An Awfully Big Blog Adventure View RSS

Children's authors from the UK discuss books, writing, reading and more.

Members' News February 6 Feb 10:00 PM (yesterday, 10:00 pm)

First in our news round-up today, I've been catching up with Helen Larder, whose YA thriller HIDDEN TOXINS was published last October.

Hidden Toxins features six very different teenagers. How did you manage a large cast of characters? And which character was your favourite to write?

I'm incredibly lucky because the characters I create 'talk' to me in my head and 'perform' their own scenes. Like films streaming in my mind. Once I've decided on the details of the plot, it feels like the characters take off on their own! It helps that in real life, I'm constantly listening to passing conversations, to help me write authentic sounding dialogue. I think the character who was the most engaging to write was Cedar because he's a risk taker, driving the action. I can only wish to be half as as brave as the young people in this novel.

This is your third novel. How do you keep the ideas coming? Where did the idea for Hidden Toxins come from?

I started writing stories when I was five and I've never stopped. Ideas constantly interrupt what I'm doing and I have trouble keeping up with them. The starting point for this young adult thriller came from two real life incidents. The first was related to news I read about a corrupt group of men in politics, who were charged with fraud. The second was from my own experience, working in a toxic environment where individuals at the top of the hierarchy were abusing their power. I made a conscious decision to write a diverse thriller for young adults. I'm part of the LGBTQ+ community and everything I write includes a diverse cast of characters.

What's your writing process like? Do you have a favourite time and place to write? Any special rituals?

I'm definitely old school. Pen and notebook for my first drafts. I can write much faster than I can type. I only transfer chunks of writing to my laptop when I'm mostly happy with it. Then I edit, edit, edit, over and over again and feel huge gratitude for editing tools like find and replace. I have most energy in the morning, so that's when I try to cram in as much writing as possible.

I love the video trailer. Tell us a bit about how that was made.

My lovely nephew is a brilliant filmmaker. I asked him if he'd be interested in making a book trailer and I was very grateful when he took it on, alongside all his other film work for his own company, https://www.reframe.studio We talked through the plot and characters and some of the dramatic scenes and he worked his magic.

What are you working on now?

I have a whole cupboard full of notebooks and writing which I have to do something with. A novel for adults which needs editing, short stories that I'd like to find a home for and a screenplay that I'm just finishing. That will keep me busy, unless I'm chased and caught by a new idea.

Next, some lovely news from Miriam Halahmy. It's so wonderful to see children's books changing lives.

My new book, Pomegranates For Peace, has started the National Year of Reading 2026 really well, with school visits to Portsmouth Charter Academy, Y8 and Y9. and to the Manchester Library Service, where I spoke to Y5 - Y8 in two sessions. The students really enjoyed my PowerPoint which has photos of Peace organisations in Israel with Jews and Muslims as well as Peace activities in Gaza.

I read an extract which describes a peace club in Israel for Jewish and Muslim kids and the things they do together such as chess. This was very well received. The feedback was inspirational and I feel that my message of Peace is reaching around the country.

"A realistic, touching book about how hope can be found in what seems a hopeless situation." Sammy 13 yrs.

"Miriam is an outstanding communicator... and had her audience ( young teens) engaged, and keen to participate and contribute to the discussion." Librarian, Ark Charter Academy, Portsmouth.

"Miriam explained the situation in an age appropriate way... the students LOVE the cover and can't wait to read the book. They had lots of questions about being a Peace Activist."
Teacher, Manchester High School.

New book news: Congratulations, Elen Caldecott! WRITING FOR YOUNG PEOPLE: CRITICAL READINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ON CRAFT is published by Bloomsbury Academic.

Sassies' Events

A fantastic time was had by all at the Folly Farm winter warmer retreat. We wrote picture books and poetry, tried our hand at painting, walked in the wet, wet woods and enjoyed great food and company. The next winter warmer will taken place in January 2027.

Finally, you should have received an email about the zoom spotlights, organised by Camilla Chester. The next one is on the 20th February and will tackle self-publishing. It's open to all Scattered Authors members. Check your in-boxes for the link.

Please send your news items for March to Claire Fayers.

James's Book About Fighting by Paul May 3 Feb 9:00 PM (4 days ago)

There was a time when it was my job to help small groups of children learn to read. These were children who found reading difficult. Because we wanted to know if what we were doing with them was working, we assessed their reading very carefully before we began and then checked afterwards to see if their reading had improved. In most cases the improvement was huge. As you may know, reading is often assessed in terms of years, as in 'she has a reading age of 12'. By this measure many of those children progressed years in a few months.

A lot of the work I did involved reading picture books. We didn't just read them once. We read them many, many times. We read Each Peach Pear Plum, Peepo!, Mr Gumpy's Outing, The Cat in the Hat, Frog and Toad, Little Bear . . . This was essential because many of the children knew almost nothing about books. Perhaps the most striking instance of this came from a boy called Andrew when we were reading Each Peach Pear Plum. I realised at some point that he had no idea that the picture on one page had anything to do with the picture on the next page. He saw each one as a completely separate thing. They knew these books extremely well by the time we were done. One 8-year-old came up to me in the corridor one day and said: 'You know that book we've been reading? (It was Each Peach Pear Plum) I can read it with my eyes closed. Listen.' And he recited the whole text there in the corridor, perfectly. (I've told that story before, but it's worth repeating.)

I used a lot of different techniques and resources. Elements that were fundamental were the close reading of picture books, a variety of fun, interactive phonics games, and other activities based on the books. And then there was book-making. It was book-making that really brought home to me just how little many of these children knew about books.

One of my favourite activities was making mini-books of 8 pages. These were made with an A5 sheet cut in half horizontally and then folded into a book. Stapling came later in the process. What we would do was this: I would ask each child (mostly there would be in a group of four or five) what they would like to write a book about. They were usually a bit puzzled by this idea, but I'd explain to them that they could write about anything they liked, and, importantly, that I would write the words down for them. So, for example, I said to James, 'What do you like doing?' and James said 'Fighting.' So I said 'OK, you can make a book about fighting. What do you want to say?' James said 'I like fighting.'

You get the idea. I wrote 'Fighting by James' on the cover in my nice, clear teacher's writing and 'I like fighting' on the first page, and James got on with the pictures. It was true, by the way, James did like fighting and he didn't mind getting hurt and he often got told off for it, and we put that in the book too. But writing the book was only the beginning. Luckily for them the children didn't need to search for an agent or a publisher. When the books were written we marched downstairs to the office. There I would disassemble the books, lay the pages on the photocopier, print one side then the other while the children looked on with absolutely no idea what I was doing!

This is another reason I remember James's book so well. We got back upstairs, I cut the sheets and I stapled together five copies of his book, then handed all the children a copy so that we could all read James's book together. They were completely baffled. I remember them saying things like, 'Why is his book like mine?' 'Why are they all the same?' It wasn't as if they hadn't seen multiple copies of books before. Group reading was a thing, and they never said things like that about all the copies of Mr Gumpy's Outing, and they'd actually watched these books being duplicated on the photocopier and cut up and stapled together.

The point of all this was that reading was, for most of these children, an alien culture. Why were they learning to read? What was reading for? What were they going to get out of it? If they didn't know the answer to those questions the process would be about a million times harder, and that's why the first steps in the process need to be about reading and enjoying as many books as possible before anyone ever starts trying to get you to spell out words using the alphabet and the sounds those letters represent. Some children, like Andrew, have no idea that a book can tell a story. Most children, having learned to speak their native language and understand it when they hear it spoken, have never thought about it in terms of words or letters or sentences. They've never had to analyse it, but the moment you start to see it written down you have to start to think about those things. Margaret Donaldson said in her 1984 book Children's Minds: 'Perhaps the idea that words mean anything - in isolation - is a highly sophisticated adult notion, and a Western adult notion at that.'

