Vision In Blue

Firstly I'll confess that I have not read books by either of these authors. I can hear the gasps of shock now. As an excuse, historical fiction isn't really my thing, I have considered picking up The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas more than once but have never quite made it past the front cover. Over the few talks that I've been to it has been interesting to get the insight into what the path of each writer has been before becoming a published author. These two were no exception. Andy Mulligan worked in the theatre and was happily made redundant, he then went travelling and eventually became a teacher. Throughout this all he was writing and came across his agent through the school. John Boyne had done a writing degree and wanted to be around books while he wrote so he got a job in Waterstones [I'll forgive him!] where he got to encounter a lot of famous authors and other book professionals. Both authors have had similar experiences through their lives, that have seep...

Last night I saw my fourth Bath Children's Literature Festival talk, this one was all about how brilliant children's writing is. For those of you who didn't know that... it's a fact. A great panel led by editor Danny Hahn who was joined by authors David Almond [the man who has won pretty much everything], Sally Gardner and Pushkin Press publisher Adam Freudenheim. There were lots of great points made, but again I'm going to streamline them so as not to waffle... yes, yes we all know I'm going to do that anyway. Listening to how Adam decided to launch the Pushkin Press children's list was one of the most interesting things. He was originally working with Penguin Classics and a lot of the work involved in that was translating books for the range. Looking at the range of children's books there are these days very few are translated from other languages compared to adult fiction, which in itself has very few translated books. So many fantastic storie...

I wasn't sure what to expect with this one, a discussion with three writers who have all come out of the Bath Spa University MA in Writing for Young People course... I had the worry it was just going to be a plug for the course. It was, but only because the three authors were so inspiring that if they'd had a sign up sheet outside I think everyone would have run out shouting "shut up and take my money!" The discussion was run by Ben Horslen who is an editorial director of Penguin Random House children's books. He was excellent, just as engaged as the writers and came out with some interesting points as well. Sally Nicholls  was very different to the way I pictured her... it's horribly judgmental of me I know, but I guess I always pictured someone older, I googled her this morning and she's 32... only a youngster. She's a wonderfully animated speaker and spoke with such enthusiasm about, well, everything to be honest! One of the surprising ...

Lorna Bradbury, Daily Telegraph's book reviews editor, talks to acclaimed writers, Liz Kessler ( Read Me Like A Book ), Bali Rai ( (Un)arranged Marriage ) and Shannon Cullen from Penguin Random House about the need for diversity in children's books and what that really means. No topic is off limits. I've included the description of this Bath Children's Literature Festival event because as was admitted on the stage, it wasn't really a debate, more of a discussion as all the panelists had the same view. Simply summed up, the consensus is yes we need more diversity, but the real question is where does that diversity need to come from? I'll just pick up on a couple of the topics mentioned, other wise I'll end up waffling for ages on this topic. Encouraging creative writing. There are stories of people who read books to their kids and realised that if they wanted diversity they were going to have to write it themselves. As sad as it is to hear this it i...

So I made my first visit to the Bath Children's Literature Festival and saw three great YA authors talking about their books. There are lots of events to see over this week and as soon as I saw Virginia Bergin's name on this one it had to be my first pick. I read both of her books from Netgalley, cover to cover without wanting to stop, and YA books are just a fantastic area of fiction. First thing I'll note... to be a good YA author you have to have wonderful boots... evidently! Each author has a very different style, and a very different manner. Sarah Crossan is an exceptional speaker, confident and a little bit wacky. I will admit that contemporary/family fiction is not generally my thing, but hearing Sarah talk about this one made me have a change of heart. Listening to her process was very interesting, and some readers will be happy to know that you don't necessarily have to do much research to bring a book to life [although we really do appreciate it wh...