Smurf (number 1) and Smurf (number 25) Twitter was alive with the sound of northern authors yesterday. A day for us. Voices heard and permission given for a bit of self-promotion and - this feels odd when written down - to be northern. An agent once told me that The Drowning Arthur Braxton was too northern. She said that if I wanted it to be a 'success', then I needed to make it more ‘neutral’. And by that, she outlined:  Remove all accent.  Reconsider working class as...

Caroline Smailes (18) in France You’re living in France. In Canet. Have been for three months already. Arrived with a year’s supply of pasta, just in case the village shop didn’t sell it. You bought those wooden dinosaur earrings from a Moroccan man on the beach and they say more about your personality than you realise. Some days you think you might study French at university, might even move to Liverpool, but there’s an equal chance that you’ll stay in France forever....

Caroline Smailes (3) in Malta 'But why do you write?' she asked.‘To be heard,’ I said. 'September 2016. That was the first time I ever felt heard.' What I didn’t add was that my desire to be heard isn’t some egotistical need for attention. The opposite really, since when I'm ‘heard’ I’m shining a spotlight on the voices that are overlooked or ignored. And it's entirely relevant that most of my protagonists are teenagers. Because the experience of being ‘young’ varies so...