New Genre for award winning Felicity McCall
Grainne McCool
National Lottery award winning author Felicity McCall recently launched her first teenage novel, Large Mammals, Stick Insects & Other Social Misfits at Little Acorns bookstore, Bedlam, in Derry. Having won the National Lottery Award (the Heritage category) in London, November 2011 for her WWI drama We Were Brothers, (based on the Battle of Messines where Irish Protestants and Catholics fought alongside each other for the first time), McCall now embarks on yet another genre.
It’s Derry and it’s the Halloween break. And Aimee McCourt Logan’s cross-border exchange partner Caoimhe is coming to visit. More to the point, she’s bringing her dream-god brother Darren with her. Meanwhile, Aimee is trying to keep her co-best friends’ lives on track and she’s implementing a new health and beauty regime (any day now). Armed with her trusty stack of lists, a hot chocolate and the all-powerful Facebook – and with a little hindrance from her cat, Rainbow – nothing is
impossible.
I was curious as to why McCall now turns her attention to teenage fiction. She is always prepared to divulge with honesty, ‘When my daughter Aoife, now 21, was in her teens our house was alive with her friends. And they were reading! They graduated from the incomparable Jacqueline Wilson to enjoy the diary genre of teenage and young adult books. They told me they wished they could find one set in an area they knew, written around a lifestyle they could identify with’. Large Mammals is the ensuing result!
It is obviously very important for McCall that the novel is based in her now home city of Derry. Although originally from Co. Armagh, McCall has lived over half her life in the city. ‘I work with young people from all areas of the city and its environs and have nothing but admiration and affection for their attitude. I hope I’ve captured something of their uniqueness and helped to counter the negative publicity they can attract – very unfairly.’ No doubt it’s also been a chance to showcase the ethos of why Derry is the UK Capital of Culture 2013 and encourage visitors.
Although Aimee is the protagonist of this novel, I felt the mother figure Clio to be an exceptionally impressive character. Perhaps being a mother to three teenagers is reflected in my opinion. McCall says that Clio is ‘an amalgam of many people I know and a good dose of creative imagination’.
Mothers of young teenage girls will get a great understanding of how the teenage mind works on reading this novel. It is a tool to open up mother/daughter discussion.
Having recently watched Gok Wan dealing with teenagers and the many problems they face I asked McCall what she would say if she met herself now as a teenager: ‘It’ll get better. Lots of your ambitions will come true. But only if you make
them’.
Large Mammals is published by Little Island in Dublin. Both Elaina O’Neill and Siobhan Parkinson from Little Island were in attendance at the launch at Little Acorns. Also present on the night was the Northern Ireland teenage singing sensation Janet Devlin. Felicity McCall says of the launch: ‘It was a fantastic night and a perfect locatio’.
Whatever is next for Felicity McCall? ‘A Dublin launch on March 5th and a Little Island tour, which is really exciting. I really enjoyed the arts festival circuit last summer and intend to be out and about again in 2012. As well as Aimee 2, there’s an adult novel in progress for 2013 and I’m working on a groundbreaking project with the FoyleHaven/dePaul Ireland, involving homeless people and street drinkers with the world of the arts.’
The list is endless for this multi talented writer.
Large Mammals, Stick Insects and Other Social Misfits can be bought at www.amazon.com or at www.littleisland.ie
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