Today on Nerds of Feather, Paul Weimer interviews David Flin
Hello, David. Why don’t we begin with you telling me, from your point of view, the 30,000 foot introduction to David Flin?
There’s a saying that life is what happens while you’re making plans. That’s certainly true in my case. I’m still not entirely sure what I want to do when I grow up, but in the meantime, I’ll just get on with what’s in front of me.
But introducing myself? Well, currently I’m the owner of Sergeant Frosty Publications, which publishes mostly fiction for children and young adults. I also write a few books, again mostly fiction for children and young adults.
Which tells you very little about me, in fact.
So how did a 71-year-old man with a bad back, fairly severe PTSD issues, and an eclectic collection of experiences come to get where I am today?
I guess my life can be broken into five distinct phases, although the fourth and fifth kind of elide into each other.
Phase 1. 1953-1969. Childhood.
I’m an East End boy, a Londoner from the East End (Dagenham, to be precise). Which, while it has now become somewhat gentrified, but back then it was very much the rough end of the city.
This was made harder for me by the fact that I’m mixed race. (Grandparents being: Irish, Belgian-English, Sicilian, Jamaican). This period was not one where there was a great deal of racial sensitivity; my nickname at the time was “Breed” (short for Half-Breed). One learned to live with it.
It was also in the near aftermath of WW2, and unexploded bombs could still be found amidst piles of rubble that still hadn’t been cleared.
When I was 13, my father was killed in Borneo, and my mother rather fell apart for a time following this. Which meant that I found myself responsible for looking after the family. Which meant I left school (unofficially, but no-one cared about East End boys playing truant) and had to find an income.
I became a “nut.” That is, in the terminology of the time, a heavy –usually fairly new– for one of the Gentlemen (Gang boss). I was actually more of a runner.
It wasn’t a fun time for me, but it did drive home a number of personality quirks: the willingness to take on responsibility; a clan-like approach to family; an abiding sense that life isn’t fair and it ought to be.
And, when I was 16, I joined the Royal Marines, and into the second phase of my life.
I think the book that I associate with my childhood is Kim, by Rudyard Kipling. It’s about a young lad, regarded as an outsider to two societies (British and Indian), from the lower class portion of society, with a father and mother both lost to him. It resonated strongly with me, for all that Kipling had problematic views (albeit quite normal views for his time). But the man had a keen journalist’s eye, a nice turn of phrase, a good ear for the rhythm of speech, and wrote a cracking good yarn to appeal to youths on the verge of becoming adults.
Being the owner and publisher of a small press like Sergeant Frosty Publications is no small task. It does give you an opportunity to extend your voice beyond just your own works, however. What is your goal and mission and ethos in what you publish for the press?
To explain that, I have to go back to how I started the company. It was 2020, during the worst of Covid, and I was being treated for cancer. (For those of a nervous disposition, the fact that it’s now 2024 and I’m still around to write is a bit of a giveaway that the treatment was successful). While I was in the hospital for treatment, I met some children there who were also being treated for cancer.
That was just plain wrong. Seeing the children with bald heads (as a result of chemotherapy) and attached to drips—it stirred me to a feeling of anger. There’s nothing I could do medically for these children, but I felt I had to do something.
My son reminded me how often I’d grumbled about publishers, and how often I had said I could do a better job.
On reflection, I realised that he had a point. And that was how Sergeant Frosty Publications came to be born, and became a reality as soon as my course of treatments was over. The raison d’être for the company is to provide a source of entertainment for those children going through the scary process of being treated for cancer. Oh, it may well entertain other children as well, but when I am writing or editing or selecting stories, it’s the children in the Royal Marsden Hospital that I have in mind.
Which, of course, gives a guideline for the type of stories I look for. Essentially upbeat and encouraging. There are some factual pieces (such as Andy Cooke’s How to Build a Moonbase, or Brad Rousse’s The Statue of Liberty), but generally the books are fiction for various age groups.
It may sound terribly pompous on my part, but I’m aiming for the Reithian Principles: Inform, Educate, Entertain. How well I succeed is another matter.
I have also published a couple of anthologies of alternate history stories, aimed at adults. These (Building a Better Future and Ten Years Later) were put together in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and all proceeds from these books goes to the Red Cross appeal to help with humanitarian aid and funding for reconstruction of Ukraine. In the grand scheme of things, it’s fairly modest in the amounts they have raised (just over and just under £1000 respectively), but it helps assuage that feeling of helplessness one might otherwise feel in the face of seeing Evil unfold.
