Authors

I grew up in South London during the war. We were bombed rather a lot, but I enjoyed collecting shrapnel. I got into writing accidentally on a TV series called Joe, followed by Trumpton and stories for Jackanory. I’ve now written over forty books, and I was thrilled to win the Guardian Children's Fiction Award in 1996 for a Robin Hood story set in modern Glasgow, The Sherwood Hero.


My first baby was born in Edinburgh. During the months before he arrived, I walked for miles all over the city. Walked through the Old Town, up and down the stairs and wynds; down the hill from the Castle and across Princes Street; along beside the tumbling Leith Water, and round to places where the wind blew through long grass. I climbed up high, and stared out over the docks and the sea. Later, I worked in schools further out in the city, and saw how different it was there from the grand buildings of Waverley. I remember feeling quite lonely in Edinburgh, and perhaps that’s why the boy in my story is absolutely alone (at the beginning, anyway), except for the voice in his head. I live on the Isle of Arran now, and love it, but I still come back to Edinburgh from time to time.


Visit Alison’s own website at www.alisonprince.co.uk


An extract from The Smile By Alison Prince

I’m getting on the bus with the others. We’re going to spend a day at the new High School, to see what’s it’s like before we start there next term.
  SIT THERE, BY THE WINDOW.
  I sit where Buddy tells me. I expect he has chosen the best place. He is always right.
  CORRECT. YOU ARE LUCKY. REMEMBER, YOU ARE LUCKY.
  I know. You keep telling me.
  GOOD.
  I’m looking out of the window, watching the other kids get on the bus. A girl looks up and waves at me.
  DO NOT WAVE BACK.
  I’d put my hand up to wave, but I put it down again.
  The school we’re going to is only just finished. They’ve been building it for nearly two years, on the grassy bit just past the Scottish Parliament. I can see the Scottish Parliament—
  NOT POSSIBLE. THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT IS 3.87 MILES FROM HERE.
  I can see it if I shut my eyes, because I’ve seen it before. It has all those curvy bits of pale wood across the front, like the designer was thinking of a forest.
  CONTROL YOUR MIND. UNREAL OBSERVATIONS ARE NOT USEFUL.
  Sorry.
  APOLOGY ACCEPTED. REMEMBER, YOU ARE LUCKY.

Read the full story in Our City, available from Polygon in November 2008.