Sara O'Connor's Writer's Survival Guide

by Teri Terry

The lovely, enthusiastic and multi-talented Sara O’Connor spoke to the Chiltern Writers in Wendover last night. Sara is senior editorial manager for fiction at Hodder Children’s Books. Previously she was senior commissioning editor for book packagers extraordinaire, Working Partners, and she is also co-editor of the wonderful Undiscovered Voices anthology, the SCBWI competition for unagented and unpublished writers that has launched many careers – including one Carnegie listed Candy Gourlay. As if that isn’t enough, she has also written four books in a popular children's series for a packager that are coming out this year.

Sara O’Connor answers THE question: how do you get published?

It turns out that the answer is simple:

Guest Blogger Maureen Lynas: Happy New Competence!

Previously on Incompetence- The Series:

Episode One: Our very excited Lesser-spotted Red-faced Authors have hatched from their egg of unconscious incompetence and discovered a world in which they don't know what they don't know. Please Note : If you've just read the first episode and found no reference to the Lesser-spotted Red-faced Author blame my incompetence and lack of imagination at the time.

Episode Two: The fledgling authors discover just how enormous their incompetence is and they now know what it is that they don't know.

Library Visits…. from 'The Other Side'

By Teri Terry

I’m not referring to holding a séance, here. Though, if it could work and you could get Roald Dahl or C.S. Lewis or the like in for an afternoon, that would be interesting. But that isn’t today’s topic. Instead, I’m putting my other hat on for a moment, and looking at author visits from the library’s point of view.

Disclaimer: These are purely the views of the blog author (meaning me) and are not meant to represent anyone who may or may not be alarmed at the expression of any pro-literacy or pro-library sentiment which I may or may not hold.

Am I good to go on?