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Alligator cake by Courtney

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I've always found that there are certain characters in books of whom I get so fond that I don't want to say goodbye to them when the book ends. The hobbits were like that; when I finished The Lord of the Rings, I walked around in mourning for some days because I was no longer in a world where they were. Perhaps oddly, Horatio, in Hamlet, is another. There's something I really like about Horatio. He's on the edge of things, watching, but loyal and caring and clever. I picture him with a long scarf wound round his neck, glasses, a shock of dark hair, a wry smile. A bit like a French assistant we had when I was in the sixth form, as it happens!

And it's the same with the books I write. A few years ago, I wrote a book about Alfred the Great. It was called Warrior King. It's out of print now, but like Arnie, it'll be back. Soonish, I hope! There was a character in there called Cerys, a magic lady, a wise woman, with silver eyes. I really liked her.

She emerged from my imagination, but the other character from that book who stayed in my mind was real. She was Alfred's daughter, Aethelflaed (though in the book I called her Fleda - it made it less confusing, because there were so many other Aethel-whatnots hanging around). I discovered her when I was looking for a child who could be my point-of-view character when telling the story of Alfred - it was such a gift when I discovered that his oldest child was a daughter who would be just the right age at the time of the events in my story.

But Fleda became much more than that. I grew very fond of her. She was warm, impulsive, brave, and she could be defiant when she was defending something she believed in. I knew she must have been like that, because I knew that later, after the scope of my book, she married the Lord of the Mercians - and after his death, she became the Lady of the Mercians, Myrcna Hlaefdige, their de facto queen. She led them into battle and rebuilt their towns, and after her death, she was named in the Annals of Ulster as 'famosissima regina Saxonum', that most famous queen of the Saxons.

So when I got the chance to write a story for an anthology called Daughters of Time, a collection of stories about remarkable women from British history, written by contributors to the History Girls blog, it took no thinking at all to decide whom I would choose. I wrote about Aethelflaed at a time of transition for her, when she went from being princess of Wessex to wife of the Lord of the Mercians. It was an absolute joy to spend more time with her.

The only trouble is that the more I read about her, the more interesting she became. She had one daughter, Aelfwyn. She fostered her brother's oldest (but not quite legitimate) son, Aethelstan (who later became a great king of England): her brother was Edward, who succeeded Alfred. She fought alongside her brother; they must surely have been close. Yet after Aethelflaed's death, when Aelfwyn should have succeeded her, Edward rode in and carried Aelfwyn away into Wessex... and nothing more was heard of her. Edward became King then of Mercia as well as Wessex. Maybe she was put into a nunnery - or maybe not.

How much conflict and conniving, triumph and sadness, lie behind those few bare facts! I'd love to spend more time with Aethelflaed - and with Aethelstan and Aelfwyn. I'd love to explore their stories and try to understand their lives. One day, perhaps!

Daughters of Time is published this weekend. My story of the Lady of the Mercians is in there, but so are twelve other fascinating stories, many by writers who have blogged on An Awfully Big blog Adventure: Penny Dolan, for example, has written about Mary Wollstonecraft, Joan Lennon about Mary Anning, Catherine Johnson about Mary Seacole, Dianne Hofmeyr about Elizabeth Stuart. If you don't know much about any of these - as I didn't - you know what you need to do!

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The Authors Guild called Amazon’s purchase of Goodreads ”a truly devastating act of vertical integration” in an online dispatch. Guild president Scott Turow had this statement:

Amazon’s acquisition of Goodreads is a textbook example of how modern Internet monopolies can be built … The key is to eliminate or absorb competitors before they pose a serious threat. With its 16 million subscribers, Goodreads could easily have become a competing on-line bookseller, or played a role in directing buyers to a site other than Amazon. Instead, Amazon has scuttled that potential and also squelched what was fast becoming the go-to venue for on-line reviews, attracting far more attention than Amazon for those seeking independent assessment and discussion of books. As those in advertising have long known, the key to driving sales is controlling information.

