![]() ![]() But after one chapter, anyone will soon discover that it’s the characters that keep you there. I didn’t start writing what became the real thing until like a year after that.”Īt the heart of Solitaire was a mystery, which, as I tell Oseman, was the initial hook for me. “But, like the plans, I just kept restarting. And then I kept trying to turn it into a plot and it was the plotting that I found really hard so I didn’t actually start writing it until a few months after Solitaire came out,” she says. That’s the essential concept that I had at the start. I had this idea that I wanted to write a book about going from school to university and the idea that you don’t have to go to university. So the final draft wasn’t dramatically different from Oseman’s original idea? “Yeah, it wasn’t like I came up with a story and went ‘I don’t want to do this’. I’ve got a folder of so many different plans.” So I started coming up with plans for it before Solitaire came out - a few months before it came out - but I didn’t finalise the plot for almost two years after that. “With book two you’ve get deadlines, there’s the pressure of it being as good as the first one. Any author who’s written their second book will tell you that it’s the worst book to write in your career just because you wrote the first one from your passion for writing, you just wanted to do it, and there were no deadlines,” she says. The finished product went through dozens of drafts. Oseman is in her final year of studying English literature at the University of Durham and she had to fit the writing of Radio Silence around her studies (or, conversely, her studies had to fit around her writing). It is, predictably, a more mature piece of work a bold, confident and, above all, important book (but not in the way you’d expect) with Oseman’s wit and insight shining throughout.īut the road to this point was not easy. ![]() Oseman’s first book was a breathtakingly accurate portrayal of teenage ennui - The Times called it “The Catcher in the Rye for the digital age” - and Radio Silence ventures into darker territory, featuring characters a little older than Solitaire’s protagonists. Radio Silence isn’t a dramatic departure tonally or thematically from Solitaire but it’s just as strong. Had Solitaire been published a year later it could have been swallowed up in a now-saturated genre but Oseman’s remarkable honesty, engrossing characters and bone-dry humour earned her plenty of fans from the off and marked her as one to watch. She had her first novel, Solitaire published when she was 19 (“I hate using my age when talking about Solitaire,” she says) and contemporary teen fiction was very much on the rise. ![]() Starting school with a new backpack and school supplies is a major part in helping kids feel ready to learn and excited to start school" said Lida Casper, Coordinator of Community Partnerships for RPS.Alice Oseman is, if you don’t know, the author of Solitaire and - as of now - Radio Silence. ![]() “Rochester Public Schools is grateful that our partners have committed to ensuring all kids have ‘Running Start’ to the new school year. You simply add this to your cart, pay for it online, and you just helped a child in our area have what they need for their 2023-2024 school year!
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