Mark Lowery

Mark Lowery

About Author

Mark Lowery is a 32 year old father of two young children. He lives in Cambridgeshire with his girlfriend. The youngest of four, Mark was born in North Wales and grew up in Preston, Lancs. He is a primary school teacher and has worked at schools in Leeds, Ipswich and Padova in Italy. He currently teaches part-time in Cambridge.

In 2005-06, he studied for a Master's Degree in Writing for Children at the University of Winchester. It was during this course that he first came up with the idea for Socks Are Not Enough, which is his first novel, which was followed by Pants Are Everything, published by Scholastic Children's Books.

His interests include playing the guitar, football, snowboarding, hiking, running, swimming and reading.

Author link

www.marklowery.co.uk

Interview

PANTS ARE EVERYTHING

SCHOLASTIC

AUGUST 2013

Pants are Everything is the follow-up to Mark Lowery's debut novel, Socks Are Not Enough, which was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2012. The idea for the novel emerged during a Masters course Lowery took in creative writing for children a few years previously. He explains, "There was a lecture about screen writing and we discussed what would be the worst thing that could happen to a teenager. There were lots of violent ideas being banded about but I thought that the worst thing would be coming home to find your parents had decided to become nudists!" And that is exactly what happens to Michael, the lead character in both books.

In the second book, Michael's parents have come somewhat back to their senses but then it is Michael who is arrested for 'stealing' a donkey and dancing naked in the sea (it's a long story....). Michael is told to serve a period of "work experience" with his counsellor in order to rehabilitate himself but his task is made a lot harder by the return home of his older brother Ste, who secretly gets Michael into an awful lot more trouble.

Lowery says that while in the first book, Socks are Not Enough, Michael was the victim of what other people were doing, in the second book he wanted to change that to focus on things that Michael was doing himself that he was getting into trouble for. "I also wanted to develop a few of the background characters a bit more like his brother, Ste, and the counsellor Chas, to bring them more into the main story."

The book is written in the first person with sections written by Michael as a diary of his experiences so that there's an opportunity for Michael to be quite reflective about what is going on in his life. A second story runs alongside this which is his work experience, which he has to make a success in order to be allowed back into his school.

Lowery says, "Michael is very detached from the world, he really doesn't fit in at all, and there are a lot of things that he doesn't like. So I decided in the first book to surround him with as many of those people as I could and to see how he would react. I wondered who would Michael not get on with most of all and that is his councillor, Chas. Michael is quite conservative so I made his councillor as rude and as creepy as possible and because Michael is very straight laced, and I also made him someone who thinks he's quite cool whereas he's really not cool at all."

He also puts Michael into some very difficult situations, including a scene where he gets arrested for dancing naked in front of a stolen donkey and later, he is set on fire while dressed as a custard cream. He's also accused of kidnapping an old woman and locking her in a cupboard.

Lowery's favourite moment in the book comes when Michael goes with his girl friend's dad, Dave, to a medieval fair where Dave goes a bit mad. "He can't handle the idea that the battle scene isn't real, it's only a recreation, and he terrifies the soldiers who try to get him to stop," says Lowery. "I really enjoyed writing that scene."

There is a lot of humour in the book and it can be difficult to write. "If you're telling a joke and it falls flat, then you know not to use it again, but when you're writing jokes you are your own quality control," Lowery explains. "You also have to balance the jokes with the storyline so that they don't become overwhelming. In this story the humour is integral to the plot but if you go too far with it you detract from the storyline and it would just become a series of jokes."

Lowery begins writing his book by plotting out a variety of different scenes that he might be able to use. "I will write little episodes and sketches, sometimes they will be like scripts, sometimes they are in prose. However, with this book, when it came to bringing together the scenes, it was hard to weave in the stories about work experience and Michael's horrible brother Ste, until I thought to make Ste pretend to be nice. Once you know where the story is going, it becomes a lot easier to write and the characters become more real to you as the story develops."

Lowery writes in a converted shed in his garden, writing in two-hour stints with "plenty of breaks for tea and biscuits!". His top two writing tips are to be a "critical reader and observer of everything", including watching television films and trying to see films "through the eyes of the writer", and the second is to "live life" and be a keen observer of the people around you.

While Lowery was easily distracted at school, creative writing was something he enjoyed and did well and when he began teaching, he would often choose to write texts that children could work with rather than spending a long time in libraries trying to find the texts he needed. "We would need two or three texts to teach from each week and I just found it easier to write my own." From that, he moved on to writing pantomimes etc and finally, he found an opportunity to spend time writing his first book. These days he works three days a week and writes for two days.

His enthusiasm for literature is very evident, not just in his writing but in his teaching. He says, "I love to find an amazing book that I know my pupils will love. Their enthusiasm is one of the real pleasures of teaching." Some of his favourites include Louis Sachar's Holes, Andy Mulligan's Trash and Frank Cottrell-Boyce's Cosmic. "You can share these books with them for no other end than to get them enthusiastic about reading, but you can also use them as a creative stimulus for art or writing and see the quality of work that you get from them - it's tremendous."

Author's Titles