Letter from Frances Hardinge

Dear Everyone,

My name is Frances Hardinge, and I’m a writer of very strange books. Right now I’m in lockdown in my house in west London. Since authors spend a lot of time at home writing, this shouldn’t really be a big change for me.

But it is.

When I wasn’t working at home, I was usually rushing from one place to the next. I was always travelling to schools and book festivals, or meeting with friends. I love exploring new places and meeting new people. I’m the sort of person who chats to strangers on planes and trains, and goes for ten mile walks. I never usually stay still.

And now, all of a sudden, I need to stay still. I’m not used to it at all. To tell the truth, I’ve been bouncing around in my house like a moth in a lampshade.

There’s a strange quiet outside. We’re not far from Heathrow airport, so usually there would be planes overhead. I’m used to the faint, muffled roar of them, like a big animal breathing in its sleep. Some locals complain about the noise, but it never bothered me. Hearing those planes streaking off to distant lands made me feel connected to a wider world. I felt that I could walk out of my house and jump on a bus, train or plane, and go anywhere I wanted.

Now the skies are quiet. The other ordinary noises have hushed too – no more rumble of traffic, no chatter of parents taking their children down our road to the school.

It took me a while to find the beauty in this stillness. The bright blue sky is no longer streaked with exhaust trails. The birdsong sounds louder, now that it’s not drowned by traffic. The deep pink blossom on our little peach tree reminds me that spring, at least, is still on schedule. The clouds that drift across the sky, the cats that use our garden as a short cut, the jay that peers in through our window – all of them are going about their usual business. The world is still turning, and we are a part of it.

We humans are still connected to each other as well, and we’re all remembering how much those connections matter. Through the digital world, millions of people are reaching out across borders and oceans, sharing advice, comfort, experiences, jokes and cooking tips. And so this letter, typed up in my living room, has found its way to you.

Reader, my words can reach you, but I can’t see you. I don’t know how things are for you, or what struggles you’re facing. I hope you’re safe and well. I hope your family is too. Even if you are all well, you may be feeling frustrated, anxious and confused right now. That’s certainly how I feel.

There’s a nagging worry that gnaws my concentration to shreds. It’s there all the time, like a mosquito whine on the edge of my hearing. It’s not a fear of any one thing, it’s a thousand different shapeless worries all mixed together. I am told it’s normal to feel this way, in strange times like these.

In my books, I often plunge my heroes into difficult situations to see how they cope. (I’m very cruel to my characters.) Times of great upheaval bring out the best and worst in people. They make for good stories.

Well, we’re living through genuine turbulent times right now, and it doesn’t feel very much like an adventure. All the same, stories will be told about this lockdown for years to come. Everyone will have their own tale of ‘what happened to me during the Coronavirus’. Right now, the way we act will decide what kind of characters we will be in these stories.

So let’s try to be heroes.

We probably can’t be movie-style heroes, unfortunately. It isn’t possible to charge into battle and hit the virus with a sword. (This is a shame, since I would quite like to do that.) However, there are quieter ways to be a hero.

A hero doesn’t have to be fearless. We can be frightened, but still find ways to be strong, and reasons to smile.

A hero doesn’t necessarily have all the answers. Everything feels upside-down right now, but we can still make a difference in our own corners of the world.

Above all, we can try to be kind. We can reach out to others who are frightened, lonely or desperate, and try to help them even if we’re feeling the same way. We can be patient with people who are coping badly and aren’t at their best right now. We can notice when people are trying really hard to make things better, and support them as much as we can.

Kindness is always heroic. And all of us are connected, however adrift we may feel.

Good luck to you all,

Frances

 "Frances Hardinge was brought up in a sequence of small, sinister English villages, and spent a number of formative years living in a Gothic-looking, mouse-infested hilltop house in Kent. She studied English Language and Literature at Oxford, fell in love with the city's crazed archaic beauty, and lived there for many years.

Whilst working full time as a technical author for a software company she started writing her first children's novel, Fly by Night, and was with difficulty persuaded by a good friend to submit the manuscript to Macmillan. She has now written nine books for children and young adults, including Cuckoo Song, which won the Robert Holdstock award for Best Fantasy Novel at the British Fantasy Awards, and The Lie Tree, which won the Costa Book of the Year 2015. Her most recent book is Deeplight.


Photo credit: David Levenson