I'm delighted to welcome my special guest Sally Gardner to Cornflower Books today. I knew when I read her first novel I, Coriander
Sally's here today not just because she's a brilliant writer but also because she's a severely dyslexic one, and as I've long been interested in that subject through my involvement with the charity Mindroom, I wanted to know more about her experience of dyslexia and how it affects her creativity, so she has kindly written the following piece, one I find both illuminating and inspiring.
Over now to Sally:-
Dyslexia for me has been a gift, one that took a long time to unwrap. It was not delivered neatly packaged with a note saying the contents would miraculously disappear by a certain date. I am still dyslexic. I will always be dyslexic. But when I at last managed to peel off all the wrapping paper and the impossible sticky tape, I found, inside, was not one gift but many. The ability to draw, to write, to be a teller of tales.
This shouldn't have come as much of a shock to me as it did. After all, I had told myself stories for as long as I could remember. When small, and when taller, and when finally five foot four, I had, through living in my head, amassed a whole world of characters and stories. It was a vivid imagination that proved to be my saviour throughout my education. This talent for telling myself stories stopped me from accepting that I would amount to nothing.
I went to art school and studied theatre design, then worked in the theatre for fifteen years. It was there that I learned about telling a story - what makes an audience sit on the edge of its seat, what makes it nod off. I saw that you mustn't give all your tricks away at the very beginning, that you should keep your surprises well paced.
After I had my children I became an illustrator of children's picture books. Never did I think that I would go on to write novels. The Double Shadow is my fourth to date. I was very lucky to find an editor who saw that I was more than just a bundle of badly spelled words.
'Everyone,' she said, 'has a voice. And then there is Nina Simone.'
I think in a way I am blessed. In this age of computers I have found my voice which I doubt I would have managed with pen and paper alone. On my Mac I can cut, paste and write and rewrite, only to rewrite it and write it again until I am satisfied. Today I do something that as a child I was constantly told not to do - daydream. The difference is that now my daydreams are published.
I believe we fail too many creative children in this country, whether they are dyslexic or not. If a child is interested in a button, you can teach him the world. Teach him the world and don't expect him to be interested in a button. We are looking the wrong way down the telescope.
I'm not saying that all dyslexics are creative but I strongly believe that a dyslexic child who isn't crushed by the age of sixteen stands a chance of discovering what and where his talents lie. It is a lucky child indeed who manages to unwrap his parcel before the last school bell rings.
