Is the Calm Real? A Teaching Resource for Shine

World Book Day is fast approaching and I'm excited to say my days are going to be packed with school visits --  I can't wait! It's been a while since I last made a teaching resource so here's a brand new one - focusing on Shine. If any work comes out of this resource, do let me know via the contact form below.

Candy Gourlay's Teaching Resources: SHINE - Is the Calm real? from Candy Gourlay

HALF TERM SHENANIGANS

This coming half term, I will be featured in the very popular Imagine Festival in the South Bank alongside lovely Laura Dockrill, author of Loreli (AMAZING read - go get it!) and the Darcy Burdock series. We're going to be talking about how realism and myth meet in young fiction. Emily Drabble, fastest children's journalist in the West, will be chairing our event. If you happen to be in London, do come and watch - we're on at 1 pm, 16 February, Level 5, Royal Festival Hall - you can book tickets here.

Laura's famous for her blue lipstick, so in an attempt to keep up here I am with ... er ... green lips.

I'm also participating in Dahl in a Day, basically it's a Matildathon - with authors and various others reading Matilda in a day on Thursday, 18 Feb from 10.30 am. It's FREE! The cast of Matilda the Musical is performing soon after 10.30 ... and if you're still around about 1.30, I'll be reading Chapter 19!

In fact, Laura and I were in the Guardian talking about the intersection between realism and enchantment in young fiction. Go read!

SPEAK UP FOR LIBRARIES

Today authors, educators and librarians marched on parliament to demand an end to the apathy and ignorance in local and central government that has led to the closure of many libraries.

Writers & illustrators supporting libraries at #SUFLlobby16!! @JohnDougherty8 @PhilipArdagh @mygibbo #JakeAinott pic.twitter.com/Rdl4QZPke1

— Sarah McIntyre (@jabberworks) February 9, 2016

High-profile writers including @cathycassidyxx, Jake Arnott and @PhilipArdagh joined this morning's #SUFLlobby16: https://t.co/nFMXD1sVRb

— The Bookseller (@thebookseller) February 9, 2016

Inspiring day thanks to #SUFLlobby16 & everyone who came to speak up for libraries. @SpeakUp4Libs #MyLibraryByRight pic.twitter.com/TrLGONwkgE

— Dawn Finch (@dawnafinch) February 9, 2016

Now you can print this year's library poster! Link to the free downloads: https://t.co/U0djqejadY #SUFLlobby16 pic.twitter.com/6mCOYUxgTC

— Sarah McIntyre (@jabberworks) February 9, 2016

I am an author today because a librarian helped me discover my lifelong love of books. Please, everyone, do what it says in the campaign: SPEAK UP FOR LIBRARIES.

Rain or Shine: designing setting

I'm slowly archiving posts I wrote for other blogs. Here is a blog post I wrote for the now defunct StoryBlog in April 2013.

If you were to check out the cover of my new book, SHINE:

… or watch the book trailer -

You would quickly realize that there is a weather vibe going on. Specifically: RAIN.

It took me three years to write SHINE – and while in that time, characters and plot and motivation changed constantly, there was one thing that never did – the setting.

SHINE takes place on an island called Mirasol where it never stops raining.

I’d been thinking about rain a lot because back in the Philippines, there had been a series of terrible floods, worse than the worst floods we regularly experience.

Large parts of Manila had been swallowed by water, my mother’s piano floated at the bottom of the stairs, bumping up against my brother’s fridge, and another brother watched from his fourth story apartment as roads and cars and houses and animals disappeared under the thick grey flood. I had never realized how disaster-prone the Philippines was until I moved to disaster-resistant London.

Rain and Flood in the Philippines

I was also thinking about rain because that winter, I started re-reading my Ray Bradbury book of short stories and rain seemed to be on the old man’s mind. Embedded in the collection were short stories with titles like The Long Rain, A Sound of Thunder, The Day it Rained Forever and Farewell Summer.

