Holidays are coming!

I don’t feel festive yet. It’s weird this year. I’ve made lots of Christmas art (my day job is in a school), sung jingle bells approximately 12,142,243 times since November ended, and wrapped a whole lot of presents in brown and blue and red and green paper. But even still. I have a sneaking suspicion … Continue reading →

Pictures and Books…

Book covers are exciting things. They’re a creative part of the book that the writer has little or no input into. You might get asked for the odd idea, but apart from that you just have to wait and be surprised. Which is fine, if you like surprised. Not so fine if you’re the type … Continue reading →

Personal Superstitions: a creepy list.

Halloween is coming and I wanted to share some of my superstitions with you. If you walk under a ladder, a dinosaur will come and eat everyone. If you see a black cat, a dinosaur will come and eat everyone. If you break a mirror, a dinosaur will come and eat seven people. If you … Continue reading →

First sentences: thoughts, and a quiz!

When I was in school, one of our teachers, Miss Flannery, had a class where we brought in the first sentence of our favourite book. Or a book we couldn’t forget. Or a book we had read. Some people don’t find there favourite book till later on. And it stuck with me, the importance of … Continue reading →

Time Travel with Sheena Wilkinson.

One of the best things about being a writer is you get to have friends who are also writers. Sheena’s first novel, Taking Flight, came out around the same time as my first book, Prim Improper, and we’ve been friends since then. She loves animals and history and crochet and music and I love her … Continue reading →

Judy Blume.

I saw Judy Blume on Sunday. I went with some lovely friends from life and bookclub and met more people there. It was amazing. She spoke about writing and life and her books (Do you have a favourite Judy Blume book? I like Superfudge and Tiger Eyes and Blubber, but she signed my copy of … Continue reading →

Donkeys!

I love donkeys. The reason I love them is because they’re grumpy and greedy and sarcastic and sometimes friendly when they know you. I identify strongly with several of those qualities. Growing up, we lived beside my Grandad’s farm. He had a donkey called Neddy. Neddy was a female donkey, but I was about twenty … Continue reading →

Love and Voices

So, I’m going to tell you a TERRIBLE secret about me. Something I am dreadfully ashamed of. Okay. (Deep breath) here goes. I have never voted. It’s not that I didn’t think that voting was important, or that I didn’t understand the value and the power of living in a democracy, where we can have … Continue reading →

Role Models

Hello all! Today I thought I’d talk to you about Role Models. I did a workshop about them for this lovely conference, with two very cool gangs of 11-13 year old young women. It was really great to get the chance to chat and make bracelets and talk about who we considered a Role Model … Continue reading →

Day Jobs.

Day-Jobs are something a lot of writers have, some teach, some are cool policemen, some are doctors, nurses, lawyers or editors of other people’s books. I don’t really know what it would be like to be a nurse or a cool policeman. If I were to write a book where someone was one, there would … Continue reading →