PLACE OF BIRTH:
England
MOVED TO:
Australia in 1969 when he was 16 years old
LIVES:
Victoria, Australia
ANT My favourite insect. I like the way they work together to build things
bigger than themselves. They're a bit like the letters of the alphabet,
which are my favourite communication tools. Pictures are great, rubber
chooks on sticks can be very effective, but I reckon you can't beat those
26 top little letters. You can build anything with them. Words.
Sentences. 500 page books about ants. They're particularly good when
authors want to reveal personal things about themselves on posters.
BUM One of my favourite words. Sounds good, looks good and has heaps of
uses. I've always wanted to use it in a title and I've finally managed to in
Bumface. I'm glad, because as a writer I owe a lot to my bum. It's
supported me in my work for years. Rumour has it that "bum" was the
first word I ever said. When I realised the big house I was being
photographed in front of didn't belong to my parents
CONSTANTINOPLE Not all my favourite words are short. I've never been to Constantinople
but the word makes it sound like a fascinating place, probably with great
bookshops. I feel the same way about Gdansk, Alberquerque, Beijing
and The Maldives. For me, imagination is one of the best ways to travel,
plus the food's usually pretty good. When I was little I set out to ride my
bike to Constantinople. I didn't get past the end of the driveway because
someone pointed out I was wearing completely the wrong hat for that
part of the world.
DOPEY One of the great words. But then I would think that because it's my
nickname. Only five letters, but it can mean so much. Such as 'you've
forgotten the luggage, left the toaster on at home and just driven the car
into quicksand but we forgive you.'
EDISON RD. Where I grew up in South-east London, and my starting-off point for the Constantinople trip. A very nice little street with a hill, four bus stops and
a big lump of green bubblegum on the footpath outside number 84. One
of my childhood hobbies was sweeping our street and storing the dirt in
the backyard. I spent weeks trying to shift that bubblegum. I gave up
and went to live in Sydney, then Canberra, France and Melbourne. I
don't sweep streets any more. I've given up bubblegum too.
FATTY The name of a very funny jewel thief in the first story that really got me
hooked. Our wonderful English teacher, Mr Walsh, spent every lesson
for two tears telling us that story. The amazing thing was, he appeared
to be making it up as he went along. It was very inspiring for me. While I
listened I decided I wanted to spend my life either making up stories or
stealing jewels.
GOBBLEDEGOOK What we usually end up with when we use long words to try to sound
important or hide what we really mean. I was waiting for a plane once,
and there was an airport announcement. They were experiencing, they
said, an 'unserviceability problem'. What they meant was 'the plane's
broken and we can't fix it'. I always advise beginning writers to stick
mostly to the words they use when they talk to their friends. The trick is
to bung them together in new and exciting ways.
HEROES I've thought a lot about heroes because every story is meant to have
one. I get a bit bored with heroes who succeed at everything they do.
You know, kill the baddies, save the world and get the breakfast things
washed up before lunch. Success isn't the only way of being a hero in
my opinion. Life is full of big problems that don't have easy solutions.
The heroes in my books are kids who wrestle with these problems and
don't give up, not even when they've run out of dishwashing liquid.
IDEAS Where do ideas come from, that's what everyone wants to know,
including me. The closest I've come to figuring it out is this. I reckon we
all have a rotary compost bin in our head. All our life's experiences - all
the people we know, all the places we've been, all the books we've
read, all the ants we've trained to juggle jelly babies, everything goes into
the bin and mulches down into something rich and pongy and fertile. Our
imagination sows seeds and ideas spring up in that compost between
our ears. How do we get our imagination to sow the seeds? Lots of
different ways, I daydream.
JACK HAMMER What people have to use to get my attention when I'm reading. Books
are my hobby as well as my job. I loved reading so much at school that
each year when it was time for the school photo I'd press down hard on
the book I was in the middle of so it wouldn't fly away while I had my
eyes off it.
