Mary's musings

Mary Hoffman, author of over 90 children's books, including the Stravaganza series and Amazing Grace, has begun a web journal which will be updated roughly once a week. You can read more on www.maryhoffman.co.uk

Monday, August 16, 2004

Michael Moore and talking Cat

What has happened to last week's blog? I posted it from my laptop and it has completely disappeared. It was partly about shopping so maybe not a great loss.

Since then I have posted copies of Lines in the Sand to both Michael Moore and his assistant at their home addresses (don't ask how I got hold of these - my lips are sealed). This is because I want him to put his not inconsiderable weight behind the American edition of the book. The Disinformation Company say it hasn't been selling too well and I felt emboldened to do this because the people who will benefit from greater sales aren't the publishers or Rhiannon and myself but the children of Iraq. Now we'll wait and see.

On Wednesday of last week I drove into Wiltshire to interview Louisa Young for Armadillo. She and her daughter Isabel are Zizou Corder, the author of the Lionboy trilogy. I was greeted at the gate by a suicidal pheasant called Andrew who hurled himself at the car. He reminded me of Evil Murdoch, the gander in the Provensens' immortal "A Horse, a Hound, a Goat and a Gander", who fell in love with hubcaps.

Louisa and I drank tea with her very distinguished father, Wayland Young, who was a Labour-voting hereditrary peer, who did not get a life peerage in 2000 when the House of Lords was reformed, perhaps because of his period with the SDP. We talked about Lionboy and about Italy and singing, which is something Louisa, Isabel and I all like to do. The hero of their books, Charlie Ashanti, talks Cat, as a result of an accidental exchange of blood withb a leopard cub when he was a baby. But Isabel can't have a cat of her own because of her asthma.

An unexpected phone call from Woman's Hour will find me talking about Cinderella on tomorrow's programme. refreshed my knowledge on this - there are famously at least 345 variants!

A sample cover design for City of Flowers came - this is very exciting. And we'll have bound proofs shirtly after I'm back from the States.

By the way, these musings may be interrupted, since I don't know if I'll get to the Net while I'm away. Normal service will be resumed shortly after 6th September.