Ally Kennen - Questions & Answers..

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1. BEAST is an amazing novel. What inspired you to write it?

Thanks. When I started writing BEAST I was doing an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and was struggling with an adult novel I'd been working on for five years. It was riddled with plots and sub –plots and symbolism. I got pregnant and was so excited I really couldn't be bothered with the adult novel anymore. My tutor suggested I try something new. I decided to write in the first person and in the present tense to make it difficult for myself to introduce too many new elements. Everyone says you should write about what you know, and having spent my childhood with fostered teenagers, I thought this might be the way to go. I was obsessed with the Exmoor beast as a child. All that rustling in the hedges...

2. What did it feel like when you found out you were going to be published for the first time?

I lay on the floor and hyperventilated (I've always been a bit of a Drama Queen). To be honest I was quite shocked. It's quite a moment when a dream comes true.

3. Who was your favourite author when you were a child?

When I was small I loved Enid Blyton's fantasy books, with characters like Saucepan Pan Man, Moon-face. Though Folk of The Farwaway Tree had a huge squashed spider somewhere in the pages so that may have added to the dramatic tension...! I couldn't get enough of Roald Dahl, and there were proper child-eating, chicken stealing villains. I read both Nina Bawden and Susan Cooper's books over and over again. The Dark is Rising series is wonderful.

4. What kinds of books do you enjoy reading now, and which is your favourite?

The only non-fiction books I like reading are 'How-To -Teach Yourself- Creative- Writing' books. I'm reading lots of teenage fiction now, I've just read Clay by David Almond which was great, and I've re-read Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. I've been putting together a pile of favourite books for a friend to read. These included The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas. The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake. The Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver and of course, the classic, The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous by Jilly Cooper! My favourite author is a close competiton between Mervyn Peake and Jilly Cooper, but Peake wins with Titus Groan. Reading it is like stepping into someone's amazingly crazed and fantastical kingdom; normal life ceases to exist.

5. How long did it take you to write BEAST?

I wrote 3 short stories in March/April, one about a girl who kept a savage animal in a cage and was planning to murder her boyfriend. The second was a ghost story about a boy in foster care, the third was about a woman searching for her feral father. These ideas fused together and I started writing Beast the following June. I finished the first draft in September and finished most of the editing in December... days before the birth of my daughter. So from start to finish, - nine months.

6. Were any authors or books particularly inspirational to you?

When I realised BEAST could be a book teenagers might enjoy, I decided to research teenage fiction. I don't remember a lot being around when I was that age, you had to go straight from Swallows And Amazons to Nineteen Eighty-Four. So I went to the library and borrowed loads of teen fiction. Amongst others, I read Julia Bell and Melvyn Burgess, Jacqueline Wilson, Matt Whyman and Jennifer Donnelly.

I love David Almond's books. His writing seems simple but it is incredibly powerful and sticks with me long after other books have faded away.

7. In BEAST, Stephen has a hard time and can’t seem to help getting into trouble. What’s the naughtiest thing you did when you were young?

My foster brothers and sisters were always getting into trouble: nicking cars, getting into fights, running away, getting expelled, so anything I did was rather tame. In fact, I didn't want my teachers to think I was as bad as my foster family, so I went too far the other way and was a right goody-goody. One thing I did do, and you probably can't print this, when I was about six, we only had an earth closet outside. If you needed a wee in the middle of the night you had to cross the landing, go downstairs, walk through a room full of noisy farm dogs, put on your wellies, go outside, cross the yard, (sometimes full of cows) walk down the garden and into this little shed to do your business. Sometimes on a cold winters night this was a bit too much to deal with so I just weed on the carpet and blamed it on the dog! My friend came to stay and didn't want to wee on the carpet so I suggested she stuck her bum out of the window instead. This didn't work very well. My mum found out and that was the end of that. (We got a flushing indoor toilet soon after)

8. Stephen’s Beast is pretty hard to look after. Did you have any weird pets growing up on your farm in Exmoor ?

The next farm along had slightly older children than us, and they used to like putting me and my brother on their sheep and timing how long it took before we fell off. We preferred riding the cows because they were more sedate. I had an Exmoor pony, which we bought wild from the moors. My mum broke her in herself, so she was (and still is) still a bit wild. She used to break into the house when we were out and steal the bread...It is a strange thing to see a horse in your kitchen. We had lots of farm cats which kept producing litters of kittens which kept dying of cat flu or being eaten by the dogs. Naturally this upset me quite a lot. Eventually we had all the cats neutered. The most cats we had was 28 and they all had names.

9. Before you became a writer you wrote and performed a song which made it into the UK Charts! Will you be singing any more in the future?

I have been trying to write some songs for a really cool Bristol band, but I haven't come up with anything decent yet. I'm too busy with my next book. I'll definitely be doing more singing in the future though.

10. We’ve heard you’re already writing your next book, BERSERK, and we’re really looking forward to it! Can you give us a sneak preview?

Fifteen year old Chas thinks it would be cool to get letters from a killer, so, pretending to be his mum, he writes to a convict on Death Row in America, Meanwhile, he and his best mate, Devil, get into all sorts of trouble and Chas ends up being sent to a Young Offender's Institute. Chas has a horrible time whilst he is locked up, and things don't improve when he receives a letter. It is from his new penfriend...he has been released from Death Row and is coming to visit...