Dan Tunstall

One of the pleasures of being a small publisher is that you often get to know your authors well, sometimes making long-term friendships, sharing in their individual joys and pain as they do in yours. Sometimes the relationship is brief but intense, going quiet once the book or books in question are out of the way. Sometimes your authors die. Five Leaves has lost several writers and editors over the years. In no particular order these include Adrian Mitchell, Ray Gosling, Stanley Middleton, Walter Gregory, Richard Boston, Michael Hyde, Daniel Weissbort and Colin Ward. Leaving aside that they are all men, what they have in common is that even though some died before their time, and all are missed, none were young.
It was a shock this morning though when the agent Penny Luithlen rang to say that our author Dan Tunstall had died yesterday, it seems by his own hand. Dan had been troubled for some time, but we all hoped that he would pull through. He was only in his forties. It was a difficult conversation with Penny, who had done so much to try to help Dan. Agents, perhaps more than publishers, can get very involved with their clients.
Penny came to me some years ago about Dan. I knew her slightly. She wanted me to take a risk on a young, new writer with a challenging book about football hooliganism. I doubted we would sell a lot of copies but Penny persuaded me to take the book on on its value, but as a great agent she wanted to get Dan's career going and he needed that book to do that. In fact the sales were pretty good.
Being a book on football hooliganism it required careful editing and the three of us had great fun in a cafe counting each individual swearword and working out whether they were necessary. ("I'll trade you one XXXX for one XXXXXX."). We had to get this book right as it was his first book and because it was a difficult subject. That we did so was marked by Dan's Big and Clever being shortlisted for the Bradford Boase Award for first young adult novels. Joined by Carey, Dan's wife, we had a tremendous night out in London, which included Jacqueline Wilson being photographed with Dan, or was it the other way round? It was a real publishing highlight for us, though we did not win.
Dan's second book was Out of Towners, a young adult novel about a group of lads on their first holiday away. It was another great editing experience. We could not get the cover right, and eventually it was designed by Dan and Carey - Dan providing possibly hundreds of versions of the agreed artwork! By now Dan was doing school visits. He was particularly popular with teenage boys who could identify with his characters, and with Dan himself as Dan could with them. We were not surprised when his next book was for a bigger publisher and he then contributed to a four-author anthology with Alan Gibbons and others. Our job was done.
Though Dan continued to write, he ran into personal problems which he could not overcome, with the result we know.
Dan was great company, a talented writer and is a great loss. He was mentored by Bali Rai and had a number of other writer friends who tried, as much as they could, to support him through his difficulties which we all knew. Dan and Carey also designed the cover of Bali's book with us and Bali and Dan were close.
Most of the Five Leaves writers in the East Midlands knew Dan of course, and will join with Pippa and I in sending our condolences to Carey and the girls. This has been a sad day.

Teenage Kicks report

Five Leaves/Derbyshire Libraries "Teenage Kicks" half day event on the 16th had a near full house of young adults and adults. My organising colleague Ali Betteridge said you need to have nerves of steel in this game as only a few days beforehand we were way below the number we need to run anything let alone a half day event with lots of writers. She kept her nerve while mine was failing. Good call, Ali. We had programmed a great line up of speakers, some being Five Leaves regulars, some occasional, some "friends of" while other sessions were run by teenage readers and, with Pippa from Five Leaves Towers, on the future of the book. Interestingly, the author Pauline Chandler reported that all the teenagers bar one preferred to read in a book format than in any electronic format.
The opening remarks were from Bali Rai. Bali's first book was written when he was nine, Bali and the Giant Peach, at which point he discovered there was more to being a writer than simply changing the name of the main character in a book to your own but otherwise copying it out word for word.
Given that Bali is a writer of an Asian background, it was interesting that his role model was Sue Townsend who also lives in Leicester. It is also thanks to his interest in her as a writer than he is currently doing some work with the RNIB. He told his audience that what everyone has in common is an imagination and the need to tell stories "because we all love gossip and we all tell lies.
Bali became a full time writer in 2001 and is in great demand in schools. He said "I wanted to write about people like me - brown kids, white kids, whatever, working class kids that people didn't used to write about.". He was damning of library cutbacks, reminding us that we need stories, stories about everyday life. "Remove stories about everyday life and you remove diversity [of experience]."
He also set the scene for the day by talking about the importance of reading for pleasure "which will always make you more intelligent. Just like 2 plus 2 will always be four."
From then, until the closing remarks from Paula Rawsthorne the day rushed by. Thanks to all who took part, as audience, organisers and speakers.

Teenage Kicks - Five Leaves/Derbyshire Libraries event

Email info@fiveleaves.co.uk if you can't read this or print it out and would like a copy!

New from Five Leaves, What's Your Problem? by Bali Rai

"...you get used to the everyday abuse once it's been happening for long enough. It becomes part of your life. Your routine."
Jaspal's family moves from the inner city to a Midlands (Nottinghamshire, as it happens) village when his dad opens a shop. He's the only Asian kid around and this new life just isn't for him. Though he quickly makes friends at school, the insults from others begin. Jaspal's life tells him that everything will be okay, but the racism gets worse. Jaspal's life will never be the same again.
I'm really pleased to have this Bali Rai book on our list. Bali is in Leicester and our paths cross quite a lot. He's forever speaking in schools and will be appearing at our forthcoming young adult day in Derbyshire, of which more anon. He has also spoken at States of Independence. You can find out more about his many books, now in many languages, at www.balirai.co.uk. This book is for teenagers - "reluctant readers" - and is something of a pair with David Belbin's Secret Gardens, also set in Nottinghamshire. Dave's book is about refugees, and is also for reluctant readers.
You can get the book here: http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/what-s-your-problem/

Out of Towners - new from Five Leaves

Dan Tunstall's second young adult novel is now available. Out of Towners is about a group of lads who, GCSEs over, go away for their first weekend without parental supervision. What could possibly go wrong? Well, it would be a very short novel if nothing went wrong so I think you can assume that things happen. At the book launch earlier this week in Leicester a mate of the author was nervously looking through the book since the basics of the story were of Dan and his chums' own first weekend away, some twenty or so years back (though the novel is set in modern time). He seemed to be concerned that it might not be such a fictional story. He has nothing to worry about; writers make things up. I think.
Dan's writing career is taking off. His first Five Leaves' novel, Big and Clever, was shortlisted for the Branford Boase award for first novels for children and young adults, he has a story in a new big-league anthology about being a boy and he also has a young adult novel for reluctant readers on its way, also from a big publisher. His school visit programme is building up, including a lot of return visits. Dan has been ably supported by Penny Luithlen of the Jennifer Luithlen Agency, and fellow Leicester writer Bali Rai has given him a lot of support as well. Bali too will be joining our roster next year, albeit with a new edition of one of his early books. You can find out more about Dan's book, maybe even buy it, here:
http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/out_of_towners_dan_tunstall_i022635.aspx