KARRI One of my favourite trees. I like trees a lot, specially forests. I like them almost as much as mountains, oysters, jazz, red wine and stationery.
My idea of a top day would be listening to Van Morrison in a forest
halfway up a mountain with a glass of red wine in one hand and a plate
of oysters in the other and 5,000 paper clips in my rucksack.
LISTS I make them all the time. Life doesn't seem so confusing and worrying if I
make a list, even if it's just a list of the things that are confusing and
worrying me. When people ask me how many books I've written, I hand
them a list. Here it is ....
MONEY Sometimes people ask me which of the books I've written is my favourite.
I used to say "my latest one, of course, nine dollars ninety-five at all
good bookshops". Nowadays I'm more honest. I admit that my favourite
is Two Weeks With The Queen, partly because it was the most powerful
and moving writing experience I've had, and partly because it's earned
me more money than any of my other books. I'm grateful to it for that. I
write stories not only because I need to and love to, but also to pay my
bills. Big staplers aren't cheap, even in bulk.
NEAT I am neat. And tidy. I keep all my white shirts on white hangers and all my
black shirts on black hangers. The trouble with being that tidy is that you
get nervous about things that aren't tidy. Like feelings. Writing stories, I
used to try and keep my characters' feelings safely contained on each
page inside those nice neat edges. But it didn't work. The feelings
would spill out all over the place. I'd be sitting at my computer laughing
and crying and hating and loving. Perhaps that's the real reason I need
to write stories - to learn how to have messy feelings. I think it's
working. I bought a blue shirt the other day and I've put it on a yellow
hanger.
ORANG-OUTANG For some people, one of the hardest things about writing is worrying what other people are going to think. I know people who'd rather swap
heads with an Indonesian tree-climbing ape in a crowded shopping
centre than show anyone what they've written. I was a bit shy about
showing people my writing when I was younger. How did I get over it?
When I was 12 I used to put on my smartest clothes to give me
confidence. And to remind myself that if people were too unkind about
my writing, I could always go and live in a tent up a mountain for a few
years.
PERSONAL Here are some personal details you may not know about me.
Age: 45 in 1998. If you're reading this in later years, please consult the
following list: 1999-46, 2000-47, 2001-48, 2002-49, 2003-50. Beyond
that I might start ageing more than one year every twelve months. Born:
9th January 1953 in a small English town called Selford. My family was
actually from London, but Mum and Dad were living in Lincolnshire
because Dad was in the air force and Cranwell RAF base was nearby.
He left the air force a year or so after I was born. Rumours it was
because my crying was drowning out the noise of the planes are not
true. Glasses prescription: Right eye, 1.00, 0.25x30. Left eye, 2.25
SPH. How to say Gleitzman: Gleit rhymes with bite and height.
Height: 185.42 centimetres when I'm not standing on my books.
Underpants: Blue boxers with yellow penguins on them.
QUINCE A yellow fruit that looks like a big pear and tastes very sour unless you
cook it with a lot of sugar. The other night I dreamt I was eating one raw.
Anyone know what this could mean? Dreams are stories trying to get
out. I've often found that if I go to sleep thinking about a problem I'm
having with a story I'm trying to write, I'll wake up in the morning with the
problem solved. My favourite dream is being able to fly. My worst dream
is anything involving spiders that can fit birds into their mouths.
ROYALTIES One of my very favourite words. It's the part of the price of a book that's paid to an author. Usually it's 10 per cent, sometimes 12.5 per cent,
which for me works out at about a dollar a book. So if you ever go into a
bookshop and buy 1000,000 copies of one of my books, I'll be delighted
and quite comfortably off. (Let me know and I'll help you carry them
home.) I like the fact that Two Weeks With The Queen is the book
that's earned me the most royalties.
STICKY cranky cockatoo with a crook temper. Sticky Beak was the first one
of my books to have a pet as a major character. This was mostly
because when I was a kid all my pets died of mysterious diseases.