My forever favourite of Bradbury’s ouvre is All Summer in a Day – a story set on rainswept Venus where children grow up knowing only wet weather. When a girl born on Earth shows up, they despise her for remembering what sunshine felt like. Every seven years, the sun shone for just an hour – the hour was fast approaching, and they hated the Earth-born girl all the more for the way she stood so separate from them, KNOWING.

Screenshot from a 1982 TV short of All Summer in a Day. You can watch it on YouTube here but you’ve GOT to read the short story first!

“It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands. A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus …” from All Summer in a Day

And if this was the way life was forever, what did it do to those who lived it? They may have yearned for change but in that yearning there was fear too … a fear of the unknown.

This past month, it’s been interesting to watch reactions to the UK’s unexpected summer of sun.

There was joy in many quarters, but there was also resistance and irritation. Too hot! The complaining that inundated social media left people outside the UK puzzled and perplexed.

In SHINE my characters cling to the rain. It’s a comfort, a constant, a steady drip-drip that nobody wants to turn off because the alternative might be unbearable. They live in a world where the story is fixed, and any deviation might lead to danger. The island they live in is a crucible, a trap, a prison.

From SHINE

There’s nothing like putting a bunch of characters into a prison. Some of them will want to get out. The ones who don’t want to escape will have to stand and fight. This is the stuff of a good story!

---

About SHINE: Rosa suffers from a rare condition that renders her mute. She lives on the strange island of Mirasol where the rain never seems to stop. In the gloom of the island, its superstitious population are haunted by all sorts of fears … they shun people who suffer from Rosa’s condition, believing them to be monsters who could bring misfortune and ruin to the remote island. So Rosa must live a hidden life in an isolated house with its back to the rest of the world, with only the internet for a social life. But Rosa has no desire to leave Mirasol. This is where her mother died and every night she lights a candle on the window sill. The islanders believe this is the way to summon ghosts, and Rosa wants her mother back. One day she is befriended by a boy online who calls himself Ansel95 – and she quickly realizes that this is one friendship that can take place in the real world. Can she really trust him? What does he want from her? Should they meet? And then Mother turns up at the front door.

Cursed

By Candy Gourlay

In my second novel, Shine, a girl hides away in a tall house on the edge of the sea. She suffers from a condition called the Calm that renders her mute, immediately identifiable by marks on her neck that look like burns from a noose.

People on her island believe that victims of the Calm are cursed. She cannot live a normal life. She must stay inside because if she shows herself to the outside world, she risks being attacked and possibly killed.

EXCERPT FROM SHINE

When I visit schools, readers ask me: is the Calm a real disease?

The answer is no, I made it up.

What I did not make up was my character's experience of rejection and isolation, through no fault of her own.

You don't have to have a disfiguring disease to feel rejected and isolated. Anybody who's been to school will have seen or experienced this. Anybody who was not picked to play on a side, or left to eat by himself in the corner of the school lunchroom would know what it's like.

Recently, I watched an episode of the BBC documentary Hunters of the South Seas, which follows amiable explorer Will Millard as he spends three weeks with the Bajaus of Indonesia, a people who have always lived on the sea and only under government pressure have begun to settle in stilt houses still miles from land.

It's a moving essay on how the modern world is engulfing a traditional way of life, do watch it if you can find it.

Will develops a close bond with a little boy named Lobu.

Will and Lobu, screenshot from Hunters of the South Seas

The boy suffers from some kind of muscular dystrophy and slowly, Will realises that the rest of the village looks down on Lobu for having a disability, that Lobu is the butt of jokes and regarded as useless. Even worse, they think he is cursed.

When Will asks Kabei, Lobu's father, what happened to his son, Kabei tells him that Lobu is paying for an unkindness that his mother's grandfather had committed a long time ago.

I wondered, throughout the film, what was going to happen to Lobu. Was Millard going to adopt him, take him away, save him from a terrible fate? But wouldn't it be wrong to take him away from the only life he's ever known?

Before Will leaves, he puts an arm around Lobu.

"Lobu, there are lots of people who are just like you," he says in Indonesian. "You're not stupid. if you want to work, you can. If you want children, you can. If you want a wife or girlfriend,  you can. You're clever, you're friendly, you're funny. You're an amazing person, don't forget it."

