The sky's the limit

One day when I was ten years old, our teacher, Mrs Allen, gathered us in to the carpeted corner of the room, and sat us down on plastic pint-sized chairs to listen carefully.








With several pots of colourful pens in the centre of the floor, Mrs Allen placed in each of our small hands a crisp, clean sheet of mathematical squares. 'Now. I want you to colour-in as many shapes as you can think of: Squares, rectangles, hexagons, triangles. Off you go.'

Off we went, losing ourselves in the concentrated scratch of felt-tips. After an industrious while, Mrs Allen wandered around to check our handy-work, and stopped abruptly by my side. 'Oh Nancy, that's not what I meant at all.'

I can still feel the sting of shame on my face. What had I been thinking? Mrs Allen tutted and moved on, leaving me to consider the stupid squared off letters I had created, now shouting out in full inglorious technicolour from the page: I love Barry.

To me, the carpeted story-corner was a place of make-believe, where anything could happen. Where I could colour-in my love for Barry, or anyone else for that matter. The reality was very different. Not only had I let myself down, I'd scribbled willy-nilly all over the sanctity of triangles and squares, of mathematical things done properly.

And yet, now that I'm a fully-fledged grown-up child, I can sit in the story-corner and create whatever I like. I don't have to do mathematical shapes. I can fold the paper into an aeroplane, or colour it orange and make confetti. Creating stories is all about allowing yourself the freedom to explore. There are no boundaries to the limits of your imagination. There is only the willingness to go forth and see what you might discover. Go on, go on. What have you got to lose?

Don't forget:

On Monday, Gemma Cooper from the Bent Agency opened up the first Slush Pile Challenge of the year. Writers are invited to submit the opening or scene of a novel where your main character experiences something new, something challenging – aimed at MG (8-12 year olds). Entries by 31st January.

On Tuesday, Nick highlighted the essential qualities required in this business: perseverance, the ability to set your own deadlines, courage to self-publish, creative whimsy, the fight to save what's good for us, and positivity.

On Wednesday, Nicky Schmidt invited another debut author to share the story of their creative journey. Krysten Lindsay Hager talks of learning an important lesson - how it's not what your book can do for you, it's what your book can do for others.

On Thursday, Gill James gave us the low-down on what went on during the NW creative get together in John Ryland's Library. If you need inspiration and ideas for your own group, look no further than here.

On Friday, we were introduced to the featured illustrator of the month, Sarah Palmer. A fabulous story of perseverance in searching for the right creative fit, and a wonderful array of beautifully illustrated and unusual characters. Sarah's tip: Don't be afraid of experimenting. Here here, Sarah.

On Saturday, debut author Katherine Bassford talked about perseverance, and how it pays off but not necessarily in the way you expect!

Look forward to:

Monday: Ask a Picture Book Editor - looking at picture-book illustration
Tuesday: Nick's splendid pick of the blogs
Wednesday: Proofreading tips: Anagrams
Thursday: Network news: South-East Scotland group share the delights of their last meeting of 2014

Nancy Saunders is the new Editor of W&P. You can find some of her short stories here, and on Twitter @nancyesaunders

Happy new creative 2015

There's nothing I like better than the chance of a clean break. If I could tear out my less glorious moments, like scribbled pages from a book, then I would gladly do so.





In the absence of being able to turn my grubby pages spring-fresh and snow-white, the beginning of a new year does just as well.  It works like magic. One day, malingering on the tail-end of a crumpled up year, and the very next, standing bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on the crest of a clear blue wave. A sparkle glinting off a too-big smile.

standing bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on the crest of a clear blue wave

I spent last year trying to carve out the perfect writing hole, amidst the domestic chaos of home. First upstairs, cast two steps from the bed, perched upright on an ebay purchased postural stool. Then downstairs, stacked amongst the washing, in full view of the kitchen sink.

Oh how I craved the solitude of Roald Dahl's garden shed, Dylan Thomas' Shepherd's hut (you can see this in the photo) or J K Rowling's snug café corner. Surely if I had such a place, I would write like a dream. People (most importantly me) would have to take my writing seriously.