Mice, hamsters, lizards - I fed and looked after them, but it was no good.
Sooner or later there'd be another burial out the back. Our yard had
more bumps in it than a supermarket carpark. So I was very relieved at
the end of the book that Sticky was still alive and insulting people. Next I
put a dog in Puppy Fat and it survived too. Then I wrote Water Wings
and poor old Winston the guinea pig wasn't so lucky. At least he got to
spend some extra time in the house. When I was a kid we didn't have a
freezer.
UMBRELLA When I was 14, I left an umbrella in a cake shop. And just a few days after decided to be a writer instead of a professional soccer player. (I decided my legs were more suited to writing.) I've never written about me forgetting umbrellas
because I prefer to make up the things that happen in my books. I think
Angus losing his younger brother and sister in Bumface is more
interesting than me losing an umbrella But the parts of my books, I don't
make up are the character's feelings. I don't know how to make feelings
up. I can only write about the feelings I have. So when Angus realises
Immie and Leo are gone, I thought about how I feel when I realise an
umbrella is gone. Then I made Angus's feelings about a hundred times
stronger. (You can always buy a new umbrella.)
THANKS! I'd like to take a moment here to say thanks to Mr Williams, my year six
teacher, for helping me to learn about comedy. Up until then I hadn't
really understood what it was, and I had no idea how useful it could be
in writing stories. Mr Williams changed all that with one end-of-year
report. Notice how he comments on my weak spelling while
simultaneously getting the spelling of my first name wrong. Life's full of
moments like that and I love using them in stories. Watch out for some
next time you read one of my books. Thanks Mr W!
VIDEO A while ago a video was made about me and my work called The Morris
Gleitzman Video. In it I show how I develop my ideas into books and
what happens after I start writing. The video shows lots of things I
haven't got room to include here, like me having some of my best ideas in
the shower and how you can learn a lot about writing stories from a
bowl of Chinese pig's intestine soup. Your school might have a copy.
Ask your teacher or librarian. If your school would like to buy a copy,
your teacher or librarian can get more information from Insight Profile in
Australia on fax 612 9956 6789 or e-mail chrisgleitzman@bigpond.com.
X-RAYS I think stories are a bit like x-rays. They show us what's happening
inside people. Not to their blood and bones and spleens. To their hopes
and fears and feelings. And ours. I reckon stories should be available
on the NHS. Stories can also reveal that beneath our skin are all the
people we've been in the past. For example, inside me somewhere is
the 20-year-old Morris Gleitzman who spent three years at the Canberra
College Of Advanced Education doing a course called Professional
Writing and trying to find a shampoo with a built-in conditioner.
YOU You can write too. You don't have to be a professional writer to get
good things from it. And who know's? If you develop your skill, your
books could end up next to mine on the book shelves. (Particularly if
your name's Gleitzbucket.) I hope your writing efforts reward you in all
sorts of ways. Good Luck!
WILLIAM My favourite books when I was a kid were the William books written by
Richmal Crompton. William is the funniest, naughtiest, messiest, most
likeable character I've ever read. I think there's a bit of William in most of
my characters. The William books are a bit old-fashioned now, but
they're very funny and worth a look. Your library might have some.
ZZZZ That's me daydreaming about all the books I haven't written yet. I spend
a lot of time daydreaming. It's one of the ways I get ideas and it's one of
the reasons I like being a writer. I also like being a writer because it's one
of the few jobs you can do at home in your pyjamas. You're indoors a
lot, but it's never boring because you get out a lot in your imagination.
I've spent days breaking into Buckingham Palace (Two Weeks With
The Queen), giving a guinea pig a Viking funeral (Water Wings),
shaving all my hair off (The Other Facts Of Life), stealing a stuffed
horse (Second Childhood) and carrying out a pirate raid on a school
(Bumface) - all without leaving my chair. I can't wait to see where I go
next.