Sorry, it’s a subject I have strong views on. My son’s fiancée, Ekaterina, is from Ukraine, and it’s been a stressful couple of years.
Aside from that little digression, I also like to give opportunities to young people through the company. For example, my first cover artist was a talented artist who was finishing at school and was considering a career in art. She did covers for me while at school and university so that she could build up her professional portfolio to show to future potential employers. It must have been successful, because she’s now finished university, and is working in design. Of course, now that she’s working, she wants professional rates, which my budget wouldn’t stretch to, so I had to start looking for a replacement.
I’m pleased to say I think I’ve found one; they are heavily autistic and have difficulties in society. Hopefully, this will give them a creative outlet to the world. Time will tell.
That, if anything, is the ethos of Sergeant Frosty Publications. I can’t help everyone, and I can’t make world-changing benefits. But I can provide a helping hand here and there and, to my mind, if everyone did that, the world would be a better place.
And I guess you also want to know why I chose the name “Sergeant Frosty.” There is –inevitably– a story attached to that.
Long, long ago, when I was a young Royal Marine, we were on an exercise in Arctic Norway. This was back in the days of the Soviet Union, and there was a fear that the Soviets might invade down the spine of Norway.
The purpose of the exercise was to find out how long it would take reinforcements to arrive to support the Royal Marines, who were the designated rapid response. Basically, we were to get there and buy time for the heavy support to arrive.
What that meant was that we were sitting on a hill in the Arctic in winter, waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
We got very bored. There’s not a lot to do on a hill in north Norway in winter.
So we converted some packing crates to boards –what today would be called snowboards– and we built snowmen on them and pushed them down the hill, and they crashed and exploded in a shower of snow on the way down.
All except one, who survived no less than three trips. We decided that this was a Sergeant Snowman (strictly, a Snow-Marine) because sergeants are, as every recruit knows, indestructible. Thus was born Sergeant Frosty.
That would have been an end to things, except when I told bedtime stories to my son, I used Sergeant Frosty as a character in some of the stories.
And then, when I started writing stories for children, I included a few Christmas stories which, for reasons only a psychiatrist could fathom, starred Sergeant Frosty (Christmas with Sergeant Frosty). And when I needed a name for the publishing company, I turned to that name.
It’s amazing how things keep coming back.
Editing anthologies is a tricky business. (They are also hard to review!) Tell me about how you went about acquiring, choosing and arranging the stories for anthologies such as the pair you've just mentioned you've done to support Ukraine, Building a Better Future and Ten Years Later.
The two were produced with different priorities. The first, Building a Better Future, was produced just after the invasion started in February 2022. This was when the shock was still palpable, when no-one knew what the outcome would be. When President Zelenskyy said that he didn’t need a ride, he needed ammunition when offers of evacuating him from Kyiv were made.
On the Sealion Press forums, a number of us wondered what we, as fiction writers, could do to help. The UK Charity Disasters Emergency Committee had set up an appeal to give humanitarian support to the people of Ukraine, and we wanted to contribute to this. But we also wanted to do something, a gesture in addition to simply giving money. It took us, fiction writers all, a couple of days to realise we could write a book, with the proceeds going to the appeal.
Since I had a publishing company, I offered to edit and publish the book.
At the time, no-one knew what the immediate future held, and there was a general feeling that things would be decided very quickly. As a result, we felt under time pressure. OK, our predictive abilities were a little lacking on this occasion, but in our defence, that was also true of people and organisations with rather more resources and access to information than we had.
Which meant I burned through a whole bunch of favours and contacted as many people as I could who I knew could be relied on to produce stories quickly. Someone suggested that it would be easier to get writers and buyers if the theme was to focus on the reconstruction and humanitarian work that would be necessary.
Since the writers involved were all in the field of speculative fiction, that presented an obvious theme: Building a Better Future.
Twenty-one days later, the anthology was published. Like I said, everyone at the time felt things were time-critical. On such a short timescale, a lot of the editorial decisions were snap decisions rather than carefully considered ones. Which, as you will appreciate, made planning the flow of the anthology—stressful.
I had an idea of the general flow that I wanted; Andy Cooke had the first part of a novel (Skyborn, now published in full—a cracking tale of airships, post-apocalypse, small modular nuclear reactors, and teenage romance) that fitted with the theme that he was willing to trial, and which made for a good closing piece. Then Dennis Fyke submitted a piece about Holodomor, which I felt was a good piece to be up near the front.
