Northern Highlight - Dom Conlon

NORTHERN HIGHLIGHT

Dom Conlon

 Why did you become a children's writer?

I've always been a writer, not just at school but in my career. I started out writing stories and instructions for video games and this sort of side-lined into advertising for a number of years. But as part of the advertising I helped develop apps (specifically designed to help children learn about space) which kind of brought me back to writing more creatively (in fiction and non-fiction). Because I'm a copywriter (I think) I tend to work in short-form more and poetry feels like my natural form of expression. The space interest found its outlet through poetry and I self-published a book just so I could get a better handle on the full feel of how my ideas would work (there's a whole load of process thoughts behind that statement but I won't bore you too much). The self-publishing and general sharing on social media led to me being noticed by poets such as Brian Moses and publishing houses (Bloomsbury, Troika and Graffeg) who in turn invited me to write for them.

Tell us about where you live.

I live on the border between Greater Manchester and Lancashire, a generous helping of greenery which gives me space to walk and nights dark enough to see millions of years into the past. It's a quiet village with a wonderful library and a mighty fine bakery. There's a country park too where I like to saunter and chat to photographers and artists who line the lake like monks recording the minutiae of the seasons. 

Where do you write?

In my heart, firstly. And that means wherever my heart happens to be. It can be a little room or a garden table, at the back of a friend's shop, in the library (not my own, personal library - I've yet to attain that level of poshness), or tramping the miles through oak woods and reclaimed collieries. Once my heart is full of words I copy them into my mind and try to make sense of the nonsense.

What for you is the 'spirit of the North'?

It's landscape. I don't know whether landscape forges a kind of person because I know wonderful people from lots of different places, but I do feel a connection with this landscape. These acres of farmlands and rising hills, these pockets of ancient woodland and the backbone of the Pennines. I love the caves and castles in which Time collects like rainwater. And I love the rain. The spirit of the North feels free to roam in this place and sometimes I see it.

Has this spirit influenced your work?

I respond to the lay and lore of the North, feel its miners and its weavers at work in my words. I am overshadowed by the peaks and given space for ideas to find me. There's a difference between writing in a low ceilinged room and writing in a cathedral. Up here the hills buttress the skies and what better ceiling could I want than that? I don't feel hemmed in around here but on the flipside sometimes I have to go in search of the kind of life a city breathes into us.

Who are the great Northern children's writers?

Growing up in North Manchester my Aunty May (a neighbour rather than a relative) introduced me to local hero Ben Brierely. He wrote in dialect and because of that I've learned to relish anything local, to celebrate accents and grammatical flourishes. Lowry wraps his arm around most Mancunians and I feel his mood upon me still. But it has to be Alan Garner, whose odd little response to Lord of the Rings became something more extraordinary, if less commercial, in connecting my soul to that of every fable and story gone before. It's because of him that I still love Tolkien but also adore LeGuin. And then there's Bill Naughton, whose story 'Spit Nolan' showed me what a story beyond pirates and hobbits could be. It's my Kes and has led me (many years later) to the wonderful books of Anthony McGowan.

If you could be transported to anywhere in the North right now, where would it be?

Rydal cave, in Cumbria. I often dream of sitting under its hood to watch the rain curtain Rydal and Grasmere. It's a well-trod area of the Lakes so I'd need to be transported with a platoon of fierce sheep to keep them away but I could happily live out my days there.

What would you like to see from children's publishing in the North?

I think I'm already starting to see it. Books like Princess BMX by Marie Basting, the Spook books by Joseph Delaney, Gracie Fairshaw by Susan Brownrigg, Bright Bursts of Colour by Matt Goodfellow, If I Were Other Than Myself by Sue Hardy-Dawson, The Weather Weaver by Tamsin Mori - and so many more. Northern phrasing and traditions are finding their way into publishing and not having to be flattened out in case other readers don't speak that way. We encourage inferring meaning from context and this needs to apply to the way us folk speak too. I want to see more working class writers (and editors) as well as disabled voices.

What's your favourite children's book set in the North?

It's probably Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner for all the reasons I mentioned earlier. I imagine most of us will say Skellig by David Almond too (rightly so) but I'd also add the poetry of Roger McGough and Ted Hughes.

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