Oh how I craved the solitude of Roald Dahl's garden shed

At home, the opportunities for extensive procrastination lay all around me. I succumbed. I couldn't help it. There was always something else calling louder than my words. Essentially, the other parts of me: mother, partner, tv-watcher, snack-eater. I am decidedly not one of those lucky creatives who can block out the world. I have guilt enough at calling myself a writer, let alone fessing up to the intention of spending most of my day writing.

I am decidedly not one of those lucky creatives who can block out the world

So I have thrown myself out of the house. I have commandeered a space at the very top of some stairs, in the hallway of a 'proper' office. I can walk out of my front door in the morning and leave all the other me's behind. There is a window with a picturesque view, and the occasional passing of other occupants. No excuses. Nothing but the writerly-me. Oh crumbs.

Nancy Saunders is gradually stepping in as the new Editor of W&P, with a generous helping hand from Jan. You can find some of her short stories here, and on Twitter @nancyesaunders

It's Advent, are you ready.... for seasonal micro fiction?

After a month of novelling dangerously - hands up 1667 words a day #NaNoWriMo novelists - are you ready for a daily story-soaked 140 characters?
Yes, Paul and the marvellous illustrators have done it again and we have a completely new set of seasonal images for this year's advent calendar!

This is how it works:

• Every day in December we post a teaser image on W&P that links to a growing advent calendar of beautiful images from SCBWI illustrators.
• Each day we invite readers to comment on the post with a 'tweetable micro story' inspired by the day's image.
• @SCBWI_BI and @Words8Pictures will then tweet the comment with the hashtag #Advent and the commenter's twitter handle. So using up characters with the hashtag and twitter handle makes it even more of a challenge but an entirely achievable one as last year proved - we had some star micro fiction authors! 

Can you tell a seasonal story in a tweet?

So before we launch ourselves in to a month of seasonal fiction fun, check out out what you may have missed last week:

• Wonderful interview with 'I don't mind a bit of chaos' Barrington Stoke author Anthony McGowan from Celia Anderson
• Mike Brownlow's essential reading for robot designers - how do you draw one?
• The free Magical MG competition from Skylark Literary
• Clare Bell's report for National Non- Fiction November on writing and researching with gloves on her non-fiction picture book about Cadbury's
• And of course Nick's blogs - now that I've reached 50k #NaNoWriMo (Hurray!) I have a whole month's worth of blogoodies to catch up on!

Anyone still going for their  NaNoWriMo 50k words, I wish all power to your fingers. I crossed the threshold yesterday morning - (yay!) miraculously coinciding the breakthrough with the end of the story. It feels good to have something new to work on.

In the coming weeks we'll be concentrating on our Advent calendar but we do have our last (for the time being) Ask a Publisher podcast and a new featured illustrator to look forward to.

A very happy chocolate tinted Advent to you all!

Jan Carr

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Jan Carr is handing over the editorship of Words & Pictures to the wonderful Nancy Saunders. Jan's works in progress are currently upper middle grade and new adult, if not adult (ooh er). She aims to blog here more regularly though she has blogged here almost every week since March 2013.

Failure is the only option

I was deep in conversation with an artist the other evening, and we were talking about the traps that lie in wait along the footpath of creativity.





My artist friend told me, 'I was in my life-drawing class, and the tutor looked at my work and said, 'stop trying too hard.' I nodded. My friend continued. 'I often wish that I could go back to doing another Foundation course. During that time there were no rights and wrongs. I could do whatever I liked. There was a freedom in making mistakes.'

I nodded some more, and asked, 'Do you ever feel that if you work at a painting too much, you begin to destroy it, strangle the very soul of it?' 'Yes yes,' she replied.

I continued. 'Do you find that if you allow yourself to scribble away, without thinking, you create something real, something raw, that you wouldn't have if you thought about it too much?' 'Yes, absolutely,' she replied. 'But there's also when you stay with a piece and come back to it, again and again, changing something here, doing a little more there.'

