MEETING AUTHOR CELIA REES

This week I had the amazing opportunity to meet with author Celia Rees at Bloomsbury's gorgeous offices. It's always nice to learn where someone's ideas came from and what their individual writing style is, and in this case it was really interesting to hear about Celia's writing history as well as the development of her latest book This is not Forgiveness, a compelling and thought provoking contemporary YA book.

During the event Celia explained how when she started writing, she was writing contemporary fiction such as Every Step You Take. Being a teacher, Celia wanted to write that the young people she was working with would want to read - something gritty and real and thrilling, and about teenagers like them. But when she had the idea for Witch Child, a magic-based story set in the 1600s, that was when she started writing more historical YA stories. Having spent the past 10 years writing historical fiction, Celia came up with the idea for This is not Forgiveness when she watched the French film Jules and Jim and realised it could be updated to fit with current teenagers and issues. Although she admitted it was a challenge to fit the idea into a current situation, as soon as she decided the older Rob would be a soldier the whole story opened up for her.

I think it's fascinating to hear where a story developed from. But it's also lovely to meet other bloggers! Some the other lovely bloggers that were there included Sarah - Feeling Fictional, Sammee - I want to read that, Laura - Sister Spooky, Raimy - Readaraptor, Vivienne - Serendipity reviews, and Megan - The Book Addicted Girl.

My review for This is not Forgiveness will be posted tomorrow, however if you want a taster you can read an extract of This is Not Forgiveness here at the Bloomsbury website and here is the brilliant trailer: