Jaqueline Wilson Loves Freddie Mercury

I recently began to subscribe to Sky's The Book Show on YouTube, presented by Mariella Frostrup. It's a video version of the Thursday afternoon show Frostrup presents on Radio 4 which I listen to while I'm on the school run.

In a segment called 'The Write Place' , the show features author's writing places. The big revelation about Jacqueline Wilson is that alongside her collection of Madonna figurines is a replica of this Freddie Mercury statue in Montreux! Rock on!

Once Spoken, Forever Forgotten - Me on Cynthia Leitch Smith's Blog

Goodness gracious, I have inadvertently appeared in YA author Cynthia Leitich Smith's blog!

I was interviewed by the excellent Anita Loughrey in anticipation of my talk before the SCBWI pre-Bologna conference.

Reading the interview, I was struck by how little I remembered of what I'd said.

And we mustn't forget that this is the world that our readers take for granted--TV, computers, games, the Web--this is the world our readers know. As writers for children, it is our responsibility to inhabit it with them.

It's a good thing someone was writing it all down.

For lack of anything interesting to illustrate this article with, here is a cartoon from my unpublished collection of pregnancy cartoons Who Are You And Why Are You Standing On My Bladder

The Agent Dunnit!

Okay, so I'm addicted to films about writers trying to get published. Last night I watched this Christmas TV movie starring Rob Lowe - The Perfect Day.

Guy gets fired, writes novel, gets rejected ... the usual.

Then a literary agent (Six Feet Under's Frances Conroy) sees the marvel of his manuscript and signs him ... the book climbs to number one on the New York Times bestseller list ... and the Rob Lowe character promptly turns into a jerk.

The jerk needs to learn a lesson which is provided by mysterious meetings with the mad professor from Back to the Future telling him all sorts of unknowable things including the fact that he was going to die on Christmas day.

So are there supernatural things at work? Is he going to die? After all those rejections, isn't a writer allowed some Pride before the Fall?

Turns out it was all a trick. He was getting too big for his boots. He had to be taught a lesson. And who was behind the lesson?

His AGENT.

I could have cried after this plot twist was revealed.

Except I was too busy laughing.