Muncle Trogg love hits Germany... And congrats to Kim for an Honorary Mention!

This week, congratulations go to Janet Foxley for the latest news on Muncle - or Munkel - Trogg who has found success in Germany. Then we celebrate Kim Lloyd who won the Honorary Mention for the Margaret Carey Scholarship.

Janet had been writing children’s books for thirty-five years and Muncle Trogg itself for about seven when it won the Times/Chicken House Prize 2010 for a children’s novel by an unpublished author. Published by Chicken House in 2011, it subsequently sold to twenty-four countries, has been optioned for a film by Sony Animation and short-listed for a number of awards. A sequel, Muncle Trogg and the Flying Donkey, was published in 2012 and a third book will be published in April 2014, but initially only in Germany, where it is called Muncle Trogg and the Long Dragon Flight. Muncle, or Munkel, has had his greatest success in Germany, where he is published by Fischer, and has just won the German Audio Book Prize, which is actually for the reader, Boris Aljinovic, not the book.

 Janet tells us: “I am particularly pleased that Muncle has done so well in Germany as I misspent several happy years of my youth in the country during and after my degree in German. As a result my German is still good enough to discuss the books with the translator and to thoroughly enjoy the audiobooks.” Barry Cunningham, Chicken House Publisher, made this comment on Twitter ‘Our own dear Muncle Trogg has won the First Prize in the German Audio Books Awards - his great smallness grows!’

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Next, please raise your glasses for Kim Lloyd, who received the Honorable Mention for the Margaret Carey Scholarship for her YA novel 'The Last Time I Cried.'

Kim tells us: "I developed the story whilst on the MA Writing for Young People at Bath Spa Uni and I loved every minute of the course. It's improved my writing immeasurably and I've made wonderful, lifelong friends. I've now graduated, with Distinction, and it's nearly time to send my book out into the big, wide world (after a few more edits!) Receiving the Honorable Mention from SCBWI has done wonders for my confidence as it was the first time I sent the story to anyone outside my Uni group and the positive feedback's been great. As a writer, you can feel isolated and question your own judgement, so it's brilliant when someone enjoys what you've written. 'The Last Time I Cried' is, on the surface, a dark tale about a damaged girl who makes some terrible choices, leading to tragedy. However, the story has an undercurrent of hope and redemption and, ultimately, it shows that you can escape the past and look to the future."

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Tania Tay is an ex-advertising copywriter and has been published in Sable LitMag. She is currently writing a YA romantic thriller, is a member of The Golden Egg Academy and is on the editorial team at Words & Pictures.

The Skull in the Wood shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize!

Get ready to dig into a big fat slice of cake this week, as we celebrate with Sandra Greaves, author of the chilling contemporary ghost story The Skull in the Wood, which has been shortlisted for the Waterstone's Children’s Book Prize 2014. 




We first celebrated Sandra's book launch in September. And we asked her to tell us a little more about her journey to publication....

@sandra_greaves 

Sandra tells us: "The Skull in the Wood would probably have never come to life if I hadn’t slipped on black ice back in 2010 and broken my ankle in three places. Suddenly I couldn’t do anything except watch daytime TV or write, and thankfully I chose the writing option. Grim though the accident was, I’m very grateful. My first draft emerged very fast and I was accepted onto the Apprenticeships in Fiction mentoring programme for a year where my mentor, the author Catherine Johnson, helped me knock out the bad bits and hone the good bits. Just when I’d got the novel as far as I could, Undiscovered Voices asked for submissions – and I ended up one of the winners of UV 2012. The fantastic exposure from UV netted me an agent (Anna Power from Johnson & Alcock) and then a publisher – Chicken House. The Skull in the Wood finally came out in September last year and was shortlisted for Shrewsbury Bookfest. And now, unbelievably, it’s been nominated for the Waterstone's Children’s Book Prize as well – to be judged on 3 April. Two other SCBWI writers are also shortlisted – Piers Torday and Gemma Merino. No matter what the outcome is, it feels brilliant. But now I really do have to get on with book number two…."

“The wild moor is the perfect place for this atmospheric tale. Sandra Greaves builds the tension masterfully, winding in the children’s anger with each other and with the world, hints at family enmity, hints at the old tales of the land on which they’re living, building the emotions – and the creep factor – into an edge-of-the-seat tale. Can the two children outrun this ancient hunt? Can they outrun their own hurt? Can they step back into Old Scratch Woods, where the Gabbleratchet resides, and bury the enmity for good?” Isabel Popple, Waterstone's review 

The Skull in the Wood is published by Chicken House for 10+ readers and is Sandra’s first novel. Born in Edinburgh and now living in Devon, she keeps several badly-behaved chickens on a smallholding midway between the moor and the sea. 

So let's wish Sandra the best of luck for April. You can catch up with her on her website, sandragreaves.com or her Facebook page.

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Tania Tay is an ex-advertising copywriter and has been published in Sable LitMag. She is currently writing a YA romantic thriller, is a member of The Golden Egg Academy and is on the editorial team at Words & Pictures.

Hooray for Undiscovered Voices winner Sandra Greaves!

@sandra_greaves

This week, we’re cracking open the champers for SCBWI debut author and Undiscovered Voices 2012 winner Sandra Greaves. Her novel, The Skull in the Wood, a contemporary ghost story for 10+ was published by Chicken House on 5th September. And being such lovely publishers they turned out in force to her launch in Totnes, together with a whole clutch of Scoobies....

You can watch the atmospheric trailer for The Skull in the Wood here. 

In Old Scratch Wood on Dartmoor, quarrelling cousins Matt and Tilda find a buried skull. And from that moment, dark things begin to happen. Birds and animals turn bad, and there are rumours of the return of an ancient curse known as the gabbleratchet. But what can Matt and Tilda do to stop it...? 

Rachel Leyshon, Sandra’s editor at Chicken House, says: “Sandra was a dream to work with – a wonderful mix of creativity, child-focused writing, and professionalism. Give Sandra a deadline, and she’d make it every time – nothing was too much trouble. But her sunny personality masks a dark and dangerous imagination! Editing The Skull in the Wood made me remember childhood fear all too clearly…” 

A wonderful introduction to Sandra's launch from
Chicken House publisher Barry Cunningham

Sandra Greaves was born in Edinburgh and lives in Devon. The Skull in the Wood, is her first novel. She was formerly in journalism, TV and communications and now works as a copywriter, as well as being a poet. Sandra and her partner keep several badly-behaved chickens on a smallholding midway between the moor and the sea. 

Sandra says: "Winning Undiscovered Voices 2012 was an amazing turning point for me. Suddenly I had a lovely agent in Anna Power of Johnson & Alcock – and then my book was bought by Chicken House. It all happened very quickly and felt totally surreal. My friends have been so brilliant about the book that I wanted to have a bit of a party! And it’s such a big milestone, I felt I had to mark it in some way. I bit my nails a lot beforehand, but when it came to it, the launch was great fun. Publisher Barry Cunningham did a wonderful introduction. Some friends from SCBWI South West generously made the trek over to Totnes to give me support. And my local bookshop – The Totnes Bookshop – was bowled over by the number of books they sold!"

So grab a glass of something fizzy and enjoy some photos of the evening, taken by our roving reporter, Rowena House. Here's to Sandra and we wish her every success with The Skull in the Wood!

SCBWI southwest joint coordinator Ellen Renner with Sandra Greaves,
Barry Cunningham, and SCBWI members Yona Wiseman and Amelia Mansfield

The Chicken House team: Eileen Lohf from their German office,
PR supremo Tina Waller and Sandra's editor Rachel Leyshon

SCBWI member Rowena House puts down her camera and celebrates
with Sandra and Barry Cunningham

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Tania Tay is an ex-advertising copywriter and has been published in Sable LitMag. She is currently writing a YA romantic thriller, and is on the editorial team at Words & Pictures.

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Rowena House is a journalist, mum and dog-walker as well as a wannabe novelist. She’s currently working on an edgy love story for teens set in east Africa as part of the MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University.

Why You Should Keep At It and Take Your Chances.

Louise Kelly, Jane Heinrichs and Veronica Cossanteli stand up please! Hip Hip and Hip Hooray for you all and for Never Giving Up!

