Meeting Kevin Brooks, Young Adult author – Part One

The Cape Town Book Fair took place a week ago and in gloomy, grey weather I headed out because one of my favourite Young Adult writers was visiting and participating in two events.

Author, Kevin Brooks
(he's a bit keen on hats...)

Kevin Brooks, author of Lucas, Candy, Being, Black Rabbit Summer (to name but a few) writes gritty, compelling novels for teens. His first novel, Martyn Pig, published by Chicken House in 2002, was shortlisted for the Carnegie Award and won a Brandford Boase Award for a best first novel. It was published at a time when the world was entranced by the adventures of a boy wizard. Not that one can begin to compare Brooks to Rowling – they are poles apart – one is a true artist, a writer adept at portraying the darker side reality, while the other tells escapist stories brimful with colourful imagination.

To quote Kevin from his myspace page he writes:

[my] books about real things, real lives (with occasional touches of other stuff), and although I wouldn't describe them as crime fiction, they often have crime fiction/thrillery elements in them. I like to write about the darker side of things, and I'm not known for my happy endings.

Aside from listening to Kevin speak at the two events, I was deeply chuffed to be able to chat to him when I ran into him at the Penguin bookstand – where I also got my grubby mitts on a proof copy of his forthcoming novel, Killing God (a beyond-awesome book, due out on 25 June 2009 in the UK). I hope to blog about Killing God at a later date - if the nice people at Penguin are kind enough to arrange an interview for me…

And yep, my copy is signed by the author

I’m a copious note taker and I hope my furious scribbles give you some insight into the thinking of an exceptional and extremely talented YA author.

Kevin Brooks (centre) as part of a panel discussion at the Cape Town Book Fair

Kevin Brooks - views and observations on writing for teens:

Young people are interested, as we all are, in the big questions of life – who and what we are, what it means to be a human. Because of his interest in the “big questions”, Kevin has often been accused of posing more questions than answering them but believes that it’s the journey, rather than answers per se, that is of interest,.

He dislikes the idea of books which are issue driven. Books should be a good story; they should entertain, rather than focus on an issue or a message. Messages, in particular, are patronizing to teen readers. But if one can write a novel from which a reader comes away with something powerful and that has left them thinking, then a book had done its job.

Even though Kevin deals with complex subject matter he believes that it is important to be able to convey multiple, rich images simply and without being overly complicated. He acknowledges that his writing is influenced by the tight, crisp style of American fiction.

He considers it critically important that YA writers don’t dumb down to their audience or try to reach the teens’ level through slang, “teen language” and styles (which are, in any event, transitory). The important thing is to reach what is inside a person. As it is this which is timeless and the same for all of us, young and old alike. The same holds true for the dynamics in relationships. And it is to these sorts of levels to which stories must be told. This is why Kevin says he sees himself writing about teens rather than for teens.

In response to one panelist’s observation that adults couldn’t really write for teens, Kevin remarked that adults were once teens and they’re not that different from who they were then to who they are now. He said he frequently felt like he was still 14.

In closing, Kevin said one of the things he’d realised as a writer was how important readers are to a book. A book, he said, doesn’t become a story, doesn’t become alive, until it’s being read – and it’s the reader who completes the circle initially started by the writer. As such, writing and reading books is very much a two way thing.


Chatting to Kevin later at the Penguin stand, he asked about my own writing and observed how critically important it is to realise one’s writing only improves by writing and then writing some more – and also, to keep submitting. He said if he hadn’t been published by Chicken House when he was, he’d have kept writing and submitting until someone had offered him a contract, even if it took forever. It is, after all, about pursuing and fulfilling dreams and goals.

I asked him why he thought Barry Cunningham of Chicken House had taken him on when he did. Turns out, unsurprisingly, that having become known as the man who discovered J K Rowling, all Barry Cunningham was getting in his slush pile were manuscripts about wizards.... So when Kevin called him and said, “Well my book’s about a boy who’s killed his father,” Barry said, “Send the manuscript!” And Martyn Pig was published.

Kevin has enjoyed a very successful career with Chicken House and I asked him why he’d decided to move from them to Penguin. It was, he said, very much a career move, a little like moving from a small club to Manchester United. Although it had been a hard thing to do because of loyalty issues, the timing was right especially given he’d turned down an earlier offer from Penguin.

Speaking to Kevin there’s no doubt that the old adage, “read, read, read, write, write, write, submit, submit, submit and never give up”, holds true.

In Part Two of my post on Kevin Brooks (coming later this week), I’ll be sharing an interview he did with a group of teens. And now I’m off to write, write, write before settling down with another of Kevin’s books – The Road of the Dead.



For a full list of Kevin Brooks’ books, with brief overviews, take a look at fantasticfiction.com