Don't forget to vote for your favourite UK Children's Author Site

Please vote for your favourite author site by the end of October. So far only one person has done so! The sites I've listed are well worth a visit. They are fun and informative and tell you about authors, books, tips on writing and so much more. You can play games, watch videos, listen to and read interviews and maybe even contact your favourite author. Each one has been specially chosen because it has a lot to offer.

Eleven year old girl self publishes children's book

Sasha Pryce, an eleven year-old girl from Kent, has self-published her first novel and will donate all revenues from the sales of Labby's Adventures to the RSPCA and Batttersea Dogs and Cats Home. Sasha told Writers' News magazine: "My ambition and dream was to become an author and this was made possible by journalist Deborah Durbin who runs long distance courses for children eleven years and upwards.


After I decided what my novel was going to be about and who my characters were I started writing the chapters. Each week I would write a little and then go back to it the following week. Once I had written a chapter I would send it to Deborah and she would discuss the next step and if I needed to change anything. The chapters would go to and fro until finally in February this year I had finished the final chapter and sent it off to Deborah. She confirmed that it was now ready for the final bits; the illustrations, contents page, the blurb and then the front cover. By the end of April I was ready to upload my book onto Lulu and publish it. It was so surreal I couldn't believe that within a few weeks my novel would be in book form.


I would like to say to any child of any age; if you have a dream, follow it, work hard and persevere. Do not give up, dreams do come true - look at me!"
website: www.lulu.com/labbysadventures/6951174 (Writer's News: September 09)

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)

British Author, Neil Gamain, wins Newberry Medal

British-born author Neil Gamain has been named the winner of the Newberry Medal, America's most prestigious children's fiction prize. Neil was awarded the medal for The Graveyard Book, the story of a boy named Bod who lives in a graveyard and is brought up by ghosts.The annual Newberry Medal was founded in 1992 in honour of John Newberry, a British bookseller, and is awarded by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author who makes 'the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children."

Newberry committee chair Rose V Trevino said of The Graveyard Book: 'A child named Nobody, an assassin, a graveyard and the dead are the perfect combination in this delicious creepy tale, which is sometimes humourous, sometimes haunting and sometimes surprising."

The Newberry is the latest in a long list of awards for Neil, who is a recepient of a number of prizes, including four Bram Stoker Awards, a British Fantasy Award, two Nebulas and an International Horror Guild Award. He writes prose, poetry, comics, song lyrics and drama. Website: http://www.ala.org/

Article from Writer's News, April 2009, http://www.writersnews.co.uk Photo by Kimberley Butler from the website www.neilgamain.com