It was in order to address that disconnect that I had a kind of ritual when I taught in Reception (4/5 year olds). I'd sit down at the computer with a new child and ask them to tell me about their house or family, just anything, really, and I'd type it as they spoke. Then I'd print it and say: 'This is what you just told me.'

Sometimes they'd read it back, word for word, especially if it was short and simple, but that wasn't the point. The point was to show them that these black squiggles represented the words they had said, and that they were words, and that later, when they'd drawn a picture to go with the words, they'd still be able to read them. They'd still be there tomorrow, next week, next year, and, magically, other people could read them too.

***

I once said without thinking properly, in a meeting about children learning to read, that children learn to talk without any teaching, and the person leading the course said: 'That's not true. Their parents teach them. Their mothers mostly.'

I came across a Spanish teacher on the internet somewhere recently who said: 'People talk about learning a language by immersion, but the kind of immersion you can manage as an adult, maybe by going and living with a family in a foreign country, is nothing like what happened when you were a child. Just imagine if you could find someone now to do the job your parents did back then. They'd be with you every hour of the day, repeating words and sentences back to you, chatting to you while you played, encouraging you, getting excited as you learned each new phrase. From the moment you spoke your first word in the language they'd be with you, and it would go on for years. Even before you spoke that first word they'd have been telling you stories and singing you songs, maybe even before you were born. Just think what you'd have to pay someone to do that for you now, as an adult learning a language!'

The quality of the teaching and learning at home may vary, but most children reach school age able to communicate pretty well in their native language. They can almost certainly understand spoken English better than I can yet understand spoken street Spanish. I've been comparing my experience with that of my son, who spent several years living in Finland and can speak Finnish well enough to fool a native into thinking that he's Finnish himself. It was a kind of immersion, as all his friends were Finnish. And yet he said to me once, 'I don't know proper Finnish. I can just talk to my friends.' Unlike him I started learning Spanish from a school textbook and learned lists of verbs and puzzled over grammar. Unlike him I'm probably still a long way from fooling anyone into thinking I'm Spanish. Speaking and understanding a language, and reading and writing it are very different things, and crossing the boundary between them can be difficult. Constance Garnett, translator of 71 works from Russian to English, was never comfortable holding a conversation in Russian.

As adult language learners we tend to start with the written language and move across the boundary to the spoken. Children learning to read are crossing the boundary in the opposite direction, exactly the same boundary my son was talking about when he said he didn't speak proper Finnish.

You know that feeling, when you're learning a foreign language and you haven't really attempted to have a conversation yet and you're anxious about making mistakes or not pronouncing words properly? That almost never happens to a child learning their own language at home, and I don't think it happened with my son in Finland. But if you're not very careful, that's the feeling a child is going to have when they start learning to read, when they start crossing that boundary. Because, for some of them, there is so much they don't know, and so much they can get wrong. That feeling can paralyse adults into not opening their mouths, even to order a croissant and a coffee in a French cafe, and it can have the same effect on a child learning to read.

Luckily, there's a remedy. When you're trying as a teacher to fill that huge gap that exists in some children's experience of written language there's nothing better than the hundreds of brilliant picture books that have been produced by so many brilliant children authors and illustrators over the last fifty years or so.

Except, just maybe, the books that children write for themselves.

Reading the Carnegie, an illustrated compilation of my blog posts about 84 Carnegie medal winners is available from me at https://maypaul.blogspot.com/ The PDF is free. All you have to do is leave a message.

A Funny Old Journey in Children's Publishing - Joan Lennon 2 Feb 4:30 PM (5 days ago)

It began back in the 20th century with writing short stories (and I still recommend that as a really useful place to learn, especially for writers who want to write novels) and peddling them to Cricket Magazine. They would take maybe 1 in 3 of what I submitted. Enough success to keep me going.

Stories grew into novels. I had an agent who was, well, useless. And then I was taken on by Fraser Ross Associates. Best move I could have made!

Over the next decade or so, my agent (Lindsey Fraser) worked her tiny socks off, and got my books accepted by different traditional publishers at a rate of 1 or 2 a year. (Different publishers liked different kinds of books from me, so that's the way it went, since I kept writing different kinds of books.)

The grass was green, and time passed.

And then, it stopped. Getting published dried up. I hadn't run out of ideas. I wasn't writing worse (I think I was writing better - well, I mean, it'd be pretty sad to have spent all that time and effort and not got better.) I still finished things on time (I understand that deadlines for writers are hard even when deadlines for publishers are squishy soft), took editing on board, wasn't a diva. I'd done school visits, festival events, taught creative writing workshops, blogged and been polite online. My agent worked hard and harder. But that particular stage had come to an end.

My last YA novel Walking Mountain was traditionally published in 2017. It was nominated for the 2018 Carnegie and went out of print. And though I've gone on writing and my agent has gone on submitting, nobody since has said yes.*

Sound familiar? I know I'm not alone in all this!

So I'm nailing my colours to the mast: once I've finished the current WIP, I will have 2 young adult and 2 adult novels ready and raring to go, and they and I will be setting sail on the sea of self-publishing.

The next stage. Interesting times...**

* I'm talking about children/YA fiction here. Because of a kind invitation from Joan Haig to join her in collaborative non-fiction books, there have been 3 non-fiction yes's from Templar: Talking History, Great Minds, and a solo venture Revolution! (out later this year).

** Since writing this blog, I have been wallowing about in contradictory information and advice about different self-publishing routes - DIY, aggregators, retailers, etc. - and how and if the way the world is going suggests NOT going down the Amazon/Kindle road. Onwards, regardless!

Joan Lennon website

Joan Lennon Instagram

FEBRUARY FIRST by Penny Dolan 31 Jan 9:00 PM (7 days ago)

February, and I'm pondering on why it so often seems a hopeful month.

Perhaps it's because all the December and early January festivities are over? The glitter, the tinsel, the lights and decorations are packed away in boxes. The guests have come and gone, and all the events and outings enjoyed. Rooms have been righted, sheets and duvet covers washed and dried, and spare pillows stowed in the linen cupboard. Even that Ghost of January's Past - the haunted dread of the tax return - has been faced, sent and paid. All is done and over, and the new year has truly begun.

Today, the first of February, is a traditional Irish celebration known as St Brigid's Day or, in older traditions, as 'Imbolc'. The feast falls halfway between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, and marks the start of the lambing season, the time for plant new seeds and, with the growing daylight, the beginning of Spring.

February 2nd is Candlemas, a day in the Catholic calendar associated with the blessing of candles and candle-lit processions. This feast is also known as the Presentation, the day when the Holy Child was taken to the Temple for the first time. Liturgically, Candlemas is also the conclusion of Christmas season, so any fading fir trees or sets of nativity figures should definitely disappear from view.

Meanwhile, February 2nd, in America, is also famous as Groundhog Day and not only for that film. From a Pennsylvanian-German 'hibernation' tradition, this day is when a groundhog emerges from its burrow. If the groundhog - or, back in Europe, a bear or badger - sees its own shadow, the animal will retreat into its den, and winter will continue or six more weeks. However, if the groundhog pops its head out and sees no shadow, spring will be arriving early.

What? This 'shadow or no shadow' idea puzzled me: who wouldn't want sunshine and a bright day? Who'd want weather that was grey, overcast and with no sun or shadows?