In the end, as Millard boards his boat, Kabei grabs his arm and says, "Do not worry about Lobu. He is my son and I love him. I would never abandon him, no matter what happens."

OUTSIDERS IN CHILDREN'S FICTION 

I was deeply affected by the story. More so because of the parallels with Shine and Tall Story.

In Shine, Rosa's future is blighted by a curse that turns everyone against her. Her recourse? She lives an alternative life on the Internet ... something so many of us are doing right now, and sometimes for similar reasons. You can be anybody you like on the Internet, and not the person everybody dislikes.

In Tall Story, Bernardo too is struck by a curse. But his version of difference -- becoming a giant -- makes people love him too much to let him leave. All he wants is to be reunited with his family, but an entire village wants him to stay and save them from an earthquake.

My storytelling is deeply influenced by growing up in the Philippines where, like Millard's Bajau story, so much belief emerges from the mystical and spiritual and my books' locations suffer incessant rain and natural disaster.

But the character as outsider, characters who do not belong and must find a way to do so, populate the stories that young people love.  Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen, Bruce Wayne, Pollyanna -- they're all outsiders looking for a way in.

I guess this is because trying to belong is a journey that everybody has to take. We love these stories because they remind us that despite everything, like Lobu, we are each amazing in our own way.


We love stories about outsiders because they remind us that despite everything, like Lobu, we are each amazing in our own way.

---

If you enjoyed this blog post, please consider subscribing to my blog. I blog about my life as an author, writing and drawing and I share ideas about how to teach books and encourage reading. Subscribe now



Previous: Pictures Mean Literacy

Shine is Launching in the Philippines

ABOUT THE COVER   |  YOU'RE INVITED TO THE LAUNCH  |   SCHEDULE OF EVENTS IN HK & MANILA

I give you, SHINE, the Philippine edition!

FIRST REVIEW

Shine's already had its first review in the Philippine papers - thanks to Ruel de Vera for liking it! 

Thanks to my classmate, Carmen Montano for sending me this photo.
You can also read the review online

COVER REVEALED

I'm extra proud of Shine's cover because the artwork was created by one of my best buddies from university, Ricky Villabona. Here is what Ricky looked like when he was a baby.

Ricky is on the right.

As teenagers working as 'gophers' for the American network
news during the turbulent events that led up to a revolution
in 1986 Philippines 

Ricky and I were teenagers together, Communication Arts majors at university (Communication Arts would be the equivalent of Media Studies, I guess). We worked together on many student film and TV projects. One of our short films even placed fourth at the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines Competition!

When we graduated, I went off to become a journalist and Ricky became a fashion photographer and then a director of TV commercials like this one:


Today, Ricky is an artist and thanks to Facebook, we're still great friends -- I can ask him to make art for my cover and he doesn't get upset when I post his baby picture on my blog.

Ricky V

BOOK LAUNCH

So if you haven't unfriended me yet on Facebook, you should have seen this invite:

I couldn't resist Photoshopping this cover from a 1930s Liwayway magazine. The translation: Candy - "Come to the launch of my new book!"  Boy - "As long as I don't have to make a book report."

So ... are you coming?