What do you think? The Guild cited Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson as an example. The book has 123 customer reviews at Amazon, but 469 reviews on Goodreads.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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Fabulously serious logo by Sarah McIntyre

I got back from my summer holiday last night. I went to CWIG, which is not an obscure Welsh village, but the Society of Authors Children's Writers' and Illustrators' Group conference. It happens every three years in different cities, and this year it was in Reading.It was called 'Joined-up Reading'. Is that 'joined-up reading' or 'joined-up Reading'? Who knows. Maybe both.


Normally, we writers and illustrators spend our days, doing what we want, bossing around people  who don't exist and skiving work to chat on Skype/Facebook/twitter about the work we should be doing. We're not used to being with other people all the time, or doing as we're told. We're not used to having to get dressed before working, eat at regular times, use a knife and fork nicely or sit quietly without telling a bunch of lies. But a conference is a proper organised thing with set mealtimes, talks to attend and other people to interact with.

So why do we go? Holiday!

CWIG is a delight. Full of old friends and potential new friends, a chance to gossip, eat, drink and whinge. If any snippet of useful information leaks in, that's a bonus.

Nicola Davies, unfazed by being elbowed by a giant ghost - all in a day's work for us

CWIG is just writers and illustrators - it's not somewhere to look for an agent or publisher. And so no one has to be impressive, there's no point in showing off, and we can all just relax. It's a time for singing silly songs and drinking the bar out of wine. (We did that on the first night; the last time I was party to drinking a bar out of wine was in Outer Mongolia in 1990 on the day the Iraq War started.)

I loved it. But like all the best holidays, it had its grumble-points. The food was poor, the bar was hopeless, the cabaret compulsory (hah! we laugh in the face of compulsory!), the coffee undrinkable (that's serious) and the microphones non-functional. The Germans took all the sun loungers and there was tar on the beach. Oh. Hang on.

But we don't get this stuff every day, unlike, say, manager-type-people who are forever going to conferences and staying in the Scunthorpe (or Dubai) BestWesternMarriotHilton hotel. Indeed, most days we don't get interaction with another human being who actually exists. To be in a whole room of around 100 people, none of whom can be given green hair or three arms on a whim, is quite a novelty. CWIG is a weekend away in the real world.

Only our invisible friends were skiving outside

But look - we can play in the real world, too.

We talked about the state of publishing (in turmoil), of what the hell the government thinks it's doing with libraries (wanton armageddonising), of the progress of e-books in children's publishing (mollusc-like in its rapidity) and whether Allan Ahlberg's glass contained red wine or Ribena (who knows?) And heard the usual disingenuous comment from a publisher that there's never been a better time to be a children's writer.



Now for my holiday snaps. Don't shuffle like that. You might like to visit the real world one day.



Here is our venue: a very plausible-looking Henley Business Centre at Reading University.









We had proper signage, just like real business people. Well, perhaps not quite like real business people.







Just in case we didn't know where to walk ...





.... and where to dance, there were some stick people drawn on the floor.

(Obviously the nice people at Reading know that all writers - and  especially illustrators - speak fluent stick.)








We know how to dress. Alan Gibbons and John Dougherty, as usual, wore shirts chosen to burn out the eyes of Ed Vaizey. I won't dazzle you with those. Sarah McIntyre chaired her session in the best conference hat I have ever seen. [What do you mean, 'what's a conference hat?']








 Allan Ahlberg brought his teddy.









And he had a drink on the stage, though his wasn't see-through, like they usually are when you see conferences on TV.










We all transacted our own little bits of networking and business. I secured a promise from Catherine Johnson to translate some text into Jamaican Fairy and asked Jane Ray if I could commission a dodo from her.





So you see, we do know how to do it.

I had a wonderful time, but holidays can't last forever and it's time to settle be back into speaking stick and bossing around a steam-powered autamaton and an orphan in a boat. Sigh.

(If you would like to read a more informative account of what happened at CWIG, you could turn to David Thorpe. I'm sure more will appear, and I'll update this list later in the day/week/millennium.) 

Anne Rooney
(Stroppy Author)

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