Melvin Burgess
Children’s author Melvin Burgess has written over 23 fiction books. With a focus on controversial topics, Burgess has earned himself a reputation of tackling difficult issues with sensitivity and honesty.
Why do you feel literacy is so important?
Where to start? It’s a gateway to so many things; from computing, to education and university. Without literacy, half the doors in this society are closed for you. And that’s not to mention the pleasure, and benefits, of reading fiction.
What are your main sources of inspiration?
In a word - people. You can sit down and ask someone to tell you about their childhood, their school days, their marriage – and you’d be amazed what comes out if you just sit and listen. Characters, events, relationships, situations, setting … it’s all there. From that, you can take the story into areas of your own, but what a head start!
What role do you think literacy has to play with regards to youth? Especially in light of recent events.
Literacy helps you to better yourself. I witnessed it myself recently when I ran an Arvon creative writing course with ex-offenders. You could really see people’s lives turning around as you watched them. However, it's silly to pretend that literacy is the only important thing. The communities that produced the riots are poverty stricken, not in terms of money, but in terms of culture, education - even in the families on some of those big estates, there's no real sense or tradition of nurturing. It will be a difficult thing, getting those communities back to health. Literacy is a big part of that, of course, but it’s only one part of the jigsaw.
Do you think children’s books should be censored? Could a book like JUNK have a bad influence on children?
I absolutely don't think children’s books should be censored. We already censor our teenagers far too much. Look at films, with that silly age rating that everyone ignores. It doesn’t stop young people from seeing unsuitable material – it just stops us making suitable stuff for them. When they wanted to make a film out of Junk, they had to abandon the idea because, “the audience for whom it is intended wouldn’t be allowed in to see it.” Insane!
As for the book itself - if there's one good deed I’ve done in my life, that is it. I’ve had so many emails from people who’ve got so much from it – often helping them to deal with their own addiction problems, or those of someone close to them, a parent or sibling, or a friend or lover. The idea that it might send people off the rails is just silly. It’s a book that empowers, not puts people at risk. The theory that it’s dangerous giving people knowledge and trying to help them use that knowledge is an old game, more based on fear and control than actual benefit to others. It has even less credibility now, in these days of instant internet access to almost anything. The age of secrets is over.
What were your favourite read/s as a child?
I was a book boy right from the start. As a child, I was very big on fantasy and animals stories. The very first book I loved was the Wind in the Willows. The Little Grey Man and Finn the Wolfhound were also favourites. I read a lot of Gerald Durrell - for a long time all I wanted out of life was to be a man who went around the world collecting animals for zoos. I used to read and re-read my favorite books, and my favorite passages from them, over and over again. Later on, I got on to reading Mervyn Peake’s Gormanghast, the works of Tolkien and a whole host of fantasy books, as well. To this day, I still love myth and legend.
I was shy as a child and in some ways, I think I hid behind books. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I started thinking about how books and fiction connect with real life. George Orwell was a big influence, political writing is so hard to do well, and so easy to make boring. Orwell managed to write about difficult subjects with such grace and simplicity that a child could understand it. To this day, when I come across written work that is hard to understand, I think it’s the writer’s fault. Ideas aren’t difficult by and large - just badly expressed.
What’s coming up next from you?
I'm just finishing off a horror book, set among people at university. We don’t seem to have much university literature, so I'm curious about exploring that. I then have an upcoming commission from the Chicken House - you'll have to wait to find out about that. Finally, I’ll be interviewing students to do a book more directly about university life – using the same techniques as I did for my new book, Kill All Enemies. I’m looking forward to that very much.