HERE'S MY SCHEDULE

13 Sept Saturday Afternoon HK	SCBWI Hong Kong	Part One - A Writer is Just a Rabbit Staring at Rabbit Holes. Writers are like rabbits staring at rabbit holes that represent character, story and setting. We must dive in, go as far as we can go, in order for our stories to reveal themselves. Candy will talk about how there are no half measures in unfolding a story and how we are all better authors for the journey we have to take. Part Two - If Everyone's Now Got a Platform, How are You Going to Stand Out? We are all wise to the internet now, all tweeting, blogging, Facebooking. But is anybody listening? Candy Gourlay was an early adopter of the Internet, blogging before Blogger was invented, learning web design before content management systems became ubiquitous, and trying out every new thing that came along from MySpace to Tumblr. She will be discussing the author's biggest challenge: being discovered by readers. There will be tips and tricks and strategies. But be warned. Ultimately, it will be about writing a good book.
15 Sept Monday Morning HK 8.35 am	Bradbury School	School Visit
15 Sept Monday Afternoon HK 12 pm	Glenealy School	School Visit
16 Sept Tuesday HK 8.30 am	Peak School	School Visit
20 Sept Saturday Pasay City 8 am	Manila International Book Fair - Mall of Asia: Meeting Room 8, SMX Convention Centre	Why I Write for Young Readers. I will be speaking to an audience of educators - librarians and teachers who are already at the frontline of the reading battle. They already know the value of fostering a love of reading in their students. I will argue that that is not enough. Our educators must not only seek to create readers, they must also empower their pupils to become writers.
22 Sept Monday Biñan, Laguna 8 am	The Beacon Academy	School visit
22 Sept Monday Calamba, Laguna 12pm	Xavier Nuvali	School visit
22 Sep Monday Biñan, Laguna 2 pm	Alpha Angelicum Academy	School Visit
23 Sept Tuesday Mandaluyong 1 pm	Poveda	School Visit
23 Sept Tuesday Quezon City 1 pm	Ateneo de Manila	School Visit
24 Sept Wednesday Makati 11am	The Beacon Academy	School Visit
25 Sept Thursday Makati 8 am	Colegio de San Agustin	School Visit
25 Sept Thursday Sampaloc 2 pm	University of the East	Lecture
26 Sept Friday Quezon City 8 am	Miriam College	School Visit
26 Sept Friday Quezon City 3.30 pm	St Theresa's College	School Visit - my alma mater!
27 Sept Saturday Makati 9.30 am to 1.30 pm	Write Away Event (Where the Write Things Are, )	Workshop
27 Sept Saturday Makati 4 pm	National Book Store, Glorietta I	SHINE BOOK LAUNCH and signing. Yehey!
1 October Wednesday Tanauan, Batangas	Ambulong Elementary School and Janopol Elementary School	I will be fulfilling pledges I made to the Authors for the Philippines auction, delivering signed copies of my books, one CD set of Tall Story, and a school visit care of the Sambat Trust. I will also be opening one of the Sambat Trust's school libraries!

... and now some brazen promotion for my favourite charity:

Your old car can pay for someone's education. 

Dear Candy Gourlay, how do I become a writer?

The 300 Word Challenge  |   Authors You Will Meet

Before I continue with this blog post ... here's a word from our sponsor:

Today's the day my second novel SHINE is officially available in UK shops in hardback! If you can, please get it from a bookshop near you or order it from your nearest loveable public library!

Last June, I visited a school right on the edge of the Luzon electricity grid in the Philippines - Laurel Elementary School. I was taken there by the Sambat Trust.

I came bearing gifts - my book distributor for schools Anvil Publishing had given me a big bag of picture books (thanks Gwenn!) that I handed out as prizes for even the most trivial of questions.

So the children rapidly went from orderly bemusement:

To this:

Photo: Zarah Gagatiga

SUCCESS! I believe in making books exciting - even if I'm just bribing the children to answer questions.

I talked about how I became a writer and then signed books. In the queue I met this teenage girl from a nearby high school.

Photo: Zarah Gagatiga

She said writing was her passion. But how, she asked me, could she become a writer?

Y'know, it's funny how this is one question that I am asked over and over again by young people. I wonder if other authors get this question in their inboxes as often as I do.

Dear Candy Gourlay, How do I become a writer?

Luckily for today's young writers, they don't just have to aspire quietly in their bedrooms. With the internet, they can contact authors like me directly and ask this burning question. HOW?

The answer of course is a moving feast. Here's what I say to them:

To become a writer you must write and you must read. Lots. You must learn everything you can about the craft. You must decide who you want to write for and create work accordingly. It's a tough business, full of rejection, so you must keep an eye out for others who share your passion. They will support you through the tough times and you must support them. 

I try to answer what I can. But because of my busy schedule, I have to regretfully turn away pieces of writing that these aspiring writers attach to their emails - and I'm very sorry indeed that I don't have the time to help. If we all had the time to mentor young writers like these, what a fantastic literary world this would become!

