Joan Aiken
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2001/20011029/aiken.jpg
About Me:
I was born in
My Career:
I began writing at the age of 5 and finished my first novel at the age of 16. I got my first job at BBC which broadcast some of my first short stories. After my husband died I got a job at Argosy magazine, and then began writing advertising jingles at another company. In 1963 I finished The Wolves of Willoughby Chase which brought enough success I was able to quit my job. In 1969 my novel The Whispering Mountain won the Guardian Children's Book Award, and in 1972 Night Fall won
My Quote:
"Stories are like butterflies, which come fluttering out of nowhere, touch down for a brief instant, may be captured, may not, and then vanish into nowhere again."
Influences:
My biggest influences as a writer were John Masefield's The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights, they influenced me very much in my first full-length novel. But I also had other influences since I read so much as a child -- E.E. Nesbit, Francis Hodgson Burnett, Charles Dickens, Saki, James Thurber, and Edgar Allan Poe.
My Work:
I have written many short stories, poems, novels, and anthologies.
Poetry:
Anthologies:
Novels:
Short Stories:
Down Below
29 October 2001
There's a deep secret place, dark in the hold of this ship
A fine, private place, if one could get down there and hide
A whoel crossword puzzle of ladder and corridor lies
Between that world and the white decks, the smooth wide
Expanse of holystone and elbowgrace and pride.
Could one get downw there; but that's quite out of the question
I'll tell you why: clambering down to the door
Through these hot, narrow regions, you notice more and more strongly
A green growing odour seeping up through the floor
And the damp solid breath of mould, savagely pure.
That dooor can't be opened; it's blocked tight shut inside
Crammed against earth adn greenery, all intertwined- -
Roses, perhaps? The ship is listing, but skipper,
Though the hold should be cleared, is afraid of what we'd find,
He believes there's stowaways down there - - but, good lord, what kind?
A analysis of the poem offered by Lara
Last Updated:
January 4, 2004