www.dennishamley.co.uk
www.joslinbooks.com
Dennis Hamley is the founder of LiterArties. He is also, as a member of Writers in Oxford, a contributor to the group’s literary activities.
Dennis read English at Jesus College, Cambridge and has a PhD from Leicester University. His writing career has lasted for over fifty years. His first book was published in 1962. Since then he has written over eighty books, some for schools and teachers, but mainly for children and young adults. These include: The War and Freddy (shortlisted for the Smarties Award), Hare’s Choice, the six medieval murder mysteries in The Long Journey of Joslin de Lay sequence and his four ‘crossover’ novels, Spirit of the Place, Out of the Mouths of Babes, Ellen’s People and Divided Loyalties. He is at present working on The Second Man from Porlock, a novel about Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Before taking early retirement in order to write full-time, he worked in education, culminating in fourteen years as County English and Drama Adviser for Hertfordshire. While there, he ran annual residential creative writing courses for both children and teachers.
Since coming to Oxford twelve years ago, he was for five years Tutor for Short Fiction on the Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing. He mentors new writers and also works with The Oxford Editors.
He has his own publishing imprint, JOSLIN BOOKS, to reissue his previously published books and also new ones. He is extending this imprint to include JOSLIN SPECIALS, which will publish books by new writers for children and young adults for whom achieving commercial publication is proving a weary and dispiriting business.
Dennis has a Partner membership with talented artist Kay Jamieson.
Dennis read English at Jesus College, Cambridge and has a PhD from Leicester University. His writing career has lasted for over fifty years. His first book was published in 1962. Since then he has written over eighty books, some for schools and teachers, but mainly for children and young adults. These include: The War and Freddy (shortlisted for the Smarties Award), Hare’s Choice, the six medieval murder mysteries in The Long Journey of Joslin de Lay sequence and his four ‘crossover’ novels, Spirit of the Place, Out of the Mouths of Babes, Ellen’s People and Divided Loyalties. He is at present working on The Second Man from Porlock, a novel about Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Before taking early retirement in order to write full-time, he worked in education, culminating in fourteen years as County English and Drama Adviser for Hertfordshire. While there, he ran annual residential creative writing courses for both children and teachers.
Since coming to Oxford twelve years ago, he was for five years Tutor for Short Fiction on the Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing. He mentors new writers and also works with The Oxford Editors.
He has his own publishing imprint, JOSLIN BOOKS, to reissue his previously published books and also new ones. He is extending this imprint to include JOSLIN SPECIALS, which will publish books by new writers for children and young adults for whom achieving commercial publication is proving a weary and dispiriting business.
Dennis has a Partner membership with talented artist Kay Jamieson.
The Hare Trilogy - book launch 2019
"Things aren't untrue just because they never happened."
Dennis Hamley
‘Like a good deal of children’s classical fiction, the trilogy combines a surface simplicity with a deeply-felt complexity…For adult readers, the trilogy reads a little like an elegy.’ |
‘A most moving and sensitive animal fantasy.’ |
An omnibus edition of three short novels, Hare's Choice, Badger's Fate and Hawk's Vision, first published between 1988 and 1993. An English village school in the 80's. In Hare's Choice, two children find a dead Hare, victim of road-kill. They are moved by the sight, take it to school and the children compose and then tell a story about it . After death, the hare has a choice -either to enter an afterlife composed entirely of real animals and birds or another which is a very exclusive place, with animals such as a rabbit called Peter, two more called Hazel and Bigwig, a Mole, a Water Rat, a Badger, a Toad, a pig called Wilbur, a sinister fox called Mr Tod. and many more. Why? Who are they? How can she choose? Next year, two more children find a badger, dead, its pitiful remains shoved into a black bin-bag. They leave the badger where it is, but the children compose a new story. But what ending should it have? For Emma, who found the dead badger, this presents a terrible dilemma A happy ending - or the truth? And Badger and his mate find themselves facing the same choice as Hare's. The year after Badger's story, the tiny school is slated for closure and the children bussed to school in the big town . A way of life and a tight-knit society will be in danger. Jamila, sees a hawk flying high over her. Can the hawk's story bring two worlds together so the children can keep their unity ensure their continuity and come to terms with their loss?
The first two stories are about the animals. The third is about the children. And all three celebrate children's creativity and the power of story. That there is a sorry comparison to make between primary education thirty years ago and the test-based, rote learning imposed on struggling underfunded schools today was not intended when the stories were written, but is inevitable now.
The first two stories are about the animals. The third is about the children. And all three celebrate children's creativity and the power of story. That there is a sorry comparison to make between primary education thirty years ago and the test-based, rote learning imposed on struggling underfunded schools today was not intended when the stories were written, but is inevitable now.
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