Two unique, thought-provoking posts by two unique YA authors. The first is Night Runner by Carnegie Medal-winning Tim Bowler and the second is Replica by Australian writer Jack Heath. Writing Night Runner by Tim Bowler Night Runner is a fast-moving story and it came to me at a sprint. It’s about a fifteen-year-old boy […]
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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 […]
Read moreWe 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 moreHistorical fiction author Marie-Louise Jensen introduces us to the hidden world of smuggling – the backdrop to her latest novel Smuggler’s Kiss. Isabelle is rescued from drowning by the crew of a notorious smuggling ship, and finds herself in a world of adventure, romance, and a thrilling fight for justice. Researching smuggling is a tortuous […]
Read moreThe wonderful Tim Bowler writes on our relationship with the sea, as explored in his latest novel, Sea of Whispers : a haunting tale of love, loss, courage, and mystery in a beautifully-evoked remote island setting. I am writing this blog piece from a favourite spot: a high nest in a little town perched above the sea on the south […]
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Award-winning author Gillian Cross writes about the inspiration for her latest novel, After Tomorrow – a dark survival thriller scarily close to home . . . Ideas can come from very unexpected places. After Tomorrow takes place in England and France, but it started with a picture of boys in Africa. I was doing some work with a charity […]
Read moreJoanna Nadin on that hallowed object, the teenage diary, and the influence of her teenage years on the hilarious Rachel Riley Diaries. One of the most-oft asked questions of writers is: “Is the book autobiographical?” Or “Is there any of you in there?” The easy answer is that every book contains a little of its […]
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