Thursday, August 23 saw children’s author Steve Clifford venturing to set up his movable bookshop in the Thursday Market in Rope Walk. With beautiful, bright animal covers, the books look very enticing. They all depict a world of mystery, myth and legend.
‘The Walking with’ is an adventure series, travelling into the past where myth and legend meet. The 6th of the series is ‘Walking with the Smugglers’ for ages 8-13. ‘The Navajo’ spirit series depicts life off the grid, away from civilisation, tracking an age where children are not young any more and and yet not adults either, based on life on the Military Canal. In October Steve is launching a series set in Hastings for 5-8 year olds.
Steve was born in Hastings and was a teacher at Linden Grove in Ashford, Kent. He had no illusions as to the difficulty of teaching children to read. It was a ‘dare’ concerning three children in his class that started his writing career in 2012 as a way of improving their reading skills. For him, it also became a way to wind down after the long school terms. He was very disciplined and wrote 4,000 words each morning. 58 rejections later he was offered a publishing deal. He said: “Sometimes miracles do happen and ‘Walking with the Hood’ was introduced in the school and a chapter was read out at assembly with a book signing afterwards. The next day each child returned with their book and asked to read to him in their quiet time.”
Since then nine more books have been published and his aim is to continue writing for all ages. After the demise of his publisher he now needs to self-publish. This means of course it is more difficult to get his books into the public arena. He gives free workshops in schools across the country and in return the school offers a book signing. He wants to inspire and his advice to future writers is: “Practice every day, learn to see what is around you and not obvious.”
Steve will be in The Rye Bookshop on Saturday, October 27. Don’t miss it and the joy it may bring your children, delving into his books of magic lands. If he is not on his travels he might be in the Cattle Market again on Thursday, September 6. You can find his website here.
Image Credits: Heidi Foster .