The answer, it seems, lies in a traditional belief that a bright, clear Candlemas day would herald a prolonged winter. Though there's a pleasure in playing with such old cultural beliefs, I feel sure, in America, there are more things to worry about right now.

But, here and now, what do all those hopes and traditions tell me?

That if I - or you - didn't make or keep those start of January hopes and resolutions, worry not! Today, the beginning of February is the moment to begin again. This is the time when the daylight becomes stronger, and when spring starts springing. Today, early February, is the real 'start again' season.

If you are not already settled and busy - as I know some ABBA bloggers will be, the amazing souls - what and where will you be going?

Is it opening up your big novel project, making more time for 'fill the well' experiences, joining an online writing course or group, sorting through that file of scrappy ideas, deciphering those scribbles on the run still in your pocket notebook, finding that file of hidden, half-forgotten poems, or even wandering through one inspirational book or another.

February feels very much a month for beginning, for finding some sunshine, with or without shadows. Good luck!

(And of course - oh bother - there's always St Valentine's, available from all good and less-good supermarkets, stores and screens near you . . . Ignore?)

Penny Dolan

The Wrong Handle by Sheena Wilkinson 28 Jan 8:00 PM (10 days ago)

Writing is so weird.

This time last year I finished a book. Nothing weird about that; I'm a writer. My agent sent it on submission. Nobody bit in the first round – sadly, nothing weird about that either, these days. But this wasn’t the usual ‘it’s too quiet to be commercial and too accessible to be literary’ verdict. Instead there was a suggestion that the book lacked something more fundamental; people didn’t even like the pitch.

I wasn’t thrilled, obviously: in my mind I had written a fine historical novel, women-centred, gritty and heartfelt. Exactly the kind of book I – and, I thought, thousands of women, liked to read. But that didn’t seem to be what editors were picking up on. My agent was keen to pull the book from submission rather than flogging a dead horse. I was working on three something elses – True Friends at Fernside and Miss McVey Takes Charge, which came out in the second half of last year, and an untitled and troublesome dual timeline, so the fiction-writing-and-editing part of my brain was not idle.

Sometime, my agent and I agreed, I would have a good look at the abandoned book and see if I could rejig the pitch to make it more appealing/commercial. I didn’t envisage having to do a major rewrite.

And then, on retreat in December, I read the book again for the first time in months. Not only did I now agree that there was something fundamental missing; I knew was it was. Not only that, but all the ingredients to make the book hookier, tenser and darker were already there. Always had been. There was even – something new for me – a murder. Or rather, there was a death which I – the writer – hadn’t realised was a murder. As for the murderer? Well, she’d been there all the time too.

my view on retreat

I’d love to say that I rewrote the book quickly, that my agent fell upon it with glee, that six editors went into battle for it and that it sold at auction for squillions and became the book that revolutionised my career and my fortunes. I mean, that might happen; if I didn’t believe that such things were possible I wouldn’t still be a novelist. So far, after that wonderful week on retreat when so much revealed itself to me, it’s been a matter of trying to steal an hour here and there in between mentoring, teaching, report-writing and school visits.

the kind of thing that stops me writing all day every day

But every few days I realise something new about the story – sometimes I even wake up with it in my head, and I feel so glad of the chance to remake it. I’m reminded of Cousin Helen’s advice in What Katy Did. Not everything saintly Cousin Helen says has stood the test of time, but her idea that ‘Everything in the world has two handles… One is a smooth handle. If you take hold of it, the thing comes up lightly and easily, but if you seize the rough handle, it hurts your hand and the thing is hard to lift’ fits in very neatly with my book.

I had got hold of the story by the wrong handle and I couldn’t grasp it easily. Now I have the right handle and it’s only a matter of time.

There's still hope for those squillions!

Puzzling 25 Jan 1:31 AM (14 days ago)

I wonder whether other SASSIES suffer from the same problem I'm regularly confronted with?

I have an idea for a story. I start to write and the ideas flow. I'm enjoying myself. But when I reach - roughly - the halfway point, the ideas that got me going just... dry up. I sit there, trying to think of ways to proceed and everything I come up with feels wrong. I might even write it. But it keeps feeling wrong.

And I know it.

What started out as fun becomes anything but.

I haven't found a solution yet.

An Ordinary War 22 Jan 9:00 PM (16 days ago)

This year, I am planning to publish a book which has been a very long time in the making. It's inspired by the experiences of my father during the war: he was one of those who didn't get away at Dunkirk. He was captured on the way, and was a prisoner of war for five years.

Like many - probably most - survivors of war, he didn't talk very much about his experiences. Eventually, he began to tell a few stories, mostly funny ones. Towards the end of the last century, when I started writing seriously, I began to write some of them down. We would sit by the fire drinking whisky - me with ginger, him with water - and he would talk about things that happened in the forests of Poland all those years ago. Often, the stories were the same ones repeated: sometimes, his face would darken, and he would say something that hinted at grimmer truths. Once, we were talking about eating - he always ate hearty meals, but never snacked, never put on weight. He said something to the effect of: "You don't know what you're capable of until you've been really hungry." And then lapsed into silence, clearly remembering things that he wasn't going to talk about.

Some time after he died (which was in 2004), I decided I wanted to write a novel based on his experiences. Because the books I was writing were for children and young people, it seemed natural to aim it at young adults. I soon realised that there were massive gaps in my knowledge about what had happened to him, and I began to do research. I'm not a trained researcher, I'm not an academic - I have a degree, but it's in English, not history. So it was an exploration, perhaps, rather than an investigation.

And it was fascinating, and immensely rewarding.

I will write more in future posts about this process. But in this one, I just want to tell you about one little thing - the thing that, if I was trying to be poetic, I could say fanned what was a spark into a flame.

I knew that at the end of the war, Dad had ended up in a camp called Fallingbostell, in north-western Germany, from which he was liberated and then repatriated. In a book I was reading called The Last Escape (a wonderful book, by John Nichol and Tony Rennell), I came across a picture of several emaciated prisoners sitting on the ground, smiling and chatting. One of them looked very much like Dad. The photo was attributed to the Imperial War Museum, so I rang them up to see if they could tell me any more about the men in the picture.

They suggested I should make an appointment to go and see someone there, so I did.

They couldn't tell me any more about the identities of the men in the picture, but they did give me useful suggestions about other avenues I could follow. Their first suggestion was to go to the National Archives in Kew. Every prisoner who came home was supposed to fill in a form, detailing how they'd been treated, which prison camps they'd been in and so on - information which I didn't have.

So off I trotted to Kew, and explained what I was after. The assistant warned me tat the records were not complete: everyone was supposed to fill in a form, but not everyone did. My heart sank. A trait I shared with my father was a deep dislike of form filling. There wouldn't be one for him, I felt sure.

The assistant produced for me a large folder - I expect now that everything's online, but that wasn't the case then - containing the forms for Dad's section of the alphabet. I turned the pages carefully, aware that this was a precious resource, not really expecting to find one for Dad.

But then, there it was. Reginald Bernard Course. I hadn't expected it to be in his handwriting, instantly recognisable from all the letters I'd received over the years. And it wasn't just the handwriting. The answers were brief and to the point, and some were quite brusque. I could absolutely picture Dad, impatient with forms and pen-pushers, wanting to be away, wanting to go home, not interested in making a fuss about what had happened to him. I could almost hear his voice. I stared at the form, and tears came. I wiped them away surreptitiously, and hoped that no-one had seen.

Brief as the form was, it gave me some answers. it told me where he'd been. It told me he'd tried to escape, three times, once with his old pal Shep, whom I'd taken him to see a few years before.

