Michelle’s Tips for Getting Published
I’m often asked how to get published. It’s a simple question, but the answer can be long and complex – and, of course, very much depends on what sort of writing you’re doing. Recently, Stephen from Colorado, USA asked me whether I had any suggestions for a novice novelist (remember, you can ask me a…
How To Survive A Stone-Age Winter
A freezing day in Arctic Norway, and I’m wearing the wrong clothes. I’m shivering as I ride through the snowy forest and my fingers are so cold I can hardly grip the reins. I think to myself: If this was the Stone Age and my hands were too frozen to make a fire, I’d die.…
Resources For Teachers & Educators
Michelle and her publishers are pleased to presetn you with some fabulous reading and teaching aids, prepared by educationalists for use in a wide variety of learning environments. Simply click on the pack graphic to download. Please note: these teaching resources may contain spoilers! Only download and use once you’ve read the relevant book! SKIN…
Where Can I Buy Michelle’s Books?
If you want to ask a question about where you can buy Michelle’s books, it’s quicker for you to simply ask her publishers as below: WOLF BROTHER Books One To Six, THIN AIR & DARK MATTER Orion Books Email enquiries@hachette.co.uk VIPER’S DAUGHTER, SKIN TAKER & WOLF BANE and WAKENHYRST Head of Zeus Floor East, 5-8…
Michelle on YouTube
Michelle’s YouTube channel features dozens of videos going back several years, mostly but not exclusively about her Wolf Brother series… but also venturing into her ghost stories and more. You can browse them here or subscribe to her YouTube channel.
The Art of Wolf Brother
A Conversation With Artist Geoff Taylor
For eighteen years, the “Chronicles of Ancient Darkness” series of books – starting with the publication of “Wolf Brother” in 2004 – has been an international publishing phenomenon. Written by Michelle Paver and spanning nine books, the series has had the same creative team behind it from the very beginning. Each book has been masterfully…
Mr B’s Emporium Podcast
Mr B’s Emporium is a beautiful, energetic and innovative bookshop on John Street in the heart of Bath, UK. They opened in 2006 and it has twice been named the UK’s best independent bookshop. In 2015 the Guardian named Mr B’s one of the ten best bookshops in the world! Michelle featured on their recent…
It Was Eighteen Years Ago…
This is a very special moment for all readers of the Wolf Brother / Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series. I can’t believe that it was nearly 18 years ago – on the 27th May 2004 – that my book “Wolf Brother” was first published. Some of my more recent readers weren’t even alive at the…
SKIN TAKER On Video
Students from Britain’s renowned National Film and Television School (NFTS) have been hard at work to create a YouTube commercial for SKIN TAKER, the latest book in Michelle’s bestselling WOLF BROTHER series. Choosing the winning commercial was an impossible task for Michelle, her publishers and The Elf… so after whittling it down to a shortlist…
Talks & Visits
Michelle receives many kind invitations to speak at literary events, to schools, colleges and other organisations. She tries to oblige where she can, but it is often simply not possible to accept every invitation, particularly when she is busy researching or writing a manuscript. The best time to invite her to an event is when…
Wolf Brother Returns
Zephyr, an imprint of Head of Zeus, tonight announced acquisition of three new titles in Michelle Paver’s, classic bestselling ‘Wolf Brother’ children’s series. The long-awaited return of the series, which has become a global phenomenon and sold over 3 million copies, will launch with The Viper’s Daughter in spring 2020. The deal for world rights…
Chat Live With Michelle!
Join Michelle live every month on YouTube! You’ll be able to chat live with Michelle on every show. We’ll pick the best posts and show them live on screen as they happen! For longer questions or comments, use the Ask Michelle form here. Here’s how to take part: *** YouTube *** Go to the live…
Writing About Ghosts
As the evenings draw in (at least in the Northern hemisphere!) it’s only right that we should turn out attention to the darker side of things… which is of course one of Michelle’s favourite areas of writing. As you know, every month Michelle answers questions from readers live on YouTube and this month her subject…
Locked In A Room With A Real Ghost
The innovative prank video created to launch Michelle Paver’s ghost story, Thin Air, has been named by PR Week as one of the best publicity campaigns of the year. It comes as Michelle’s top-ten bestseller Dark Matter is being produced by film production company Wildgaze, which had a major hit with Oscar-nominated Brooklyn. Wildgaze is…
Q&A With Michelle
If you have a question for Michelle, submit it here and she’ll answer it on a forthcoming video.