'Surely that's only after you've found the resonance, that unspoken otherness, the magic of what you're creating, isn't it?' I asked. 'Yes,' she replied.

'Surely that's only after you've found the resonance, that unspoken otherness, the magic of what you're creating, isn't it?' I asked.   

Everything we learn to do in life has to start with failure. From failure grows determination, from over-thinking grows effortlessness. It all becomes second nature. You no longer have to think about the nuts and bolts of what you're doing.

When I took my driving test, I reversed around the corner and up on to the pavement three times. After each unconventional manoeuvre, during which, thankfully, I hadn't flattened a cat, a child, or an OAP, I pulled on the handbrake, checked my mirrors, and set off to try again.

 Thankfully I hadn't flattened a cat, a child, or an OAP, I pulled on the handbrake, checked my mirrors, and set off to try again

When I finally succeeded, the examiner offered me a polo-mint. I gratefully accepted. We returned to the centre, went through a few points of the Highway Code (thank God I did my test back in the dark ages before this new regime), and was told I'd passed. I can now drive enormous distances without any recollection of how I got there.

Learning to play the fiddle in my thirties, meant hours upon hours of tortuous cat-strangling in the kitchen with the door shut. It was the only place I could be relatively unheard by my long-suffering children. Taming the wild instrument that is the violin is no easy task. The seemingly impossible combination of finding the right note on the fingerboard whilst at the same time making the string sing with a tightened stick of horse-hair, took me to unseen corners of my patience.

Taming the wild instrument that is the violin is no easy task

The more I struggled, the harder I tried, the more bloody-minded I became. But what joy I eventually found. There is something magical about being lost in playing music – you forget about the mechanics, and become a part of the whole.

And writing? Hmm. Well. My success has been in short stories – every one of which I wrote either as a flash (timed, with no room for thought) or as a very close first draft. Yet the more I consciously mess around with words, the quicker I kill them off. I am more afraid of making a terrible noise with words than ever I was with music. I'm more anxious to succeed the first time around, to capture the magic in one fell swoop.

The more I mess around with words, the quicker I kill them off

My WIP, a novel about a boy who discovers that living alone on a ship in space is anything but normal, has had him on so many false starts he's beginning to wonder if he'll ever get out of his predicament.

But I know, it is only through failing, again and again, that my words will ever sing without the faintest hint of a cat being strangled.

Don't forget to check out:

Monday's interview with Melvin Burgess, by K. M. Lockwood. If you missed the conference workshop, have a read of Philippa's perceptive questions, and discover Melvin's answers on the difference between plot & story, and the importance of fairy-tale.

Tuesday's Ten minute blog round-up. I don't know where we'd be without Nick's comprehensive filtering of all the good stuff that's out there. There are some real gems in this latest haul.

Wednesday's Breaking into Educational Publishing – an eye-opening report of the conference panel, and the options out there to break in to the educational market, by Anita Loughrey

Thursday's Janet Foxley gave us a fascinating overview of SCBWI British Isles Conference 2014's Craft Intensive on Writing for Reluctant Readers. And there was sad news that our North West Network Organiser, Steph Williams has unfortunately had to step down from the role due to ill health.

Friday's Procatsination – another neat snippet from the life of cat & dog immersed in the creative world

Saturday's call-out for a Celebrations' Editor – this could be YOU! Get in touch pronto if it is...

Look forward to:

Monday Clare Bell shares her experience of writing a non-fiction book for Cadbury, in honour of National Non-Fiction November
Tuesday Another bodacious Blog Break with Nick
Wednesday Interview with Anthony McGowan by Celia Anderson, getting all the insights in to school visits, scatology and dyslexia
Thursday Something amazing...
Friday Interview with SCBWI BI's member of the year - Anne-Marie Perks




Nancy Saunders is gradually stepping in as the new Editor of W&P, with a generous helping hand from Jan. You can find her short stories here, and on Twitter @nancyesaunders

How's Your Word Count?

