I'm on Tall Tales & Short Stories!

Does this mean I've finally made it? What's that you say Mum? Yes, yes, I'll finish writing the book first...

SCBWI Undiscovered Voices Winner: Nick Cross

Social Networking

If there's one thing I'll remember from the Undiscovered Voices launch party, it's the noise. The awesome hubbub caused by 70+ people all at schmooze factor 9. In many ways, it fitted my romantic image of a literary party - a room full of people sipping white wine and chatting animatedly about the state of the industry - except WE WERE ALL SHOUTING.

The Calm Before the Launch

It's the Undiscovered Voices launch party tonight and I should be desperately, frantically worried about it. In fact, my relative calm is so out of character that I'm worrying about that instead! So what went right?

Read All About It

It's finally arrived, the week that Undiscovered Voices 2010 gets sent out to agents and editors, and I'll admit to a certain amount of trepidation as to how the whole thing will play out. This is my first experience of having anything published and my first encounter with that strange and mystical species known as The Reader. Ironically, the one kind of reader I probably won't get is any actual children - instead it will be a somewhat scary bunch of Important Industry People.

Revisionism

So, I met with an agent last week. Note the lack of fanfare, although I did my best to work myself up about it beforehand. We sat down for an hour and a half, discussed Back from the Dead in detail and she thoroughly resisted the urge to sign me up until she's seen another draft. Which is fair comment, because let me tell you kids, I have a lot of work to do.

Proof of the Pudding

The proofs of Undiscovered Voices dropped into my inbox yesterday. Yay! Not just for the fact that this must mean I'm being published, or something, but I get to proofread too! I spotted two mistakes in the introduction and I wasn't even supposed to be checking that bit...

Calm Descends

Not a lot to report this week, but I thought I'd blog anyway - I rarely miss an excuse to talk about myself ;-)

My Wired Week

I finally got a whole night's sleep last night and feel able to put fingers to keyboard. It's ironic that in a week where I'm suddenly being feted for my writing, that writing is the thing I've done least of...

I'm In Undiscovered Voices 2010 !

I am ridiculously excited to announce that I have been selected as one of the 12 finalists of the British Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Undiscovered Voices 2010 competition. There were 150 entries and the competition was judged by a panel of publishing industry experts - 3 literary agents and 3 publishing editors. There will be an anthology published in February next year that will be sent to all UK and US children's agents and editors!