Well, so now I have a publisher.
I am delighted that Crooked Cat are going to publish this novel. They are a
lovely husband and wife team and Crooked Cat editors and writers form two
supportive networks. There’s quite a following of readers now as well.
It is exciting, having found a
publisher. I can now get on with the marketing campaign. All the content is
waiting there on the web site that I can now make live gradually. I can step my
offer of school visits.
Publication is probably going to
be March or April 2014. This falls very well: I’ve had a hectic semester at the
University of Salford where I lecture in English and Creative Writing and what
looked like being another hectic one is now looking as if it will be a lot
easier. I am no longer convening Representing the
Holocaust but shall be teaching on it. In
fact, shall be teaching one week on this – lecture and two two hour seminars to
two different groups. I shall also be delivering a week on John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.
For
the latter I shall be comparing the book, the two films and factual
information. Both my book and Boyne’s contain bilingual jokes that don’t quite
work. It’s extremely doubtful that a civilian child would actually be able to
sit and talk through the fence to the inmates of the death camp. Neither can we
be sure what really happened to the Hilfsklasse that met in the house on
Schellberg street. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas can be described as a tragedy. The House on
Schellberg Street seems to
end on the upbeat but readers, even young ones, know that the main character
faces tragedy in the future.
This slight lightening of my work
at the university means I should be able to get out to quite a few schools this
year.
Great news, Gill. A very special and personal piece of work. All the best.
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