Everyone knows November is National Novel Writing Month. (How are your words?). But did you know that it's also National Non Fiction November?  'the whole month now celebrates all those readers that have a passion for information and facts and attempts to bring non fiction celebration in line with those of fiction.' To join in with the Federation of Children's Book Groups' 'annual celebration of all things factual' we have some posts on a non-fiction theme.

If all goes to plan our first will be tomorrow. I have a terrible feeling I agreed this for last week  but I had a laptop meltdown just before the conference and emails I was sure I had have disappeared - another #mysteryoftheInternet.

Isn't Nancy doing a great job?  I'm so grateful for her stepping up. Here's her last week's editorial in case you missed it. Nancy is looking for thoughts on year three's monthly themes - if you have any thoughts about what you'd like to see in W&P please do get in touch at editor@britishscbwi.org.

I'm so looking forward to our Advent Calendar this year. Paul has a beautiful collection of seasonal illustrations - thank you illustrators!  After this month of many words, get your microfiction brains in gear for tweetable stories  to go with them. As last year, we'll be inviting these in the December post comments and then tweeting them!

This week Candy celebrated Piers Torday's Guardian Children's Fiction Prize win - thank you Candy and again congratulations to you for being among such a select list of nominees!

Last week we celebrated Anne-Marie's SCBWI Outstanding Contribution Award and today I'm so pleased  to be able to share the video of Anne Marie receiving it!



Here are the other highlights from last week you may have missed:

• More conferency blog breaking from Nick
• Celia's brilliant interview with Mairi Kidd of Barrington Stoke. There's so much insightful content in this post from Mairi and Celia
• Network News from the South West - if you need any ideas for what to get up to in your network, check this post from Lesley Moss - the SW have done them all!
• An illustrator's conference round up from John - just see what fun things you non-illustrators may have missed at the conference.

Coming soon:

• Some non-fiction thoughts from me 
• An interview with Melvin Burgess from Philippa
• A report on the Conference Non-Fiction Panel from Anita
• A conference report on the Writing for Reluctant Readers session from Janet
• A new ProCatsination from Jion

It's week three, Wrimos! In theory this should be the home stretch but more likely the quagmire of the muddled middle - head up and keep going!

I'm 8000 words behind.

Hey ho, hope it's a great week anyway,

Jan Carr

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Jan Carr is the editor of Words & Pictures. Her fiction is all over the place, she blogs occasionally and loves to write in magenta. You can contact her at editor@britishscbwi.org.

Be Brave, Go in to the Woods

I lost my courage around the age of 9. The real world stepped up like a policeman to my childish imaginings and said:

'Allo 'allo 'allo. What's going on here then?




It wasn't a sudden process, more a gradual pulling of the rug from under my feet. I was slipped into line. Discouraged from thinking for myself. Up until this moment, I had believed all things were possible. The tree on the Arbour was my space-ship. A tent pitched up beyond the swings was my springboard for any adventure I cared to go on. There were no spanners in the works of who I thought I could be.

Then the life-police stepped in. I began to tread more slowly. I became cautious, quiet. The process of being shaped from the outside had begun. No more shaping myself from within.

Everyone has to have a label. It's tidier that way. Easier

This is not a sob story. This is simply the truth of what so many of us experience when it comes to our emerging sense of self. Picture the unfettered wonder of the child, the fully whirring curiosity, the willingness to believe in the stuff of magic. Then measure this up against the world outside, the: this is the way things are, and this is your place in it. This world says: we'll give you a label. Because everyone has to have a label. It's tidier that way. Easier.

There I was, shoved in the drawer of Unremarkables, an Average label firmly tied around my neck. For most of my school years, this is where I stayed. Not asking questions, not testing those who knew better – being nice and easy and compliant.

There I was, shoved in the drawer of Unremarkables, an Average label firmly tied around my neck

Being shoved where you don't belong eventually leads to trouble. I did things that I shouldn't have done, on the quiet. I started to ask awkward questions, to disagree with the status quo. I began to think that just because someone says something's right, it doesn't make it so – not one little bit of it. I began to trust my gut instinct, listened to what lived in my heart. If anyone should know what sort of person I was, surely that person was me. I became bloody-minded – a sort of masquerade for belief in myself.