And it gave me the urge to carry on, to follow the trail.

On deadlines & writing deliciousness - Rowena House 20 Jan 4:00 PM (18 days ago)

Oops! Long time no post. Apologies. My excuse: I’m finally on a deadline after nigh on six years nibbling away at my seventeenth-century witch trial work-in-progress, with three (max four) months to get Draft 1 developed, polished, and proof read, including an entirely new narrative perspective on the same events, told in alternate chapters, decided upon last year.

So, about one quarter to one third of a novel to write in three/months. That’s do-able, right?

The writing gods are [ATM] being kind in letting me get on with it, but that’s very unlikely to last on recent form with life duties, so I’m writing and editing daily whenever I can.

Updates on RowenaHouseAuthor on Facebook if anyone feels like joining me for this last dash, followed by more reflective thoughts about the story, its history, how I’ve bent history and invented stuff, and whether that’s justifiable etc. That’ll be from May-September as I write the critical commentary for the PhD, of which the novel is the main part.

More good news. I have four readers! Two supervisors and two examiners. Hurrah. While not exactly No. 1 bestseller stuff, four readers are enough to order myself not to waste their time with any residual Draft 1 slop (slop being a 2026 version of Hemingway’s more graphic/honest description of Draft 1).

Luckily, last November, when I should have been writing an ABBA post, I was en route to one of the classiest, most instructive and motivational retreats I’ve ever been on.

It was a week at the Moniack Mhor writing centre in the hills outside Inverness, Scotland, a place that lots of fine writers have recommended and was high on my wish-list even before they announced that the historical fiction retreat would be led by Lucy Jago, author of A Net for Small Fishes, set just after mine and a lovely, very well-researched read, and Andrew Miller – squee – fresh off the Booker shortlist, whose Land in Winter was the winner in bookshop if (sadly) not on the podium. His Pure has been a touchstone for the voice of this WiP for years and a comfort go-to read for more than a decade.

To top it all, the other retreaters were super talented, including a dear writer friend off the MA in writing for young people at Bath Spa, Eden Enfield, whose prose for both young people and adult I vastly admire. Honestly, who needs to get published when such deliciousness awaits?

To keep the deliciousness going, I’m thrilled to have been invited by another writer-for-young-people-turned-adult-historical-novelist, Liz Flanagan, to one of her launch events for her English civil war novel, When We Were Divided.

So looking forward to celebrating its publication with her up in Heptonstall next month (where I haven’t been since 1985) and then getting lost in her story.

Happy writing, editing, reading, plotting, dreaming.

PS I got both copies signed. :0)

Turning an argument around? By Steve Way 19 Jan 10:00 PM (19 days ago)

Hello. I hope it’s not too late to wish you a happy, healthy, prosperous and well published 2026!

Just sharing a few idle thoughts, the tenuous link between them being that they are linked to the fascinating way we use language, often in ways that don’t make logical sense.

For one thing, why do we insist on calling it a ‘duvet’ when the French call it ‘une couette’? If we’re going to steal from other languages, we could at least do so correctly! For years the adverts for Audi cars ended with the phrase ‘Vorsprung durch technik… as we say in Germany’. I once asked a German student what that phrase meant and he looked at me blankly. He’d never heard that phrase before and insisted that they would never say it in Germany!?!

This morning, quarter of an hour before I was due to give an online lesson to a couple of Spanish students, we had a power cut and therefore no internet connection. I sent an email explaining the situation to the teaching agency I work with. The reply asked me whether I thought we should cancel the lesson, or whether I would be able to sign on in five or ten minute or not. I wasn’t sure if I should feel complimented or exasperated at the thought that they believed I could psychically predict how long a power cut would be.

There’s a phrase I’ve heard used many times, though one occasion that sticks particularly clearly in my mind was when I heard a lady passionately describing a heated discussion she’d had and declared, “And then, she turns around and says…” My first thought was to wonder if that meant that the lady she’d been arguing with now had her back to her. How rude. No wonder lady number one was upset. Alternatively, was object-of-derision lady originally facing away from deriding-lady and had she now turned around to confront her? More bizarrely, did she perhaps spin around balletically through 360 degrees, believing this would add drama, weight and credibility to her cause? As on other occasions I was too timid to interrupt deriding-lady, who was now if full flow, to explore these options with her, which on reflection was probably for the best.

I also find it funny when people say things like, ‘It was the last place I looked’. Would you continue looking for something you’ve already found? When someone for example ask a lady, ‘Can you give me your number?’ I always want to say ‘One… there’s only one of her’. Do you perhaps want her phone number?’ I’m also tempted to pick a chair up off the floor when someone says, ‘Pull up a chair’. Shouldn’t it be ‘pull along a chair?’ My long-suffering wife often insists, when sharing a cake or such like, ‘you have the bigger half’. Well in my defence on that last one, I do sometimes teach maths. Wouldn’t it be somehow wonderful though if the concept of ‘the bigger half’ could be introduced into the GCSE syllabus? Technically inaccurate, though real life.

A comment that amused my wife recently was when she asked about the length of a coat being sold online. The brilliantly unhelpful response was, ‘Well, I’m five foot two and it comes down to my knees’. In my case I can’t help wondering if those are metric knees or imperial?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve just self-published what’s effectively a work of many years, a compilation of ideas I’ve used to inspire creative writing called ‘Reluctant Writers Resource’. What amuses me most, as it contains many sections, is that the paperback version weighs over a kilogramme!*

The original idea was to provide ‘an idea a week to stimulate creative writing’, with the aim of giving teachers springboards for writing to encompass the 38 weeks of the school year, though in the end there are a lot more than 38 sections. The example pieces used to get the children’s creative juices flowing vary in length and complexity but the core of them are deliberately short, with the aim of not outfacing the children and supporting them in believing they could write pieces of similar length. I’ve road tested the ideas in many schools in the UK and abroad and they’ve always worked well. Many teachers told me that they’d never seen their children, including the reluctant writers, produce so much work!

*At least there’s one way in which it’s a weighty tome!

Reluctant Writers Resource: An 'idea-a-week' resource to inspire creative writing

Kindle ASIN : B0GF8RQ7WX

Paperback ISBN : 979 – 8241950987

Hardback ISBN : 979 - 8242528680

Let's all talk about ourselves - by Lu Hersey 18 Jan 4:00 PM (20 days ago)

When I was a child, my grandmother came to live with us. Born and bred in Yorkshire, she still had a strong Yorkshire accent after half a century of living in Surrey, where she and her husband moved after their first child was born. Here's a photo of her with me and our dog Bumble (a long time ago, obviously).

One of Grandma's favourite sayings was "I've that many stories to tell, I should write a book!" In fact her stories were almost on a tape loop, consisting entirely of things she wanted to remember, and many that made her laugh, As a teenager, I'd bring my friend Gina home for tea sometimes after school, and buy jam donuts on the way - just so we could hear her jam donut story. It went like this:

"Our Pauline once had a job int' donut factory, but she got t'sack for putting too much jam int' donuts!"

She'd laugh at the memory, and being mean teens, we'd laugh too, but only because we'd set her up to tell the same old tale. Of course I'd love to hear her tell it again now. To this day I miss my grandma and her collection of stories, and regret not asking more about the rest of her life outside the golden moments. Things my mother told me later, that grandma never mentioned.

