One of the questions I'm asked most about PANTHER is what age group it's written for. The answer isn't straight forward. It's principally written as a YA novel, featuring as it does a teenage protagonist dealing with issues that commonly affect teenagers. I certainly tried to write it without the artifice and pretension of some adult fiction. But I also believe many adults would enjoy it too, and find it relatable.

PANTHER was originally going to be published on Constable & Robinson's YA Much-In-Little imprint. It will now be published on the Corsair imprint, which has traditionally published a broader range of fiction. I believe this is indicative of my book's crossover appeal.

I have a story that demonstrates my views on being too strict with age recommendations for books. When I was 11 years old I decided to read The Shining. I had seen, been terrified by, and loved the film. So I took it into school to read in my year 7 literacy class. As you're aware, The Shining is considered an adult book both in subject matter and style, but I was quite happy getting on with it. My literacy teacher wrote a note in my student planner kindly suggesting to my mother that it was too advanced for me. She wrote back kindly suggesting he sod off.

I believe that if someone is enjoying a book, be it a young person reading an adult book or an adult reading a children's book, let them get on with it. There is no better way to learn about the world and ourselves than by reading as widely as possible. And, as Patrick Ness frequently points out, children are keen self-censors. If they try reading something they don't understand or feel comfortable with, they'll likely stop.

I want as many people as possible, of all ages, to read PANTHER. Not only because I'm immensely proud of it, but because I believe people of all ages will enjoy it, maybe learn something from it, and maybe see the world a tiny bit differently afterward - an affect only a good book can have.

Big cat sightings in and around London are hardly a rarity. Rumours of a panther being on the loose around where I live in south east London have persisted for as long as I can remember. What I know as the 'Penge Panther' is variously known as the 'Beast of Sydenham' and 'Arak' (apparently somebody named it).

In March 2005 Anthony Holder claimed to have been attacked and scratched by the Beast when he was putting his cat outside. Both he and a police officer said they saw a 'labrador-sized animal.'

In December 2009 a man claimed to have been chased by the Beast through Dulwich Wood while he was out for a late-night run. He said it looked like a 'brown cheetah.'

I've never spotted the Beast myself, but I've been fascinated by the idea of it since I was a kid. One of my closest friends, who is not prone to wild leaps of the imagination, believes he might have seen it over a decade ago now. He heard a noise outside his window late at night and looked out to see something too large to be a house cat or a fox run across his line of sight. He still doesn't know what else it could have been.

My strongest memory - which I can't be sure wasn't a dream - comes from when it was sighted in the allotments immediately behind my house. The police came out in a helicopter and swept a searchlight over the area, illuminating everything in a ghostly light. I wanted so badly to spot something, and every twisted shadow was a panther in my imagination, but nothing was found and everyone forgot.

Except for me. The idea that there is something out there, powerful and alien, so close to us but utterly unknowable, has always sent a shiver down my spine. The image of the helicopter, dream or not, is what gave me the idea for Panther, and it plays a crucial role in the book, not just visually but thematically as well. 

A light, shining through the darkness, searching for something that cannot be found. That is what Panther is really about.

- David

Geez, that's an alliterative blog title. I thought it might be interesting to dig out a poem I wrote in 2009 about the panther that is thought by some to live wild in my south London suburb. 

It's the first time I wrote about it, an idea that would develop greatly for PANTHER. The poem was published in my university writing journal Vortex, and subsequently in another nationwide journal - unfortunately I can't remember which!

Anyway, here it is!


Penge Panther
David Owen


It's just past midnight
and someone has spotted
the panther.


Finally, after weeks
of paw prints in the garden,
spurned offerings of Whiskas,
we can rouse the dogs
and bait them on their leads,


check the batteries in the camera,
raise the torches
from under the stairs.


We see a tail on every shadow
amongst the lamp posts
until enough bedroom lights
blink up to expose them
like bonfires at a witch hunt.


We put the dogs ahead of us
(as if they'd stand a chance)
and turn onto the allotment path.


Even the police are out,
the purr of a helicopter
lingering overhead, a shred
of paper spiralling
on the breeze.


Its searchlight startles
the foxes, steeps the greenhouses
in the splendour of ghosts.


But it's us that find it first,
tinderbox eyes in the torchlight
brooding on the alien landscape
of carrots, the irregular
broken stems of bean poles.


For years we will hush our
children
at the noise in the garden,
press our faces to the window.

-----

I plan to write more about what inspired PANTHER in the future, including more panther sighting stories. So check back soon for more!