The off-road route that I chose has been bumpier than it might otherwise have been had I stayed up on the tarmacked road. There have been a couple of deep potholes that almost swallowed me whole. And I'm still there, revving along in my dented, mud-splattered trusty vehicle (I like to think this is a campervan, probably a split-screen) trying to grab back the lost essence of myself.

Take a torch and shine it in to the very darkest of corners, tell us what you find, tell us the truth

So when I went to my first SCBWI conference in Winchester last week, when I heard the speakers talk, I felt I'd found the place I'd left all those years ago. Cathy Cassidy, Nick Butterworth, and Sally Gardner – their words took me firmly by the hand and led me back to where I was at the age of 9.  Look! They implored. See what you can find out there. Keep looking until it feels right. Ask as many questions as you like – all the What Ifs. Take a torch and shine it in to the very darkest of corners, tell us what you find, tell us the truth. Only then will you be able to show yourself, to show us, how to find the way out. Be that child who was always willing to have a go, to make something out of nothing. Believe in yourself. Go deep in to the forest of fairy-tales. Take your courage with you.

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Don't Forget

Monday's Interview with Sally Gardner by Karen J. Hart – if you weren’t able to get along to the conference, then do check out the invaluable insights from this most acclaimed of authors

Tuesday's Fabulous round-up of the blogs by Nick, from thoughts of the conference to the experience of taking part in Inktober

Wednesday's Interview with Cathy Cassidy by Emma Greenwood – pull up a chair and pour yourself a cup of tea, settle down to read this wonderful insight in to Cathy’s celebrated writing world

Thursday's Very warm welcome to Karen Hart - our new Assistant Regional Advisor with a special responsibility for members services 

Friday's Fabulous Featured Illustrator, W&P very own John Shelley

Saturday's Celebration of W&P Anne-Marie Perks, who has won this year's SCBWI British Isles Outstanding Contribution Award  

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Nancy Saunders is gradually stepping in as the new Editor of W&P, with a generous helping hand from Jan. You can find her short stories here, and on Twitter @nancyesaunders

Of what stories are you made?

If you're lucky you'll have a deep seam of stories running through your core. Rich and resonating. Characters that carried you off, worlds that swallowed you up, and pictures forever imprinted in your memory stores.

I only have to think of the Bad Baby, and I'm there riding on the back of the elephant, going rumpeta rumpeta rumpeta all down the road.


At the beginning of our life's journey, picture books take us by the hand and lead us into the sphere of the imagination. If ever there was a parallel universe, it is here, where anything can happen.

My visual recall is so vivid it seems to be more strongly imprinted in my mind's eye than memories themselves. Edward Lear's the Quangle Wangle Quee, Maurice Sendak's In The Night Kitchen (not to mention Where the Wild Things Are), Pat Hutchins' Rosie's walk, Angela Banner's Ant and Bee, Richard Scarry's Huckle Cat and Lowly Worm. I can 'see' them all more readily than I can remember what it was like to be that child lost inside the pictures.

I remember Dad reading to us at bedtime, watching his upside down mouth moving around the words

When we get a little older, memories become mixed with stories. Before I was eight years old I shared a bedroom with my sister. I remember Dad reading to us at bedtime, watching his upside down mouth moving around the words. I remember the wallpaper, the pink repeated cluster of houses and trees. I could even lose myself in there.

When I was eight I had my own bedroom at the top of the house. How blissful it was to climb into bed with the Swallows and Amazons, and the Famous Five (it never got too crowded in there). The magical combination of cosiness and lost-in-a-bookness. The thought of children across the world who never experience such security, of being wrapped up in warmth and magic …

How blissful it was to climb into bed with the Swallows and Amazons

Stories rapidly become our friends, our go-to places in times of need. My mum frequently recalls the Millennium when our entire family was struck down with 'flu – not because it was the stepping over into another century, but because she lay in bed comforted by Stephen Fry's reading of The Philosopher's Stone.

