Katya Balen

About Author

Katya read English at university and then completed an MPhil researching the impact of stories on autistic children's behaviour. She has worked in a variety of special needs schools as a teaching assistant, and more recently co-founded Mainspring Arts - a not-for-profit organisation that provides mentoring and creative opportunities for neurodivergent adults. Her earlier novel, October, October, won the Carnegie Medal 2022.

Interview

Ghostlines (Bloomsbury Children's Books)

September 2024

Katya Balen, whose novel October, October won the Carnegie Medal, tells ReadingZone about her new book, Ghostlines. Set in a small island community whose families have lived there for generations, it follows what happens when a boy arrives from the mainland.

Read a Chapter from Ghostlines

Review: "Ghostlines sings with the joy of nature and the delights in the environment whilst offering a captivating storyline."

Katya Balen introduces Ghostlines

"I came up with the idea of a 'ghostline' when I was thinking about how many people have lived
in our world and our wild before us. Their lives and stories are layered into the lands . . ."

1. Thank you for joining us on ReadingZone this month. Can you tell us how you started in writing and what you've loved about it? Have you always been a writer?

I started writing when I was very small, but it was only when I was in-between jobs that I wrote my first book. I suddenly had the time and the space to write this story that can been fizzing away inside my head. I was lucky, and that book became my debut novel.

My career highlight was definitely winning the Carnegie Medal for October, October, but also every time I get a letter or an email from someone who has taken the time to tell me that my stories meant something to them.

Before I was a writer I worked in social care with autistic children, for a children's hospice, and in special needs schools. I think that work helped develop my empathy and understanding of different viewpoints and lives.

2. What happens in your new book, Ghostlines?

Tilda lives on the wild little island of Ayrie, an hour away from the mainland by sea. She is part of a small community that rarely changes. She loves her home - the fairy pools and secret coves, the rugged mountains, the puffin colonies. When a new boy arrives, Tilda is desperate to be friends and show off her home.

But Albie doesn't like Ayrie. He wants to leave. This isn't his home. And Tilda is reminded of someone else for whom Ayrie wasn't enough. Someone who left her behind. Tilda can't lose someone else. She has to take a risk and show Albie something dangerous and something brilliant. She has to take him to the haunted island.

"I imagine their invisible footsteps, their invisible journeys, and how those lives have become
carved into the landscape, both visibly and invisibly."

3. What threads of inspiration came together to create Ghostlines, and how did your idea for the 'ghostlines' develop?

I came up with the idea of a 'ghostline' when I was thinking about how many people have lived in our world and our wild before us. Their lives and stories are layered into the lands and into our lives. Their stories tangle with ours. We become part of our world and it becomes a part of us.

I imagine their invisible footsteps, their invisible journeys, and how those lives have become carved into the landscape, both visibly and invisibly. I want to fold Tilda and Albie into the stories of their home, as well as giving them their own story too.

4. Ghostlines is written as first person, narrated by Tilda. How do you get inside your characters' heads and find your writing style for them?

I genuinely think it's just a product of being privileged to have been a part of so many people's lives during challenging times. My work with children with life-limiting conditions, profound disabilities and neurodivergence has made me privy to so many conversations, feelings, perspectives. I think you can't help but absorb that, and when you come to write you have a better understanding of what it is to be human.

5. Can you tell us how you researched island communities to develop your setting, Ayrie, in Ghostlines?

I used to go to the Scottish highlands a lot as a child, and we'd often take a ferry to some of the islands dotted around the coast. I loved their remoteness, their tightknit feel, their wildness. As an adult I went on a holiday to Islay and as soon as I saw the island, I knew I wanted to write this landscape. The locals told me that if someone dies, their family doesn't have to cook or do their own laundry for a year. They are just taken care of by the community.

As a Londoner, I was fascinated. I went on to visit Skye and Raasay as more research and found more of the same. A local, Jen, on Raasay took me on a walking tour and told me all about local legends and stories. She was the one to talk to me about celtic knots, where the end and the beginning are the very same and the shape loops around and connects to both. That became part of my story.

6. Sibling relationships often feature in your stories, too, and in this book, we learn about the strained relationship between Tilda and her brother. What draws you to exploring siblings?

I think we've either all got a sibling, or we've strongly imagined what that might be like, so it's something people are drawn to reading about. It can be a very powerful relationship, but it can also be one fraught with tension and upset. You've got two (or more!) people who have so many of the same roots and connections, and yet are also total individuals, often living under the same roof. There are so many stories that spring from that.

I think we become a part of our environment and it becomes part of us, and so it makes sense
to put that centre-stage in a story.

7. Your earlier books, including October, October and Foxlight, draw on nature to help explore your themes, and nature forms a strong part of Ghostlines. Do you always plan to include natural settings and themes or do they emerge as you write the story?

I always try to show the natural beauty in places, even if I'm writing about a city. I truly believe you can find secret pockets of nature everywhere, even in a concrete jungle. I think that it's something children really identify with - being wild, exploring and adventuring through nature.

I like reflecting their experiences in the world around them, and having that world give them comfort, answers, and sometimes problems. As I said, I think we become a part of our environment and it becomes part of us, and so it makes sense to put that centre-stage in a story.

9. For children who read and enjoy Ghostlines, which of your other books would you recommend they read next and why?

I think you might like Foxlight or The Light in Everything - both of them have lots of nature and explore the relationships between siblings. In Foxlight, Fen and Rey only have each other. They go on an adventure through the wildlands to try to find their mother and their story. In The Light in Everything, Tom and Zofia are polar opposites who are thrown together when their parents fall in love. They have to develop a sibling relationship in the most tricky circumstances.

10. Where is your favourite place to write, and what does a writing day look like for you?

Hmmm, I have three favourite writing spaces - one of them is in the sunshine somewhere warm (doesn't happen very often!). The other is at my desk, looking out across my garden at my dog snoozing under an apple tree. The final one is my sofa. I write nearly all my first drafts curled up on the sofa. It's just cosy and comfy and relaxing. I usually write two thousand words a day. That can happen very quickly, or it can take all day. I always take the dog for a walk at lunchtime and try to process the story so far. Often when I get back, I know what to write next or what to change.

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