Wednesday 28 January 2009

Recommended sci-fi and children's book authors



The Yahoo Group, Wordpool Writers have recently been recommending sci-fi and children's books they rate. The dozen authors below all featured on the list:

Julia Golding
Jasper Fforde
Garth Nix
Philip Reaves
Holly Black
Michele Paver
Katherine Roberts
Joseph Delaney
Kate Thompson
Philip Pulman
Angie Sage
Steve Augarde

I'm off to the library to borrow some of their books!

Tuesday 20 January 2009

I'm a Munch Bunch Winner


Yesterday I received an e-mail telling me that I am one of the winners of The Munch Bunch Storytelling competition. My short story, Once Upon a Munchtime, will be recorded as a podcast by TV presenter Gail Porter and will be available to download later on the Munch Bunch website. Next week I'll be travelling to London to attend the recording. I've also won a day trip to Lapland to meet Santa and his elves and take a husky-led sleigh ride on a frozen lake, so I've got that to look forward to at the end of the year. Next weekend I'll blog about my podcast recording experience and let you know who the other winners are.

Sunday 18 January 2009

Patrick Ness wins Booktrust Teenage Prize

Patrick Ness rounded off a successful 2008 by winning the Booktrust Teenage Prize for his novel, The Knife of Never Letting Go.

The announcement was made at a prizegiving ceremony in London, where Patrick was presented with a trophy and a cheque for £2,500.

The Knife of Never Letting Go is Patrick's first novel for teenagers and has been widely acclaimed, winning him the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a longlisting for the Carnegie Medal and a placing as one of Amazon's top 100 books for 2008.

Speaking at the ceremony, Chair of Judges, Amanda Craig said, "In a strong year for Young Adult fiction, the judges of the Booktrust Teenage Prize selected six novels that we all felt were outstanding for the scope of their imagination, their originality, their writing and their appeal.

The Knife of Never Letting Go made the judges laugh, cry and debate its contents with passion; a striking mixture of thriller, science fiction and literary tour de force, it's influenced by writers as diverse as Laurence Sterne and Ursula le Guin and should appeal to a large readership."


The Booktrsust Teenage Prize judges included five children who won their places on the judging panel by submitting the best entries to a Booktrust competition. (Writers' News Feb 2009)