So when Archway with Words, a new literary festival to be held in my neighbourhood here in North London invited me to create an event, I thought, how about something for young writers?

I came up with this:

23 September 2013, 5pm to 6pm, Archway Library - it's FREE.

It's a chance for young writers to show their work to authors - only 300 words ... 300 words is enough to get a flavour of the writer. I've rustled up a roomful of famous, cool and incredibly good looking authors (my very kind author buddies who are taking alcohol as their reward for showing up) to respond to the pieces.

This is not about criticism, this is about taking your writing to the next level.

Here's how it will work:

1. Submissions will be sent in advance to participating authors - they're attending my book launch which is why I was able to rustle up a roomful of them! Sadly places are limited because time is limited, so do submit sooner rather than later.

2.  On the day, a reader (I'm trying to get an actor) will read each text aloud. The authors will not be identified, though they can identify themselves if they want to later. After reading each text, the authors will respond to the work.

3. We only have 45 minutes to an hour to talk about the work. We will read as many as we can but the aspiring writer will not know if his or her contribution will get read. I attend events like these at writer's conferences and even if your work is not read, it's very, very educational.

4. Aspiring writers ages 12 to 18 submit 300 words (or thereabouts - no need to break off abruptly!) of a piece of writing - it may be fiction or an essay (for lack of time, no poems please). You can write something specially or maybe you've already written a novel or a longer piece - then you can show us a delicious excerpt! Send as an attached word document to me - contact me first via the contact form on the right for the email address.

5. Deadline: 18th of September 2013, Wednesday.

6. Format: Double spaced on one sheet. No fancy fonts please.

7. You can only send something in if you can guarantee that you can attend of course. Afterwards, there will be plenty of time to chat and hobnob with authors at the book launch. And the critiquing session will be a great ice breaker! You won't feel shy about chatting to the authors after the session!

Did I remember to mention that it's FREE?

If you are young and an aspiring writer, we all hope to see you there.

Here are the famous, cool and incredibly good looking authors 

who will be listening to your work

(Click on the images to visit our websites)

From left to right:

Fiona Dunbar's Truth Cookie series was made into the BBC show Jinx.

Tim Collins could be a character out of his hilarious Wimpy Vampire books.

Addy Farmer writes moving picture books like Grandfather's Bench and Siddharth and Rinki

Candy Gourlay wrote Tall Story about an eight foot tall boy.

Steve Hartley writes the Danny Baker Record Baker series and always travels with a giant bogey.

Jackie Marchant ghost writes the rib-tickling and highly suspicious books of Dougal 'It's not my fault' Trump.

Jane Mcloughlin wrote the Carnegie-nominated At Yellow Lake.

Cliff McNish is a lot nicer than his creepy Doomspell Trilogy and horror books.

Sarah Mussi's pacey Angel Dust is transcendent YA.

Sam Osman aka Sam Hepburn wrote the heart-pumping thriller Chasing the Dark.

Teri Terry's explosive Slated trilogy is winning prizes all over the place.


I leave you with this video of my hero Ray Bradbury talking (sometimes grumpily) about how to become a writer ...




And one more ...

It is the Sambat Trust's third year of building libraries in the Philippines. To celebrate, every new supporter who "likes" our Facebook page this September will be matched with a £1 donation- up to £500. Please ... go like!

Like books? Like children? Like libraries?
Click on the logo and 'like' us!

You might be interested in my recent postings. Click on the thumbnails to view:

How to Become a Writer

My Video Reading

Unboxing First Copies 

Q&A at Tamarind Books

Riffing on Rain in Shine

Chasing happiness

I read an excerpt from Shine and wonder what to do about my accent

Shine is officially released on 5 September 2013. It is already available for download on Kindle!

I made this over the weekend and then vacillated about whether I would actually post it.

It's just me reading an excerpt from SHINE from the screen of my computer, but after I made it, I realized that I'd read it in the mainly British accent that I use here in London and not the mainly American accent that I use elsewhere.

