Mike Edward’s debut novel Riverskin is what he calls a tribute to the myths and dialects of the northeast.
Set in, under and around the River Tees, Riverskin embodies both the river and Teeside. Narrated by Tess this book is full of friendship, adventure, figuring out who you are and local legend Peg Powler.
Mike wrote for us about bringing Tess and Riverskin to life…
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A tribute to the myths and dialects of the northeast
Riverskin started as my tribute to Peg Powler. Peg’s a character from Teesside folklore, a green-skinned witch who is said to haunt the river Tees, snatching people from the bankside and dragging them to their doom. Peg’s a footnote in folklore terms, and lots of rivers have similar legends but, on Teesside, she is quite a familiar figure, particularly on the local arts scene. There’s a folk band named after her, an art collective, children hear about her in school when doing heritage projects and no open-mic poetry or folk night would be complete without a reference to her.
Riverskin started as a series of what ifs. What if Peg wasn’t as bad as she’d been made out? What if Peg got ill? What if Peg wasn’t attacking people but something else was? What if Peg had family? What if she had a daughter?
I knew I wanted to write for children and once I’d decided Peg had a family, Riverskin’s narrator, Tess, started to emerge.
The bulk of Riverskin was written while I was taking part in a year-long series of creative writing workshops and events hosted by Writers Bloc Teesside (AKA Laura Degnan and James Harris, two very supportive writers and filmmakers). I’ll be forever grateful for one bit of feedback from Laura. It was that Tess’s voice, given that she was a mythical creature who was essentially being raised by Peg Powler, sounded a bit too much ‘like a normal teen’.
It was from there that I really started to play around with Tess’s voice. Prior to Riverskin, I’d been involved in a lot of poetry and spoken word events. The influence of things like Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, other local myths like the Lambton Wyrm, and lots of dialect-strong books, by authors like David Almond, played a part in my attempt to make sure there was no way Tess would sound ‘like a normal teen’ again. Once Tess’s voice started to take shape, the tone of Riverskin started to take shape too.
So Tess’s dialect is influenced by my interest and background in poetry but it’s also, for me, very much a Teesside voice. Teesside can sometimes feel like it gets a bit ‘lost geographically’ alongside Tyneside and Wearside but it has an identity and a voice unique to itself and I wanted to capture some of that.
So Riverskin is my tribute to Peg Powler and to the Tees and the dialect and myths of the northeast. It’s also about friendship, self-discovery, emotions, kittens, bottles, shopping trollies and there’s a monster in it. An actual monster who isn’t Peg Powler.
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Many thanks to Mike for sharing this insight into his new novel. You can read more about this title, which would suit Upper Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3, and find out about our school specific savings below.
A dark, pacy and atmospheric journey of self-discovery from a debut author and performance poet. Tess lives in the “turns”, a network of tunnels under the River Tees, with her Aunt Peg and her monstrous Unkle Darkwater. When Aunt Peg starts to develop signs of dementia, Tess must find someone else to keep her safe. And she is beginning to doubt her aunt’s stories about her origins, too. Tess longs to find out the truth about her family once and for all, but that will mean leaving the turns, and she has never been on dry land before – or mingled with dry-folk. Can she survive away from the river? And does she have the strength to take control of who she will become?