Like how Grandma was the one who found her father after he'd slit his throat in the bath, the year before she was due to be married. About her child, Bessie May, she'd loved so much, who died of pneumonia when only two years old. The tragic side of the life of a woman who was the thirteenth of fourteen children, had knitted socks for a brother fighting in the Boer War (she told me about that herself, though the story was about learning to knit socks, not what happened to the brother). She'd survived two world wars and a lot of harrowing experiences. But the stories were always about holiday larks, and pranks her Percy (my grandfather) had played, and fireside tales of her family life back in Yorkshire. The first car that drove through her village, the first aeroplane she saw. Things of joy and wonder. And I admire her for having such a wonderfully selective memory. Seeing the best in life.

Of course, many people want to relate the sad, or tragic elements of their lives, and their stories are equally valid. I'm currently on a memoir writing course - not because I want to write my own memoir, but because remembering forgotten aspects of your own life is a fascinating exercise, and I'm really interested in how everyone tells their stories.

The course is held by writer Jenny Alexander, who holds inspirational workshops on various aspects of writing (see https://jennyalexander.co.uk/) for anyone of any writing ability. In the memoir writing workshops, I'm learning that by focusing in on something small - a favourite object or perhaps one seemingly insignificant experience - you can suddenly bring back memories of an entire era in your life.

Whether you're interested in memoir writing or not, focussing on detail is an important key to any story. I see an element of truth in what my grandmother said all those years ago. You don't have to write a book about it, but we all have interesting life stories to tell. AI just steals stories from us. If nothing else, writing about your own life reminds you that you have something AI can never have - lived experience.

by Lu Hersey

PS Here's my grandma's Yorkshire parkin recipe, hand written by her. One of my favourite memories is the smell and taste of her wonderful parkin...

https://www.lu-hersey.com/

New You For Ever, written by Steve Cole, illustrated by Chris King, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart 14 Jan 3:30 PM (24 days ago)

The title of this book makes it sound like a self-help manual, but its actually a futuristic thriller aimed at teenage readers. Published by Barrington Stoke, it's a short novel designed to be accessible to struggling readers. It's fast-paced, exciting and thought-provoking.

Anders works with his Dad on a short good news slot of television news. But this is in a future where climate change has destroyed much of our world and enabled those in power to manipulate world populations. The immediate threat is being advertised as a panacea. Swap your human body for a Pleeka one, short of 'Replica'. Those fake bodies are perfect, not needing food or exericise or to learn anything, and they'll never get ill. They're already programmed, even promising perfect dancing skills! They're sold as a solution to climate breakdown because they save on foods and medicines. But their batteries die, and only the richest can afford to replace them. And how much power is used to create them? Worse than that, the authorities can control Pleekas. In a clock-ticking life or death adventure, we battle with Anders to get the truth out to the world, and change things for the better.

A story to make young people think about the future ahead for themselves and their world, and to question what is, and isn't, true.

The Rock From the Sky, by Jon Klassen (Anne Rooney) 13 Jan 12:53 AM (26 days ago)

Cover of The rock from the sky; shows a toroise and another animal looking at a flower under a large sky

This is perhaps a bit of a cheat but instead of waffling on to you today I'd like to direct you to this interview with Jon Klassen from 2021 about his book The Rock From the Sky. There are three things that make it particularly interesting. One is Klassen's stated desire to write a quiet book, and his explanation of the static images. I often hear authors complain that agents and editors turn down their books because they are too quiet; it's great to see this defence and explanation of quiet-done-properly. Second, Klassen cites his influences as including Samuel Becket and Stanley Kubrick. I love this. It never occurs to people outside the sphere of children's books that children's authors are influeced by (or even read/view) work by serious intellectuals whose work is intended for adults. (A book I'm currently working on is influenced by Kant and J.S.Mill, among others.) Finally, and most importantly, I love Klassen's account of how he likes to challenge the picture book format and how some of his books have been spawned by anger yet spin that anger into gold. This brilliant challenge to the dreary, oven-ready 'show don't tell' advice, for example:

"I want boring pictures that have something exciting as their context. So usually that’s emotional. If you tell the audience that this character is having a horrible day or that something’s really wrong, but you don’t draw that, then they get to load that drawing with emotion."

See read this interview on Tyger Tale instead of waiting for me to say something insightful.

Anne Rooney

Out now, Dec 2025, Arcturus publishing:

The Essential Book of AI

USING COLOUR IN CHILDREN'S BOOKS - PURPLE. By Sharon Tregenza 8 Jan 4:00 PM (last month)

PURPLE

Purple is a particularly interesting colour in children's literature because it evokes both imagination and emotion. It crosses the calm stability of blue with the energetic warmth of red. For children this can mix feelings of magic with creativity and curiousity.

Its often feels special because it's not so common in the natural world. That makes children associate it with make-believe and fantasy.

Authors and illustrators use purple to invite children into a world that is different while still feeling safe.

Three books that use the colour purple to great effect:

In "Harold and the Purple Crayon" by Crocket Johnson it's used to depict imagination. Harold's purple crayon creates a special world around him. It symbolises safety in exploration.

"Purple Green and Yellow" by Robert Munsch. The colour purple in this book stands out as bold and different. It's used for themes of independent expression which is valuable for children just learning about identity.

"The Gruffalo" by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. The purple prickles on the Gruffalo emphasises his magical nature. It's used here to signal mystery without fear helping children process tension in a non-threatening way.

In children's books purple tells young readers that this book is magical but also safe. It's an important visual aid that deepens a psychological connection to the story for children.

www.sharontregenza.com

sharontregenza@gmail.com

Members' News January 6 Jan 10:00 PM (last month)

Welcome to the first round-up of Scattered Authors news of 2026 and congratulations to everyone with a book out this month. Wishing us all a happy and successful year.

This month is the annual writing retreat at Folly Farm in Somerset where are group of scattered authors are looking forward to getting together to eat drink, write and be merry. The zoom spotlight sessions will also be running, quarterly this year. Look out for details.

New Books

A reminder from the December round-up that Jane Wickenden has seven stories in this intriguing and beautiful volume, Myths in Isolation, from Orkneyology Press, with the artwork of Katherine Soutar. The book is now available to buy. You can find full details and buy a copy here

Moira Butterfield has a new book out on January 8th. "It's called Star, Moon, Zoom. It's a playful look at space for 4-8 year olds, illustrated by Spanish artist Ro Ledesmo. The published - Happy Yak (Quarto) - let me do what I liked with the layouts so I had lots of fun with it."

https://www.quarto.com/books/9781836002130/star-moon-zoom

Paula Harrison has a book out on the 15th January. It’s the first in a new series called Animagicals published by Nosy Crow. The first book is Mia’s Tiger and it’s illustrated by Erwin Madrid.

https://nosycrow.com/product/animagicals-mias-tiger/

Animagicals are children born with the power to change into an animal. They can change into any animal and they need help controlling their ability until they find their true form – the animal they are destined to be. Will they fly like an eagle, leap like a leopard or skulk like a fox? Come and join them at Wildhaven, a magical school set up to protect and train animagicals in a magical forest hidden from the ordinary world.

If you have any news you'd like publicised - new book, an award, an event, send the details to Claire Fayers

Carnegie Extras by Paul May 3 Jan 9:00 PM (last month)

I've spent some time this last year compiling all those Carnegie posts I wrote for this blog into a book. It looks like this. That's the only copy, right there!

As well as a little bit about every winner of the Carnegie Medal up until 2024 the book contains drawings of more than 20 of the authors by my daughter, Emily May. I made the book mainly for me and it's been fun doing it. There may be only one real book in existence right now, but the whole thing is available from me, FOR FREE, as a PDF. If you head over to my blog/website As In The Long Ago and leave a message there, along with your email, I'll send you the PDF. Real books may also be available eventually, but only if enough people are interested to make it viable. Please contact me as above if you're interested.

A very happy new year to everyone!

