William Nicholson
About Author
William Nicholson was born in 1948 and received his early education at Downside School, a Roman Catholic monastic school, set in the countryside near Bath.
He went on to study English Literature at Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating with a double First Class degree in 1970. After leaving university, William joined BBC Television, where he worked as a documentary film maker. It was not long before William's talent was channelled into writing for television dramas and his career as a professional writer took off.
William is perhaps best known as an experienced and successful Hollywood screenwriter, whose work includes the Bafta award-winning Shadowlands and Oscar-winning Gladiator.
Nicholson's first trilogy for children, The Wind on Fire, met with universal acclaim. Winner of the Smarties Gold award and the Blue Peter Book Award, Nicholson has been cited as one of the most gifted and imaginative writers alive in the world today. His adult titles include The Trial of True Love and The Society of Others.
William lives in Sussex with his wife, Virginia, and their three children.
Author link
Interview
April 2010
RICH AND MAD
(Egmont Press)
Rich and Mad is a story about first love and first sex, told from both the girl's and the boy's perspectives. Here, author William Nicholson (Seeker, The Wind Singer) talks about why he wrote the book
Q: Why did you decide to write a teenage love story?
A: Actually my publisher suggested it. All my work majors on emotion and I am interested in what my characters are feeling. In my fantasy worlds, the characters are driven by strong feelings, including love. But when my publisher suggested I write a contemporary love story for teens, I still had to think about it carefully.
Q: Do you think a contemporary love story also has to deal with sex, as youve done in Rich and Mad?
A: You dont have to have sex but sexual impulses are an important part of teenage life. When I looked around, I couldnt see many books that did this and I wondered where youd get your models about how relationships work, how sex works emotionally?
I found that people are talking to their friends or going on the internet, but that doesnt really explore the emotional side of relationships and I thought there was a gap here. I thought it was an opportunity to get inside the girl and boy and their feelings, and the chaotic time of first sex and how it can be better with powerful emotions.
Q: Can the story seen to be encouraging teens to be sexually active?
A: I am presenting characters that willingly get into a sexual relationship at 17 am I adding pressure to girls to do this? I think I could be vulnerable to that criticism but a very large number of teenagers are sexually active and this book may give them some notion that there are other ways of approaching sex than by getting drunk at a party.
Also the story is not just about sex, it explores the context of a relationship between two young people and what is going on around them their family life, school, friendships and all those other things that are part of the mix of teenagers' lives.
Q: Why did you want to write from a boy's and girl's perspective?
A: I think there's a big problem in communicating to girls what goes on in boy's heads. There's a huge conspiracy by boys and men to not share what they are thinking because they think that girls don't want to hear it. But that impersonal drive that causes boys to want sex is powerful and it's there, but I also wanted to show that it's not the only thing.
Q: Do you think boys will read Rich and Mad?
A: I hope that they do! I have deliberately written it cross-gender, like all my books. As a writer I'm interested in what people feel and especially women, but I am also a man with a strong sense of where a man is coming from, and I think that's something I can offer readers.
Q: Have you had much reaction to the book from young people?
A: I was at the Oxford Literary Festival and these two girls said to me, 'Why keep talking about putting emotion back into sex, why can't it just be fun?' That's okay, but in this story I want to say, there's another way to approach sex that is very different.
Q: In the book, you also explore a relationship where the girl is abused by her boyfriend. Why did you want to include that?
A: It was to show the other side of the coin, really. One of the observations I've made over the years is that it's often the most desired characters in schools, the attractive and cool ones, who run into terrible problems.
I wondered what it must do to you, to be very desired and in demand, how damaging that might be. I developed that character, Grace, and explored what was driving her. She is a self-hating, gorgeous girl. Why?
Grace is admired for her looks but because she hasnt done anything to deserve that admiration, she has no sense of self worth. So instead of choosing a boy who would like to be with her, she chooses one who acts like he has seen through her and who treats her badly. I wanted to explore why so many girls let themselves be badly treated by their boyfriends.
Q: Will you write a follow-up to Rich and Mad?
A: I'm not planning a sequel at the moment but if the book does well and there are enough readers who want a sequel, I may. This territory fascinates me as a writer, how young people explore and discover life, and I'd like to be able to continue exploring it.
