I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone at Laleham C of E Primary, which I had the great pleasure of visiting last week! It was fantastic to meet so many brilliant readers in Years 6, 5, 4 and 3, and to see all the enthusiasm for books and reading out there.
There wasn't enough time to answer all the questions that everyone had, so if anyone has a question they would like to ask, this is the place to ask it! And there's a short film I wanted to show you, but didn't have time, so here it is – the brilliant Phoenix book trailer, made by Dave McKean!
Exciting news – the Phoenix paperback is now available for pre-order! Click here to go to my publisher's page, where the 'Buy Now' button will give you links to all the places you can order it: independent bookshops via Hive, as well as Foyles, Waterstones, Amazon etc. It features a stunning new cover by Dave McKean:
And a back cover with some of the most amazing reviews I've ever received! When Jacqueline Wilson says "Phoenix is brilliant – a total page-turner" and Frank Cottrell Boyce describes it as "Big, bold, beautiful. Great to read aloud. A wonder to hold in your hand" – you know you must have done something right!
I had many ideas for Phoenix epigraphs. But in the end, I wanted the universe of Phoenix to be its own universe. From the moment you opened the book, I wanted you to be deep in space, among the stars. Any epigraph felt like would take away from that feeling, so I decided not to have one.
If there had been an epigraph, though, there were three possibilities I was seriously considering. The first was a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. The poem is called That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection and you can read it in full here. The part I might have quoted for Phoenix was this:
"Man, how fast his firedint, his mark on mind, is gone! Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark Drowned. O pity and indig nation! Manshape, that shone Sheer off, disseveral, a star, death blots black out; nor mark Is any of him at all so stark But vastness blurs and time beats level. Enough! the Resurrection, A heart's-clarion! Away grief's gasping, joyless days, dejection. Across my foundering deck shone A beacon, an eternal beam. Flesh fade, and mortal trash Fall to the residuary worm; world's wildfire, leave but ash: In a flash, at a trumpet crash, I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, Is immortal diamond."
I'll make another blog about the other two possibilities soon!