Hope by Emily Dickinson - Joan Lennon 2 Jan 4:30 PM (last month)

Hope

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

(Poetry Foundation)

It's a new year. Here's to hope.

Joan Lennon website

Joan Lennon Instagram

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND GOOD WISHES FOR 2026 by Penny Dolan 1 Jan 1:06 AM (last month)

January 1st 2026.

New Year has always carried a strange aura. As a child, I sensed a thread of wistful melancholy running through all the glitter and jollity, and for decades the opening notes of ‘Old Land Syne’ brought me to ugly tears. Why and when, I wonder, did that stop? And yet it did.

I do still love that magical, illusory sense of pause as the year ends. I am caught by the odd trick of the empty calendar, the unmarked pages of one's new diary or journal. For a moment - and oh-so-very-lucky me, I know – there’s a sense of peace and opportunity and hope out there in the clear days ahead. I hope the new year will be good to you too.

Meanwhile, back to the post I originally wrote for today . . .

Choices, choices.

This coming Saturday - January 3rd - groups of Young Farmers will drive around our streets, collecting up unwanted Christmas trees. The trees, stripped and bare, are cast out of their homes the night before. They loll, unwanted, against hedges and gate-posts, like New Year revellers that never quite made it home.

Early that morning, the Young Farmer’s truck and trailer will come rumbling down the cul-de sac. A group of sturdy, still-almost-young men will stride alongside, throwing the flailing trees into the back of the giant trailer in the manner of legendary giants. The trees are crushed and stacked together by a couple of bolder Young Farmers, standing heroically upright in the trailer. In they come, the YF, and off they go, taking all the discarded trees off to be shredded and used for animal bedding or something equally rural and useful.

The YF are doing a good thing. The unwanted Christmas trees raise money: people make a donation for every tree collected, with the funds split between the Young Farmer’s Association own support services and a large local Hospice. All of this is good and noble, and all is well,

But oh, something in me rebels against that morning. January 3rd? Why do the Young Farmer’s chose such an early date? (I know, I know.)

I recently saw a social media boast about ‘took my tree down on Boxing Day’ and it seemed so untimely to me. So very careless of custom and tradition, which I like to believe, is not necessarily the same as the huge marketing pushes that start around October. Perhaps their tree went up on November 6th?

From my ancient lady point of view, we should not be taking our Christmas trees down so swiftly. Trees disappeared late on 5th January, known as Twelfth Night, the eve before 6th January, the Epiphany or 'Three Kings' Day, when the Infant was shown to the world. You could keep those emptying branches glittering away until 2nd February, Candlemas, and the end of the Christmas season.

So The Young Farmers are coming, for me, much too early! I am stuck here, pondering. The third or not the third?

I do love our Christmas tree and don’t want it to depart. Do I give in to rough convenience, strip the branches of light and glitter, and shove the poor thing out into the cold and dark, like a feeble Hans Christian Andersen story extra?

Or should My Tree stand dressed and lovely, with all its lights shining brightly, with me alongside, resolutely drinking my morning coffee as the tumbrils go by. Tonight, that scene, that version is where my heart is. I can make the charity donation anyway.

However, somewhere, I hear a small, practical voice, whispering firmly about how extremely well pine needles embed themselves into car upholstery . .

Choices, choices!

Penny Dolan

PS. The 'tree' piece above was inspired, at quite an angle, by the following:
‘The photograph of the past changes with time and yet it remains the same, In other words, a tree is a tree until you know how or when it was planted or by whom. Once you know then it is no longer a tree. It is symbolic. It is a series of stories. It has a truth.’ Lemn Sissay.

Quoted in ‘Write It All Down: How to put your life on the page’ by Cathy Rentsenbrink.

Bringing my dead dad home for Christmas 18 Dec 2025 4:00 PM (last month)

This will be the first year in a long time that I haven't had to drive down to Plymouth on Christmas day to cook my father's Christmas dinner - or like last year, visit him in the care home to chat to him while he ate his. I moaned about making this trip every year. It nearly always poured with rain and the motorway journey was a nightmare. Also, my father had no idea about cooking, which meant taking everything with me. Literally everything. Turkey, veg, even the cooking oil, seasoning and roasting tins.

His contribution was to insist he'd already bought the potatoes, so there was no need to bring any. The family called it #potatogate. A maximum of three potatoes in a bag (if we were lucky), usually already sprouting. Basically, enough for him. It happened every year.

Despite all this, I'll miss #potatogate. I'll even miss that journey.

He died in January this year. The day he died, the family raced down in the worst of weather to see him. The rain was apocalyptic and the motorway was partly flooded, and I could almost feel my dad calling to us in the howling wind. He was a very cautious man. He would definitely have told us to turn back.

He was already dead, but I wanted to see him anyway. One last time. Entering his room, he looked almost cheerful lying on his bed, wearing his best blue stripy pyjamas. At that precise moment, the rain stopped, clouds parted and a shaft of sunlight poured onto on his face through the open window. (There were reasons the care home had the window open, which I won't go into - but in the sunlight it felt like his exit route out, free at last.)

Since his funeral, his ashes have been stored at the funeral home. They sent me a letter this month, reminding me he was there, and letting me know his free storage time was nearly up.

What do you do with ashes? He hadn't made any requests himself, mostly because he thought he was immortal. Towards the end in the care home, he'd even asked me to get a refund on his funeral plan as he didn't need it. Fortunately his failing memory meant he didn't follow up on that one, but it was just as well he'd mentioned it, as I'd no idea he even had one. The plan covered the funeral, but said nothing about what he wanted done with his ashes.

While the family decides (I favour scattering them where he dumped his last wife's), I'm thinking of driving down to collect him in time for Christmas. I even wondered about taking him to my daughter's place for Christmas dinner (I haven't told her, so probably best leave him outside in the car). I might even take him to his favourite beach before we start the journey.

I recognise this is more for me than for him. He wasn't a sentimental man at all and probably couldn't care less. He kept my mother in the wardrobe for months.

I often wonder if he told his next girlfriend she was in there...

Anyway, if you're stuck with difficult journeys and annoying relatives this festive season, remember no one lasts forever, and one day you might even miss them.

Whatever you're doing, I wish you all a merry Christmas.

Lu Hersey

"76 ways to make Christmas simple" by Steve Way 16 Dec 2025 7:00 PM (last month)

It’s that time of year when magazines become full of articles such as, "76 Ways to make Christmas Simple" for which the title effortlessly and completely negates the premise behind the piece.

I was wondering if there could be titles for any other books or articles that would also undermine them in a similar fashion. I’ve had a few ideas and would love to see yours – maybe including real titles you know of already! Back in the day, I remember a series with the linked “Made simple” title, such as “Quantum Physics made simple”, which seemed to give away their failure to live up to their promise by all being roughly as long as “War and Peace”.

How about…

“The Bumper Book of positive things to say about politicians”

(This edition actually comes with pages!)

~~~~~

“A million and one bleedin’ obvious reasons why FIFA shouldn’t award a Peace Prize”

People who were daft enough to buy this also bought “My zero most reliable statements about resolving conflict” by Neville Chamberlain. (This edition soon to be updated with added contributions unfortunately.)

~~~~~

For football lovers (perhaps…)

“1001 ways of possibly understanding the offside rule and it’s reliable execution by referees”

(Can be paired with, “4 million ways of actually caring”.)

~~~~~

For younger readers…

“204 reasons why we love going to school and doing homework!”