I can use the memory of reading to place myself, to pinpoint precisely where I was at the time. In my teenage years I am lying in bed (appears to be my optimum reading place) hungrily devouring Virago titles; the dark green edged books lined up on my shelf: Rosamund Lehman, Anita White, Maya Angelou. And a healthy sprinkling of Ian McEwan.

There have been gaps in my reading when life itself became the main story. Yet having children draws you back in, and together you share the wonder all over again. Now that I'm a middle-aged rock, my seams are made up from whatever I fancy. A good story is a good story is a good story. None of this reading to type and age nonsense.

A good story is a good story is a good story. None of this reading to type and age nonsense 

My rock strata looks something like this: Philip Pullman's Dark Materials, Patrick Ness' A Monster Calls, Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy, Sebastian Faulks, Raymond Carver, Terry Pratchett, Isabelle Allende, Kate Atkinson, Mal Peet … to name but so very few. All the stories created by these brilliant authors are equally embedded and enriching.

These stories date me like minerals inside a rock. They also give me a strong foundation. I have learned through the shared life of fictional characters what it means to be human. I have laughed and cried, gasped, and felt my heart race. I have re-read climactic paragraphs, pored over illustrations searching for hidden clues, rejoiced when justice is served, and ached over not so happy endings.

Thank you creators of the story world. I couldn't have made it this far without you (and thanks to you for reading. I promise to be less wordy next time).

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Don't Forget

K. M. Lockwood wrote an inspiring piece about the significance of images in the creative process, posted on Monday

Nick cast his Tuesday net deftly over the sea of wonderful blog words

Wednesday found Catriona Tippin taking us through some useful proofreading tips

Thursday announced two unmissable conference competitions, and Kate Peridot reported from the Picturebook masterclass with Pippa Goodhart

Friday - Jion Sheibani's ProCATsination shows just how easy it is to do anything but get on with it

Saturday Badge Winners – two super designs to pin on with pride at the conference

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Look forward to

Monday  A new Ask a Publisher podcast - Rowena interviews Ali Dougal editorial director of fiction at Egmont Press

Tuesday  Another hot pick of the blogs from Nick

Wednesday Agent confidential with Erzsi Deàk, president & founder of Hen & Ink

Thursday  Surprise! (we're not quite sure what it'll be yet)

Friday Mike Brownlow shows us How to Draw a Robot

Saturday We celebrate SCBWIs nominated for the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway prize

And of course Friday, Saturday & Sunday bring us the 7th British Isles SCBWI Conference!

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From Around
the WWW

SCBWI British Isles on Facebook is always a wonderful resource for shared ideas and information. Check out a link shared by Debbie Coope, of Pixar's 22 Rules to Phenomenal Publishing

The child's eye view of death: the power of picture books to explain, can be found in the Guardian this week


Nancy Saunders is gradually stepping in as the new Editor of W&P, with a generous helping hand from Jan. You can find her short stories here, and on Twitter @nancyesaunders

The mingling has begun...

Had a lovely time with Nancy on Friday to start the handover process in earnest. We're doing this gradually - think of it like a gradient in a text box fill - one colour at one end of the box and another at the other and in the middle a delicious mingling of the two. That's where we are!





We're sharing the editor@britishscbwi.org email for a while so please make it clear which one of us you're after and be aware that we're both reading - seemed a lot easier than relying one of us remembering to cc the other for info.

Last week, along with other important reminders, Slush Pile Challenge, The Conference (do hope you booked), I flagged up this year's Advent Calendar. It was brilliant last year and we're doing the same again this year! Can't wait to see the seasonal images and read the tweetable microfiction comments you, yes you, are going to come up with to go with them!

Are you an illustrator with a seasonal image you'd be happy to let us include in our 2014 Advent Calendar?

Seasonal can be winter or another December faith/cultural celebration as well as Christmas. It would be wonderful to have at least 24 illustrators represented! If you would like to contribute, please contact Paul Morton via the SCBWI Facebook group, the SCBWI yahoo group or email editor@britishscbwi.org with the subject: FAO Paul for Advent and I'll forward. We're only accepting contributions from SCBWI British Isles members but we're delighted to share the results with everyone!