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Louise Kelly
@mllouisekelly

Louise Kelly gave up a secure university lecturing job to pursue her writing career in 2009 but she'd been writing seriously for two years before that. Her YA historical novel, Pest Maiden has recently been longlisted for the Cornerstones Wow Factor Competition. In her own words, 
This is the first sniff at anything remotely resembling a glimmer of success!’ 

Louise has been a SCBWI member since she was talked into it at an Arvon retreat by Maureen Lynas and Juliet Clare Bell and will be eternally grateful for their strong-arm tactics. When not writing, Louise has a patchwork portfolio of jobs, including teaching neuropsychology at the Open University, being a university dyslexia adviser and helping author, Nicola Morgan, with publicity and promotions. Louise says,

I'm a prime example of keeping at it in the face of no external validation! 

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Jane Heinrichs
@janeheinrichs

After years of hard work, and almost giving up (more than once), Jane Heinrichs also has great news. She’s been signed up by Advocate Art Agency! 
 Jane started out drawing ancient Roman skeletons for her university’s classics department. She was so excited to see her drawings and name in print that she vowed to continue pursuing the perilous career of illustration. Since then she has travelled the world and recorded everything she has seen with pencil and sketchbook. Jane’s children’s book Magic at the Museum, which was self-published in Canada, was short-listed for best-illustrated book at the Manitoba Book Awards but this new signing sprang from a fabulous portfolio review at the London Book Fair.

 Getting your work seen makes all the difference – go to events, meet people, enter  competitions, pursue your dreams. Jane and Louise aren’t the only one’s celebrating after gently pushing their work into the big wide world.

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Veronica
Cossanteli

After a 1:1 with Barry Cunningham at Winchester and an extract accepted for Undiscovered Voices 2012 Veronica Cossanteli’s book The Extincts was published by Chicken House on May 2nd this year. 

 Veronica’s editor , Rachel Leyshon, says,  ‘When we read Veronica’s original manuscript we felt straightaway that we’d found a truly original talent. We loved the humour, the natural ability to see the world from a child’s point of view, and, of course, the big central idea. A farm of extinct and mythical creatures under threat was, we felt, a real winner. And I’m delighted to say the pre-publication response so far has been fantastic!’ 

Veronica finally feels justified for her long-standing reluctance to live in the real world . Veronica works in a Junior School in Southampton, where she lives with too many animals and a son who is much more grown-up than she is, but Veronica claims her greatest accolade so far (and probably ever) is to have been certified by Barry as outstandingly bonkers. 

 So there you go – don’t give up, enter competitions, pursue those reviews and if you’re dithering about whether or not to enter the Undiscovered Voices competition – do it even if you are outstandingly bonkers. 
Especially if you are outstandingly bonkers.

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Kathy Evans is Celebrations Editor for Words & Pictures. She is South East Network Coordinator with Mariam Vossough and is represented by Sophie Hicks at Ed Victor.

Super news, Shortlists and Series Deals for This Week's Celebrating SCBWI's!

Steve Hartley

I'm thrilled to report the launch of a brand new series from Steve Hartley;  breaking news for Anne Marie Conway;  shortlistings for Sam Hepburn and a series deal for Julie Fulton!

The first in a new series for age 7+, Oliver Fibbs: Attack of the Alien Brain by Steve Hartley  was published by Macmillan Children's Books in January. The second book, Oliver Fibbs and the Giant Boy-Munching Bugs will be published in June. Oliver Fibbs is described as an ordinary boy with an extraordinary imagination, quite frankly that sounds just like Steve Hartley!

 Steve was one of the deserved winners of the 2009 Undiscovered Voices competition. As a result, he got an agent, then a publishing deal, and in 2010 the first books in his Danny Baker Record Breaker series were published. Eight books later, Steve and his huge pink pants and giant bogey are in great demand for school visits and festivals - and adult writers’ workshops!

If you ever get a chance to go to a writers workshop with Steve Hartley - go. Funny, warm, full of energy and with an amazing feel for character it's no surprise that Steve's books are doing so well.

