Page 73 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - Winter 20

WRITING IS JUST RIGHT FOR after a trial and transported to Australia in
1833. This whole writing experience was a
ME real learning curve as I learned more about

writing, editing and the wily ways of
DAVID L. YOUNG publishers.

My first publisher, who claimed he was based
in a posh office in the West End, but who
really used a London P.O. Box while
operating from a back street in Huddersfield,
published my book and designed the world’s
worst front cover ever. (See below). Despite
promising that he would change it, he never
B did, and went bankrupt within the year.
arry’s letter asked that if you are a
clown or a shirt-printer, you should

write an article for the IBH
Newsletter. Well, I ain’t in either one of those
esteemed professions – I’m a writer.
Actually, I’m a retired English teacher and
lecturer (46 years at the chalk face) and now
I spend my time happily researching and
writing mainly historical novels. So far, I
have had over 20 published here in Israel, in
the USA and in the UK, and my story started
like this.
Once upon a time, while I was teaching, I was
asked to write some stories for pupils that I next found a new publisher in Cambridge
used a specific vocabulary and suitable for a who hinted that he was connected to the
certain age-range in school. I did so and university. He wasn’t. His office was in fact
found that I really enjoyed the writing in a drab industrial park ten miles outside the
process. The stories I wrote were based on city. He published four of my novels about
historical figures or incidents, and so it Shakespeare and Marlowe. Then my luck
wasn’t such a big step to write full-length turned and after much searching and many
novels. (Just a question of stamina, length emails I found a very supportive and honest
and using a more adult vocabulary.) publisher in North Carolina, USA. She

With my socialist background, my first book published my novel about Henry VIII’s #4
was an historic novel called ‘Tolpuddle’. This missus, Anne of Cleves, and it sold very well.
story told how the Tolpuddle Martyrs from “David,” she emailed me. “Since your AC
Dorset fought their grasping landlords, only novel sold well, and Henry had five more
to find themselves later shackled together

73