On this week’s blog chain we’re comparing our favourite books to our (or, at least, my) favourite foodstuff. This is an analogy that can only be stretched so far (I like my chocolate scary, with supernatural elements and er hazelnuts), but here goes: Dark Chocolate Good for you but occasionally bitter and not always…
Book Week
And there was me thinking what a cushy doss of a job being a writer was. It started gently enough on Wednesday with a visit to my sister’s school in Hackney. I’ve visited these kids before and they’re brilliant: lively, enthusiastic and bursting with questions. This time I was talking to year 5 and 6…
Blood List Trailer
Blood List Trailer Here’s a trailer I made for The Blood List. Just me and iMovie, a baby, some scissors and a raven. In a graveyard.
Blog Chain – Dusty Hangars and Idea Graveyards
My pal, Fletcher Moss, winner of the Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition 2012 for his debut, ‘The Poison Boy’, has tagged me on a Blog Chain. I have to answer four questions and then pass them on to the next in the chain. Fletcher’s answers are here (http://sleepwellandfly.blogspot.co.uk) and I’ll be tagging CJ Flood, author of…
The Costa Party!
Last night I was lucky enough to attend the Costa Book Awards party with my lovely agent, Eve White. For those of you who dream of being a writer I’d like to say KEEP TRYING, because it really is an awful lot of fun. It was a great party in many ways (free…
HMR made the Branford Boase Awards longlist
Here’s the blurb: The BBA was set up to reward the most promising new writers and their editors, as well as to reward excellence in writing and in publishing. The Award is made annually to the most promising book for seven year-olds and upwards by a first time novelist. Me and Venetia Gosling, my editor…
The Blood List – coming soon…
My new thriller for teens, set amidst the witch persecutions of the 1600s, is out 27th Feb. Here’s the blurb… The year is 1646 and the country is gripped by wild tales of witches, murder and changelings. Superstition has haunted Barnaby’s whole life, but when the beautiful Naomi catches his eye, dark rumours take hold…
HMR made the Sussex Longlist!
After losing out on the Costa to that Riddell bloke The Hanged Man Rises has been longlisted for the Sussex ABAs. The ABAs, or to give it its full name, The Sussex Coast Schools Amazing Book Awards, is a book award set up at the start of 2011 by a small group of school librarians from…
The Hanged Man Rises is shortlisted for Costa award!
The judges said: “This is a beautifully evoked, gripping, Victorian chiller which will appeal to boys and girls.” And I hardly had to pull any of their fingernails out. Click to access 2013-CBA-Shortlists.pdf
A poetic Interlude
It’s been a while since anything of interest has happened so here’s the blog equivalent of the music they play when you’re on hold. In honour of the 2013 city of culture, here is my favourite poem by my favourite poet: The Whitsun Weddings, by Philip Larkin That Whitsun, I was late getting away: Not till…
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