Author Mal Peet was guest speaker at last month's ALCS AGM in Bristol. Here's his barnstorming speech in full.
"I'm going to read you a story. Or part of a story, anyway. This is the opening of a novel to be published some time next year called The Murdstone Trilogy. It concerns a writer called Philip Murdstone, the author of sensitive, boy-centred teen novels. After some initial success his career is on the skids and his royalties have slowed to a dribble. His agent, Minerva Cinch, summons him to London. Over a dodgy lunch she cajoles and bullies Philip into giving up on his lovely sensitive teen novels and to attempt a Sword and Sorcery Fantasy blockbuster because that's what teenage boys actually read. Despite his healthy loathing of all things Tolkienesque, Philip succumbs, partly because he fancies the pants off Minerva. He returns to Devon full of regret.
The relevance of all this to the present occasion will, I hope, emerge.
