Letters to Africa

Next week I am going to Zambia to research and write material for a book produced by students of the MA in Writing for Children and MA in Publishing at the University of Central Lancashire. My visit is in conjunction with an Education through Sport project, whose aim is to educate on health issues through sport and games.
Other members of the writing/publishing team will be visiting Kenya next month. On both visits, we will take letters written by primary children across Lancashire, to which African children will write replies. We will also aim to get answers to the many interesting questions the children asked in their letters.
The book, Letters to Africa, will include some of those letters between English and African children as well as facts and fiction on Africa, a glossary of the Maa language and photographs and illustrations by university students. All profits from sales of the book will go to provide educational resources in Africa. I will produce both fact and fiction for the book, so will be keeping a journal and conducting interviews as part of my research while I'm in Zambia. If I have access to a computer/web I'll post updates on my blog while I'm away, otherwise I'll do so when I return.

Book Review: Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd

The double story line and rather challenging language make this a book I'd recommend for teenagers and adults rather than children. It's very much a coming of age novel, but there's much more to it than that.

Seventeen-year old Fergus discovers the body of a girl in a peat bog on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. The author uncovers the historical account of the girl's tragic life alongside the present drama of Fergus' own life. Fergus' brother is on hunger strike in the Maze prison and the family's loyalties are divided. When asked by a friend to ferry parcels with an unknown content across the border, Fergus agrees in the hope it will help save his brother's life. But every day his brother is getting close to death.

The plot of the book is compelling and has all the ingredients of a page-turner: suspense, humour, red-herrings and unexpected revelations. Add to this the dual historical backgrounds and well developed characters and you have a book well worth reading. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
You can read excellent reviews of this book on amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/ and USA http://www.amazon.com/ .

Hero or anti-hero competition

Winter Witch Books have launched an exciting new competition, 'Hero or Anti-hero?' which is suitable for writers of both adult or children's fiction.

All entrants will receive a free week of the publisher's creative writing course on receipt of their entry.
The prizes are:
1st Prize: GBP250, publication of your full book & 12 week creative writing course with feedback
2nd Prize: GBP50, first chapter of your book published in the back of the winning book & online, 12 week creative writing course with feedback
5 Runners Up will receive a 4 week creative writing course with feedback
Closing date: 30th September, 2009

Competition details from the website are given below:

What does it take to be a hero? Do you have to battle against a terrible foe to rescue the love of your life, do you need to be kind to kittens or gentle with the weak? Do you need to be able to ride without a saddle and fight aliens with your eyes closed?
Is this why anti-heroes have such a bad press? Your average anti-hero is not interested in saving the world, the world should be able to save itself. If a damsel is in distress, she probably brought it on herself. As for the weak, well, you can imagine how the anti-hero feels about them. and aliens might just make life more exciting.
Kittens though, might be different, as anti-heroes are more likely to favour animals than humans. You know where you are with an animal.
For our new competition, we want you to focus on personality, in particular your hero or anti-hero. With a strong emphasis on your main character or characters, give us a good storyline, inhabited by believable and vibrant people. They don't need to leap off the page screaming and waving their cutlasses, but they should make you feel you know them by the time you've read their story.
Decide whether your main character is a hero or an anti-hero. Can a fictional character who gains a life of their own ever be one thing or the other? If they are a true villain, with no redeeming qualities, what is it about them that makes us love them so much?
Please note that we have used the male form of hero and anti-hero for ease only, feel free to have as many strong, scary, wonderful, kind and world-saving women as you want for your main characters!
Your work should be fiction but the genre and audience is up to you.
Please see our creative writing courses page for more details of the courses we have available.
For enquiries, please contact us on office@winterwitch.co.uk as we have had some issues with the Contact Us forms.
International entries are welcome.
Entries are GBP4.00 per entry, you may enter more than once. Please see below for full guidelines.
Enter Now! GBP 4.00
If you wish to pay by cheque, please make it payable to J. Findlay.

Guidelines
Entries cost GBP4.00 per entry, you may enter as many times as you like but there is only one free week of coursework per entrant.
Please note, there is no feedback available with the one week of free coursework.
The free coursework can either be sent to yourself or as a gift to someone else - please specify at the time of entry. Children's courses are available.
All coursework sent will be from our advanced courses, unless otherwise requested.
We would appreciate being able to send all coursework by email but if this is not possible, please provide a stamped address envelope of A5 size or above for your coursework to be posted to you. The coursework will be no heavier than 60g.
The coursework will be sent as a PDF attachment by email.
Please enter the first 1-3 chapters of your work, depending on the stage reached in your project. Your project does not have to be completed for you to enter. We would also like a synopsis and/or character biographies.
The length of your finished project is flexible, though we would prefer your final book length to be less than 150,000 words. Please contact us if this is likely to be an issue.
If your work is unfinished, please state the estimated final length of your book - this will not affect your chance of winning. If it is complete, the approximate word count should be included.
Please submit your entries in 12point font size or above and ansure all pages are numbered and labelled, in case they become separated.
If submitting by email, please send your work in the body of the email or as an attachment in MS Word, MS Works or as a PDF.
If submitting by post, please send to:
Winter Witch Books,
3 Stoneybeck Cottages,
Broughton Cross,
Cockermouth,
Cumbria.
CA13 0TX.
If you wish to pay by cheque, please make it payable to J. Findlay.

(The photo is my son Ben, my own little hero, playing the part of the Grinch)