Day by day, I had progress from stories and from the cover artist. And day by day, I outlined a brief synopsis of progress on the SLP forum. The reason for this latter was to ensure that each day I had progress to report. Pressure, pressure. That’s what being an editor is all about.
When it was all complete and the book became available, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, and uttered the heart-felt words: “Never again!”
You know what’s coming, don’t you.
One year later, with the war still ongoing, and the news of the various devastations, it felt time to do another anthology.
This time, however, I had the sense not to try and get it produced, start to finish, in 21 days. The theme I chose was “Ten Years Later,” and in my briefing to people, I emphasised this theme. While BABF was largely an expression of determination, a refusal to submit, this had a greater emphasis on hope. I was able to get what I think was a nice flow to the stories, with the theme of each story leading in to the next. I was very happy with the various submissions that I accepted.
Some submissions weren’t quite suitable for the developing structure, and had to be rejected. That’s the part of being a publisher and editor that I find the hardest. Telling someone that a perfectly good story hasn’t made the cut because of a structure that I’ve imposed on the anthology. I hate giving people bad news like that.
The spread of authors was wider this time; the production was slicker. And it was certainly a lot less stressful. I think putting the speculation onto a solid basis—what will things be like in ten years gave authors a greater focus, and the feeling of hope shines through. Oh, certainly the hope will be tarnished with the cost of getting there, but it is palpable in many of the stories. Alex Wallace and Andy Cooke both looked at the reconstruction that will be needed for the social divisions within Ukraine and between Ukraine and Russia. Jason Sharp takes a long, hard look at the issues of PTSD that people will face.
The anthology was a delight to put together, and I remain very pleased with the outcome. It brought home to me the truism that whatever is good in an anthology is the credit of the relevant author, and whatever is bad in an anthology is the fault of the editor. That’s what an editor of an anthology does: they create the opportunity for the authors to shine. If the author doesn’t shine, then the editor chose the wrong story, or presented it in the wrong way, or didn’t give the author the right guidance, or made a mess of the order and the flow of the whole. And if the author does shine, then the author deserves all the credit. That’s as it should be.
The bottom line of these anthologies is quite simple; it’s the bottom line. BABF generated just over £1000 for the DEC Ukraine appeal, TYL just under £1000. I’m a little disappointed that it wasn’t more, but as a small publisher, I only have a very modest marketing budget.
So, what is next on the horizon for you, personally, and for Sergeant Frosty Publications? And where and how is the best way for readers and fans to contact and meet you?
As you’ve probably worked out, while I often make plans, life has a way of chuckling and throwing a curve ball to totally disrupt things. Well, I have plans, but what life has in mind remains to be seen.
I’ve restarted working (at the age of 71) as a Learning Support Assistant at a local Junior school (for ages 8-11). This basically involves me listening to children as they read, and I read to them. Oh, there’s a lot more involved, obviously, but the school (and my teacher—I say “my teacher” because I seem to get awfully protective of young adults nearly half a century younger than I am doing a job I could never do) seems quite keen for me to pass on writing tips to the children.
Which means I get to test out new stories on a captive audience always keen to give feedback.
That’s probably going to end in my shifting from writing for young adults (which had been the bulk of what I had been doing) to writing for a somewhat younger readership. Which will present its own challenges.
I’ve heard it said that writing for children is easier than writing for adults, because you aren’t drawing on such a wide vocabulary and sentences generally have a simpler structure. That’s not my experience. For a start, pacing is a much more critical matter. Once you lose the attention of the audience, it’s gone.
It’s harder than it seems. Apparently simple things often are. Chekhov’s Gun most definitely applies. If something appears, the young reader will expect it to be there for a purpose, and (I cannot emphasise this enough) They Will Remember.
Which is a rather long-winded way of saying I’m moving to writing more stories aimed at the 8-11 age range. There’s Sheriff Pat, who’s a brontosaurus who is the sheriff in a western setting; there’s the Three Wise Toys, about some toys who decide to give their child a Christmas present; there’s a reworking of Escape From The Tower and of Pwff y Ddraig Hud.
Clearly, I’m having a lot of fun with these.
As for how people can contact me, that’s easy. At the bottom of the Sergeant Frosty homepage, there’s an e-mail address that will get through to me. I can’t promise how quickly I’ll respond—life tends to be fairly busy.
Thank you so much, David!
POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.