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A huge hoorah for Anne-Marie Conway author of Butterfly Summer the first in the Star

Anne Marie Conway

Makers series. Despite a very strong shortlist, I'm delighted to announce that Butterfly Summer has WON the Oxford Book Awards. The next book in the series, Forbidden Friends, is due to be released on May 1st. 

The Star Makers series is for all children aged 8+ who love to sing dance and act! Butterfly Summer is a dark and mysterious novel for slightly older children, and Forbidden Friends tells the story of two girls who become best friends but discover that a secret that binds both their families in the most tragic way might keep them apart forever.

 Anne-Marie lives in London with her husband and two boys and spends her time writing, teaching dance and drama at a local primary school, and running her own theatre club for children on Saturday afternoons. 
Sounds like excellent research Anne- Marie. Well done!

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Sam Hepburn

 Sam Hepburn  also has a new book coming out.  Sam, who worked for many years as a documentary maker for the BBC, has also published two teen fantasies under the name Samira Osman - Quicksilver and Serpent's Gold - and was longlisted for the Waterstones and Branford Boase awards in 2010. Her writing has been described as "Smart entertainment deftly done" by the Financial Times and "Superbly constructed and vividly depicted" by Daily Telegraph.

Her new book,  teen thriller Chasing the Dark  was bought by Chicken House after Sam won a one-to-one with Barry Cunningham at the SCBWI 2011 conference and will be published on 3rd June this year. Fantastic SCBWI news indeed - and it's available to pre-order . I know because I've already ordered mine!

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Julie Fulton rounds off this week's amazing SCBWI success stories. Her first picture book

Julie Fulton

‘MrsMacCready Was Ever So Greedy’ has done so well that Maverick Books have requested a series. The second tale came out this February – ’Tabitha Posy Was Ever So Nosy’ and the third is due for release at the end of September – ‘Miss Dorothy-Jane Was Ever So Vain’. 

After that they’re aiming for a book every September, to fit in with illustrator Jona Jung's busy timetable. Julie says 'The fourth looks like being about a rather lazy boy. It's very much a work in progress at the moment.' 

Julie lives in Worcestershire, where she reads, gardens, goes narrow boating, looks after her friends’ dogs, dances and sings, though not necessarily all at once or even in that order. She works as a music teacher but she now feels able to mention her writing when asked what she does.  I'm not surprised Julie - I'd be shouting it from the roof tops,  A Scooby Writer's Future Is Brighter!

Don't forget the Brand New 2014 Undiscovered Voices Competition launched this week -  event report here. I'm looking forward to celebrating masses of success so get entering - you have nothing to lose, even if you don't win you WILL get your work under the noses of a tip top selection of judges.

Do it!

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Kathy Evans is Celebrations Editor for Words & Pictures. She is South East Network Coordinator with Mariam Vossough and is represented by Sophie Hicks at Ed Victor.

South West Writers At Large

Report from Lesley Moss

Some of us from the South West SCBWI group came out of our writing caves to meet for an impromptu Exeter Café Write-In just before the Easter break.

Our group included three Undiscovered Voices winners and one Cornerstones Wowfactor winner!


We also welcomed Sandra Greaves, a UV 2012 winner and soon to be published by Chickenhouse to her first Write-In.

And I finally got UV 2009 winner Lucy Jones to sign a copy of her latest publication, Rise Of The Shadowmares, for me.

Maybe a Talk-In is a better description of this particular meeting! 


When writers get together after working on their own for several weeks or months, there is always a lot to discuss, and so it proved.

We had a lively discussion on ways to tackle structure in novels, ranging from screenplay models – UV 2010 winner Yona Wiseman is a film-maker as well as a writer - to Chickenhouse editor Imogen Cooper’s excellent Bookmap© tool.  (You can learn more about Bookmaps© by attending courses with Imogen’s Golden Egg Academy, based in Frome, Somerset: a great new resource for writers.)

There's always a lot to discuss...

Next, Ellen Renner provoked an interesting chat about contemporary publishing, sales and marketing, and why most of our editors are women.
I asked everyone what they had brought to work on. Ellen (a Cornerstones Wowfactor winner, now multi-published) is completing final edits on her latest book, Tribute: a YA epic fantasy, to be published by Hot Key Books in March 2014.