I have dithered far too long on the Internet this morning so here's a shout out to the great posts we've had this week:
Ask a Picture Book Editor - spot the best Picture Book Cover EVER! Go on, tell me in the comments which one you think I think that is.
The Blog Break - this is the main reason I have dithered on the Internet!
YAY and Hooray for THE CONFERENCE VOLUNTEERS!  What a splendid bunch!
The Anatomy of a Monster  Nicola L. Robinson is the queen of monster making! and for the Big Draw she has some tips for you to have a go at creating one of your own!
Huge Congratulations to Sally! -  What a joy it was to post this:)

Being less than two weeks to the conference, we're balancing flexibility with scheduling as different conferency posts pop up, so look in through the week to see what's up!

But be sure to catch 'From Your Editor' next week. It'll be Nancy's first!

Hope you're having a great Sunday!

Jan Carr

* Have just realised what a ! heavy post this is. Hey ho, exclamation marks - they're the hundreds and thousands of the punctuation universe - how I love to sprinkle them:)

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Jan Carr is the editor of Words & Pictures. Her fiction is all over the place, she blogs occasionally and loves to write in magenta. You can contact her at editor@britishscbwi.org.

Introducing Our New Ed!

As promised and without, as they say, much ado here is the next editor of Words & Pictures....









But first the ado.
This week did you catch...

• The lovely Brenda Gardner and her wicked laugh on the latest Ask a Publisher podcast? (Thank you@CathyHopkins1 for that!) 
• You can see our splendid new banner but have you met its creator, our new featured illustrator Julia Walther?
• Jo Unwin our latest Agent Confidential? Jo is also appearing at #scbiawcon14 in 3 weeks time!
• A BLOGALICIOUS  break on Tuesday? The blogalicious blog breakers with Nick are... Sue Hyams, Dave Cousins, Mark Jones, Sheila Averbuch, Jane McLoughlin, Layn Marlow, Candy Gourlay and Vanessa Harbour! Wow! 

Last Sunday I was all of a dither so didn't read the schedule right which means we can still look forward to Nicola L Robinson's Anatomy of a Monster. If you've seen Nicola's work you know this will be brilliant! We have a new Ask a Picture Book Editor, together with Picture Book Basics, what a treasure trove these picture book posts from Natascha, Ellie and John are. Plus we have some more scbwicon  goodness - meet the conference volunteers!

Now some other important DEADLINE notices this week:
First this:

Click here for the Fabulous Darley Anderson Slushpile Challenge!

Deadline November 2nd

And there's this....

The 2014 W&P Advent Calendar!
Click to enlarge

And of course finally...

Conference Bookings close next Friday, 17th October
Only 3 weeks to go folks!

Now at last, here she is...

Nancy Saunders!

Ta Dah!
We're all smiles for W&P's next Ed! 

Nancy is a lover of all things books. She has worked in libraries, Waterstone’s (when they still had the apostrophe), written short stories (published a few) and is currently working on her first novel for young adults. She’s been a conservation volunteer leader, a support worker for adults with learning difficulties, a yoga teacher, a traditional music fiddler, and a home educator of two now grown-up lovelies. 

She says...

 "I am both thrilled and honoured to be invited to join the W&P team as Editor. Having met Jan a couple of times now, and read through her posts on the site, I know that I have a veritable task ahead to uphold such enthusiasm and joy. Fortunately her sunshinyness is catching – and I have definitely got the bug. I can’t wait to meet everyone who’s clearly played such a fantastic and crucial role in producing a much needed watering-hole for SCBWI-BI members."

I am so happy to hand over to Nancy - she is the perfect person to take Words & Pictures forward - it's wonderful to meet someone with such enthusiasm, vision and humour. I'm completely convinced W&P is in very safe hands. The changeover will be gradual with Nancy completely in place some time after Christmas - it's a big old machine!


