Philip Pullman has recently shown his support for a scheme to raise a new interest in the works of Charles Dickens. The Dickens International Drama Challenge, set up by author Peter Mieville, was officially started on the 7th of February, the 199th anniversary of the author’s birth, at his grave in Westminster Abbey.
The idea behind the challenge is for groups of schoolchildren to re-imagine a scene from any of Dickens’ works and put it on stage.
“It will be a opportunity for 
school children to look at Dickens’s work and interpret it in their own ways,” Mr Mieville said.
To contact Mr Mieville about the Dickens International Drama Challenge email dmprods@yahoo.co.uk
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Philip Pullman is scheduled to appear at a World Book Night event on the 4th of March in Trafalgar Square. The event, which will be presented by Graham Norton, was inspired by World Book Day, which distributes book tokens around schools for specially written books.
Over a million books will be given away at the event including Northern Lights. Other authors attending include Derek Walcott, Margaret Atwood and Alan Bennett.
About the event, Pullman said this: “I love this idea. There’s something primeval about it: to think of my story being passed on from one person to another makes me feel a connection with the earliest storytellers in their caves, or crouching around a fire on the dark savannah. The relationship between the storyteller, the story, and the audience is an ancient one that long predates things like bestseller lists and royalty statements, or even money itself. It’s really a form of enchantment. The gift idea is just as old and just as potent, and to see them combined in this brilliant and simple way is a delight. I’m very privileged to be part of it.”
Philip Pullman has exclusively revealed to BridgeToTheStars.Net that the long-awaited Book of Dust may be written in two parts. He told BTTS that “I’m now thinking in terms of two volumes, one to go before HDM, as it were a prequel, and the other to follow it.”
Sraffies have been waiting with bated breath for news of The Book of Dust and what it might contain. This snippet of information might just be enough to tide us over for another year or so.
You can discuss The Book of Dust and what you hope to see in it here at our forum.
Philip Pullman was present at the Central Library in Oxford on the fifth of February, Save Our Libraries Day. He took part in a read-in and read an extract from his children’s novel, Clockwork. Below is video and pictures from the event.