Lucy is working on an exciting new teen mystery/fantasy, and Sandra on The Skull In The Wood, coming out in September 2013 with Chickenhouse.

Amelia Mansfield is researching material for her YA crossover historical fantasy, set in the Regency period, which is part of her Creative Writing Phd (sounds fascinating!), and Yona is continuing on her YA Urban Fantasy. I'm digesting some editorial feedback from the Golden Egg Academy on a middle-grade novel …

All too soon, after much tea and cake had been consumed, and ideas for future meetings discussed, it was time for us to leave.

Later this year we plan to follow up our Write-Ins with Edit-Ins – a natural progression! We will be sharing editing techniques and thinking about how to apply them to our own work.

Our Socials Organiser, Yona will also be arranging another social meet-up very soon

If you can’t make it to Exeter but are a SW SCBWI_BI member who would like to meet up with other local members in your town, do contact us Ellen Renner or Lesley Moss and we will try to help - email southwest AT britishscbwi.org.

Or you can come and join our South West Ning Group, where we arrange our meetings and chat.  

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@anonymoss

Lesley Moss joined SCBWI in 2003 and over several years has volunteered as an e-critique group moderator for Picturebook Too! and the original poetry e-critique group, and as SW Joint Co-ordinator. She is a member of www.thefuneverse.comand writes picture books, funny poetry and 8-12 fiction. She originally studied art and design and spent some years in community arts, including a spell as a mime animateur, working creatively with children of all ages, and much more. But her first love is writing. 

Imogen Cooper: in search of cracking good stories

Rowena House went to rural Somerset to talk to Imogen Cooper, senior editor at Chicken House Publishing, about writing, the industry and her latest venture: the Golden Egg Academy which was launched earlier this year.

What inspired you to start running Golden Egg Academy writing workshops at your home?

Part of what I’m trying to do is give writers a window into publishing. It feels to me like there’s a kind of divide between writers who haven’t got into publishing yet and publishers, a divide between the business side and the totally creative side. Even when writers sign a contract, they often have no real idea why their book was taken on and how it’s going to be marketed. So the Academy is partly about enabling writers to see through the eyes of agents and publishers.

Why is that so important?

You’re much more likely to get a foot in the door if you’re talking a publisher’s and an agent’s language. Everybody in publishing has very, very limited time. An agent or a publisher has to sell this book, therefore they need it in three lines. When Barry (Barry Cunningham, managing director of Chicken House Publishing) sits in front of Waterstones or whoever, he’s got to have a handle on the main idea and why that’s so exciting. Booksellers are getting so many novels through all the time that you’ve got to give them a reason to read your book first and then to remember it.

So is the Golden Egg Academy a nursery for potential Chicken House authors?

Certainly in part. That’s why we’ve just agreed this First Look deal with Barry. That means that anything I think is written and crafted well enough will go to Barry and he’ll get a month to have a look at it. But it’s not all about that. I’ve got good links with other agents and publishers and there will be things that are beautifully written but are not suitable for the Chicken House list. We’ll be very excited about them but they’ll be too old, too literary or whatever. But that wasn’t the main reason for setting up the Academy.

What was the main reason? 

Talking to people at conferences and people on creative writing MAs, I realised there were a lot of people who weren’t getting the in-depth look at their work that they needed to move on. They may have been sending it to people who were working around the edges, but who weren’t getting to the meaty, structural issues. There aren’t many people who do that anymore, and even writers who are published aren’t getting enough time with them. So my desire was to enable writers who haven’t been published to get that sort of support.

I’ve heard you talk a couple of times now, and you always stress the need for authors to be able to define the core concept of their stories. How does the core of a book differ from ‘The Hook’?

Everybody has a different vocabulary for these things. In my mind, the core of the novel is your through-line, the emotional drive behind it and the theme. The hook is what the marketing people make out of it. In my head those two things are slightly different.

Can you expand? 

The through-line is just the main plotline. The emotional driver is really the motivation of your main character, why they do the things they do, and the excitement and vibrancy of the whole story ... If you as a writer understand what you want the heart of your novel to be, it infuses everything you write. That is the emotional driver. And from that, publishers, agents and marketing people can sell your book in the way that you want it sold.

