Deborah Ellis shares her experiences of researching her latest book, set in Afghanistan, My Name is Parvana. Late in the l990s, I spent time in the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. Millions of Afghans fled there from the Soviet occupation, the civil war and then the atrocities of the Taliban. The stories I heard there […]
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We were talking about the old days, and I remembered the weirdest things. Like people calling them ‘friends’. And how they said they were good for your brain. Some families even laid a place for them at dinner. Debut novelist Nikki Sheehan shares her thoughts on the phenomenon of imaginary friends, based on her research […]
Read moreStand-up comedian and author of the brand new The Private Blog of Joe Cowley, Ben Davis shares his top 3 favourite April Fool pranks… Hi everybody! My name is Ben Davis and I’m a writer. My debut novel is called The Private Blog of Joe Cowley . It’s about a fourteen-year-old boy who starts his own secret blog to document his […]
Read morePolly Shulman shares the challenges of writing her time-travel novel, The Wells Bequest , a story full of fantastic objects from popular science fiction stories and packed with fascinating time-travelling conundrums! I thought the hardest part of writing a time-travel novel would be getting the historical details right. I was wrong. The hardest part was dealing with the […]
Read moreWilliam Hussey, author of Haunted , talks about where ideas come from… ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ That’s the question writers dread most, because, you see, often it’s as much a mystery to us as to anyone! How does the first spark of a story ignite? I believe that the writer’s unconscious mind does most of […]
Read moreThis week marks the centenary of the death of Emily Wilding Davison, an activist who fought for women’s suffrage in Britain, famously stepping in front of the king’s horse at the Epsom Derby. Author Julie Hearn joins us to talk about Emily, the suffragettes, and the inspiration behind her novel Hazel . For a while, years […]
Read moreI have always ‘done’ funny. Both as a reader, and a writer. As a child, I snorted through every page of every Dr Seuss, laughed until I cried at Russell Hoban’s inspired creation Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong in her iron hat cooking mutton sog, and the mere mention of the East Pagwell Canal from Professor Branestawm […]
Read moreCelebrating the publication of The Rachel Riley Diaries: The Life of Riley , Joanna Nadin shares what she wanted to be when she grew up! I never wanted to be a writer when I grew up. That is to say, it didn’t occur to me that writing was a “real” job, much less one that I would be capable of, or derive enjoyment […]
Read moreDave Cousins, author of 15 Days Without a Head and Waiting for Gonzo , shares his story making secret. One of the most common questions asked of writers is where do you get your ideas from? It’s a question that many will struggle to answer—not me. I know exactly where my stories originate. I’ll let you into the secret, but don’t go spreading it around. This is […]
Read moreGeraldine McCaughrean , Tim Bowler , Sally Prue , and Gillian Cross are four incredibly talented and inspirational authors who we are very proud to have on our list. With all four authors having new titles published this spring, an ideal opportunity arose to gather this awesome foursome, so we challenged them to a four day roadshow of events across the U.K. and […]
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