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www.timbowler.co.uk/

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Tim Bowler

Tim Bowler is the author of several prize-winning books for children, teenagers and young adults. He has won fourteen awards, including the Carnegie Medal, the pre-eminent UK award for Children's Literature. His novels have been described as psychological, mystical and philosophical adventure thrillers. He was born in Leigh-on-Sea, and studied Swedish and Scandinavian studies at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, undertaking a variety of jobs before becoming a full-time writer in 1994.

His first published novel was Midget (1994), a psychological thriller set in Leigh-on-Sea. This has been followed by several other novels:Dragon's Rock (1995), a thriller set in Devon; River Boy (1997), a story about love and bereavement and winner of the Carnegie Medal; Shadows(1999), a gritty love story; Storm Catchers (2001), a kidnap thriller; Starseeker (2002), a mystical exploration of love, loss and music, also made into a play; Apocalypse (2004), an allegory about the future of mankind, and Frozen Fire (2006), a philosophical thriller about the nature of reality.
His most recent works are Books 1 and 2 of his urban thriller series Blade (published in March 08), and his new novel Bloodchild, a story
about memory, secrets and betrayal (published September 2008).
Tim has been described by the Sunday Telegraph as 'the master of the psychological thriller' and by the Independent as 'one of the truly individual voices in British teenage fiction'.

Q & A with Tim Bowler

1. What inspired you to write your current book?

My current book is called Fighting Back. It's Book 5 in the 8-book BLADE series, a tough urban thriller series which grew out of my fear of knives and my concern about young people using them.

2. Describe the basic story in two or three sentences?

The BLADE series is about a 14-year-old boy (nicknamed Blade) who has lived by the knife and is now alone in hiding, moving from place to place and living by his wits. But he's in big trouble. Not only are his enemies closing in on him but he's having to deal with his awakening guilt about the past and unexpected feelings of responsibility towards people he's started to care about.

3. How long do the BLADE books take you to write?

The books are short and pacy and the first four in the series (Playing Dead, Closing In, Breaking Free and Running Scared) each took about three months to write. The final book in the series will be published at the end of 2010.

4. What do you think people will say about the BLADE series?

I hope they'll find it gripping and believable and I hope they'll care about the complex boy at the heart of the story. But no author has control of readers' reactions – and quite right too!

5. Are you working on something else at the moment?

I'm also writing a novel which is due for publication in February 2011, just after the BLADE series finishes.

6. What is your favourite food?

Vegetarian shepherd's pie the way my wife cooks it, followed by coffee ice cream.

7. What makes you laugh out loud?

I can never predict what will set me off. I laugh at all kinds of things. The only humour I dislike is humour that is cruel.

8. What is your one luxury item you would take with you on to a Desert Island?

A basketball.

9. What is your most treasured memory?

The day I got married.

10. What is your weakness?

A tendency to be over-driven when it comes to writing, an inability to let it go when I ought to have a rest.

11. Who is the person you most admire?

I admire many, many people and wouldn't want to single out just one.

12. What is your most embarrassing moment?

The time I opened a bottle of fizzy water before starting a talk and found myself spraying the front row because someone had shaken the bottle earlier.

13. What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?

A saying attributed to Goethe: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, do it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Start now."

14. Define beauty.

Something that can't be defined, only recognised (like love).

15. What are you reading at the moment?

A book called Stepping Stones about the poet Seamus Heaney. I'm also re-reading the Diary of Samuel Pepys and a two-volume collection of the letters of the composer Delius.

16. What would be on the soundtrack of your film – and who would play you?

Obviously the soundtrack would have to be something manly and heroic and the actor someone extremely charismatic and good-looking. Apart from those criteria, I'm not fussy at all.

17. Favourite holiday destination?

Nowhere in particular but I prefer quiet, remote places as untouched as possible by tourism.

18. Which authors have most inspired you?

Shakespeare most of all, and various poets, especially Keats and Blake, and certain more recent poets like Heaney and (from the last century) the Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelöf, whose work I've loved since I first met it at university.

19. What is your favourite children’s book?

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome.

20. Most treasured possession?

My life.

21. Where are you happiest?

There's no single place or experience. Sometimes I'm happiest when I'm with the people I love most; sometimes I'm happiest when I'm alone thinking and working. Happiness doesn't follow rules. It just falls when it falls.

22. Favourite biscuit?

They don't make them any more but you used to be able to buy biscuits called "Dad's Cookies" and they were absolutely scrummy.

23. Pet hates?

People who are pompous.

24. If you could change one thing about the world we live in today what would it be?

I'd make human beings incapable of violence.

Featured Books, with extracts by Tim Bowler

Blade: Risking All
Tim Bowler
For Blade life is simple, in his eyes at least. Win and live, win and die. Just one big enemy left: Me. From the Carnegie Medal-winning author of River Boy, Starseeker and Bloodchild comes the final title in this startlingly...
Format: Paperback - Released: 02/09/2010

Price: £4.49- Saving £1.50 (25%)