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Profile
I've lived in Manchester since 1967, so consider myself a Mancunian these days. I was born in Jerusalem in 1944 and spent my childhood in many countries before coming to the UK to be educated (at Roedean and St. Hilda's College Oxford).
I've been a writer since 1976 and have published more than ninety books, mostly for children and young adults, though in 2003 I wrote my first adult novel.
I am married to Norman Geras and we have two children and two grandchildren.
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Creative Work
Something catches her eye. It's in the reeds and it's like a dark stain in the water and when she gets a little nearer it looks like a sheet or a cloth and there are waterplants and grey-green willow branches with skinny-finger leaves hiding some of it. If only she can get nearer to where the water meets the bank she can reach in and pull it and see what it is. The water is cool on her hand and there's something that looks like a foot poking out from under the material. Could it be someone swimming? No one swims without moving.
Suddenly there's cold all around her and what she doesn't know won't hurt her but she knows this is wrong. This is bad. She should run and fetch someone but she can't stop her hand from reaching out to the dark cloth that lies on the surface of the lake. She pulls at it and something heavy comes towards her and the time is stretched so long that the moment goes on for ever and ever and there's a face with glassy open eyes and pale greenish skin and hair all loose and sliding like a terrible spreading growing billowing weed that drifts across the silvery water and moves in and out of the open mouth and she feels herself starting to scream but no sound comes out and she turns and runs back to the house. Someone must come. Someone must help and she runs to call them to bring them and she's screaming and no one can hear her. Wet drowned fingers rise up from the lake and stretch out over the grass and up into the house to touch her and she will always feel them even when she's very old and she knows the fingers and she knows every fold of the sodden cloth and the unseeing eyes streaming with silver water and the hair undone. Now she knows them all and she can't ever ever stop knowing them.
(extract from the first few pages of ‘Facing the Light', Orion, 2003)
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Reflection
Because I'm so used to being asked “Will you write a proper book when you've had the practice?” I've put up a bit from one of my adult novels in the creative writing section. Actually, it's far harder to write a good picture book for the youngest readers than a blockbuster novel. Adult books do not get read out loud over and over for weeks on end and very few could take that treatment.
I enjoy writing about families, emotions, especially love, cats, spooky things, the ancient world (‘Troy'and ‘Ithaka' are my novels for teenagers set in ancient times) and any aspect of the theatre, especially the ballet which I love. I've written about it for very young children (‘The Ballet Class', ‘Little Ballet Star') not such young children (‘My First Ballet Stories') and adults (‘Hester's Story', my second novel, is about a retired ballerina).
I don't have any kind of didactic intent when I sit down to write. I seek to enjoy myself while I'm working and my aim is to give pleasure.
I like novels to be well-structured. They have to have an architecture, and not be baggy and shapeless in the way that life sometimes is.
I'm pedantic about certain things and would never knowingly split an infinitive.
I hope very much to be able to keep doing what I'm presently doing, alternating adult and children's books, as long as possible.
I read voraciously and am very partial to a good thriller/detective story/psychological crime novel. Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine is one of my favourite authors.
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Publications
For adults
Facing the Light , Orion, 2003
Hester's Story , Orion, 2005
Made in Heaven , Orion, 2006
A Hidden Life , Orion, 2007
For young adults
Troy , Scholastic pbk, 2000
Ithaka , Corgi pbk, 2005
Other Echoes , Corgi pbk, 2004
Silent Snow, Secret Snow , Young Picador, 1998
For children
Cleopatra , Kingfisher, non-fiction, 2007
Lizzie's Wish , Usborne ppk, (Historical House series), 2005
Cecily's Portrait , Usborne pbk, (Historical House series), 2007
For the ‘Quick Reads' initiative (adult and teenage)
Lily: a Ghost Story , Orion, 2006
And many others….
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Contact & Links
www.adelegeras.com is my website and I write a newsletter every two months or so.
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