PDF? BBF? RAF? Nope: LBF.

Another Book Fair, another blogpost. I really need to get on with actually posting a little more often...

London Book Fair is very different from Bologna: it's for more than just children's publishing; appointments aren't just about acquisitions; it's a shorter commute from my house and the coffee is much worse. It's an intense few days (especially if you don't map your route through the fair between appointments and allow for vital toilet/tea-drinking/toasted panini-eating time).

Here are some of the things that happened at the fair:

• I got to hang around the beautiful new-look Bounce stand and catch some between-meeting chat with other publishers represented by the mightiest children's sales force in the land. And some of said sales force too.
• There was the joy of handing out Catnip's gorgeous new catalogue and, AND, some very lucky people received a shiny (literally), limited edition proof of Colin Mulhern's forthcoming thriller, Arabesque.
• I had the utter delight of seeing an author approach the Bounce stand, introduce himself and say that he's written a book and would like to talk to someone about it. This is not unusual. Lots of authors do this at the fair. BUT THIS BOY WAS FOURTEEN YEARS OLD. How cool is that? Fourteen and with the gumption to cold-call industry professionals at a massive trade fair - I know forty-year-old writers who'd quail at the prospect. Lucky for me I was able to have a chat with him about starting out in writing, give him advice on the resources available and tell him about a seminar that was running later in the day that he might be interested in checking out. This is the thing I love more than anything in the world: giving away what I know about publishing to people who want to listen.
• I went to the Best Seminar Ever, (or Express Yourself if you look at the programme) run by Bali Rai and Booktrust where a panel of teens talked about reading. It was just... refreshing and perfect. Sometimes the way publishing professionals talk about teen readers troubles me. It can seem a bit 'us' and 'them' and weirdly, 'we' seem to have an agenda when it comes to 'their' reading habits. I hope any of those prescriptive tendencies were assuaged by this panel of intelligent, interested and articulate people who were quite clearly capable of dictating their own reading choices in exactly the same way as the audience of 'grown-ups' were. More of these seminars, please. Publishers may not have the resources to test their books on the prospective audience, but it doesn't mean we don't want to listen. (Oh and the 14-y-o author did take my advice and go along for a listen and talked to Bali at the end. Whoop.)
• I managed the inevitable almost-missed appointment. 'I thought we said my stand - but you thought it was at yours... ARGH. Schedule fail.' But managed to make it work. Phew.
• Tuesday I managed to survive by only consuming a banana, a tracker bar and a KFC - which I don't recommend.
• Self-control was summoned when I saw Patrick Ness waiting outside the exhibition centre. He was wearing earphones (the international sign for 'I am happy in my alone time') and instead of running up to him and thanking him for enhancing my life with his words (and possibly sobbing about them), I walked past like a sensible grown up. Then I rushed over to the Bounce stand and told them I'd just seen Patrick Ness.
• And I got to chat to a ton of people outside of official meetings by wandering around, and making it to the tweetup. All of them awesome, obviously, because y'know, they like books and stuff.

TTYL*

*If you know what this means without looking it up on the internet, you are more down with the kids than any of the audience at the Express Yourself seminar.

Excuses, excuses...

Hello all. It’s been a while. In fact I didn’t blog for the WHOLE OF OCTOBER. Naughty blogger Non.

What I did instead:

I worked silly hours in preparation for going on holiday. The downside of being the go-to person for Catnip biz is that I am lured into a false sense of responsibility. I start thinking that the company cannot possibly manage without me for two weeks. TWO WEEKS? I may as well just hand in my notice considering the disasters that will kick off as a consequence of my absence.

I went on holiday where I saw a bit of this:

Go Aggies! (I am referring to the college football team you see in this pic. The one with the 90,000 strong crowd and the army doing the cheerleading. Crazy – and amazing.)

I also ate a bit of this:

And indulged in a bit of that:

(If you haven’t listened to Jack’s Mannequin, you probably should. This one’s one of my favourites.)

All in Texas, which involved a couple of long flights in which the Catnipper proceeded to prove all my fears about travelling with a small thing entirely unfounded. After giggling on take off she then proceeded to cruise up and down the aisle high fiving and hugging fellow passengers. Basically she is:

When I got back and discovered that the publishing world kept turning without me, I went here there and everywhere on editing business. (I say "here there and everywhere" when I mean, erm, the North East and the British Library.) I am beyond excited about the projects I’ve been working on with Colin Mulhern, who has made a teaser trailer for his thriller Arabesque which will be out next September and Victor Watson, whose third Paradise Barn book is (I exaggerate not) the best yet. We’re just finalising the title for May publication. I also met up with a yet-to-be Catnip author whose idea for a novel for the 8-11 market makes me grin from ear to ear and think very big, very exciting things. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

Amongst all that there was an undead book launch to attend, a birthday to be a-partied over and an anniversary to be acknowledged and…and…and…

So maybe I’m the one that’s about to explode?

Why I commissioned… CLASH

Twitter-style summary: Two boys’ lives driven together by unfortunate circumstances. One disastrous event changes everything, forcing them to face their demons.

The YA market is here to stay and I was on the lookout for a home-grown author who I could work with for years to come when this manuscript arrived.

My throat clenched in excitement within the first page. The writing delivers uncomfortably believable school scenes and home lives so vivid you could be watching them in next door’s window. I was struck by Colin’s ability to convey so much with so little – his writing is concise, direct and unapologetic, yet rich enough to depict two characters with distinct voices.

There’s a raw, emotional thread running throughout and it’s not apparent how things will work out - I remember pleading with the characters under my breath on the tube home. Despite realism so tangible you can smell the sweat and taste the blood during a cage fighting sequence, the narrative is shot-through with a subtly uplifting kernel of hope; a possible path of redemption…

I had to have this book.

Meeting Colin confirmed he was the writer for me. He has the commitment, energy and enthusiasm that every author needs to see them through the process, but on top of that his passion for the genre will make him a great advocate for teen books written for real teen readers.

And, and, as an extra-special-bonus-ball, he’s from the North East. I have a soft spot for anything that reminds me of home.

If you want to know more, you can see Colin introduce Clash here - listen out for the backing track written by the rather excellent Massive Dog.