Writers who have impressed and inspired me

The book I haven’t stopped reading in the six years I’ve known it is Staying Power by Peter Fryer. I don’t think I would have written my historical novels, Stella and Hero without it. It’s a marvellous book, a history of Black Britain from the roman conquest, it’s crammed with windows onto other peoples lives, from the Black dances of Elizabethan London to the abolitionists of the late 18th century.

I write for teenagers partly because that’s what comes, partly because I love a good story and because young literature doesn’t put up boundaries the way some adult writing does. Some adult writing seems to sneer at me, to shut me out with its’ cleverness and ‘difficultness’. Whereas the best children’s books, from picture books to novels are inclusive and do huge ideas simply. I am full of admiration for picture book authors – I think the hardest of all genres. People forget that the fewer words you use the harder it gets. Try Jeanne Willis’ and Tony Ross’ Tadpole’s Promise for an insightful and coruscating exploration of love and change. Or Donald and the Singing Fish which has no words at all, or Owl at Home by Alfred Lobel. And I have to mention Dr Suess, I learnt to read with Sam I Am.

I love the novels best though, The Sterkarm Handshake and The Sterkarm Kiss by Susan Price, Bloodtide by Melvin Burgess, Philip Pullman of course but the ones I like more than His Dark Materials have to be the Sally Lockhart books. Read these, especially the Tiger in the Well for women’s rights, racial tolerance and immigration, socialism, unmarried mothers and a wonderful story. Malorie Blackman is another impressive writer, she does very big ideas simply told. I like Jane Eyre, except for the bit where she stays with her boring cousins. And of course I read some grown up books, especially Beryl Bainbridge’s historical novels, which are so spare and lean yet so full of life. I can read Master Georgie over and over.

I haven’t mentioned Angela Carter’s fairy tales, my favourite is I think, The Goose Girl featuring a talking severed head, which takes me back to Wales and the Mabinogion, the almost biblical myths and folk tales

That should lead me on to poetry, but I don’t read as much as I should. Jackie Kay wrote a poem, which I think of as mine, In My Country, but I think it speaks to all Black Britons.

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