If there is one influential dramatist and writer that never gets out of fashion, then it is nobody less than William Shakespeare!
Who has not read or heard about at least one
of his works. I remember well when we first read Much Ado about Nothing
at school. The first words already confused everybody in class. But once I
started out and learned to decipher Willy's expressions and the meanings he
wanted to convey, I really enjoyed it. But it wasn't until I entered college to
study English that I truly learned to appreciate and love the poet of the
Elizabethan era; cause, let's be honest, what teenager enjoys the classical
stuff read at school? But Shakespeare can be made attractive for teens -- if
presented through the lense of fiction! I know what you think: Shakespeare in
fiction?-- How?Well, today we have an expert here to tell us more about it. Please welcome YA author James Hartley!
Hi James. It’s so great to have
you here. Please, tell us about yourself.
Hi Key. Well, I was born in a
town near Liverpool, England, about forty-three years
ago. I grew up there but when I was about seven we moved as a family to Singapore. We
lived there for about five years and it was a fantastic experience. After that
we moved to Scotland,
which was a bit of a culture shock. After a few years there we moved to Muscat, in Oman
– all this was because of my dad´s job – and around the time of my GCSE exams I
went to a boarding school in England.
I stayed there and did my exams and the school in The Invisible Hand is
basically based on that place. After school I went to university in London and studied
journalism but by the time I´d finished studying I´d had enough of the city and
jobs and the impending rat race. I ran away to Galway in Ireland then drifted about the world, passing
through France, Spain, Germany,
central Europe and later further afield, to Thailand. I did any old jobs, sat
about, listened to music, read books and enjoyed life. I came back to Spain about ten
years ago and have settled down now. I live in a lovely place about eighteen
kilometres outside Madrid
with my wife and two children. Now I write and teach English here.
When did you decide to become a
writer?
I´m one of those people who´s
always written, right from as far back as I remember. At school people liked my
stories. I always did well in English and it just seemed like something I would
do. Making money out of writing – fiction writing – is tough, as everyone
knows, and although I´ve made a bit of money, sold books or won prizes here and
there, I´ve never really done it full time. I´ve always worked and done other
things and I don´t think that´s necessarily a bad thing. But the writing has
always been there in some shape or form. It´s just what I do. A hobby. A
compulsion. It´s never really been a chore, it´s just there.
From what I read about you, you
got to travel a lot. In how far did that influence your writing?
Well, of course the places and
people you´ve met along the way crop up. The school in the book is very
definitely the boarding school I went to. Some of the people in the story are
similar to people I´ve known. More than influence my writing, travelling about
and meeting different people has tended more to influence my view on humanity and
the world in general. It´s amazing how similar people are all over the world,
for example, but also amazing how there are so many obstacles in place to
divide people, usually for nefarious reasons: politics, self-gain,
exploitation. On other levels, it´s such a shame that there isn´t really a
world culture, that our media tend to work on nationalistic lines, or
US-dominated agendas. It´s a shame, that, for me, and I think that feeling of
misrepresentation comes into what I write more. Our similarities are so much
greater than our differences. I´m not an idealist but I really do think hate
and fear are used as tools to influence and motivate people because it´s so
easy.
You reside in Spain. What do
you like most about the county?
My wife and my
children. They´re the reason I´m here, otherwise I´d probably go drifting on.
But I love the country too – always have done. I´d been to Spain before, on holiday, but it was when I came
to Madrid in
the early 2000´s that I fell in love with the place. It was perfect, really,
because it was exotic and different – I spoke no Spanish, then – but it was
close to home, only a two-hour flight from Liverpool.
The weather, of course, was amazing. Beer and football and generally enjoying
life were high priorities, nicely keeping in line with my own, and I genuinely
loved the city. After I met my wife, things fell even more into place: her
family is from Cordoba
and so I got to discover a whole new fantastic side of the country down there
in Andalucía. Spain
has always been good to me for work, too, and I live well here. I´m happy.
Your YA novel The Invisible Hand, which will be
published by Lodestar Books on 24th February, 2017, is about a boy who is able
to travel back in time. The story takes place at a boarding school and in
medieval Scotland.
The Invisible Hand is the first book
of a series called Shakespeare’s Moon.
How many books will you write for this series?
I don´t know. A lot depends on
the reaction to the first book. I know that the second, which will be about Romeo
and Juliet, is more or less ready. After that I have some ideas for King
Lear and Hamlet but not so sure after that. Perhaps something set in Rome. This could all
change with the weather, so the honest answer is – no idea.
The
Invisible Hand is based around
Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Are you a Shakespeare fan? What made you choose Macbeth and
not, let’s say, for instance, Hamlet?
I´m a big Shakespeare fan but I´m
no scholar. I need my pass notes and help to decipher and enjoy his plays and
poems, but there´s just some richness, some way of describing the world which
is masterly and impressive. A good play, well explained (or taught) is a joy.
I chose Macbeth as it´s probably
my favourite Shakespeare play. It has been since I was taught it well in school
and it´s followed me around. I like all the mythology about it, the story, the
legends, the play itself, the subject matter, the darkness. Hamlet, too, I love, but Hamlet is a different
beast. I wanted to concentrate on Macbeth
this time as I could see the story and I wanted something lithe and linear. I
also liked the idea of meeting Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in my mind, as the
characters in the book do. That was exciting. Most of all, though, I wanted to
communicate a bit of my passion for the play. The idea that some people,
especially people who had to study the book for GCSE for example, were
rejecting it because they thought it was irrelevant or too hard to understand
kills me. I wanted to give people a way in.
You write for Young Adults. What
was your favourite book when you were in your teens?
I think reading in your teens is
a weird experience, or at least it was when I was a teenager. It´s when a lot
of people lose their way with books, where a lot of people just give up. I
think now, with the whole Young Adult market, there is so much more choice, and
with indie books, even more, as you can basically read what you want.
Publishers and writers are much more savvy as to what people want to read
whereas I always felt caught between two posts. As a child there were great
books and then suddenly you were expected to read either schoolly books with “a
message” or some of the easier classic books. I remember enjoying To Kill a Mockingbird, and actually
being surprised I could understand it and liked it, but I felt like some of the
other books were a chore. Message books, then and now, are a turn off for me.
It wasn´t until The Wasp Factory by
Iain Banks, which I found when I was about 17 or 18, that I got a thrill out of
books again as a teenager. I hung in there but I understood why many didn´t.
That gulf was bridged by Harry Potter,
I think: that woke publishers up to the fact that they´d left many, many
readers behind who they could cater for. Not so sure schools have learned,
though.
When I visited your website (http://www.jameshartleybooks.com/),
I noted that you like to support young writers. You also run a short story
competition. Tell us more about it.
I want to give young writers a
space to publish their work. I want to encourage people who feel like I did,
that they have these words pouring out of them, which other people respond
positively to, to get their stuff out there. I´m not quite sure how to do it
but in my mind I envisage trying to publish some kind of anthology. Although I
have given a theme to the competition, really I´m open to anything by young
writers. I like imagination and stories more than showing off. If you write, if
you want to see what people think of it, if you can´t help writing and people
have told you what you write is good – send it to me.
Thank you so much for the
interview, James. We can’t wait to read The
Invisible Hand!
If you want to get more infos
about James and his work, please visit the following websites:
(Intro of Interview by H. El-Tahwagi)
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen