finalised…


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