Hundreds of people packed a Newcastle lecture theatre last night to hear best-selling author Philip Pullman offer an insight into successful storytelling.
The creator of the award-winning trilogy His Dark Materials was delivering the inaugural Fickling Lecture on developments in children's literature, organised by Newcastle University and Seven Stories, the Centre for Children's Books.
The author, a patron of Seven Stories, warned his audience that it was a writer's prerogative to crash from one scientific discipline to another, taking bits that appealed to him.
He called his lecture Strangeness and Charm after two of the `flavours' of quarks, the fundamental particles that make up more than 99% of matter.
It was an intellectual tour de force but many in the audience were probably most interested to hear that Lyra, the heroine of His Dark Materials, will be back.
