David Thorpe, writer

With imagination we can save the world!

David is the winner of the 2006 HarperCollins/Saga Magazine contest to find a major new children's writer with his novel Hybrids, published in 2007. In March 2008 it also won the Lewisham Schools Book Award.

"Essential reading for the cyberspace generation."

He is a novelist, comics writer, environmental journalist and editor. Read all about him and more, on this site. Write to him using the links on the left.

What's new

•

cover to Environmental Home Refurbishment: The Earhscan Expert Guide to Retrofitting Homes for Efficiency

David has sent off the manuscript to Environmental Home Refurbishment: The Earhscan Expert Guide to Retrofitting Homes for Efficiency, which will be published by Earthscan in June 2010. It will be published in hardback and is expected to cost £34.95. The draft cover design is right. Thanks to everyone who helped put it together!

David is preparing to go to Sao Paulo to delivr creative writig workshops in two schools, meet his Brazilian editor, Otacilia, for the first time, and Felipe, the comics artist he's been working with. Otacilia has promised parties, good food, fascinating peopple and a trip to talk and sign at the Porto Alegre bookfair on November 13. He feels very lucky!

David has been working with Film 15 and animator Mikey Ford on the Animation Tank, with local primary school kids. They now know how important stories are - and have some great ones to turn into films in the next few months!

Writing Magazine interview with David Thorpe June 09

• Writing Magazine features an interview with David Thorpe in its June 09 issue. Download a pdf of Anita Rowe's interview with David. Also, the current issue of Judge Dredd Megazine (286) carries a long article on the development of the Marvel character Captain Britain, including part of an interview with David on his stint on the comic.

• New Guardian piece: We need a budget for green homes Alistair Darling must set up a co-ordinated plan to encourage energy efficiency and refurbish the nation's dwellings.

• David wins grant to write a new novel. The Drowning will be a novel about two sworn enemies - young teen boys - thrust together to survive in the wild when climate change makes them homeless. He'll be blogging about the process of writing it, and the research results. The £6,326.90 grant is from 'cyfle i greu' - 'chance to create' a scheme run by Powys Arts Forum under the Wales Assembly Government.
• New blog: "The day I met Monty Python's Terry Jones - and what we talked about" [Apr '09]

• David has been commissioned by Earthscan to write a book on Eco-renovation of Existing Housing, an important subject.
• He has just finished a treament for a on-off drama asked for by Channel 4.
• He has become the Welsh network coordinator for the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI). British SCBWI's website is: http://britishscbwi.jimdo.com/. You can read a report of the first gathering of SCWBI Wales by clicking here. [Feb '09]

• New blog: Rags-to-riches: the resonance of the Obama narrative [Jan '09]

• Calling all children's writers in Wales [Dec '08]

• New Guardian Comment Is Free piece Extracting A Disaster
The latest (Nov/Dec '08) - and all past - issues of Energy and Environmental Management magazine. David produces & edits much of the content.

•

New sections have been added to this site [Oct '08]:

A history of greenspace - web-based educational resource commissioned by the Sensory Trust (2003)
Managing Hell cartoon strips
Public Servants cartoon strips

•

David has two stories in this hardback collection of satirical science fiction published by Cowboy Logic in the States. They are Perfection, and a Doc Chaos story - The Last Laugh.
• Perfection is a cautionary allegory about addiction, glamour and politics.
• The Last Laugh contemplates the end of civilisation - and imagines the glee of Doc Chaos as we fell prey to the lies we wanted to believe.
• You can buy it on Amazon for around £9 - for 24 hardcore tales. (Oct '08)

• The Wales 4 Africa book for the Welsh Assembly Government is finished. (Oct '08)
• While working on it, in a roundabout way he discussed it in this blog about the banking crisis (Sept '08)

• An interview with David in Brazil (September '08)

•

On Bebo? A brilliant 12-year old fan, Dave Burnham, who wrote "this is one of the best books I have read and you are my favourite author" has started a Hybrids fan club. Thanks Dave! (August '08)

• Great pics of the launch of Hybrids - Hibridos in Portuguese - at the Sao Paulo bookfair with Johnny Online. (August '08)

• Johnny Online now has a blog Nacao Hibrida in Brazil and a Portugeuese Orkut profile where you can go and make friends with him, (Orkut is the MyFace/Spacebook of the other half of the world) (August '08)

• Johnny Online has started his own blog - just like in the book, Hybrids. It is here, at Hybrid Nation (July '08)

• David was given the Lewisham Schools Book Award and hosted a quiz for the kids on June 5 at Forest Hill School, London. Read all about it - The kids are alright, Hail Lewisham, and join the campaigns to publish Hybrids 2, and stop "age banding"!

• David opens a new library at an Academy in London (May '08)

• Hybrids wins the Lewisham Schools Book Award (April '08)

• A cool interview with me in Neonbeam (March '08)

• I am working on a comics adaptation of Hybrids with the Brazilian artist Felipe Cunha - see pics right and below (March '08)

• Hybrids has been shortlisted for the Sefton Super Reads award in the Sefton borough of Merseyside. (January '08)

Kestrella Chu and Johnny Online by Felipe Cunha

What some people have said about Hybrids

"David Thorpe has surely marked a place amongst promising and highly intelligent writers." - John Lloyd of Waterstones, Bath.

"An absolute must read - a terrifyingly realistic and contemporary novel" - Verity Newman, Waterstones Brentstones

"This powerful, compelling tale asks searching questions about what it means to be human. • A dystopic, imaginative sci-fi chiller about our human reliance on technology • Explores the boundaries of what it means to be human • Asks important moral and philosophical questions about rights and responsibilities. This book will provoke lots of thought and debate • Timely and important as we enter an age of robotics, nanotechnology and genetic modification." - Scholastic Autumn 2007 Highlights

"A great debut." - Inis, the Childrens Books Ireland magazine

"There is vigour and validity in Hybrids... a commendable first novel." - James Lovegrove, Financial Times.