I did try a Filipino accent to start with but I abandoned that idea because it's hard to remember what my normal Filipino accent is when I'm not surrounded by Filipinos. I appear to be one of those weirdos who acquire the accents of the people they are talking to.

But this ... I worried that my Filipino peeps would consider it some kind of betrayal.

From TV Newsroom

I am all too aware of the experience of London-grown news anchor Veronica Pedrosa who suffered the suspicious criticism of Filipinos who thought the British accent was a put on.

Veronica anchored for Al-Jazeera and CNN before that and was subject to cruel speculation about an accent that was perceived as fake. Ironically, an American accent would have been seen as more acceptable.

When I was growing up in the Philippines many many years ago, the ability to speak English was so highly prized that at one point, I had a teacher who fined us a few centavos for every Tagalog word that slipped into our answers.

Tagalog, of Malay extraction, is the most widely spoken language in the Philippines and the basis for Pilipino (called 'Filipino' since the 1980s), which is one of our two national languages. Pilipino/Filipino was created out of the Tagalog language, to much opprobium from speakers of the other languages.

There are 120 to 175 languages in the Philippines you only have to drive a few miles out of Manila to find people speaking another language. If you've got the energy, you can read about the evolution of Filipino here - a reminder to Filipinos of how recently our country developed its national identity.

The other national language is English.

Tribal boys learning English at the turn of the other century.

Funnily enough, since we became an American colony in the 1898, it's become the lingua franca across our seven thousand one hundred and seven islands because education, law and politics has been largely conducted in English, though that is changing.

Which is why, when my family migrated to Manila from the Visayan-speaking South when I was three years old, English became the language we chose to speak at home. As a result, I was terrible at all my Pilipino subjects in school. I remember my Pilipino essays in primary school: all the Visayan words encircled with red ball point pen and the teacher's scribble 'This is not a Pilipino word")

'How can you call yourself a Filipino?' one exasperated teacher in Pilipino literature once asked me when I yet again resorted to an English word for lack of vocabulary.

I really did wonder if I could call myself a Filipino. Looking back now, I realize my problem was not because I was not Filipino enough. I just came from another island where we spoke a different language.

Sadly all this (and ubiquitous American TV) led to the erasure of Visayan from my vocabulary.

Though I can still understand a bit of Visayan, it has faded from my linguistic memory.

Good morning! (From DepEd)

The Philippines has just introduced a new educational system called the K to12 which subscribes to the idea that children learn best in their mother tongue - so early years education will now be delivered in local languages, with Filipino and English taught as separate subjects.

I am no educator, so I can't really offer any words of wisdom, praise or criticism about the new venture - except to say I'm glad no child will ever again be accused of not being Filipino enough because of the language they speak.

On one of my visits to a provincial school, a group of teachers eyed my approach with visible apprehension. When I opened my mouth to say hello in Tagalog, they all sighed with relief.

'Ma'am, when we heard you were an author from England, we thought you would speak to us in English!' one teacher explained. 'We were all suffering from nosebleeds!' (Note to teachers: please don't call me Ma'am!)

Nosebleed is Filipino comedy slang for linguistic low self esteem ... as in: 'Your English was so high falutin I got a nosebleed' (we conjugate the word nosebleed as if it was Tagalog).

Growing up with this constant linguistic tension - those who are fluent sneering, those who aren't, feeling insecure - I wanted to show that people are not just their accents.

In my first novel TALL STORY (Spoiler - if you want to read it please highlight and the words will become visible), English is not my character Bernardo's strongest point. And though I write his thoughts in complex English, whenever he opens his mouth the English comes out hilarious and mixed up. It was hard work to capture that kind of speech because I was not physically in the Philippines to get that Pinoy vibe ... but  I got a lot of help from a hilarious Filipino book called The More the Manyer.

Anyway, I decided to post this video and hope for the best.

---

You might be interested in my recent postings. Click on the thumbnails to view:

How to Become a Writer

My Video Reading

Unboxing First Copies 

Q&A at Tamarind Books

Riffing on Rain in Shine

Chasing happiness