~~~~~

In the fantasy section…

“400 ways to avoid having your latest manuscript rejected”

Useful to purchase with, “50 ways not to be completely devastated and demoralised.”

~~~~~

And as it’s coming up to Christmas…

“-6 ways of avoiding your in-laws for Christmas”*

*We didn’t think we’d be able to reach that high a number!

~~~~~

Happy Christmas everyone – I hope you enjoy it in a variety of ways!

Mullets, by Nick Sharratt, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart 14 Dec 2025 3:30 PM (last month)

If you, or a small person you know enjoy the completely daft, then this wonderful picture book is for you.

'Lets spend a whiles

on Mullet Isle.

Everyone there

has SPECIAL hair!'

They all, people, cats, frogs, sharks, even bumble bees have mullet hair styles, and we're given a guide so that we, too, can become expert in spotting the iconic 1970s mullet hairstyle.

All fun and good, but how is Nick Sharratt going to conclude this fun in a satisfying way? I'm not going to tell you because it would spoil things for you, but I can promise you not one, but two, final spreads which both deliver laugh out loud surprises!

AI takes over or people don't read? Or both? (Anne Rooney) 12 Dec 2025 11:24 PM (last month)

Photo: health.harvard.edu
In a sense, AI fiction is very like over-processed
food as you don't know what's in it, it's entirely artificial
and its production and consumption are exploitative
Well, which is it? Either, neither or both?
There is plenty of doom-saying around and no way of knowing which way the tide will actually flow. On the one hand, a recently published survey from Cambridge University revealed 51% of novelists believe AI-generated trashy fiction will damage their career and income. At the same time, other surveys have found that people aren't reading. The National Literacy Trust found that just one in three children aged 8-18 enjoy reading for pleasure.

Is AI going to churn out books for people who don't read them?

The most at-risk group of novelists, it appears, are genre writers — those who write romance, in particular, but also thrillers and crime. These are plot-focused genres, and plot is the thing that AI is likely to be best at doing as it's just 'one thing after another', a series of external happenings. Obviously a plot is more than this: it relies on revealing a sequence that looks inevitable after the event but is not obvious in advance, in tying it to the psychology of the characters, in balancing plausibility and surprise, and so on. But a poor-quality genre novel is more plot than anything else, and so more likely to be achieved by AI than is, say, a literary novel of tortured psychological investigation. I am not dissing either of these; they are just different.

When non-writers say they have an idea for a novel, the idea is generally a plot. They don't usually have a character they want to explore or a writing style they want to exercise, though those may be starting points for an established or accomplished writer. Putting a plot outline to AI and getting it to flesh it out is fairly easy for both the putative writer and the AI. Hence the proliferation of plot-driven AI so-called fiction.

It seems likely, as many people have said, that the market will split into expensive human-authored books and cheap or free AI slop. Probably, some people will buy both, especially if they are not clearly labelled. If publishers see people paying £17 for a paperback by a real author, are they going to think they might as well charge that for their AI-produced books? Why wouldn't they? Principally because the sales will be so small. If you can sell 100,000 copies for £1 but only 1500 copies for £17, you're better off with the 100,000 copies (£100,000 v. £25,500). People will soon decide what they like and what they can afford. I will buy the £17 books when I can and read old books or borrow from libraries when I can't.

Ah, libraries. Will they stock the AI-generated books? There are good arguments on both sides. If they are cheaply available, libraries can afford them. If people do want to read them, surely they should be avaiable? But if people want to read real books that they can't afford, isn't it the job of libraries to provide those? Libraries already have to make decisions about what to stock, which licenses to online magazines and journals to pay for, and so on. They do stock genre fiction. They don't buy subscriptions to cheap rags or fill their shelves with the cheapest trashy fiction (apart from anything else, the poor quality of the physical books means they will fall apart quickly).

If reading is declining, who is still reading? Is it the people like us (as in, readers of blogs about books —people who are genuinely interested and committed readers)? If so, won't we be inclined to favour human-authored books? If people (people in general now) find the quality of the books they get is deteriorating, will they just switch their attention to other platforms even more quickly? So the AI-generated books might accelerate the decrease in reading rates, to their own cost. This is another reason why we need really clear labelling.

Readers should be able to buy a book (if they want to) that honestly reflects the experience of being human because it was written by a human. They should also be able to make a fair judgment about what they are likely to get. An AI-generated novel might have a coherent plot and a story you want to read, and you might not care that it doesn't reflect the genuine experience of being a human individual. But if you do care, you shouldn't be duped. If you buy books that disappoint you, you will stop buying books. If you buy books you know are produced by AI and they disappiont you, you might try buying a human-authored book instead.

Many, many markets divide by quality and cost. You can go to the deli and spend a lot on an artisan cheese or you can go to Aldi and buy budget 'hard cheese'. You can buy a top from Shein or go to Next or M&S and buy a mid-price item or you can go to a designer store or have something handmade by a talented craftsperson. We know people want to get what they are paying for. Look at the outcry when fraudsters stock their Etsy store with mass produced stuff at inflated prices. With honesty, we can keep readers buying books. Without it, AI will pour trash into a depleting market, undermining and disappointing everyone.

Anne Rooney

Out now, Arcturus 2025: The Essential Book of AI

The Crocodile on the Bus – Capturing memories before the Elephant forgets by Lynda Waterhouse 10 Dec 2025 10:00 PM (last month)

This is the second community short film I’ve produced in two years with funding from Southwark Council’s Neighbourhood Fund. It was twelve months in the making, on an excruciatingly low budget, drawing on tons of favours and goodwill and leaving me a bag of nerves.

Never one to make life easy for myself by following the exact same model as its companion, ‘The Old Cow in the Kitchen’ completed in 2024.

https://www.southwark.gov.uk/southwark-presents/film-month-old-cow-kitchen-and-other-stories-2024)

I wanted this film to generate some new creative work so I invited Paul Taylor to write a poem using some of the old photographs of the area. He produced three stunning poems. Sara Byers composed a song based on some of the accounts of cinemagoers to the iconic and long demolished Trocadero Cinema.

Our filmmaking process to the onlooker must have appeared lackadaisical and random but it was a deliberate decision on mine and filmmaker Ludmilla Andrews’s part not to simply ‘interview’ people. We wanted to take our time, share conversations, laughter and cake, trusting that the stories would eventually unfold. This meant that we built lasting friendships but also that Ludmilla had a huge task editing all the material. It also meant that some surprising stories emerged.

How many times have people said, mainly at funerals, ‘I wished I had asked them about... and now we’ll never know.’ Another aim of the project was to remind people to have those conversations and overcome any shyness about asking certain questions.

Working on this project also held up a mirror to my own writing process reminding me that I always start a writing project with a character who interests me and often come up with a title long before the story is fully formed. Then comes a first draft followed by a long editing and cutting period.

So as the holiday season approaches and family and friends gather, now might be the perfect time to ask those questions. Go on I dare you!

USING COLOUR IN CHILDREN'S BOOKS - ORANGE 8 Dec 2025 4:00 PM (2 months ago)

ORANGE

Orange is a bold warm colour. It can make young readers feel excited and ready for adventure. The mix of yellow's cheerfulness and red's excitement creates a perfect combination.

Orange will boost imagination and grab attention in a fun, friendly way.

Here are some examples of illustrators using the colour orange to its best advantage:

The Gruffalo's bright orange eyes are instantly recognisable and create a feeling of warmth and affection for the lovable menace.

This book is fully created around the word and colour orange. It's used perfectly in the storytelling as well as the artwork.

