Mal Peet
Mal Peet
Mal Peetwas an English author and illustrator best known for young-adult fiction. He has won several honours including the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize, British children's literature awards that recognise "year's best" books. Three of his novels feature football and the fictional South American sports journalist Paul Faustino. The Murdstone Trilogyis his first work aimed at adult readers...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionYoung Adult Author
Date of Birth20 June 1947
hopeless literary rather readers shelves
It's a nonsense because, as we all know, there are brilliant 15-year-old readers and hopeless 50-year-old readers. All that categorisation is a matter of bookshop shelves rather than literary categories, I think.
ya
I didn't consciously make the decision to write an adult novel. I didn't think of it as my riposte to the YA genre.
champagne drink
I want to drink champagne from ladies' shoes.
authors people
I'm working with published authors and some very young undergraduates and lots of people in between. They are lovely people, and they can write.
brass plate
In my seaside town, there is a plethora of benches, each one bearing a little brass plate commemorating a deceased occupant. You sit with ghosts.
time
I used to play all the time. I would play football when it was light and read when it was dark.
avoiding chances cliche describe difficult extremely happens match millions thousands trying week words
It's extremely difficult to describe interestingly what happens on the pitch. Thousands of journalists write millions of words every week trying to do it, so your chances of avoiding cliche are very slim. And you're trying to write fiction, not a match report.
adhere although criterion novels spend time
Although I now spend most of my time writing novels for teenagers and adults, 'readaloudability' is still a criterion I try to adhere to.
movies
I have to make little movies. I have to sit and film.
emily far stuff
When I'm working, I always read stuff that's as far away from what I'm working on as possible, so I'll read American crime fiction at bedtime, or Emily Dickinson.