A Meeting in Seville
Page 29
The grown-ups smile. And, even behind the mask, they can tell that the man with the crinkly brown eyes is smiling too.
It’s going to be a very special week.
Acknowledgements
No book is the work of just one person. So I would like to thank my friend and editor, the extraordinary Karol Griffiths, for her invaluable input.
Yet before A Meeting in Seville was a novel, its first incarnation was in 2002 as an Afternoon Play on BBC Radio 4. This wouldn’t have happened without my brilliant radio producer of twenty years, David Ian Neville. And then in 2009 it re-emerged as an acclaimed movie script. Thank you Lou Spain and Stephen Marsh at Whistlingthorn, Johanna Devereaux at Festival Films, Andy de Emmony, Gordy Hoffman at BlueCat, Cameron Cubbison at Screencraft and all my friends in LA.
And, even before that, it was a notion. Some years ago my late mother kindly gave my wife and myself a silver anniversary trip, back to the magical place where we had honeymooned. Seville. On Semana Santa. I said to my spouse, wouldn’t it be curious if we happened to meet… (I’ll keep her response to myself!)
Finally, as ever, thank you to Chiara, Anna, Gabriel and Maria at Costa Pinner and to Carly, Tina and Kostas at the wondrous Café in the Park, Rickmansworth, for providing this author with a home from home.
PAUL A. MENDELSON graduated from Cambridge with a first in Law, which did him little good as he very swifty left legal practice to create award-winning advertising campaigns. He then moved from 30-seconds to 30-minutes to create several hit BBC comedy series, including BAFTA-nominated ‘May to December’, ‘So Haunt Me’ and ‘My Hero’, then back to ITV for the much- acclaimed Martin Clunes cancer drama ‘Losing It’. He co-created ‘Neighbors From Hell’ for DreamWorks Animation and writes regularly for BBC Radio 4 Drama. He is currently developing a new comedy-drama series for television.
Paul’s first novel In the Matter of Isabel (‘A wonderfully funny debut novel’ The Independent) has been bought by a Hollywood producer. His first novel for children, Losing Arthur was published by The Book Guild in 2017 (‘Funny, exciting and a wellspring of imagination’ Jamie Rix, author of Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids).
Paul is married with two daughters and lives in North London.