Literary hand grenades, raising difficult questions about the world in which we live' - Guardian In the sixteen stories of The Not-Dead and The Saved, Kate Clanchy turns her clear gaze and remarkable honesty on what it means to be a mother or a child; to struggle alone; to seek comfort in love; to be present; to be sane. Lithe prose and crackling wit carry us from comedy to tragedy and back again, and create a bold cast of characters that includes even a few delightfully famous names. The much-lauded title story won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2009, and the collection as a whole more than delivers on that promise. It celebrates Kate Clanchy's gift for clarity, empathy and surprise, and confirms her as one of the finest writers of our time.
In response to a job advertisement, Struan Robertson, orphan, genius, and just seventeen, leaves his dour native town in Scotland, and arrives in London in the freakishly hot summer of 1989. His job, he finds, is to care for playwright and one-time literary star Phillip Prys, dumbfounded and paralyzed by a massive stroke, because, though two teenage children, two wives, and a literary agent all rattle 'round Phillip's large house, they are each too busy with their peculiar obsessions to do it themselves. As the city bakes, Struan finds himself tangled in a midsummer's dream of mistaken identity, giddying property prices, wild swimming, and overwhelming passions. For everyone, it is to be a life-changing summer. Meeting the English is a bright book about dark subjects--a tale about kindness and its limits, told with love. Spiked with witty dialogue and jostling with gleeful, zesty characters, it is a glorious debut novel from an acclaimed writer of poetry, non-fiction, and short stories"--
With a new afterword. 'The best book on teachers and children and writing that I've ever read. No-one has said better so much of what so badly needs saying' - Philip Pullman Kate Clanchy wants to change the world and thinks school is an excellent place to do it. She invites you to meet some of the kids she has taught in her thirty-year career. Join her as she explains everything about sex to a classroom of thirteen-year-olds. As she works in the school 'Inclusion Unit', trying to improve the fortunes of kids excluded from regular lessons because of their terrifying power to end learning in an instant. Or as she nurtures her multicultural poetry group, full of migrants and refugees, watches them find their voice and produce work of heartbreaking brilliance. While Clanchy doesn't deny stinging humiliations or hide painful accidents, she celebrates this most creative, passionate and practically useful of jobs. Teaching today is all too often demeaned, diminished and drastically under-resourced. Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me will show you why it shouldn't be. Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2020
Do you want to write a poem? This book will show you 'how to grow your own poem'... Kate Clanchy has been teaching people to write poetry for more than twenty years. Some were old, some were young; some were fluent English speakers, some were not. None of them were confident to start with, but a surprising number went to win prizes and every one finished up with a poem they were proud of, a poem that only they could have written – their own poem. Kate's big secret is a simple one: to share other poems. She believes poetry is like singing or dancing and the best way to learn is to follow someone else. In this book, Kate shares the poems she has found provoke the richest responses, the exercises that help to shape those responses into new poems, and the advice that most often helps new writers build their own writing practice. If you have never written a poem before, this book will get you started. If you have written poems before, this book will help you to write more fluently and confidently, more as yourself. This book not like other creative writing books. It doesn't ask you to set out on your own, but to join in. Your invitation is inside.
The perfect Mother's Day gift: a poetry collection about pregnancy, childbirth and parenthoodNothing transforms our lives like parenthood -- and Kate Clanchy's intimate, daring sequence of poems maps the switchback ride of human emotions from conception through to the first years of a new life. Clanchy's most powerful and accomplished book of poetry to date, Newborn will delight her many admirers. This frank but ultimately celebratory account of the most extraordinary event in our shared experience is a must for parents -- and parents-to-be -- everywhere. 'A sparkling, tender, totally unsentimental study' Financial Times
An absolutely wonderful book' - Deborah Moggach In a London street at the turn of the twenty-first century, two neighbours start to chat over the heads of their children. Kate Clanchy is a writer, privileged and sheltered. Antigona is a refugee from Kosovo. On instinct, Kate offers Antigona a job as a nanny, and Antigona accepts. Over the next five years and a thousand cups of coffee Antigona's extraordinary story slowly emerges. She has escaped from a war, she has divorced a violent husband, but can she escape the harsh code she was brought up with? At the kitchen table where anything can be said, the women discover they have everything, as well as nothing, in common.
A collection of poems from Kate Clanchy, covering such subjects as relationships between men and women, married men, self-sufficient men and wounded men. Other poems are about memory and time, set in school classrooms and muddy sports fields, and haunting, tender love poems.
A deceptively simple and poetic picture book about a cat who leads the neighbourhood dogs on a merry chase to the park and back. Henry, a rather superior sort of cat, defies and confounds all the dogs and remains supremely unruffled by his chaotic encounters with them.
Rooted in place, slipping between worlds - a rich collection of unnerving ghosts and sinister histories. 'An impressive line-up of established and emerging names.' The Sunday Times 'These eerie, unsettling stories are guaranteed to send shivers down your spine.' Daily Express Eight authors were given the freedom of their chosen English Heritage site, from medieval castles to a Cold War nuclear bunker. Immersed in the past and chilled by rumours of hauntings, they channelled their darker imaginings into a series of extraordinary new ghost stories. 'Subtly evocative of human relations loss, grief, or the fear of loneliness.' TLS 'A satisfying and spooky read.' Sun Also includes a gazetteer of English Heritage properties which are said to be haunted.