The Mediterranean Comes To Stockholm
“On my recent trip to Stockholm”, writes Michelle, “I was delighted to spend time with my friends at the fabulous Mediterranean Museum (Medelhavsmuseet). I’ve been before, and always found it hugely inspiring, particularly for my Bronze Age series Gods and Warriors. I love the spooky throng of ancient Cypriot votive statues which greets you when…
Recording the AudioBook for Thin Air
“This is going to be up there with the very best audiobooks of my stories, ever!” That’s what Michelle said when she emerged from the recording studio after a monster 2-day recording session with Daniel Weyman. “My role when they’re recording the audiobook is to help the reader and director with pronouncing tricky words,…
So Where, Exactly, Does Torak Live?
The one question every reader of Chronicles of Ancient Darkness wants answered is this – where are the stories set? Are they in a REAL PLACE that actually exists? And if so, where IS it? In this new video, Michelle finally gives the answers…
Ghosts In The High Arctic
About a decade ago, I was reading a book on cosmology when the term “dark matter” leapt out at me. I knew at once that this would be my story’s title. [pull float=”alignleft”]I knew at once this would be my story’s title[/pull]I also knew that it would be about a scientist at an isolated…
Michelle’s Jamaican Red Peas Soup
If you’ve watched the video on this site of Michelle explaining how she wrote Fever Hill, you’ll know she talks about her favorite recipe, Jamaican Red Pea Soup. Well, here it is –very warming on a winter’s day – enjoy! Ingredients – 1lb (500g) casserole steak or shin of beef, chopped into smallish pieces –…
Watch Michelle On BBC Breakfast Live
Michelle was BBC Breakfast’s special guest today as she appeared to talk about her new adventure series, GODS AND WARRIORS. On the famous red sofa with Simon McCoy and Louise Minchin, Michelle revealed some scary secrets from her global research trips… watch the full interview here:
Massive Acclaim For DARK MATTER
Michelle’s hotly-anticipated ghost story, DARK MATTER, has been published in the UK to massive critical acclaim. “Dark Matter is brilliant” enthuses bestselling novelist Jeffery Deaver. “Imagine Jack London meets Stephen King. The novel virtually defines a new genre: literary creepy. I loved it.” “Compelling… direct… relentless” writes Helen Rumbelow in The Times. “Dark Matter is…
Michelle Wins the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize
It has been announced that Michelle has won Britain’s most prestigious writing prize for children’s fiction, The Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. The award has been given annually since 1967, and is decided by a panel of authors and the reviews editor for The Guardian’s children’s books section. It is similar in status to the American…
Night Voyage to Spitsbergen
A few years ago, I spent a fortnight traveling by ship around the entire Spitsbergen archipelago, and although I wasn’t then thinking about ghosts, I was so struck by the beauty and the desolation that I knew I would at some stage write a story about it. My first trip was in summer, at the…
Creating A Stone Age Universe
The land is one vast Forest, peopled by small clans of hunter-gatherers. They have no writing, no metals, and no wheel. They don’t need them. They’re superb survivors. They know every tree and herb in the Forest. They know how to make beautiful, deadly weapons from flint and bone. They know the animals they hunt…
Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Torak’s World
Each clan believes that it is descended from its clan-creature. This is why, in OUTCAST, when Renn thanks the ravens Rip and Rek for helping Torak, she addresses them as “little grandfathers”. (At this point, of course, Renn doesn’t yet know that Rek is female.) Wolf loves lingonberries because his creator does. Lingonberries are sweet…
Researching Wolf Brother
I want the reader to feel that they’re right there with Torak and Wolf. And that means research. However, it’s vital not to include too much in the stories, so I’m careful only to put in a tiny part of what I’ve learned: maybe as little as 1%. The challenge is to put in just…
The Wolf Inside Me
Since I was a child, I’ve read everything I could find about wolves, and the wolf talk which Torak uses is as close as I can get to real wolf talk. For example, when he asks Wolf to play, or muzzle-grabs him when he’s a cub, that’s how a real wolf might invite play, or…
A Swim In The Fjord With Killer Whales
To get ideas for what the Seal Islands might be like, I went to the Lofoten Islands of north Norway, and stayed in a rorbu (a fisherman’s hut built on stilts over the water). I was there at the time of the midnight sun (when the story takes place), and spent several days roaming the…
Killer Whales, Gutskin, And Seal Meat
When I was writing Spirit Walker, I needed to immerse myself in Torak’s world. So I went there. To experience the Seal Islands, I travelled to the Lofoten islands of north-west Norway. Like Torak, I went at Midsummer, which is a very strange time in the north, because it doesn’t get dark. I found it…
Researching Soul Eater
For research, I spent time in north-east Greenland in winter, where I experienced at first hand the power of wind and snow, watched glaciers calving and icebergs crashing into each other, and took several husky sled trips Greenland-style (racing as fast as the dogs could go over hills, frozen lakes, anything in their path). To…
Encounters With Ice Bears