Who doesn't recognise Judith Kerr's wonderful orange tiger in her famous book "The Tiger who came to Tea"? His bright orange coat dominates the pages and makes him a friendly rather than frightening character.

www.sharontregenza.com

sharontregenza@gmail.com

News Round-Up of 2025 6 Dec 2025 10:00 PM (2 months ago)

A big thank you to everyone who sent their news in this year. It's great to see so many books published, schools visited, awards won.

Here's a run-down of the whole year. If you're looking for Christmas gifts, do take a look and support your fellow Sassies.

January - March

Dancing Dumplings by Eva Wong Nada, illustrated by Natelle Quek
My Mum, by Susan Quinn, illustrated Sarah Mathew
The Welsh language edition of Behind Closed Doors by Miriam Halahm
World of Wanda by Karen McCombie
Gathering the Glimmers written and illustrated by Ffion Jones
I Don't Do Mountains by Barbara Henderson
Paperback edition: Talking History: 150 Years of Speakers and Speeches, by Joan Haig and Joan Lennon, illustrated by Andre Ducci.

Plus hundreds of school visits, putting thousands of books into the hands of excited readers.

April - June

Food For All, and David, the Unauthorised Biography, both by Mary Hoffman

Project Pony by Camilla Chester

Valley of the Vikings by Liz Kessler

Land of the Last Wildcat by Lui Sit launched as Waterstones's Book of the Month

The Lucky House Detective Agency by Lui Sit, writing as Scarlett Li

You Choose Bedtime by Pippa Goodheart, illustrated by Nick Sharratt

Naeli and the Secret Song by Jasbinder Bilan

Plus a shortlisting for Cobalt, by Sue Klauber

July - September

The Secret Life of Clouds by Moira Butterfield, illustrated Vivian Mineker

Will Wolfheart by Teresa Heapy

My Sister is a Treasure by Tracy Darnton, illustrated by Yasmeen Ismail

One Cat, Two Cats by Jonathan Emmett, illustrated by Rob Hodgson

How to Build a Planet (illustrated by Clare Elsom) and Snore, Sneeze, Burp (illustrated by Ro Ledesma) both by Moira Butterfield

True Friends by Sheena Wilkinson

Plus a long-listing for Look What I Found by the River by Moira Butterfield

October - November

The Stalker by Teri Terry - her first adult book

Hidden Toxins by Helen Larder

Swanfall by Sophie Kirtley

Landscape with Mines by Anna Bowles

Pomegranates for Peace, by Miriam Halahmy

Miss McVey Takes Charge by Sheena Wilkinson

And, finally for this year, some exciting extra news items:

Katherine Langrish wrote an essay called 'The Door in the Mound' for a book on writing fantasy published by Dead Ink, titled 'Writing the Magic' and available in paperback now. Her essay was the only one on writing fantasy for children, well worth getting hold of.

Jane Wickenden has seven stories in this intriguing collection, Myths in Isolation, coming January.

I will continue news round-ups on the 7th of each month. You can send me your items at any time.

Thanks!

Claire

www.clairefayers.com

Reading in Spanish by Paul May 3 Dec 2025 9:00 PM (2 months ago)

Lately, as part of my attempt to improve my Spanish, I've been reading books mainly in that language. The first book I got hold of was a set of literary short stories in a dual-language edition. This proved unsatisfactory in several ways. Firstly, and I should have thought of this, literary fiction of most kinds is often more demanding than thrillers and romance. Text in Spanish is demanding enough for me without having to struggle to understand what the writer is getting at. Secondly, a dual-language text is not necessarily a word-for-word translation and it turns out that, for me at least, it works better to translate individual words and figure out the sense for myself. And, thirdly, the selection of stories in that particular book didn't grip me.

Next I picked up a copy, in Spanish, of Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls. But with this one I became distracted by the fact that the English text was so beautifully written and the Spanish translation never seemed quite right. In fact I was so distracted that I ended up reading the whole Country Girls trilogy in English.

Then, browsing in Foyles, I came across a thriller. This seemed like a good idea. Up-to-date dialogue and a page-turning plot to motivate me. Best-selling author. What could go wrong? Not much as it turned out.

The book I chose was Todo Vuelve by Juan Goméz Jurado. This is a violent, action-filled thriller, and it was the first book I read from beginning to end in Spanish. However, this was only possible with the help of Google. If I'd had to sit with a dictionary by my side, pausing every dozen words or so to look something up, I'd never have done it. My process was to try to read a page and get the sense of it, then take a pic and translate the text to clarify everything. The book was about 500 pages long, so a dual-language version could never have worked, but I was amazed by the sophistication of Google Translate. It can even translate idioms into their English equivalent - for example, the Spanish pull your hair rather than pulling your leg and Google knows to translate one with the other.

It was after I finished that book that I began to think about matters of style and judgement. It's very hard to judge the pace of a book when you're reading it a page at a time and stopping frequently to translate. For almost the first time in years I was reading every word. I had the feeling that the pace of the book was a bit slow, that everything seemed to take a long time, but of course it was taking a long time, for me. Maybe it was like the Reacher books, where one of Lee Child's trademarks is his ability to spend a couple of pages describing Reacher opening a door or taking a weapon apart.

And then there was this author's fondness for strange similes and metaphors. Was it because I wasn't Spanish that they didn't really work for me? I couldn't tell. But there was no doubt that the whole process was helping my Spanish, so I went looking for more thrillers and found a writer called Roberto Martínez Guzmán. His thrillers were set in Galicia and it helped that I'd been to that part of Spain and recognised many of the locations. There was enough interest in his books to carry me along, and I could see that the author had used various mechanisms common to many English language crime writers, for example the detective's liking for a type of music that acts as a shorthand for outlining their character. However, as my reading became more fluent I began to notice things that could have been helped by a bit of editing and I also suspected that these books had started out self-published on Amazon. My suspicions increased when I asked after the author in a bookshop in Spain and the proprietor had never heard of him.

Next I discovered the novels of Cristian Perfumo, thrillers set in Patagonia and Barcelona. These were fun, too, but as my ability to read improved (and my Kindle started saying things like 'ten minutes left in chapter' rather than 'three hours left in chapter') I began to notice things I hadn't noticed before. I started asking myself, if this was in English would I have read it? Finally, it occurred to me to search for lists of the top Spanish crime writers on the internet. None of the authors I'd been reading appeared on those lists, and when I looked for Kindle editions of these recommended books they were all much more expensive than the ones I'd been reading. Maybe this was a clue. I bought one of them (the cheapest!) El último barco by Domingo Villar. I noticed immediately that Villar has a distinctive style. The plot proceeds slowly but the detailed descriptions of landscapes and interiors are of a different quality to the other books I've read. All children's authors know that making description interesting is both tricky and essential. Like Guzmán's books, these are set in Galicia, but the landscape comes to life in an entirely different way. There came a moment, about three chapters in, when I finished a paragraph and thought, Wow! that was really great writing.

I've also read a couple of children's books in Spanish. I've written quite a few football-based books, so I couldn't resist Los Futbolísmos when I found the first volume of the series in a bookshop. It's a completely different kind of football story to anything I've come across in the UK - aimed at 8-9-year-olds and above, it's almost 300 pages long! It's also highly illustrated. And the series is incredibly successful in Spain. The best thing about it from the point of view of a learner of Spanish is that it's full of natural, up-to-date (ish) idiomatic dialogue. But, despite the fact that I am considerably more than 9 years old, I still needed help from Google to read this. If I could read, speak and understand Spanish as well as a 9-year-old Spanish child I think I'd be happy.

And, finally, I should mention Don Quixote. I've tried and failed a few times to read this hugely long book, and I have succeeded at last. I found a children's edition in Spanish and it was only 70 pages long. Maybe one day I'll read the original. Maybe.