Writing children’s books gives a writer a very strong sense of narrative drive.
Category Archive: Helen Dunmore
Those who try to obliterate the past are injuring the present.
The language has got to be fully alive – I can’t bear dull, flaccid writing myself and I don’t see why any reader should put up with it.
My first collection of poems was published by Bloodaxe Books, which was then a very new imprint.
When you are young you don’t always realise how full of doubts everybody is.
I hope that readers will tear through my books because they can’t stop themselves – and then, maybe, read them again and find new things there.
To try to expunge an individual’s history is a terrible violation.
I could start with Mandelstam, who was a huge influence on my early writing.
I was always influenced by language.
I can remember being in my pram: children stayed in their prams much longer then than they do now. A big bouncy pram with black covers and a hood with metal clips that could trap your fingers. I was looking up at my sister who was sitting on the pram seat, with her back to me.