Читать книгу From Hereabout Hill - Michael Morpurgo - Страница 8

Foreword

Writers and miners have something in common, I think. Daily we search for and hope to find the rich seams we need. Some writers discover a seam so productive that they simply keep digging the way the seam leads them. My problem is that I am too easily bored. I find a rich seam, dig like crazy, and then move on to a new seam, a different seam. I may return to the old one later, I often do.

This somewhat impatient and immature way of mining for my stories is reflected in this collection of tales. And there is a good reason for it, a good excuse, anyway. All of these stories, except one, have been written at the behest of someone else, a friend or an editor. So I’ve been digging away contentedly in my seam, when some story mining expert (editor) comes up with a proposal that I might write a short story about such and such. ‘Stop your digging there,’ she says. ‘Look over there and follow that seam. It looks promising.’ Whether I do as I’m told entirely depends upon who’s doing the telling.

It was Miriam Hodgson who so often came up with proposals that I should explore new areas. That is why this book is dedicated to her – one of the truly great story mining experts. She knows where the gold runs deep and true, how a writer gets at it, and she’s good on the smelting too. She likes these stories, which makes me hope and believe that you will too.

Michael Morpurgo

June 2000

PS ‘From Hereabout Hill’ was written by a dear friend and wonderful poet, Seàn Rafferty, who lived in a cottage on the farm until his death in 1993. The ‘Hereabout Hill’ he writes of was his hill and is my hill, the place I live, the place I write my stories.