The Inuit name for the polar bear is Nanuq: the most feared and respected of all Arctic creatures. And no wonder. The polar bear is the largest land predator in the world, and an incredibly skilled hunter, equally at home on ice, mountain, or in the sea. And unlike the grizzly or black bear, which…
Researching Outcast
In Outcast, much of the story takes place in or around Lake Axehead, so I needed a large lake. Where better than Sweden, which has about a hundred thousand lakes to choose from? To get ideas for Lake Axehead, I went to Lake Storsjon in northern Sweden, where I got inspiration for the eerie reedbeds…
More Expeditions
In addition to the trips which I made specifically to research the books, I have over the years made many trips which I have used in writing the books. The Shetland Isles: in 1988 I rented a remote cottage on Unst, the northernmost island in the British Isles. My notes on the seals, seabirds and…
Researching Oathbreaker
To research OATH BREAKER, I needed inspiration for the Deep Forest, which had to feel utterly different from the Open Forest where, until now, the story had been set. So I travelled to the last remnant of primeval lowland Forest in Europe: the Bialowieza Forest in Poland. In Bialowieza I saw the zubron (a hybrid…
City Research
What sort of research about the world’s wildest places could you possibly do in the middle of the world’s biggest cities? In fact, you can do a lot of research without leaving town… in your library. In addition to location and wolf research, I also did lots of library research. What weapons did Torak’s people…
Researching Ghost Hunter
For GHOST HUNTER, I needed inspiration for the Mountain of Ghosts, and to refresh my memory on what the Forest is like in winter. I visited Finnish Lapland in midwinter, where, in the Urkho Kekkonen National Park, I snowshoed for miles through the silent forest, following the tracks of a female elk, and watching reindeer…
From Africa to Wimbledon & Beyond…
Michelle was born in Nyasaland (now Malawi), where her South African father ran the tiny Nyasaland Times, and her Belgian mother wrote a weekly gossip column. But the days of genteel colonial society were numbered, and in 1963 the family moved to England, where she was educated in Wimbledon and at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.…
In The Studio With Ian McKellen
It was one of those amazingly lucky chances. Just after I’d finished WOLF BROTHER, my agent was at a drinks party, where he encountered Ian McKellen. They talked a bit about the book, a copy was subsequently sent round, and a few days later, Ian said he’d be interested in reading the audio book. I…
Top 10 Books About The Natural World
This is an eclectic list of books which have in some way influenced my writing, and/or how I perceive the natural world. All are beautifully written. If you don’t know them, I’d urge you to try one or two. 1. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling Fresh, vivid and unpatronizing, this is the most marvellous…
The Writer’s Life
What made Michelle start writing? What other jobs has she done? Why can’t she whistle? You can find answers to these and many more things you never knew about Michelle in this, the most comprehensive collection of interview questions and answers about her ever assembled! So – what made you start writing? I wrote my…
Queen Of The Stone Age
Michelle is interviewed by Stephen Moss for The G2 section of The Guardian. Michelle Paver is sparkier and less diffident than I recall. We originally met in 2004, when Wolf Brother, the first of her bestselling series of children’s novels about stone-age life, appeared. Outcast, number four of a planned six, is published this week,…
Top 10 Books About Archaeology & Anthropology
1. The Mind in the Cave by David Lewis-Williams A persuasive account of the origins and purpose of the great cave-paintings of western Europe. Drawing evidence from neurology, anthropology and archaeology, Lewis-Williams proposes that the ancient shamans entered caves in order to interact with the spirit world. The walls of the caves were perceived as…
Michelle’s First Book
“Without Charity” was Michelle’s first published book. There is a special place in every author’s heart for their debut work… it is often intensely personal in flavour, and usually the result of years of hard toil. We asked Michelle how “Without Charity” came to be – and what it means for her. What made you…
Looking After The Trees
The Forest is central to Torak’s world, and it has always struck me as a bit ironic that in order to make the paper to bring readers Torak’s story, masses of trees have to be cut down. However, some forms of paper are more environmentally friendly than others. For instance, some paper comes from trees…
A Magnificent Obsession
Authors often suffer from “Second Book Syndrome” – after a promising debut, the next book is both challenging to write and harshly judged against the first. In Michelle’s case, there were no such worries. “Glorious storytelling!” enthused Sarah Broadhurst in The Bookseller, picking A Place In The Hills as one of the Big Name Paperbacks…
Catching Shadows
Michelle, the setting for The Shadow Catcher is a new one for you… much of the story takes place in colonial Jamaica. How did you go about researching that period? First of all I had to do masses of reading in the British Library, and the Colindale Newspaper Library – which has all the Jamaican…
A Stranger On A Train
A chance meeting on a railway journey unleashed a chain of events that changed Michelle’s life… and set her firmly on the right track… The man on the train didn’t look like a guardian angel. He looked as if he had just blown in from a tropical photo-shoot. He wore a safari jacket, combat pants…