Lyrical text introduces a cat who outwits dogs all the way to and from the playground, where he goes with his young master and a friend to preside over the slide and reign as king of the swings.
Struan Robertson, orphan, genius, and just seventeen, leaves his dour native town of Cuik, and arrives in London in the freakish fine summer of 1989. His job, he finds, is to care for Phillip, dumbfounded and paralysed by a massive stroke, because, though two teenage children, two wives, and a literary agent all rattle round Phillip's large house, they are each too busy with their peculiar obsessions to do it themselves. As the city bakes, Struan finds himself tangled in a midsummer's dream of mistaken identity, giddying property prices, wild swimming, and overwhelming passions.
I text you how much it hurts not to see you. Here are poems about love, loss, mothers, fathers, God, rain and growing up. About all the things that poems are always about, in fact, with one crucial difference. Instead of being remembered from an adult distance, these poems were written by a diverse group of teenagers direct from their own experience. So as well as being clever, funny and moving, they are also immediate – they go straight to the heart like a text from a friend. Most of these poems are by pupils from a single multicultural comprehensive school, Oxford Spires Academy. Many have already been social media sensations: some students' poems, for instance, have been retweeted over 100,000 times. A donation from the sale of this book will be made to the charity Asylum Welcome.
With a new afterword. 'The best book on teachers and children and writing that I've ever read. No-one has said better so much of what so badly needs saying' - Philip Pullman Kate Clanchy wants to change the world and thinks school is an excellent place to do it. She invites you to meet some of the kids she has taught in her thirty-year career. Join her as she explains everything about sex to a classroom of thirteen-year-olds. As she works in the school 'Inclusion Unit', trying to improve the fortunes of kids excluded from regular lessons because of their terrifying power to end learning in an instant. Or as she nurtures her multicultural poetry group, full of migrants and refugees, watches them find their voice and produce work of heartbreaking brilliance. While Clanchy doesn't deny stinging humiliations or hide painful accidents, she celebrates this most creative, passionate and practically useful of jobs. Teaching today is all too often demeaned, diminished and drastically under-resourced. Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me will show you why it shouldn't be. Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2020
Exceptional . . . Clanchy has a wincingly accurate eye for social comedy, a vivid descriptive sense, and profound understanding of her characters. This is a delectable read." --Daily Mail (UK) In response to an advertisement, Struan Robertson, orphan, genius, and just seventeen, leaves his dour native town in Scotland, and arrives at a creaky mansion in London in the freakishly hot summer of 1989. His job, he finds, is to care for playwright and one-time literary star Phillip Prys, dumbfounded and paralyzed by a massive stroke, because, though Phillip's two teenage children, two wives, and a literary agent all rattle 'round his large house, they are each too busy with their peculiar obsessions to do it themselves. As the city bakes, Struan finds himself tangled in a midsummer's dream of mistaken identity, giddying property prices, wild swimming, and overwhelming passions. For everyone, it is to be a life-changing summer. Kate Clanchy's Meeting the English is a bright book about dark subjects--a tale about kindness and its limits, told with love. It is a coming of age story for anyone who has ever felt themselves to be an outsider; a love story for the awkward; and a comedy for anyone who has ever lived in a family. Written by an acclaimed writer of poetry, non-fiction, and short stories, this glorious debut novel is spiked with witty dialogue and jostling with gleeful, zesty characters.
Literary hand grenades, raising difficult questions about the world in which we live' - Guardian In the sixteen stories of The Not-Dead and The Saved, Kate Clanchy turns her clear gaze and remarkable honesty on what it means to be a mother or a child; to struggle alone; to seek comfort in love; to be present; to be sane. Lithe prose and crackling wit carry us from comedy to tragedy and back again, and create a bold cast of characters that includes even a few delightfully famous names. The much-lauded title story won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2009, and the collection as a whole more than delivers on that promise. It celebrates Kate Clanchy's gift for clarity, empathy and surprise, and confirms her as one of the finest writers of our time.
Do you want to write a poem? This book will show you 'how to grow your own poem'... Kate Clanchy has been teaching people to write poetry for more than twenty years. Some were old, some were young; some were fluent English speakers, some were not. None of them were confident to start with, but a surprising number went to win prizes and every one finished up with a poem they were proud of, a poem that only they could have written – their own poem. Kate's big secret is a simple one: to share other poems. She believes poetry is like singing or dancing and the best way to learn is to follow someone else. In this book, Kate shares the poems she has found provoke the richest responses, the exercises that help to shape those responses into new poems, and the advice that most often helps new writers build their own writing practice. If you have never written a poem before, this book will get you started. If you have written poems before, this book will help you to write more fluently and confidently, more as yourself. This book not like other creative writing books. It doesn't ask you to set out on your own, but to join in. Your invitation is inside.
An absolutely wonderful book' - Deborah Moggach In a London street at the turn of the twenty-first century, two neighbours start to chat over the heads of their children. Kate Clanchy is a writer, privileged and sheltered. Antigona is a refugee from Kosovo. On instinct, Kate offers Antigona a job as a nanny, and Antigona accepts. Over the next five years and a thousand cups of coffee Antigona's extraordinary story slowly emerges. She has escaped from a war, she has divorced a violent husband, but can she escape the harsh code she was brought up with? At the kitchen table where anything can be said, the women discover they have everything, as well as nothing, in common.
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