And themes? Can you give any examples of what you mean by that?

Okay. With Numbers, a girl can see the death date of every person in their eyes. The theme is what that would mean. If a teenager really had that ability, what would it mean? Is she the new messiah? Of course, not every story has a theme like that. In Wolf Princess, which just came out, the author is fascinated by Russian literature so she wanted to infuse the whole novel with that feel. For me the theme always comes back to the writer. What are you trying to say? You’ve got this plotline and these characters who are doing all these things but what - right deep down in your heart - are you trying to say? That’s where the excitement is, the vibrancy of your whole story.

So you want to see everything - the excitement, the vibrancy - focused on the novel’s central concept?

Absolutely. It’s all got to hang on that single idea. I like using visual images, so the idea of the coat hanger is great. You’ve got to hang everything on it. Or there’s the idea of the warp and the weft (in fabric). Your main plotline, the main protagonist and what they do, have to be very strong. But then you can go off and weave the most intricate pattern you like because your main character will be holding the reader’s hand throughout the whole thing. That’s why a novel like Northern Lights works so beautifully because you’ve got this central plot and Lyra dragging you along, even if you don’t understand all the layers.

Why did you get into children’s publishing? What’s so special about it for you?

I think it’s because of the big element of story and the excitement of being able to slip into other worlds. I had a wonderful childhood and I read very widely from Susan Cooper to Alan Garner, all of the greats, and they influenced me hugely. I was the girl under the covers late at night! And whilst I absolutely love reading adult literature, it’s that wonderful ability to get into the shoes of the inner child. There’s a wonderful poem by Robert Graves, I think it’s called the Island of Poet, where he says that it’s so important to see in black and white and engage with extreme emotions. That’s what a child does. I suspect that for an awful lot of people in this business, that’s what drives us.

Do you think it’s essential for anyone writing for young people, too?

Yes. We were talking about taking risks earlier on. For me the risk is almost putting the pen down, going to the theatre, going to a gallery, doing something you’ve never done before, and getting in touch with that fear, that excitement or that joy, to a level we don’t experience as adults very often. It’s not a matter of thinking about what age group you want to write for. That’s secondary. It’s thinking about what age you can see the world through. That comes first. That’s where the authenticity comes from. In a sense, it’s dangerous. For some of the authors I work with, it’s like splurging their guts on a plate, especially the teen writers because their writing is cathartic. They’re coming to terms with things that are quite deeply buried, and that’s why the trust between editor and writer has to be really strong. We’ve got to connect with who we really are at the deepest, at the most painful or the most joyous level.

Did JK Rowling connect with some deep level of herself?

Mmm. Good question. I think she must at some level. Harry is probably not the character with whom she is connecting. It might be Hermione. It maybe something fearful she’s connected with. It doesn’t necessarily mean seeing through the main protagonist's eyes.

Let’s go back to publishing. What would you like to be the next big thing? And I stress the word like. I know no one really knows.

There’s so much now on the news about the Arab Spring, or war-torn areas and revolution, I would be fascinated to see some novels on those subjects, but clearly with kids as the main protagonists. The other thing I’d love to see, which I tweeted about the other day, is some really big, emotional animal stories, with a sense of the wild that perhaps children are missing these days.

And what’s been done to death?

Well, vampires, werewolves, any paranormal romance. Post-apocalyptic has gone, really. It might be of interest in this country but certainly foreign publishers are turning things down. They’re not interested in novels with eco-themes either these days. That’s all turned on its head. But, saying that, if a novel is good enough it’s good enough. If it has an extraordinary take on that subject, then people will still buy it. 

If you enjoyed this interview and would like to read an extended version, you can find this on Rowena's Ning page on the SCBWI website. 

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Rowena House

Rowena House is a journalist by trade - an ex-Reuters foreign correspondent in Europe and Africa, now a sub-editor specialising in international affairs. She turned to writing fiction for young people to meet a deep desire to tell gritty stories that are true in an emotional sense, without being constrained by ‘the facts’.  At the moment, she’s working on a love story for teens set in Africa as part of the MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa. Rowena lives in rural Devon with her remarkably tolerant family and their less tolerant dog, a grey-and-white sheep dog called Fletcher.