illustrating what I write. I have seen her illustrations and that has inspired me to think of new things that Marv could do because I know it would look great as one of Paula’s illustrations.” Paula’s illustration of Marv was the first real sense that Alex had of his creation being ‘real’. The next came on the day of publication when “I made a special trip to my local book shop to take a look – when I saw it, it was another moment of ‘this is the real thing’. It’s a very wild and surreal feeling. It was so exiting when it came out.” With six Marv books in the pipeline, and collaboration with footballer Marcus Rashford – one of the UK’s biggest inspirations for many young people, Alex has gone from dreaming about breaking into the industry to being well and truly part of it. He says: “The process of getting here is extremely hard, and felt punishing mentally. But, now that I am ‘here’, it feels very different. I could not have imagined how it works – from the outside, I thought it would be this very special process – but when you are here doing it, it is very different – it becomes ordinary. I have to write this thing, I do some edits, I do interviews and it almost becomes normal. “But if I took this experience and put it into my memory two years ago – then my brain would explode!”
Illustrator Paula Bowles.
So, what’s next for Alex? Book three in the Marv series, Marv and the Pool of Peril – (“With robot sharks”), is out in July and Alex is just finishing work on the fourth book, before starting on the next two instalments. He is also working on a YA novel. Alex looks back on his journey from aspiring writer to signed author and says it shows that just because something looks difficult, doesn’t mean you should give up. He adds: “My advice to anyone wanting to do this is read and write whenever you can, and think about what you are reading. Ask yourself ‘Why does that author interest you?’, ‘What are they doing to make you enjoy the story?’ Try that out yourself and do that as much as you can. Get people to give you feedback and develop from there, work on your writing skills whenever you can.” PEN&INC.
Spring-Summer 2022
PEN&INC. 23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
