People

Maple syrup inspires debut crime novel

Nostalgia about her former home in Canada inspired Ilona Perkins-van Mil, who teaches in the Department of Law, to start work on her debut novel, published this month.

Sugarmilk Falls, published by Picador, is a story about a crime, set in a remote close-knit community among the glacial hills and lakes of Canada. It is a community with the worst of secrets.

Everyone, including the ageing priest and the town’s sole policeman, who have their own reasons for concealing the facts, remembers a different version of what really happened there over 20 years ago.

Ilona, who grew up in Niagara Falls, said that buying a bottle of maple syrup from her local shop had made her nostalgic about the sugaring season in Canada, and inspired the ideas behind the novel.

‘I have always written as a hobby, usually short stories, a couple of which have been published and broadcast,’ she explained. She scribbled down the first sentences and created the first characters of what she thought might turn into something longer.

Some months later, she spotted a leaflet in her local library advertising the Crime Writers’ Association’s annual Debut Dagger competition, which required her to write the opening chapter of a crime novel. She thought her Sugarmilk Falls piece was worth a try: it was long enough, it involved a horrible secret, she knew who was going to die (but not how), and she had an idea for an ending.

Ilona won the award, and soon had a literary agent, a publisher, an advance payment, and a deadline for a manuscript of up to 100,000 words. Then she had to write the book. Naming the characters was sometimes a problem and that is where the case lists in her law books came to the rescue.

‘The story unfolded, rather surprisingly at times,’ she explained, ‘When I was about half-way through writing, I suddenly realised quite out of the blue who had done it.’

With Sugarmilk Falls now on the bookstands here and in The Netherlands, and publication in Canada imminent, Ilona is currently at work on her second novel, also set in Canada.

Science in tropical treetops

Dr James Morison, of the Department of Biological Sciences, recently travelled to the rainforests of Borneo to teach researchers at an international workshop on forest canopy science.

The workshop reviewed the latest research in canopy science, and trained participants in safe methods to get up to study the canopy.

Organised by the Global Canopy Programme, the workshop was funded by the UK Government’s Darwin Initiative, which promotes biodiversity conservation and sustainable resource use around the world. Although rainforests in South East Asia have been massively reduced by logging and development, the workshop was held at the renowned Danum Valley research centre, Sabah, part of a major rainforest conservation area in Malaysian Borneo.

Dr Morison contributed lectures and practicals on the measurement of microclimate and plant ecology. The rope climbing techniques were taught by Canopy Access Ltd, who have been behind the treetop film sequences in many wildlife documentaries, including Britain Goes Wild, The Life of Mammals and the forthcoming series Deep Jungle.

Participants were from Sabah, the Philippines, Australia and China, and were able by the end of the workshop to climb 40 metres up into huge trees, alongside wild hornbills and orang-utans, and measure microclimate and insect abundance.

Alice appears in Rotters role

East 15 graduate Alice O'Connell recently appeared in the BBC2 drama, The Rotters' Club, an adaptation of the novel by Jonathan Coe.

Alice, who graduated from the BA Acting scheme in 2003, played Lois Trotter, sister of the main character, Ben Trotter.

Alice O'Connell as Lois Trotter (centre) with her co-stars
Picture courtesy of the BBC

Also in the printed March edition of Wyvern:

• A week in the lie of Chris Green
• Award for second year computer scientist
• Long standing members leave