Monday, 11 May 2009

Performing authors and Fiona's video

My friend Fiona Dunbar's new book Tiger-Lily Gold has just come out and to celebrate she made this video (I helped!)
Meanwhile, Nicola Morgan (Deathwatch) is aiming for a world record in school visits.

Anthony Horowitz (The Power of Five: Necropolis) is appearing in a virtual event targetting nine thousand children in 216 schools.

And big name authors are guaranteed roles at a proliferation of children's book festivals to draw the crowds.

The Book Brunch children's column wonders "how much the life of a children’s author has become about personal contact with children as well as contact through books ..."
 Have we lost anything since the days when we only knew writers and illustrators through their books? When we weren’t necessarily sure what sex E B White, E Nesbitt, P L Travers, and L M Montgomery were, let alone what they looked like? (Though A A Milne and C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien had got famous enough for us to know.) Was there something to be said for imagining an author through his or her work? P L Travers looked liked Mary Poppins in my head.

Is the standard of performance getting too high for authors who are "merely" good at writing? So it is not enough to write a gripping tale: you also have to be Eoin Colfer in front of an audience. Or do these showmen do the whole profession the favour of giving it glamour, and making kids want to be in it, as they want to be other kinds of celebrities? Read more
Should we resist the demands of our ever-more-swiftly spinning world? Should we insist that writers be allowed to do only that, write?

I recently acquired a Flip Mino - one of those easy peasy pocket camcorders.

I figure the Flip would make it easier for me to build up some useful footage for a future marketing campaign.

There is never a better time to surrender to the inevitable than now.

Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Sue and Sarwat Reading at the Crystal Palace Book Festival

Book Crow put this up on his website and I'm thrilled because I went to the book festival but missed these readings by my SCBWI friends -

The Quiet Woman and the Noisy Dog by Sue Eves



Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda

Tuesday, 28 April 2009

I wanna be an illustrator

That's right. I've always wanted to be an illustrator. But there are always too many practical things in the way. For now I content myself with watching wonderful videos like this. 


The first artist featured is Moebius a.k.a. Jean Giraud, a favourite from my teenhood.

Psst. I want one of those drawing gadgets too!

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