I'm off to cook the dinner, hope yours is a delicious Sunday too,

Jan Carr

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Jan Carr is the editor of Words & Pictures. Her fiction is all over the place, she blogs occasionally and loves to write in magenta. You can contact her at editor@britishscbwi.org.

Destiny

The business of being a writer is riddled with doubt - I still struggle to call myself one. I haven't 'always written', at school I found it hard, I didn't think I had an imagination. So when we decided to share some juvenilia at our latest SCBWI Southampton Goal Setting Supper, I said I didn't really have any.




The only thing I could remember was a letter I wrote to the paper when I was 13, a youthful protest against the demolition of an old house on the edge of town.  So I searched for the cutting, I had a vague memory of coming across it somewhere fairly recently but I couldn't remember where. First stop, drawer of treasures - entirely cutting-less. Maybe it was in the loft? But rummaging around up there would have taken hours - who knows what curiosities I would have found to soak up the whole day. More accessibly, all I could find was a little box of letters, scraps and guilt-inducing notelets from my mum, no newspaper cuttings at all.

Helen, Ken and Lorraine had very entertaining examples of their early work with great you should be a writer when you grow up comments. To be honest, I was a bit jealous. So when I got home, I had another look. Dust was blown from top shelf boxes, I still eschewed the loft but after a brave decision to go through the guilt-inducing notelets in case the cutting had got itself wrapped inside of one, I did find this:

My mum's observations circa 1963

I don't remember this little scene, I don't remember my mum making notes and I don't remember "writing",  ever. But I guess I did.

You-can-do-the-maths years later having recently found too much imagination but still hoping for that external affirmation that comes with publication, this was a little prod with a smug pokey finger. "See – destiny!" I don't know about destiny*  but while making me a bit sad, my mum's observational notes did give me some sense of maybe it's meant to be.

I think I must have imagined the letter in the paper.

This week, wasn't Sue Hyams' post on research a great way to round off September? Many of us are accomplished procrastinators; it's no surprise that it's the perfect theme for Jion's humour. Research  (along with fruitless searching for newspaper cuttings) can be one of our strategies but Sue has the answer - when you hear your story calling, write.

I spent a disciplined ten minutes or so with another excellent Blog Break and it was great to say 'Hooray for Honorary Dave!', rounding off the talented people recognised by The Margaret Carey Scholarship.

#scbwicon preparations are well in gear - I loved the excitement in Natascha's RA post last Sunday. The Illustrators' Review 121 deadline has been extended to 18th October - read about Alex Wilson's great 121 experience last year and Mike Brownlow gave us the first of our Conference Keynote Interviews with Nick Butterworth, no less - what a great interview! I can't believe Percy's Dad is coming to Winchester! And we're looking forward to this year's innovative Pulse events aimed at the published among us.

Hope you've seen the exciting new Slush Pile Challenge, up today - thank you to Chitra and Darley Anderson's Clare Wallace. If you leave entering until the Conference you'll be too late - competition deadline 2nd November.

Coming soon we have another podcast with the amazing-talent-spotting Brenda Gardner of Piccadilly Press, another agent confidential, this time with Jo Unwin and as October is also the month of The Big Draw, a wonderful post on the 'anatomy of a monster' from creator of monsters, Nicola L. Robinson. I know we're only just into October but Paul is masterminding another advent calendar so illustrators dust off your seasonal art work. We'd love to see it if you're happy to share it!

One more thing. Something very exciting is happening with Words & Pictures in the near future - we're getting a wonderful new editor! I'm going to try to clear some headspace to fulfil my destiny* and over the next month or so I'm handing over to….

Well, you'll have to wait until next week to find out who, but members keep an eye out for emails from Natascha.

Have fun!

Jan Carr

*'destiny' sometimes confused with 'density' as in the 1985 classic Back to the Future when George McFly tries to ask Lorraine Baines to 'The Enchantment Under the Sea' Dance only to be eclipsed by his son Marty. Just love that film.

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Jan Carr is the editor of Words & Pictures. Her fiction is all over the place, she blogs occasionally and loves to write in magenta. You can contact her at editor@britishscbwi.org.