James Catchpole the agent and I have had a call about Becoming Sweetwood and I’ve started working on a new edit of it. I think it’s going to take a while but I don’t mind taking it slowly. We also have another call lined up to talk about me doing some work for The Catchpole Agency reading/filtering their submissions in the next few weeks. I’d like this as a chance to reflect authors and publishing, as well as thinking about my own work.

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I know what you’re thinking, if you’ve known me for a long time… Why are you not writing about dragons?? Ever since you were young you’ve been drawing and writing about dragons, what’s all this about forests!

Well, the answer is, they will come. I know that there is a story with dragons in it inside of me, but I’m saving it till I’m an experienced writer… For when I’m much older and know how to make people listen. Because dragons are not some little fantasy for me. They are a reflection of what storytellers want them to be. I also don’t quite have something to say yet, with dragons, so I’ll wait until I do. I’m very proud that Becoming Sweetwood has no dragons in it, and it’s going to stay that way!

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The last time I was in Leicester, I went to the second-hand bookshop and picked out British Dragons by Jacqueline Simpson, 1980. I’ve just read it, and its a book about local dragons stories and the history of dragons in Britain. Historically the dragon in Europe are very linked with the history of Christianity, and the dragon imagery in the Bible (the leviathan, not the Devil, which is also linked to dragon imagery) can be seen in the wider dragon mythology of the cultures surrounding the Old Testament in the Ancient Far East (Lotan). I find this kind of mythology all very interesting, and don’t quite know what I’ll do with it yet. I’m still in the student mindset of learning about story! Taking stories in, and hoping that one day something interesting comes out. And I can wait for it.




(Featured image is the jacket illustration from British Dragons by Jacqueline Simpson, 1980, of St George and the Dragon. It is from Hours of the Virgin (use of Sarum), c.1430)